WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters on Tuesday afternoon that the Senate will consider the House bill designed to help Puerto Rico before July 1.
"On Puerto Rico, we'll be taking up the House bill sometime before the end of the month," McConnell said yesterday after a Republican policy luncheon. The commonwealth is currently struggling with about $70 billion of debt and $46 billion of unfunded pension liabilities. It also has a $1.9 billion debt payment due on July 1 that the commonwealth's governor has said cannot be paid.
McConnell will be able to bring the bill directly to the Senate floor after the House pulled the text of the bill that it passed by a bipartisan 297 to 127 vote and substituted it for the language in a bill that had already passed the Senate, S. 2328.
House Natural Resources Committee chair Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and Natural Resources Committee member Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, briefed Republican senators who attended the policy lunch on the House bill.
Bishop and his committee staff facilitated the months-long discussion between legislators, the Obama administration, and Puerto Rico officials that eventually led to the bill now up for consideration. Labrador, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, also played a key role in moving the legislation forward.
The bill, called PROMESA, seeks to balance competing interests by creating a strong oversight board that would have the power to require balanced budgets and fiscal plans, as well as to file debt restructuring petitions on behalf of the commonwealth and its entities in a federal district court as a last resort if voluntary negotiations do not succeed.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., has said the House legislation, which also has administration support, is the only alternative to what could become a large taxpayer-funded bailout for the commonwealth. Senate Finance Committee chair Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has tentatively supported the bill but hasn't ruled out offering amendments, according to media reports.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has threatened to filibuster the bill if the Senate tries to move it, but sources say the chamber likely has the 60 votes necessary to invoke cloture and limit debate on the bill.
The Vermont senator introduced an alternate bill last week that would create a seven-member Reconstruction Finance Corporation of Puerto Rico. The public corporation would be a restructuring agency with authority to lend to Puerto Rico and facilitate debt restructuring for the commonwealth. His bill would also appropriate $10.8 billion to the commonwealth over five years to help modernize infrastructure as well as extend Chapter 9 bankruptcy protections to the island.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., also opposes the bill, and has cited concerns about the power an oversight board would have to veto laws, override budgets and determine the levels of debt payments. He also wants to add health and tax credit provisions.
