WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans tried to force a debate on controversial energy legislation and a ban on human cloning onto the legislative agenda Thursday by attaching both proposals to a measure to reform railway pensions, reports a wire service.
“Three big issues in one swoop,” Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, declared as he announced his amendment to the chamber, which has been feuding all week about what legislation should take precedence in the crowded waning days of this year’s session.
Because of procedural wrangling, no votes are expected on any of the issues before Monday.
Republican lawmakers who favor opening an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling have for months demanded a Senate debate on energy legislation already passed by the House of Representatives.
But Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat who sets the Senate’s agenda, announced this week that any energy debate would have to wait until lawmakers return in late January from their holiday recess.
This week some Republicans also asked for a vote on a six-month moratorium on human cloning in the wake of an announcement by a U.S. company that it had already used cloning to create human embryos.
Daschle rejected that too, saying next February or March would be soon enough for a vote.
Lott put both the energy and cloning moratorium on the Senate agenda by combining them in one amendment to a bill already on the floor of the Senate. It would let some railway pension funds be invested on Wall Street.
The measure would let the federally administered railroad pension system take some assets out of Treasury bonds and invest them in private securities instead.
The railway pension reform had cleared one legislative hurdle earlier on Thursday, but a handful of Republicans threatened to filibuster it unless they could get some of their favored issues onto the floor of the Senate.
A spokesman for Lott said he was not trying to stop the railway pension bill, which would would cut railroads’ pension taxes while boosting retirees’ benefits.
It is backed by both the companies and the unions.
“We are just trying to open the discussion on two issues that are very important to the American people — energy and human cloning,” Lott’s spokesman said.
The Senate is also grappling with proposals to stimulate the economy. Daschle said earlier that he hoped an agreement on that issue could be reached by early next week.
But he told the chamber that it would stay in session until mid-December.
“For the next two weeks the Senate will be in session. Senators should be prepared to be on the floor and voting,” he said.