White House Finally Clears NEA Study Panel : Congress: The 12-member commission is a political and ideological cross section. Proposed legislation to overhaul the agency is touted as an alternative to a White House-backed plan.

The White House on Wednesday ended a months-long delay in obtaining FBI clearances for the 12 members of a commission to study the National Endowment for the Arts and recommend changes in the way the arts agency operates.

The action came hours after two Republican congressmen, saying the NEA is “at risk” of being put out of business by political opponents, announced alternative legislation to radically reform the way the federal government supports the arts nationwide.

The White House said later in the day that it had completed clearance procedures for the study commission members, who, a spokeswoman said, are immediately free to begin the study whose completion was originally due by sometime next month. The action is expected to provide important political cover for NEA allies in Congress since debate over NEA reform was expected to rely heavily on recommendations by the study group.

Four of the members of the commission were appointed by President Bush, four by the Speaker of the House and four by the majority leader of the Senate. The panel is a political and ideological cross section. It ranges from former Rep. John Brademas, now president of New York University and an author of the NEA’s original enabling legislation, to prominent Washington lawyer Leonard Garment, who has long been prominent in Republican circles.

Arts groups immediately opposed the new House legislative proposal announced by Reps. Tom Coleman (R-Mo.) and Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.).

There were also indications of continuing fragmentation within the Republican party--as a key congressman identified earlier as co-sponsor of the new initiative apparently withdrew.

In a telephone interview, Coleman said the plan is intended as a Republican alternative to a bill backed by President Bush that would renew the NEA’s legislative mandate for another five years without attaching restrictions on the kind of artworks the government could fund.

The Bush bill, officially introduced in the House Tuesday by Rep. Pat Williams (D-Mont.), is widely perceived as in danger of being heavily amended and perhaps rejected outright by Congress in the wake of a conservative campaign against the NEA.

“We want to be a vehicle for moderation and common sense,” Coleman said, noting that a political firestorm surrounding the endowment, caused by about a half dozen grants that supported controversial photographs and artworks, may result in elimination of the NEA entirely--an outcome openly advocated by the arts agency’s conservative opponents.

However, Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), a key congressman on arts issues who had been announced by Coleman’s office Tuesday as a press conference participant and co-sponsor of the bill, did not appear at the meeting with reporters and Regula’s name was omitted from a three-page description of the initiative. Regula did not return calls seeking comment on his absence and Coleman referred reporters to Regula’s office for explanation.

The Coleman-Gunderson plan would:

* Transfer 60% of the NEA’s money directly to state arts agencies--three times the proportion the state units now get--and cut to 40% of the budget the funds that the Washington-based agency directly disburses to arts organizations. The plan is virtually identical to a controversial proposal circulated late last week by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, a Washington service group that supports the state art councils.

* Eliminate the NEA’s existing program of small direct grants and fellowships to individual artists, substituting a minimum level for NEA grants of $50,000--an amount that would cut out 87.5% of all grants the NEA now awards. The agency awarded 3,900 grants last year. In addition, any recipient of federal support would be required to raise three times the amount of the grant from private funding sources.

* Focus the portion of NEA money spent directly by the arts endowment on “art of national and international significance,” which Coleman said would be limited to the most prominent, established arts institutions.

* Require any artist or arts group seeking NEA support for work that is not yet complete to submit detailed plans for each project, spelling out, for instance, the precise subject matter and style of paintings or writings before they are created. Artists and arts groups would also be required to submit detailed progress reports on works as they are being created.

* Adopt as a statutory restriction on the content of work that could be supported by the NEA--and by state and local arts agencies, as well--anti-pornography wording developed by the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark 1973 obscenity case.

“Republican members (of Congress), most notably (Rep. Dana) Rohrabacher (R-Lomita) have generated opposition to the endowment and I think their agenda is to abolish the agency,” said Coleman. “We have a special responsibility as Republicans. We need to show that Republicans do care about the arts and care enough to try to save the endowment. This is a very moderate, temperate way of doing it.”

But arts supporters said they were dismayed by the Republican initiative, which Coleman said may be offered as a substitute for the Bush-backed bill when the legislation comes up for a floor vote several weeks from now.

“I don’t understand this. I thought the purpose of (discussions about changing the NEA) was to deal with pornography,” said Rep. Sidney Yates (D-Ill.), a key arts supporter. “This is a strange way to deal with pornography. On this basis, it would be the end of the national endowment.”