Congress Votes $30 Billion More for S&L; Bailout : Thrifts: The top banking regulator also warns that the fund insuring deposits is running low.

Congress on Thursday approved another $30 billion to fund the nation’s savings and loan bailout, while a top banking regulator warned again that the fund insuring bank deposits is dwindling fast.

The S&L; bailout funding measure, expected to be signed soon by President Bush, pumps another $30 billion into the Resolution Trust Corp., the special agency created in 1989 to bury the nation’s dead thrifts. The $50 billion that the agency was funded with in 1989 is nearly spent.

The RTC is expected to use up the additional money soon and request another $50 billion this fall as more savings and loans fail. The funding bill includes clauses to make more RTC property available for low-income housing programs and improve the way that the RTC reports on contracts awarded to minorities.

The House vote was 225-188 and follows Senate approval Tuesday night. Last week, the House rejected three funding bills before finally approving a fourth. Many members are reluctant to keep approving more money for the bailout.

Meanwhile, the nation’s bank insurance fund last year lost $4.8 billion--a 37% drop--and will probably need to borrow $10 billion this year, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman L. William Seidman told the Senate Banking Committee. He added that the fund’s borrowing needs “could be higher if we experience conditions worse than we currently are forecasting.”

The fund has 42 cents for every $100 of insured deposits, far below the $1.50 level regulators would prefer.

The fund covers about $2 trillion in deposits.

The fund’s heavy 1990 loss stemmed from the failure of 169 banks. Seidman said the number of bank failures this year could range from 180 to 230, with an additional 160 to 210 in 1992.

The fund, which is a cushion protecting taxpayers from having to bail out depositors at failed banks, could be exhausted if the recession is worse than expected and may face a $6-billion deficit by the end of 1992, Seidman said. Some experts have predicted that the fund could be insolvent within two to three years.

Seidman also warned that new bank failures may force the fund to borrow $35 billion by the end of 1993--part of a new Treasury proposal that would let it borrow up to $70 billion to protect depositors. But Seidman said he believes that no more than half of the $70 billion would be actually needed through 1993 under the worst-case scenario.

Seidman predicted that bank failures will ease by 1993 and that bank insurance premiums should then rebuild the fund. The fund was $8.5 billion at the end of 1990, less than half the $18.3 billion at the end of 1987. It will soon take another hit stemming from the $2.3-billion failure in January of Bank of New England.

Banks in New England and on the East Coast have been hammered by growing loan problems in the wake of economic slowdowns and falling real estate prices.

West Coast banks generally have escaped the blood bath, although some large institutions, notably Security Pacific Corp. in Los Angeles, have seen a big increase since mid-1990 in problem loans outside California.