WASHINGTON — Key lawmakers are debating whether to ease the tough restrictions on military aid to Egypt that they put in place after the military ousted democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi, Al-Monitor has learned.

The potential changes are part of continuing talks surrounding a 10-month "omnibus" spending bill that House and Senate leaders hope to pass by Dec. 11, when the current stopgap measure expires. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's muscular crackdown on Islamists — including campaigns in the Sinai Peninsula and against smuggling tunnels to Gaza — is prompting some lawmakers to consider giving the Obama administration more flexibility to keep the $1.3 billion a year military aid spigot open despite human rights concerns.

"Egypt is one of the most problematic [aid relationships], because things have changed so much, so many times, in such a short period of time, and so we always have to work with where Egypt is right now," State and Foreign Operations panel Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Texas, told Al-Monitor. "I've always said we need to decide on funding given what they're doing that helps our national security. And I think that [Sinai and tunnel operations] does. So I'm looking favorably toward Egypt."

Granger said her staff hasn't finished putting together its foreign aid proposal. She said "several things are still up in the air" but one option may be to give the State Department waiver authority that it currently lacks.