WASHINGTON - House Republican leaders are giving up efforts to couple a U.S. debt-limit increase with measures backing the Keystone XL pipeline or revoking a provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, two party leadership aides said.
House leaders lack enough Republican support for either option, and they are looking at other possible conditions to attach to a debt-limit increase, said the aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.
A debt-ceiling increase without conditions hasn’t been ruled out, said a third Republican aide. Still, it’s difficult to identify the 30 Republicans needed to join Democrats to pass a “clean” debt-limit increase, that person said.
Idaho Republican Raul Labrador said Democrats are “going to reject even the most reasonable alternative” on the debt-limit increase. Because Republicans don’t want a “cataclysmic fight” over the issue, it makes more sense to accept that and point out that Democrats won’t negotiate, he said.
A suspension of the federal debt limit, enacted by Congress in October, is scheduled to expire Friday. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew has urged lawmakers to act quickly to raise the cap, saying the government’s ability to meet its obligations will run out before the end of the month.
Republicans so far have been unable to garner enough support for a bill that would seek to extract spending or policy concessions in exchange for raising the cap. Democrats said they won’t accept added conditions to a debt-limit boost.
House Republicans’ demands to roll back parts of the health-care law or promote the Keystone pipeline as part of debt-ceiling increase contributed to a 16-day partial government shutdown in October. The debt limit ultimately was suspended without conditions.
Several House Republicans said Wednesday that they aren’t giving up on attaching some type of provision to reduce government costs. The lawmakers spoke at an event in Washington sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, which supports limited government.
“This is a telling moment where we have to take steps to rein in the wasteful Washington spending,” said Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri. “We have to get something for that vote.”
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said his party could get enough support for a debt-ceiling increase “if you address the underlying problem” of long-term spending. “Short of that, that’s where it’s tough to get the votes,” he said.
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio has called the October shutdown a “predictable disaster” and said Tuesday that Republicans won’t let the U.S. default on its obligations. He said his members have “a lot of opinions about how to deal with the debt limit.”
An extension of government borrowing authority without conditions is an option because “the speaker has made it clear the debt ceiling is going to be raised” and “economically, he’s right,” Oklahoma Republican Tom Cole, a Boehner ally, said Tuesday.
President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats have said they won’t negotiate with Republicans on conditions for raising the limit.
“Why don’t we skip the crisis this time?” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said Tuesday. “We cannot and will not play games with the full faith and credit of our country.”
Keystone advocates got a boost last week when the State Department released an environmental report finding limited impact on climate-changing carbon emissions from the project. That diminishes a rationale Obama could use to reject the proposed conduit.
Information for this article was contributed by Alex Wayne, Kathleen Hunter and Michael C. Bender of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 02/06/2014