Senate Approves $299.5-Billion Defense Budget

WASHINGTON — The Senate approved a $299.5-billion defense bill Friday after Sen. Alphonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.) was persuaded to end a nearly two-week stalemate by withdrawing, at least temporarily, his plan to impose the death penalty on those convicted of drug-related murders.

Like a similar House-passed measure, the Senate bill, which was adopted by voice vote, will cut Pentagon funding by 1% in fiscal 1989, which begins Oct. 1. It also will dramatically increase the military’s role in efforts to intercept illegal drug shipments into the United States from Latin America.

Significant differences in the House and Senate defense bills--including an important disparity in the military’s prescribed role in drug interdiction--still must be resolved before the measure can be sent to President Reagan for his signature.

Although the Senate had completed most of its work on the defense bill by May 17, when it began consideration of the treaty banning medium-range missiles in Europe, final passage was blocked by a bitter dispute over D’Amato’s proposed amendment. Liberals had threatened a filibuster if the New York senator insisted on bringing it to a vote.

But D’Amato withdrew his amendment after winning a pledge from the Democratic leadership for a separate Senate vote, unrelated to the defense bill, on June 8. If adopted, the death penalty proposal is expected to be added to an anti-drug package to be passed by the Senate later this year.

Nevertheless, Senate liberals still are expected to try to filibuster and to amend the death penalty measure when it comes up again. Among the amendments expected at that time is one that would require public viewing of any death sentence carried out under the law.

Death Penalty Provisions

Despite liberal opposition, the proposal to impose the death penalty in drug-related murder cases clearly has strong support in the Senate. On May 16, the Senate voted 68 to 28 against a motion by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to set aside the amendment--a vote that was widely interpreted as a barometer of D’Amato’s support. Sixty votes are necessary to break a filibuster.

Just two years ago, liberals in the Senate prevented Congress from enacting a House-passed omnibus drug bill that would have imposed the death penalty in murders involved in the drug trade. D’Amato’s action foreshadowed another full-fledged, election-year fight on the issue.

Co-sponsored by Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who has made the crusade against drugs a centerpiece of his reelection campaign, the D’Amato amendment would specify a sentence ranging between 20 years in prison and death for drug kingpins who order a slaying and anyone involved in carrying out the murder.

Role of Pentagon

Wilson and D’Amato also were co-sponsors of a successful amendment designed to get the Pentagon more deeply involved in drug interdiction. It would require the military to fly an increased number of surveillance missions along the nation’s southern border and, for the first time, would permit U.S. sailors to make arrests of drug dealers on the high seas if they have been trained and deputized by the Coast Guard.

The Senate plan for military involvement in drug interdiction is much weaker than a House-passed provision authored by Rep. Duncan L. Hunter (R-Coronado) that would give the military 45 days to substantially halt drug trafficking across U.S. borders. As a result, the Senate proposal has the support of the Pentagon, which for years has resisted any involvement in civilian law enforcement.

Nevertheless, according to congressional sources, both the House and Senate versions of this important provision are likely to be abandoned when members of both chambers sit down together in a conference committee to work out their differences.

‘Throw Out Everything’

“We probably will throw out everything and start all over again,” predicted one knowledgeable source, who explained that neither of the Republican-inspired proposals is entirely satisfactory to the military or the Democrats who control the House and Senate Armed Services committees.

The House and Senate bills differ as well on important nuclear issues, but it is likely to be easier for the two chambers to settle those differences because it is common practice for them to simply split the difference whenever they disagree on funding levels for specific weapons systems. For example, Congress is expected to set spending for President Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense system at around $4 billion--a point midway between the Senate’s $4.5-billion funding level and the House’s level of $3.5 billion.

Likewise, by splitting the difference, the House-Senate conference committee is expected to authorize $400 million for a rail-mobile system to deploy the giant, multiple-warhead MX missile and $350 million for the small, single-warhead mobile missile, the Midgetman. Although the President favors killing Midgetman in favor of deploying additional MX missiles, this compromise keeps both systems alive until the matter can be decided by Reagan’s successor.

No Drawn-Out Battle

There was no drawn-out battle between Reagan and the Democrats over arms control issues in connection with this defense spending bill, as there had been in previous years. The arms control debate was silenced in part by the signing of a U.S.-Soviet treaty eliminating medium-range nuclear weapons, which the Senate ratified on Friday, and by the recognition that a new President will be in the White House by late next January.

Implicit in both defense bills is an agreement worked out between Congress and the White House a year ago that the Administration will make no effort during fiscal 1989 to test any “Star Wars” components in violation of a strict interpretation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

The Senate bill also contains a revolutionary new provision establishing a commission to expedite the closing of many domestic military bases deemed unnecessary in today’s atmosphere of fiscal austerity. Although the House bill contains no such proposal, the House is expected to approve parallel legislation in the near future.