Schumer tees up timeline for Senate before the end of the year

WASHINGTON — The Senate is likely to vote on a military policy bill this week as they await cost estimates on the Build Back Better legislation, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a new letter on Sunday, laying out an ambitious agenda ahead of the Senate’s return to Washington.

With the House pushing back consideration of the Build Back Better bill as it awaits a comprehensive score from the Congressional Budget Office to appease House moderates, the Senate is “likely” to consider the National Defense Authorization Act this week, Schumer said in the letter.

There are also procedural steps that need to take place before the Senate could even consider the BBB bill, and there are still outstanding items among centrist holdouts in the Senate. This punts floor consideration for BBB likely until after Thanksgiving in the Senate.

The Senate, he said, may also add text of the bipartisan U.S. Innovation and Competition Act — which, among many elements, addresses immediate supply chain issues — to the NDAA, in hopes of getting both done.

“I have had a number of conversations with Senators on both sides of the aisle and there seems to be fairly broad support for doing so, which would enable a USICA negotiation with the House to be completed alongside NDAA before the end of the year,” he wrote.

Schumer has faced scrutiny from Republicans and prominent Democrats such as House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith over the delay in advancing the NDAA, the defense bill that the House passed in September. Congress has until the end of the year to send the measure to President Joe Biden’s desk, and the Senate needs to pass the legislation before both chambers form a committee to hash out differences between their two bills.

The Democratic leader also said in the letter that the Senate needs to come to a final resolution on the other major legislative priorities like the Freedom to Vote Act and to continue confirming Biden’s judicial and executive nominations, with the potential for debt limit legislation.