Aid Package for Ukraine Advances in the Senate
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
MARCH 24, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Monday to formally take up
legislation to aid Ukraine and sanction Russia, beginning what promises to
be a heated weeklong debate in Congress over the role the International
Monetary Fund should play in the Crimean crisis.
While the 78-17 vote showed considerable bipartisan support for the
measure, bolstered by the votes of some Republicans who spent last week’s
congressional recess in Ukraine, its ultimate fate is uncertain.
Conservatives remain opposed to an overhaul of the monetary fund’s
governance structure, which would expand Ukraine’s borrowing limit at
the fund but, many Republicans say, would also diminish the United
States’s authority and even increase Russia’s.
And some senators made it known that they would use the debate this
week to try to toughen the sanctions on Russia beyond those already
imposed by President Obama.
“Time is of the essence if we’re going to send a message to Russia,”
said Senator Dan Coats, Republican of Indiana, who will try to attach an
amendment expanding sanctions to Rosoboronexport, a Russian firm that
handles the nation’s exports of military equipment. Mr. Coats specifically
would block the government of Afghanistan from using United States
military aid to buy Russian helicopters.
Even with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and its looming threats
against Eastern Ukraine, the aid and sanctions package remains tangled in3/25/2014 Aid Package for Ukraine Advances inthe Senate - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/24/us/politics/ukraine-aid-leads-agenda-as-congress-returns.html?emc=edit_cn_20140324&nl=us&nlid=57562516&_r=1 2/3
domestic politics. Influential conservative groups like Heritage Action, the
political arm of the Heritage Foundation, are urging lawmakers to oppose
the inclusion of the monetary fund’s governance language, which they say
would weaken United States authority and has nothing to do with the
Ukraine crisis.
“Any attempt to conflate the two issues is politically motivated;
indeed, the Obama administration is misleading the American people to
make these so-called reforms appear urgent,” Heritage Action charged on
Monday.
Republican leadership is not digging in ideologically against the
fund’s language, but Republicans want something in return, namely at
least a delay in the Internal Revenue Service’s regulations of political
groups operating as tax-exempt “social welfare” organizations.
That, in turn, fed directly into the Democrats’ continuing attacks on
Charles and David Koch, the conservative billionaires who are spending
millions of dollars to defeat Senate Democrats in the 2014 elections.
“Republicans objected to moving forward with this aid package unless
Democrats agreed to allow the Kochs and billionaires like them to
continue to anonymously spend millions trying to buy America’s
democracy,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said
Monday. “It’s hard to believe, but that’s the truth.”
The Senate legislation would guarantee $1 billion in loans to the
shaky, fledgling government in Kiev and offer an additional $100 million
in direct aid. It would also offer $50 million to strengthen democratic
institutions, to improve the rule of law and civic organizations, and to help
the Ukraine government recover assets stolen by the deposed Ukrainian
government. It would codify sanctions against Ukrainian and Russian
individuals already hit by sanctions ordered by Mr. Obama, but at the
same time it would expand the list of targets who would be denied United
States visas and subject to civil or criminal penalties.
The fund’s language, sought sporadically by the Obama
administration since Mr. Obama helped negotiate the changes in 2010,3/25/2014 Aid Package for Ukraine Advances inthe Senate - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/24/us/politics/ukraine-aid-leads-agenda-as-congress-returns.html?emc=edit_cn_20140324&nl=us&nlid=57562516&_r=1 3/3
would expand loan limits for Ukraine and other countries aided by the
fund. It would expand the authority of emerging economies like Russia,
China and Brazil, but the United States would retain its veto authority at
the fund.
Republicans such as Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming hope to use
the Senate floor debate to add language expediting the export of United
States liquefied natural gas to undermine Russia’s energy stranglehold on
Eastern Europe.
The House already passed a Ukraine aid package, without that fund
language and without sanctions on Russia. Under criticism from Senate
Republicans, the House is likely to pass legislation this week similar to the
Senate’s except it would again exclude the fund’s language.
That could set up a House-Senate showdown as soon as this weekend,
Senate aides said.
Senators from both parties, more than a half-dozen of whom just
returned from Ukraine, urged the Senate to move quickly and the House to
follow.
“The I.M.F. reforms are not the reason why this legislation is before
us. The reason it’s before us is Vladimir Putin has absorbed Crimea into
Russia,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
MARCH 24, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Monday to formally take up
legislation to aid Ukraine and sanction Russia, beginning what promises to
be a heated weeklong debate in Congress over the role the International
Monetary Fund should play in the Crimean crisis.
While the 78-17 vote showed considerable bipartisan support for the
measure, bolstered by the votes of some Republicans who spent last week’s
congressional recess in Ukraine, its ultimate fate is uncertain.
Conservatives remain opposed to an overhaul of the monetary fund’s
governance structure, which would expand Ukraine’s borrowing limit at
the fund but, many Republicans say, would also diminish the United
States’s authority and even increase Russia’s.
And some senators made it known that they would use the debate this
week to try to toughen the sanctions on Russia beyond those already
imposed by President Obama.
“Time is of the essence if we’re going to send a message to Russia,”
said Senator Dan Coats, Republican of Indiana, who will try to attach an
amendment expanding sanctions to Rosoboronexport, a Russian firm that
handles the nation’s exports of military equipment. Mr. Coats specifically
would block the government of Afghanistan from using United States
military aid to buy Russian helicopters.
Even with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and its looming threats
against Eastern Ukraine, the aid and sanctions package remains tangled in3/25/2014 Aid Package for Ukraine Advances inthe Senate - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/24/us/politics/ukraine-aid-leads-agenda-as-congress-returns.html?emc=edit_cn_20140324&nl=us&nlid=57562516&_r=1 2/3
domestic politics. Influential conservative groups like Heritage Action, the
political arm of the Heritage Foundation, are urging lawmakers to oppose
the inclusion of the monetary fund’s governance language, which they say
would weaken United States authority and has nothing to do with the
Ukraine crisis.
“Any attempt to conflate the two issues is politically motivated;
indeed, the Obama administration is misleading the American people to
make these so-called reforms appear urgent,” Heritage Action charged on
Monday.
Republican leadership is not digging in ideologically against the
fund’s language, but Republicans want something in return, namely at
least a delay in the Internal Revenue Service’s regulations of political
groups operating as tax-exempt “social welfare” organizations.
That, in turn, fed directly into the Democrats’ continuing attacks on
Charles and David Koch, the conservative billionaires who are spending
millions of dollars to defeat Senate Democrats in the 2014 elections.
“Republicans objected to moving forward with this aid package unless
Democrats agreed to allow the Kochs and billionaires like them to
continue to anonymously spend millions trying to buy America’s
democracy,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said
Monday. “It’s hard to believe, but that’s the truth.”
The Senate legislation would guarantee $1 billion in loans to the
shaky, fledgling government in Kiev and offer an additional $100 million
in direct aid. It would also offer $50 million to strengthen democratic
institutions, to improve the rule of law and civic organizations, and to help
the Ukraine government recover assets stolen by the deposed Ukrainian
government. It would codify sanctions against Ukrainian and Russian
individuals already hit by sanctions ordered by Mr. Obama, but at the
same time it would expand the list of targets who would be denied United
States visas and subject to civil or criminal penalties.
The fund’s language, sought sporadically by the Obama
administration since Mr. Obama helped negotiate the changes in 2010,3/25/2014 Aid Package for Ukraine Advances inthe Senate - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/24/us/politics/ukraine-aid-leads-agenda-as-congress-returns.html?emc=edit_cn_20140324&nl=us&nlid=57562516&_r=1 3/3
would expand loan limits for Ukraine and other countries aided by the
fund. It would expand the authority of emerging economies like Russia,
China and Brazil, but the United States would retain its veto authority at
the fund.
Republicans such as Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming hope to use
the Senate floor debate to add language expediting the export of United
States liquefied natural gas to undermine Russia’s energy stranglehold on
Eastern Europe.
The House already passed a Ukraine aid package, without that fund
language and without sanctions on Russia. Under criticism from Senate
Republicans, the House is likely to pass legislation this week similar to the
Senate’s except it would again exclude the fund’s language.
That could set up a House-Senate showdown as soon as this weekend,
Senate aides said.
Senators from both parties, more than a half-dozen of whom just
returned from Ukraine, urged the Senate to move quickly and the House to
follow.
“The I.M.F. reforms are not the reason why this legislation is before
us. The reason it’s before us is Vladimir Putin has absorbed Crimea into
Russia,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona