NATION IN BRIEF : NATIONWIDE : Senate Backs Tighter NEA Obscenity Rules

The Senate voted, 68 to 28, to impose strict anti-obscenity curbs on federal grants for the arts, but it refused, 67 to 27, to cut the budget of the agency that distributes the money. The first measure, by persistent NEA foe Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), tells the National Endowment for the Arts that no tax dollars can be used “to promote, disseminate or produce materials that depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual or excretory activities or organs.” It was added to a $12.7-billion bill to finance the Interior Department, the arts and humanities endowments, the U.S. Forest Service and some energy programs in the 1992 fiscal year. The overall bill later was approved, 93 to 3. The defeated measure would have trimmed the endowment’s funds by $17.4 million, or 13%, next year.