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Senate Democrats may boost International Monetary Fund resources in an aid package they’re preparing for Ukraine, potentially setting up a dispute with the U.S. House.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez said today lawmakers “are very close” to an agreement “at least in the committee” on an aid plan for Ukraine that would include the IMF funding.

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Sometimes a crisis can usefully clarify things. So it is that events in Ukraine have given new focus to the Obama administration’s long frustrated efforts to get Congress to approve the 2010 IMF quota reform package.

The package has been stalled on the Hill for many months, suffering from the inability of the administration to convincingly answer two questions from Congress. Why should we care? And even if we do care, why do we have to act now?

Broad-Based Coalition of Policy Experts Urges Congress to Pass IMF Reforms
Ukraine Economy and US Leadership at Stake

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 10, 2014) —Today 190 policy experts, business and academic leaders, and former Senate-confirmed appointees who had oversight responsibilities for organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank delivered a unified message to Congress: promptly enact IMF quota reform legislation.

Advanced economies, including the United States, must avoid pulling back stimulus too quickly given the weak global economic recovery and recent market volatility highlights key risks in some emerging markets, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.

The IMF said there was scope for better coordination of central bank exit plans, something many emerging market policymakers have called for as the Federal Reserve has begun to wind back its U.S. support for the economy.

Last week, a major setback to international cooperation and prospects for a stable and growing world occurred when the U.S. Congress passed up an opportunity to ratify historic IMF reforms as part of the recent U.S. budget deal.

U.S. lawmakers late on Monday failed to agree on key funding measures for the International Monetary Fund, in another setback for historic reforms at the global financial institution to give more power to emerging markets.

A $1 trillion proposed spending bill for the federal government on Monday did not include funding for the IMF, according to a Republican summary.

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Who’d have guessed it but there’s the International Monetary Fund in the middle of the omnibus bill talks — a potential bargaining chip for House Republicans but also a symbol of divisions in the party given the right’s suspicion of such international organizations.

Five years after the financial crisis, President Obama summoned regulators to the White House for an update on how they were changing the ways of Wall Street.