Senate Vote Expected Today on Desert Bill : Politics: Leading Republican opponent agrees to Democrats’ motion on ending debate over Feinstein’s environmental measure.

With the clock ticking down, Senate Democrats scrambled Friday night for the 60 votes necessary to cut off a Republican filibuster against the California desert protection bill.

The legislation, which would preserve nearly 8 million acres of fragile California desert, passed the House early Friday on a voice vote. But it faces an uncertain future in the Senate as Congress rushed to adjourn for the year.

The Senate was to have adjourned Friday night, but Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) said he would keep the body in session “however long it takes” to dispose of the desert bill one way or the other.

That, according to Mitchell’s GOP counterpart, Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), could mean that the Senate may stay around until Tuesday or later.

Late Friday afternoon, Mitchell filed a cloture motion to end debate on the desert bill. And just before midnight, the bill’s lead opponent, Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.), agreed to allow a vote on the motion at 10 a.m. today. If it succeeds, passage of the bill seems virtually assured.

Earlier in the day, Democrats decried what they called Republican efforts to deny Democrats another legislative accomplishment, saying in particular that GOP senators were sacrificing ecologically fragile desert land to deny Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) a feather in her cap as she campaigns to retain her Senate seat in a tight race with Rep. Mike Huffington (R-Santa Barbara).

“This is what the American people mean by gridlock,” Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) fumed in a floor speech as Feinstein presided over the Senate. “I think it’s a shame.”

Feinstein sounded frustrated during a speech later in the evening, urging the bill’s adoption. “I have done everything one is supposed to do when one seeks legislation,” she said plaintively.

The bitterness that had come to enshroud the debate was such that by Friday night Wallop successfully demanded that Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt be escorted out of the Senate chamber, even though Babbitt has floor privileges because he heads a government department.

Babbitt had entered the chamber unobtrusively while Wallop was speaking and took a seat in the back among Senate aides--on the Republican side of the aisle.

“There is someone on the floor who is not authorized,” Wallop soon noted, asking that Babbitt be escorted out.

Minutes later, embarrassed Senate aides rushed out after Babbitt, with one telling him: “That was a mistake. You may go back on the floor. In fact, I wish you would.” Babbitt did.

After he left the floor again--on his own volition--Babbitt did not seem flustered. In fact, escorted out this time by Feinstein, he laughed about the incident.

The California Desert Protection Act would create two national parks and dozens of wilderness areas.

Under the legislation, the Death Valley and Joshua Tree national monuments would become national parks, and their lands would be expanded. Millions of acres of desert territory would be off-limits to mining and motorized recreation.