Defense, Foreign Aid Funds Pass; Energy Bill Stalls

Congress gave final approval Monday to defense and foreign aid appropriations but hit a major roadblock on a landmark energy bill that may keep the Senate in session until Thursday.

House leaders said that they hoped to wrap up the second session of the 102nd Congress in pre-dawn hours today, freeing members facing reelection to go home and campaign in the final four weeks before Election Day.

Sponsors abandoned efforts Monday to pass legislation to expand fetal tissue research and to impose a five-day waiting period for the purchase of handguns--the so-called “Brady bill”--because of entrenched opposition and time constraints.

Efforts to reauthorize $30 billion in federal housing aid and to pass a $28-billion tax and urban aid bill appeared likely to succeed in the adjournment crush. A bill to make carjacking--the taking of automobiles by force from drivers--a federal crime, also appeared likely to win passage.

The Senate finished work on the last of 13 regular appropriation bills early Monday evening and sent them to the President, who is expected to sign them. Democratic leaders had pared the bills down and took out provisions opposed by Bush to avoid 11th-hour vetoes.

Despite acrimonious debate, a sentimental note was sounded in tributes to the nearly 100 members of the House who will not return next session because of retirements or primary defeats.

And, in a comic note, a janitor mistakenly put original copies of 13 bills into the trash. After staffers dug around in the mounds of Capitol Hill garbage, both the Senate and House ordered their clerks to prepare duplicates of the legislation, which apparently had already been sent to a landfill.

At times, the lawmakers acted with rare speed, with the House taking less than five minutes to approve a $254-billion appropriation bill for the Pentagon by voice vote. When it came to approving $2.3 billion to finance Congress’ own work, however, the Senate approved the funds on a 68-30 roll call--a far longer procedure.

Highlights of the long day:

ENERGY--After two days of maneuvering by Nevada’s two-member delegation, which delayed a final vote, the House overwhelmingly approved a landmark energy bill designed to reduce oil consumption by promoting conservation and the use of nuclear power and renewable fuels. The vote was 363 to 60. The bill was sent to the Senate.

Reps. James H. Bilbray (D-Nev.) and Barbara F. Vucanovich (R-Nev.) argued that one provision in the 1,300-page bill would virtually guarantee that a prospective Yucca Mountain site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would become a nuclear waste dump for the nation. Nevada’s Democratic senators, Richard H. Bryan and Harry Reid, have threatened to filibuster the bill in the upper chamber. As a result, Senate leaders tentatively have arranged a Thursday session in an effort to overcome the talkathon and pass the energy bill.

FETAL RESEARCH--The Senate gave up efforts to pass a controversial bill to nullify a Bush Administration ban on federal funding of research using fetal tissue from induced abortions. The Senate had voted, 85 to 12, Saturday to shut off debate on the underlying bill, but determined opponents refused to halt their delaying tactics in the closing hours of the session.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) accused proponents of the bill of trying to embarrass President Bush by sending him another measure that he would be forced to veto because of his belief that expanded fetal research would encourage abortions. But Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) countered that the “greatest reason for hope” was that the Democratic presidential nominee, Bill Clinton, had promised to lift the ban if he is elected in November.

DEFENSE--The House and Senate swiftly approved the $254-billion defense appropriation despite angry protests by California Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Riverside) and others that it contained $94 million for grants to colleges and universities that the House had voted to eliminate from another bill only a few days earlier. Brown and his House allies lost their fight to send the bill back to committee to knock out the alleged pork by a vote of 250 to 171, and the measure then sailed through on a voice vote.

The bill earmarks $3.8 billion for the President’s Strategic Defense Initiative, known as “Star Wars,” or $1.6 billion less than Bush requested. It also allocates $4 billion to finish building 20 B-2 bombers, far below the 132-plane fleet that the President once proposed.

HOUSING--The House passed a $30-billion federal housing aid bill to reauthorize programs designed to provide more affordable rental units and homes through a mixture of government matching funds and loan guarantees. The vote, 377 to 37, reflected broad bipartisan backing for the measure, which would endorse some of the home ownership initiatives promoted by Housing Secretary Jack Kemp. Democrats, however, said it was only a “down payment” on legislation that should be passed in the 1990s to revive federal housing programs.

FOREIGN AID--Despite the unpopularity of foreign aid in an election year, the House voted, 312 to 105, for a $14-billion overseas spending bill that includes a U.S. guarantee for $10 billion in loans to Israel to help resettle Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union. It zipped through the Senate on a voice vote.

BRADY BILL--Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) again tried to bring up legislation to impose a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases, but he ran into Republican objections and finally gave up. Mitchell urged Bush to intervene and save the bill, which is named for former White House Press Secretary James Brady, who was severely wounded during the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

As the midnight hour approached, neither the Senate nor the House had started work on a $28-billion tax bill, including urban aid provisions, that was one of the final pieces of legislation to be considered by Congress this year. Even if it is passed, however, it could run into a veto by Bush, who has declined to say whether he would sign it.