Biden Requests Extension For Delivering $5.8 Billion In Ukraine Aid The Hill
Date
9/14/2024 9:15:11 PM
(MENAFN- UkrinForm) The Biden administration has requested congress to include an extension of the presidential drawdown authority (PDA) for sending weapons to Ukraine through 2025, to make approximately $5.8 billion available beyond September 30.
That is according to The Hill , Ukrinform reports.
The White House has requested the extension be included in a continuing resolution House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has proposed. The money faces a use-it-or-lose-it deadline at the end of this month.
"We have $5.9 billion left in Ukraine Presidential Drawdown Authority; all but $100 million of which will expire at the end of the fiscal year," said Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary.
A congressional aide told The Hill that absent the extension, the Biden administration could announce it is providing $5.8 billion in military assistance to Ukraine before October 1, and then use the rest of the year to send over the equipment - but that this is a less attractive option.
There may be some legal challenges to allocating the $5.8 billion at once, the aide explained, with lawyers for the administration concerned that there may not be an authority to permit transfers of munitions that are not currently in stock, or considered in surplus.
Extending the authority is unlikely to face opposition in the stop-gap funding measure, but Johnson's pathway to passing the bill is fraught, thanks in part to former President Trump insisting on legislation requiring proof of citizenship for voting - a move that Democrats have said is a nonstarter. Noncitizens are already barred from voting in federal elections.
"This major problem for managing the support for Ukraine is one of the many unnecessary casualties of the political gamesmanship on the CR playing out right now," the congressional aide said.
Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
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