Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor regarding the Ukraine aid bill and the importance of allowing members to offer amendments to the legislation:

“I’d like to start with a few words about the legislation the Senate is considering this week on Ukraine. It touches on the jurisdiction of many committees, and is of high interest to Senators on both sides of the aisle.

“How the United States meets the Russian invasion of Crimea matters – it’s related to the future vitality of NATO, the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, and our own energy policy regarding the export of natural gas.

“So we’ve got members on both sides of the aisle working closely. And there’s a decent amount of common ground here, which is good: nearly everyone agrees that the Ukrainian people deserve our support.

“Most of us also agree that we should back that support up with meaningful legislation — not just to show our support for an independent, democratic, and free Ukraine, but also to show President Putin that there will be costs for his actions.

“So you’d think it wouldn’t be that difficult to get to a solution here. But roadblocks keep popping up.

“First, there was a House-passed bill prior to the recess that would have provided loan guarantees to Ukraine. It was blocked by the Democrat Leader. We should have passed it.

“Now, the Majority Leader seems determined to blow up the process too. Yesterday, he actually came to the floor to effectively blame Republicans for the invasion of Crimea. I mean, who writes this stuff? It’s not just completely unhelpful, it also injects hyper-partisanship into the process at a time when we should be working together.

“And at this point, it appears the Majority Leader might even make things even worse by, yet again, shutting down the amendment process. I hope that’s not the case. This issue is too important.

“Look: this bill cannot pass the House or become law in its current form—it must be amended.

“Not only have many members not yet had the chance to offer amendments in committee, but so many developments have unfolded in this crisis in the weeks since the bill was drafted that the legislation will have to be modified – at least to take those realities into account.  And in order for it to become law, the controversial IMF provision must be removed.

“This simply cannot be a take or leave it situation. That’s just nonsensical.

“The people we were sent here to represent deserve better. And we should give them that.

“That means allowing a sensible amendment process. And it means dropping the kind of wild partisan accusations we’ve seen – attacks that will only make it that much harder to get to an effective, bipartisan solution.”