Conferees OK Bill Removing Almost All Curbs on NEA

A House-Senate conference committee voted Friday night to accept the House version of an appropriations bill for the National Endowment for the Arts that removes nearly all restrictions on the content of government-supported art.

The committee agreement on the nearly $12-billion Interior Department appropriations bill for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 provides $175 million for the endowment. Also approved was a three-year extension of the life of the arts agency, which makes grants to artists and art institutions.

The measure requires the NEA to recoup any grant funds used for art that is subsequently held by a criminal appeals court to be obscene, but it drops language that banned obscene work and art that the endowment judged to be sadomasochistic or homoerotic.

The version adopted by the conference committee appeared to promise to remove most of the provisions of the fiscal 1990 legislation that had led to rejection of more than two dozen grants by major arts organizations and the filing of three lawsuits against the NEA.

The conference committee bill also specifically bans use of a written anti-obscenity certification, which NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer had moved to require earlier this year. The measure incorporates a House-originated provision to increase the share of NEA funding that is channeled to state arts councils from 20% this year to as much as 35% by the end of 1993.

“There are some good things and some bad things in this,” said Liz Robbins, a lobbyist for a coalition of writers’ organizations fighting pressures from conservatives to clamp new restrictions on the NEA. “I think Frohnmayer can handle the bad things.”

The bill must still be accepted by the full House and Senate. Floor votes are expected today.