Legislation providing aid to Ukraine remains stuck in Congress as partisan sniping over blame for the holdup has grown.
Republicans are digging in against a Senate bill to provide loan guarantees to Ukraine and impose sanctions on Russia because it also includes a provision to reform the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"In order for it to become law, the controversial IMF provision must be removed," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday on the Senate floor.
Aides told NBC News that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is now considering dropping that provision from the bill, though no decisions have yet been made.
The IMF changes would grant more flexibility for developing countries to use billions of American dollars by moving the money from a crisis account to an accout for more general use.
The IMF fight has ensnared Ukraine aid for weeks now; the Senate failed to approve legislation before their recess earlier this month, and only cleared a procedural hurdle to take up the Ukraine bill (including the IMF reforms) on Monday.
The House has already passed its own Ukrainian aid package, one that doesn't touch upon IMF reforms at all. Some centrist Democrats have expressed their incredulity at the Senate for not simply taking up and passing the House bill -- a sentiment shared by GOP leaders.
"What they're trying to do here is bring unrelated items into this debate -- all it's going to do is just slow the whole process down. So I would hope we could find a common ground, pass it, so that we can help our friends," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Tuesday. "The sooner we act the better.”
NBC News’ Kasie Hunt contributed to this report.
