Tuesday: NSA vote, appropriations

by Jordain Carney - 06/02/15 9:55 AM ET

The Senate will take a procedural vote Tuesday to end debate on the USA Freedom Act, paving the way for final passage of the legislation.

The Senate is expected to vote at 10:30 a.m. on whether or not to end debate on the House-backed bill, which would essentially end the Natiional Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk collection of phone metadata. Instead, records would be held by private companies.

{mosads}Senators also have to vote on a handful of changes to the bill from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky Republican wants to require phone companies to tell the government if they plan to change how they keep people’s records, give the NSA one year to give up the program, and change the role of a new advisory panel on the secretive federal court overseeing intelligence matters.

Votes on the amendments aren’t currently scheduled, but senators could take up them up later Tuesday afternoon.

If the legislation overcomes the cloture vote, senators could debate the legislation for an additional 30 hours under the Senate rules. But, Burr predicted on Tuesday that the Senate would be able to wrap up its work on the USA Freedom Act by Wednesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, the House is expected to take up the fiscal year 2016 appropriations bill for departments of Justice and Commerce, as well as federal science programs.

The White House said Tuesday that it “strongly opposes” the legislation, and that if it reached President Obama’s desk as is he would veto the bill.

Tags Mitch McConnell