Senate looks to clear aid bill Tuesday night with no amendments

Daines filed an amendment that would pump an additional $3 billion into the Federal Communication Commission’s “rip and replace” program designed to remove Chinese components from wireless communications systems.

Without additional funds, telecommunications providers could be on the hook for the cost, which backers say could force them to cut back on service in rural areas. GOP Sens. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Roger Wicker of Mississippi co-sponsored Daines’ freestanding bill that his amendment is based on.

Lummis separately offered an amendment that would reduce the fiscal 2025 discretionary spending caps imposed in last year’s debt limit suspension law.

And Mike Rounds, R-S.D., filed amendments that would streamline the asylum adjudication process at the U.S. southern border and impose new restrictions on the sale of agricultural land.

Mike Lee, R-Utah, attempted to slow things down by offering a motion to table a procedural maneuver Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer used to limit amendments, known as filling the tree.

“We’re not a rubber stamp for the House,” Lee said. “We’re United States senators and we should be able to vote as such.”

His motion was rejected, 48-50.

‘Savage and unprecedented campaign’

On the left, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, sought to offer an amendment aimed at preventing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from getting new funding for offensive weapons that could be used in his campaign to rid the Gaza Strip of Hamas militants.

“As U.S. taxpayers, do we want to be complicit in Netanyahu’s savage and unprecedented campaign against the Palestinian people?” Sanders asked on the floor.

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