Mikulski: Senate will pass Syria measure

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) on Tuesday said the Senate would authorize President Obama to train and equip Syrian rebel groups, even as her colleagues expressed concerns over a House-drafted measure.

“Well I think that, if it meets what the president wants, the Senate will pass it,” Mikulski, head of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters. “We have to wait until we literally see what the House passes.”

{mosads}Mikulski’s comments, though, come with both Republicans and Democrats expressing concerns with the measure unveiled in the House.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he would oppose $500 million in funds for moderate Syrian rebel groups to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he would like to change the House language.

The measure from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (Calif.) will be an amendment to a continuing resolution that would fund the federal government through the fall.

A vote on the amendment could happen as soon as Wednesday.

For her part, Mikulski said she supports the president’s effort to train and equip the rebels.

“I support also his additional initiatives to keep our country safe, like the Ebola funding,” she said, referring the administration’s request for $88 million to help contain the deadly outbreak.

The U.S. needs to show it “can govern itself and work on a bipartisan basis,” she said.

Mikulski said lawmakers hoped to have the continuing resolution wrapped up “before the weekend.”

“When the House passes the CR, the Senate will take it up,” she said. “We have to see what they do pass, and we would hope that we would be in a position that we don’t have to offer an alternative.”

“Right now we’re moving in a very, very positive direction,” she added. 

Mikulski said her staff was speaking “several times a day” with Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the top Republican on the Appropriations panel, and the leaders of the House Appropriations Committee.