Legislative staff members in Washington were said to be close on Friday to completing a revised bill that would give Puerto Rico extraordinary powers to wipe out debt under close federal supervision.

Aides at the House Natural Resources Committee, working through the spring recess, were still grappling with sensitive constitutional issues raised by the rescue package, even after lawmakers in San Juan took matters into their own hands on Wednesday by suddenly authorizing a unilateral debt moratorium for the island.

The Puerto Rican lawmakers said they were forced to act because Congress was taking too long. Their island’s Government Development Bank has a debt payment of about $422 million due May 1, and only $562 million in available cash; the law they enacted would let the bank delay the payment lawfully — at least as far as Puerto Rico is concerned.

Puerto Rico owes even bigger debt payments, totaling about $2 billion, on July 1.

The House’s draft bill still contains certain provisions that creditor groups have been fighting, and Natural Resources Committee aides said further refinements were likely. The committee is scheduled to take testimony on the rescue package on Wednesday, and aides said they hoped to send a finished bill to the House on Thursday.