Senator to delay NDAA vote

Lawmakers are still searching for a way to avoid a government shutdown, while a conservative senator is vowing to delay a must-pass Pentagon policy bill. It’s just another end-of-session Tuesday on Capitol Hill. House and Senate leaders and the heads of both Appropriations committees had hoped to introduce a “crominbus” spending bill Monday or Tuesday morning. But as the Tuesday lunch hour approached, they had yet to adequately address some members’ remaining concerns. The bill would by a hybrid of the omnibus spending measure the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations committees had been working on for weeks. It would include full-year spending bills for a dozen agencies, including the Defense Department, but not the Department of Homeland Security — a GOP legislative response to President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration. Also still pending is a $559 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the House easily passed last week. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., says the bill should be introduced Tuesday evening. However, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a longtime fiscal hawk, told reporters Tuesday he intends to prevent the measure from being adopted via unanimous consent. “It’s not going through on a UC,” Coburn said sternly. Coburn said he will force a vote on ending debate “because it has packages, and earmarks, and every other kind of thing that shouldn’t be in the NDAA.” If Coburn objects as the NDAA is brought up, “you’ll have to file cloture,” Levin said. That means a clock would begin with 30 hours of debate time, likely setting up Thursday floor votes on ending debate and perhaps final passage...more