Congress Votes Humanitarian Aid to Contras

Congress, rushing toward its summer vacation, gave final approval Wednesday to aid for Nicaraguan rebels and also moved to kill the nation’s synthetic fuels program.

The House and Senate included $27 million in humanitarian aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras, in the first foreign aid bill to clear Congress in four years.

Under terms of the bill, the aid cannot be distributed by either the Central Intelligence Agency or the Defense Department. But the final version of the measure, prepared by a House-Senate conference committee, deleted a House-passed prohibition against future direct or indirect military or paramilitary aid to the contras.

Final action on the bill, which had cleared the Senate by voice vote a day earlier, was taken on a 262-161 House vote. The bill, now awaiting President Reagan’s signature to become law, authorizes a total of $12.7 billion in foreign aid for each of the next two fiscal years, with Israel receiving $4.5 billion.

The bill authorizes $6 million a year in aid to non-Communist rebels opposing Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and $15 million a year in humanitarian aid to Afghan rebels battling the Soviet occupation of their country. It also increases funds to fight terrorism, aircraft hijackings and international narcotics trade.

The legislation expresses the sense of Congress that the President should certify that Jordan has publicly committed itself to recognizing Israel and to negotiations toward Middle East peace before it can buy advanced weapons from the United States. Jordan’s aid totals $120 million, $95 million of it military.

Shift on Philippines

In a move opposed by the White House, the legislation shifts the emphasis in aid to the Philippines from military to economic by authorizing $180 million for that country, $110 million of it economic.

Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, hailed the programs authorized by the bill as “vital to American interests abroad” and called on Reagan to sign it.

Fascell said the bill would help “assure that the views of Congress are taken into account in the shaping of our national security policies.”

The Synthetic Fuels Corp. did not fare so well in the House, which castigated the government-run corporation as corrupt and ineffective and effectively voted to kill it by passing a measure that would leave it only $500 million for research and development.

The move to kill the corporation was passed as the House approved 270 to 143 an $8-billion appropriations measure for the Interior Department.

Cut in Recent Years

The corporation, the nation’s one-time hope for the discovery of alternative energy sources, initially received $17.5 billion to finance such projects as one in North Dakota to convert coal to gas, but Congress in recent years has trimmed the corporation’s sails.

House members, noting that the legislation would save $6.6 billion in six years, declared that they had made the biggest non-defense budget cut this year.

Rep. Mike Synar (D-Okla.) said the House action “puts a lot of pressure on the Senate to decide whether or not they’re going to continue this wasteful program.”

Meanwhile, in the Senate, partisan wrangling tied up farm legislation as Agriculture Committee members failed to agree on a bill.

At issue is a $12-billion increase in farm price supports advocated by Democrats at a time when Republicans are seeking a freeze on supports for cotton, wheat, rice and other grains. Democrats argue that any farm legislation should at least provide for an increase to match inflation.

Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), noting that Congress is supposed to adjourn this week for a month, told his colleagues on the Senate floor that he would be “perfectly willing, even eager, to have the Senate stay in session in August.”

Earlier, Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and several Democrats had swapped charges on which party was holding up the bill. Dole tried to bypass the committee and move legislation directly to the floor, but Democrats objected.

As hopes dimmed on passage of a farm bill before the August recess, one congressional aide said: “Everybody’s goal is just to go back home and say he tried.”

In other action, the House adopted an amendment that would cut funding to 20 established water projects and hold up funding for 21 new projects.

In offering the amendment to a supplemental appropriations bill, Rep. Robert A. Roe (D-N.J.), said a bigger share of their costs should be borne by states. A bill that he will sponsor to accomplish that is expected to be taken up in the fall.