WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked the Senate’s first spending bill of the year in a last-minute fight over a Republican effort to undercut the Iran nuclear deal and scuttle U.S. plans to buy Iranian “heavy water.”
Still seething over last year’s international pact, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., had offered an amendment to the energy and water bill that would thwart the Obama administration if it tried to spend the $8.6 million to buy 32 metric tons of heavy water from Iran.
The sale, finalized last Friday, will help Iran meet the terms of last year’s landmark deal in which Iran agreed to curb its atomic program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. Heavy water is a key component for one kind of nuclear reactor.
Democrats called the amendment a “poison pill” that would draw a veto from President Barack Obama.
A vote to move forward with the energy and water bill failed to reach 60 votes needed to continue, falling short 50-46.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said lawmakers were blindsided by Cotton’s amendment, adding that the proposal breaks a bipartisan agreement not to include controversial riders in the spending bill.
“Why can’t he wait?” to put the amendment on a separate bill that is not part of the appropriations process, Feinstein asked.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of an energy and water subcommittee, said Cotton was “entirely within his rights” to offer the amendment. Alexander and other lawmakers faulted the administration for failing to explain the heavy water sale and give lawmakers a head-up before it went through.
“This was announced without any (advance) notification” to relevant committees, such as the Senate Foreign Relations and Energy committees, Alexander said.
Unclear is what the impact will be on the appropriations process as Congress struggles to complete the 12 spending bills without divisive fights over policy.
A sales agreement between the Energy Department and a subsidiary of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, under which the Energy Department’s Isotope Program purchased the heavy water for $8.6 million, was signed in Vienna on Friday, officials said. The heavy water will be stored at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and then resold on the commercial market for research purposes.
Heavy water, formed with a hydrogen isotope, is not radioactive but has research and medical applications and can also be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium. Under the nuclear deal, Iran is allowed to use heavy water in its modified Arak nuclear reactor, but must sell any excess supply of both heavy water and enriched uranium on the international market.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said a “fuller, earlier briefing” by the administration would have helped address lawmakers’ concerns.