Update on WRDA, from Politico

  • Water
  • by BPC Staff
  • on December 6, 2016
  • 0 Comments

By Annie Snider

12/06/2016 02:14 PM EDT

Hurdles are piling up in the Senate for the Water Resources Development Act, with multiple lawmakers now vowing to hold up the measure over regional provisions and work threatening to bleed into the weekend.

“I think it’s very unlikely that the votes are there,” Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) told reporters this afternoon.

With Barbara Boxer vowing to hold up the measure over contentious California drought language, John Cornyn, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, said consideration of the measure could carry into the weekend, but he is committed to staying in town if necessary.

EPW Chairman Jim Inhofe said it’s unlikely House Republicans will agree to drop the drought language to smooth the path for the bill. “They say no, under any circumstances,” he said.

Meanwhile, Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) is objecting to language over a water dispute between Alabama and Georgia. “We’ve got some problems, we’d hold it up,” he told POLITICO.

Stabenow supports the WRDA bill for its authorization of aid for the beleaguered city of Flint, Mich., but said she won’t lean on her colleagues to drop their objections. Instead, Michigan’s senators said they are working on a back-up plan: getting the Flint authorization language added to the short-term funding bill Congress is preparing to take up.

“WRDA has the authorization language, but if the CR has the authorization language, the CR by itself would be able to accomplish that, too. So we’re covering all of our bases,” Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said.

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