Senate rejects extra $300 million for Real ID

Action by a divided U.S. Senate on Thursday raises new questions about the fate of a contentious plan to outfit Americans with new digital identification cards by 2013. By a 50-44 vote mostly along party lines, the chamber set aside a Republican-backed amendment to a homeland security spending bill that would have spread $300 million across the states to help them implement the so-called Real ID Act.

The Senate also agreed unanimously to adopt an amendment, proposed by vocal Real ID critic Max Baucus (D-Mont.), which prohibits the use of any of the spending bill’s funding for “planning, testing, piloting, or developing a national identification card.”

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