The Puerto Rico Status Act outlines terms for a binding referendum on the three options: full independence, U.S. statehood or sovereignty with formal U.S. association, similar to the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.
Democratic Representative Raul Grijalva, the bill's original sponsor, said that whether the measure gets a vote in the Senate or not, it will still set "an important historical precedent" for Puerto Rico.
The legislation "tells the people in Puerto Rico, our fellow U.S. citizens, that this election is going to be aboveboard and the consequences are going to be aboveboard," Grijalva told a House committee hearing on Wednesday night.
Unless the Senate acts on the Puerto Rico bill this month, which is improbable, the legislation will expire.
Puerto Rico, which has about 3.3 million people and high rates of poverty, became a U.S. territory in 1898.