Republican Budget Cuts Also Carve Out New Policies : Congress: Using appropriations to alter programs is nothing new, supporters maintain. But critics call the process ‘government by stealth.’

Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, instructed by congressional budget-makers to whack federal spending, are turning the belt-tightening process into an opportunity to make far-reaching changes in the way government programs work.

Spending bills now beginning to move through the House would do more than make deep cuts in social programs that Democrats and President Clinton hold dear. In many cases, they also would make major policy changes in the way agencies operate with the money that they do get.

Under bills approved this week by House subcommittees, for example, public housing authorities could charge poor tenants more in rent. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration would have to scale back its enforcement of workplace standards. Environmental regulations would be stopped in their tracks. Clinton’s hard-won education and national-service initiatives would be unceremoniously dismantled.

Those major policy changes, which in textbook workings of Congress would be the subject of public hearings and focused debate in committee, are being sandwiched into appropriation bills that finance scores of federal programs.

Supporters say the process puts the Republican revolution on a fast track. Critics say it enables broad changes in current law and policy to escape public scrutiny.

“We are totally changing the structure of HUD--what it does and how it does it,” Rep. Jim Chapman (D-Tex.) complained Monday night as a House Appropriations subcommittee approved a bill financing the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a broad array of other federal programs. “That might not get the debate and scrutiny that it merits.”

Republican appropriators say they are making many of these changes in close consultation with GOP lawmakers on the committees that oversee the programs. And they contend that the practice of changing policy through appropriations bills has been widely exploited by the Democrats when they were in the majority.

“This is not something new,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that handles spending for housing, space, the environment and veterans.

The GOP budget-balancing plan began to be fleshed out in the most vivid detail yet this week, when two House Appropriations subcommittees approved legislation covering a big chunk of the government’s social spending. The bills have a long way to go--to the full House, through the Senate and on to the White House--before they become law. But they provide a detailed first look at all that the Republicans have in mind.

Under the bill drafted by Lewis’ subcommittee, spending for HUD would be cut 23% to $19.1 billion. The Environmental Protection Agency’s budget would be cut by one-third, to less than $5 billion. Spared from such deep cuts were politically popular veterans programs and certain large space programs.

A second bill funding federal social programs would cut spending for the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education to $60.7 billion--some $9.3 billion less than was appropriated for the current fiscal year. That bill would eliminate 163 jobs programs in the Labor Department, including summer jobs for youth. Energy assistance for the poor would be terminated, as would some 50 education programs.

Taken together, the two subcommittee bills would decimate some of Clinton’s top personal priorities. They would provide no money for his Goals 2000 education reform initiative or for Americorps, his prized national-service program.

After the labor, health and education bill was approved in the early morning hours Wednesday, Democratic leaders accused the Republicans of trying to keep the details of their budget-balancing plan from close public scrutiny.

“What we have is government by stealth,” said House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.). “It’s being done at night. It’s being done quickly.”

In the environmental area, spending bills have been sprinkled with dozens of riders, mandates and prohibitions designed to make it difficult for new regulations to be drafted and for regulations on the books to be enforced.

The EPA’s budget for enforcement--which is at the heart of the agency’s powers--was cut by 40%, drawing howls of protest from EPA Administrator Carol Browner.

“This is the clearest evidence to date there is a concerted, systematic effort by Republicans to undermine public health and take away the tools we need to do the job the American people expect us to do,” Browner told The Times. “If what they want to do is change protections the American people have been promised, then they should do it in the daylight, not sneak into the appropriations process and slide favors for special interests into an appropriations bill.”

Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros lashed out against the housing appropriations bill, calling it “one of the deepest cuts in the department’s 30-year history.”

The bill would not only cut the HUD budget, it would also make major changes in the department’s flagship public housing programs. The ceiling on rents that can be charged to poor tenants in federally subsidized housing would be raised and a new minimum rent of $50 a month would be established.

Appropriations Committee Republicans also are proposing a major shift in emphasis at OSHA, a GOP whipping boy and thorn in the side of small businesses. The labor appropriations bill would cut OSHA’s overall budget by more than 15%, and call for a major shift in focus, away from enforcing standards and toward helping employers comply with them voluntarily.

Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this story.