The Hill News

The US Chamber of Commerce has written to the House Foreign Affairs Committee urging it to end travel restriction to Cuba, Reuters reports. 

The full House could take up the proposal as early as mid-September if it is first approved by the committee.

"It is time to end the unproductive preoccupation with an aging and moribund Communist regime, and begin to lay the groundwork for a U.S. role in the future of Cuba," the group's lead lobbyist, Bruce Josten, wrote in the letter.

Meanwhile Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) say they have enough votes in the upper house to lift the travel ban, in spite of opposition from a bipartisan coalition of Cuban-American lawmakers.

The coalition, which includes Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Reps. Albio Sires (D-N.J.), Lin! coln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), and ranking foreign-affairs committee member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), wrote to President Obama last week to stress the folly of the proposed changes.

"We are deeply troubled that such changes would result in economic benefits to the Cuban regime and would significantly undermine U.S. foreign policy and security objectives," their letter read.

Some observers say they expect Obama to use an executive order to relax the ban for Americans in certain circumstances.