Obama expected to veto 9/11 victims’ bill, White House says

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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is expected to veto a bill approved by Congress without objection that would allow families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to sue the Saudi Arabia government, a White House spokesman said Monday.

The president has opposed the bill, called the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, over fears that foreigners could try to exploit it to sue the United States. Congress leaders have suggested they would try to override a presidential veto.

“It’s not hard to imagine other countries using this law as an excuse to haul U.S. diplomats, U.S. service members or even U.S. companies into courts all around the world,” Earnest said at his daily briefing, just hours before Obama was scheduled to meet with the congressional leaders of both parties at the White House.

“The president feels quite strongly about this,” Earnest said. I do anticipate the president will veto the legislation when it is presented to him.”

Obama’s first meeting with both House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., since February comes a week after lawmakers returned to Washington from a seven-week summer recess and a few days after Obama returned from a nine-day trip to Asia. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid, D-Nev., also will attend, according to the White House.

White House officials said the president intends to discuss legislative priorities for the fall session, a time when most in Washington expect there is little chance for major legislation as the nation nears the conclusion of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Foremost on the agenda, officials said, is averting a partial federal government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30. That effort has been complicated by Republican Party infighting over how long to extend funding. McConnell and a majority of House Republicans want to set a new deadline in December to craft a year-long spending bill – a position also supported by the White House and congressional Democratic leaders. But a minority of House conservatives favor a stopgap measure that would extend current funding levels into next year, giving a new president and Congress the opportunity to craft long-term spending bills.

Earnest said the meeting represents a chance “to discuss rather long list of priorities Congress needs to address. It’s hard to rank them in priority order because so many of them are important and the failure of Congress to act on some of these priority would have a significant negative impact on the American people.”

The budget issue appears on track to get resolved in tandem with a compromise on Zika funding in the coming weeks. The Senate agreed on a $1.1 billion Zika funding package in May, but the House passed an alternative $1.1 billion measure that Democrats oppose because it blocks funding to a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Puerto Rico. That bill has been filibustered by Senate Democrats since June, but negotiators say there has been progress toward a resolution.

Obama also is likely to urge congressional leaders to hold a vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the 12-nation trade accord that the administration completed last year. The pact, which requires congressional ratification, has been stalled on Capitol Hill amid deep skepticism about trade deals among segments of the American electorate. Both major candidates to replace Obama, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump, have said they oppose the deal.

Obama touted the TPP during his trip to China and Laos last week, and he has vowed to press lawmakers to vote on the package during an expected lame-duck session of Congress after the Nov. 8 elections.

Earnest said that criminal justice reform and the president’s nomination of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court–a nomination Congress has not acted on–also could be discussed at the meeting.

Asked if Obama would bring up the $2.8 billion in federal aid requested by Louisiana Gov. Bel Edwards (D) to help with recovery efforts after damaging, widespread flooding, Earnest noted the criticism from some Republicans last month when Obama did not interrupt his vacation to visit the state. The president did visit after returning to Washington.

“There’s been a lot of moralizing,” Earnest told reporters at the White House daily briefing. “The question now is whether Republicans in Congress will do their jobs. They just got back from an uninterrupted seven-week vacation. Are they going to do right by the people of Louisiana?”

(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท David Nakamura, Mike DeBonis

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