House OKs Defense Bill; Farm Disaster Aid Approved

In a marathon session before beginning their monthlong summer recess, the House passed a $286.4-billion Pentagon funding bill Friday in record time while the Senate adopted a measure designed to avoid another Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster.

Congress also gave final approval to an $897-million disaster aid bill to help farmers whose 1989 crops were damaged by drought, flood or other severe weather.

But protracted wrangling over a bailout of the savings and loan industry kept Congress working into the early morning hours today, with both houses adjourning at 12:33 a.m.

In the Senate, an attempt to restore the $23,000-a-year pension of retired Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, which was revoked by his recent felony conviction on Iran-Contra affair charges, delayed the proceedings for most of Friday afternoon.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N. C.), who led the effort to help North, finally agreed to withdraw his measure in exchange for a guarantee that the Senate will vote on North’s pension this fall. But, by that time, many senators had tired of waiting for the conclusion of business and had taken off early on their vacations.

The defections had become so widespread that, by the time the Senate finally passed the savings and loan plan, only 21 members were present. The ballot was taken through a procedure that does not record those voting or those absent.

Panetta Criticizes Senate

“It’s a little outrageous,” Rep. Leon Panetta (D-Monterey), chairman of the House Budget Committee, said of the Senate procedure. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) criticized the tactic, saying: “I want to express my profound opposition to what we’re doing tonight and the way we’re doing it.”

Panetta and three other leading House members wrote a letter to their Senate colleagues admonishing them: “We think we owe the American taxpayers more than a headlong rush to recess--we owe them fiscal responsibility.”

However, the Senate had 99 members on hand early Friday, when it voted unanimously for a bill to raise the financial liability for oil companies and tanker owners in oil spills and set up a $1-billion fund to pay cleanup costs.

The bill, a response to the 11-million-gallon oil spill off the coast of Alaska last March, raises liability limits for tankers from the current $150 per gross ton to $1,000 per gross ton and sets a $350-million ceiling for spills by on-shore facilities and the Alaskan pipeline. Owners of offshore platforms would continue to be responsible for all cleanup costs of oil blowouts such as the devastating Santa Barbara spill in 1969.

Would Cut B-2 Funds

The House debated the mammoth defense spending bill for only 44 minutes before approving it 312 to 105. It contains provisions, opposed by the President, to cut outlays for the B-2 Stealth bomber and the Strategic Defense Initiative and to add funds for the F-14 fighter and the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

No funds were provided for the Air Force’s advanced tactical fighter despite the Administration’s request for $1.2 billion for research and development of the high-tech plane that is supposed to replace the F-15 and the Navy F-14 in the 1990s.

The defense spending bill now goes to the Senate, where it is likely to be extensively revised. A Senate-House conference committee will make the key decisions later this year.

It was the seventh appropriations measure to clear the House this week--a feat that Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said had never been accomplished before. As a result, all 13 money bills that Congress must pass each year were approved by the House before the August recess. The Senate, acting after the House, has passed four money bills so far.

The disaster relief bill was approved by Congress after a late session of the Senate and House Agriculture committees to hammer out differences. Dole, praising the outcome, said that the President would sign the legislation because it came in under budgetary ceilings.

The bill, which provides complex formulas for calculating benefits, would limit total disaster aid to $100,000 for each farmer. It would also prevent farmers from receiving more combined relief payments and crop insurance than the normal yield from a crop.

The controversy over North’s pension created the most excitement in the Senate. Helms protested that the former Marine officer had earned the benefits as a combat hero in Vietnam and challenged a General Accounting Office ruling that North’s felony conviction for destroying government documents revoked his pension rights.

North has appealed the GAO ruling in federal court, but Helms tried to add language to the Treasury Department-Post Office appropriations bill to require the government to pay him his pension.

DeConcini Cites Law

“This body should not stick its thumbs in its ears and let the courts decide,” Helms said. But Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) said that a jury had found North guilty and added that the law was clear on the pension issue.

Helms ran into strong opposition from Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), a Congressional Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg in Vietnam. But he got the backing of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Navy flier who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

The strongest language was used by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), who said of North: “He thumbed his nose at the Constitution he was honor bound to uphold . . . . He’s on the stump now, for hefty fees, explaining to the American people why this is a good thing to do.”

Byrd, who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, withdrew the appropriations bill to avoid a showdown on Helms’ controversial proposal.

Both the Senate and House planned to resume work on Sept. 6 after the August break.