Conferees Bar Anti-Satellite Weapon Tests : Reagan Plea Ignored; 1986 Defense Outlay Put at $298.7 Billion

House and Senate negotiators agreed Friday night on a $298.7-billion defense spending package for the current fiscal year that bans future testing of anti-satellite weapons, a key element of President Reagan’s space defense system.

Opponents of the President’s program hailed the agreement as a major victory. “It’s an absolute triumph,” Rep. Les AuCoin (D-Ore.) said after a lengthy meeting in which the defense package was decided. “We did more for arms control in five hours than has been done in the last five years.”

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said Republicans were forced to agree to the ban on testing anti-satellite, or ASAT, weapons despite a last-minute personal appeal from the President, who called Stevens at a telephone booth near the meeting room.

2 More Tests Planned

The Defense Department conducted its first test of an ASAT weapon last October, and at least two more tests were planned soon. Reagan had argued that continued testing was necessary to strengthen the United States’ hand in arms control talks with the Soviet Union.

At the same time, the committee agreed to trim nearly $1 billion from Reagan’s request for $3.7 billion for research and development of his space-based missile defense system, the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Nonetheless, the $2.75-billion appropriation for so-called “Star Wars” technology was a significant increase over the $1.4 billion appropriated in fiscal 1985.

In addition, the committee agreed to permit the resumption of chemical weapons production next October, but it eliminated all funds for procurement reform measures adopted earlier this year by the House.

Ratification Expected

The agreement, negotiated over the last three days by a House-Senate subcommittee on defense, is expected to be ratified by the full conference committee Monday and will govern spending by the Pentagon for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The subcommittee was empowered to resolve all differences between House and Senate defense appropriations.

The defense measure is part of an omnibus spending bill that is expected to be approved by Congress next week before members recess for the holidays.

Overall, the Pentagon spending figure represents a nearly even compromise between the House and Senate. The Democratic-controlled House had approved an appropriation of $292 billion, the same as last year, and the Republican-led Senate had sought to raise it to $302 billion, allowing an increase for inflation. Reagan had originally requested $322.2 billion.

Last year, Congress appropriated $292.6 billion for defense.

The ban on ASAT testing was the result of hard bargaining by members of the House, which has voted twice for a moratorium. “We were dealing with a tough bunch,” Stevens said.

Under the agreement, the President could revive testing only if he could prove to Congress that the Soviets had resumed testing of their land-based ASAT weapons system. The Soviets have not tested their system since 1982.

End to Moratorium

In exchange for their victory on anti-satellite weapons, the House members gave ground on the issue of chemical weapons. The agreement would allow the Pentagon to begin producing binary nerve gas next Oct. 1--ending a moratorium on chemical weapons production that began in 1969.

However, Stevens predicted there would be an effort in the full committee to kill the funding for nerve gas production. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.), chairman of the full House-Senate conference committee working on the omnibus spending measure, opposes chemical warfare.

The deletion of procurement reform also was a loss for the House members. Rep. Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.) said that the Senate members were adamantly opposed to the House-passed measures, which were the direct result of recent publicity over high-priced hammers, coffee pots and toilet seats for the military. “They absolutely stonewalled on that,” Dicks said.

But Dicks and AuCoin vowed that procurement reform would be what they described as “a centerpiece of our legislative effort next year.” Dicks added: “Procurement reform is not going away.”

Among the measures scrapped by the committee were those designed to curtail the so-called “revolving door” that occurs when defense contractors hire Pentagon procurement personnel and to curb the ability of defense contractors to charge the government for overhead expenses such as entertainment.

Rejection of the reform measures resulted from a disagreement between the House and Senate on how best to achieve the reforms.