WASHINGTON — House leaders' opposition to a White House force-authorization resolution will not derail work on a new measure in the Senate, says a key Foreign Relations Committee member.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., recently declared dead President Barack Obama's draft authorization for the use of military force (AUMF). Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Tuesday told a group of reporters, according to reports, "there's no reason" to pass such a measure until Obama "has a strategy that makes sense" to fight the Islamic State.
The duo's comments come a couple weeks after Defense News reported the AUMF had stalled in the House.
"We haven't heard much to indicate that this is moving," one House Democratic aide involved in national security matters said earlier this month.
"I'm not picking up on any momentum in the House," said Roger Zakheim, a former senior House Armed Services Committee counsel who has ties to key congressional offices. "It really appears the president's proposal is dead."
Obama's controversial draft measure appears deceased in the lower chamber. But senators are trying to craft a revised version that would be in line with the Islamic State mission described by the White House.
"We're trading ideas to try to find a formulation of the mission close to what the president proposed that would engender bipartisan support," Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Tim Kaine, D-Va., told reporters Wednesday. "We think that that's really important."
Crafting a new AUMF once appeared to be a priority for the Foreign Relations Committee. But differences caused it to take a backseat to other measures.
One is a bill the panel approved unanimously on Tuesday that would establish a framework for Congress to review any nuclear pact with Iran, and possibly eventually act on congressionally created sanctions.
Asked why work on the Iran bill seemed to delay work on the force-authorization measure, Kaine replied: "It's hard to do two things so high burn at once."
But Kaine, whom Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and other members credit with helping reach a compromise Iran deal, says the panel plans to return to the AUMF.
"We felt like we'll do that," he said, "then move to this."
Kaine responded to a question about whether McCarthy's comments mean a new AUMF won't pass by saying: "Oh, no. Not at all.
"I've always assumed if it was going to happen, it was going to happen in the Senate and then go to the House," Kaine said.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, told reporters on March 16 that "not a lot of people" in the House "think the president's proposal makes much sense."
So lawmakers are "asking is there a proposal that could pass," Thornberry said. "Members are turning their minds toward that."
Email: jbennett@defensenews.com
Twitter: @BennettJohnT
