House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told Democrats on Wednesday night that she will put her weight behind a byzantine proposal aimed at lowering prescription drug prices a plan that progressive critics worry will ultimately have little to no effect.

Pelosis office has been in private talks with the Trump administration about a prescription drug policy for months. Her decision to proceed with that drug plan surprised her fellow Democrats, coming the same day as a very public spat in which President Donald Trump walked out on a meeting with the speaker and refused to negotiate on an infrastructure bill unless Democrats abandoned investigations into his administration.

Capitol Hill sources tell HuffPost that the prescription drug proposal, which has not been officially released to the public, would empower the secretary of health and human services to negotiate lower prices with pharmaceutical companies for drugs sold in the U.S. If the two parties failed to reach an agreement on an individual medication, the Government Accountability Office would be permitted to set a final price close to the typical amount charged for the drug in other countries.

The Department of Health and Human Services would be required to negotiate on at least 25 drugs each year, and companies that refused to participate would be slapped with a tax equal to 50 percent of their prior years sales of the drug. Prices on all drugs covered under Medicare Parts B and D could not be increased going forward, and any company that still did so would have 100% of the price hike taxed away.

A senior Democratic aide who described the plan to HuffPost cautioned that nothing had been set in stone, but said House leadership hoped to move quickly on the proposal after the Memorial Day recess.