Work on Defense bill slows in Senate

With no immediate prospects of resolving a dispute over a $1.75 billion provision in the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill to buy seven F-22s, the Senate Wednesday turned to an amendment on hate crimes, an equally divisive issue that is expected to push consideration of the annual policy measure into next week.

After introducing language that would extend the definition of hate crimes to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promptly filed a cloture motion on his amendment and began working to set a time for a cloture vote.

No votes are scheduled for Friday, when the cloture clock would expire.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he was unable to get agreement on his pending amendment to strip the funding for F-22 Raptor fighter jets from the bill because of Republican opposition to Reid's hate-crimes language.

Levin's amendment, co-sponsored by Senate Armed Services ranking member John McCain, would eliminate funding President Obama did not request and has cited as a reason to veto the defense bill if it survives a House-Senate conference on the measure.

"The only way to proceed on the bill, the only way we can get moving on this bill, is to deal with the impediment to move it, which was the issue of the hate crimes bill," Levin said. "So that's going to be resolved and we're going to come right back to Levin/McCain."

Also Wednesday, the White House released a Statement of Administration Policy that reiterates the president's threat to veto the bill over the unwanted F-22 funding.

The Obama administration also said it "strongly objects" to $438.9 billion in the bill for a second engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and indicated in the statement that the president would veto the measure if it "would seriously disrupt the F-35 program."

The second engine would "impede the progress of the overall JSF program," the SAP said.

And, in a move that will likely be unpopular with many Democrats, the White House also objected to a provision in the bill that would prohibit defense contractors from interrogating detainees. A contractor may "in some limited cases" have the best skills to obtain critical intelligence, the SAP said.

"The administration fully supports the application of ordinary Defense Department rules and regulations to contractors engaged in interrogations ... and could support a revised version of the section that would apply such provisions to contractors who participate in interrogations," according to the policy statement.

During Wednesday's floor debate on the bill, McCain called the hate crimes language an "extraneous and unrelated provision" and charged Reid with "blocking progress" on the authorization measure. "Why don't you take up legislation in the regular order?" he asked.

But Levin argued that it is not unusual to attach amendments not directly related to legislation that is certain to pass by wide margins and acknowledged that the defense bill serves as the best vehicle to send hate-crimes legislation to the president's desk.

During debate on the authorization measure two years ago, 60 senators voted to invoke cloture on a similar hate-crimes amendment -- the minimum needed to cut off debate -- before approving the language by voice vote.

But that language ultimately was dropped during conference talks with House lawmakers, who were concerned the amendment would jeopardize the bill's final passage.