House Rejects Funding Bills Over Abortion, Mine Issues

The already problematic process of assembling a new federal budget slowed to a crawl Friday as the House overwhelmingly rejected two key funding bills because of concessions made to the more moderate Senate on abortion restrictions and Western mining.

The back-to-back votes, coming less than 48 hours before the 1996 fiscal year begins Sunday, creates new complications for Capitol Hill’s Republican majority as it attempts to put its conservative stamp on the spending plans of scores of federal agencies and programs. Although GOP leaders managed to avoid an immediate collision that could have caused a partial government shutdown, the votes suggest that Republicans are stumbling over divisions in their own ranks as they try to get final appropriations bills to President Clinton’s desk.

The House voted, 267 to 151, to reject a compromise worked out in a House-Senate conference committee on a Pentagon appropriations bill, largely because of abortion opponents’ complaints that a House anti-abortion provision had been watered down at the insistence of Senate conferees.

Earlier in the day, the House voted, 277 to 147, to reject an Interior Department appropriations bill because it emerged from conference without a House-approved provision to keep the government from awarding mining rights on federal land at what critics call bargain-basement prices.

Meanwhile, the Senate struggled to finish work on the 13 appropriation bills needed to finance the government during the new fiscal year. It managed to approve one key spending bill, a measure allocating funds to the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State, but action was still pending late Friday on a separate appropriation for Labor and Health and Human Services.

A day after shelving a big social spending bill in the face of Democratic opposition, Republican leaders portrayed debate on that and another large appropriation bill as virtually meaningless because they are sure to be vetoed by Clinton.

“These two bills are essentially dead,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said. “I’d like to remove them from the Senate chamber for last rites.”

Despite the backlog of unfinished budget business, the government will keep operating after midnight because Congress has approved a temporary funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, to keep money flowing at reduced levels until Nov. 13. That gives Congress and the White House six more weeks to resolve their differences over the budget.

But the unexpected problems encountered by Republicans as they attempted to finish work on the regular appropriations bills this week show just how hard it will be for them to satisfy the many different factions within their party.

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The defense bill controversy highlights divisions between the more conservative, confrontational breed of Republicans who dominate the House--especially its huge and feisty freshman class--and the more moderate Republicans who lead the House Appropriations Committee and dominate the Senate. Freshmen helped organize opposition to the bill because of its abortion language and because negotiators dropped language requiring the President to consult with Congress before using U.S. ground troops in Bosnia.

Some freshmen said they voted against the defense bill to send a signal to the Senate and to other GOP moderates that they are prepared to play hardball throughout this fall’s budget battles.

“This sends a message to the Senate that we’re not always going to back down over here,” said Rep. David M. McIntosh (R-Ind.), a leader of the freshman class. “That’s important for the dynamics of the rest of the budget negotiations.”

The $243-billion defense spending bill, which Clinton has threatened to veto as too costly, was rejected by an unlikely alliance of liberal Democrats who thought it provided too much for the Pentagon and Republican social conservatives infuriated by its failure to include an anti-abortion amendment sponsored by Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove).

The amendment, originally approved by the House but rejected by the Senate, would ban military personnel and their dependents from obtaining abortions at overseas military facilities, even if they pay for them. The legislation would restore a policy imposed under President Ronald Reagan but reversed by Clinton.

Under the rejected compromise bill, the abortion provision would take effect only if it is included in another defense measure, which is stalled on several issues.

Before Friday’s House floor vote, anti-abortion groups lobbied furiously against the bill--a campaign that outraged House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston (R-La.).

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“I am a 100% pro-lifer; I believe in the sanctity of life” but “I am not going to let that one issue come between me and protecting my constituents,” Livingston said, his voice quavering.

In the end, 130 Republicans broke ranks with their leaders and voted against the defense bill, which includes $493 million to extend production of the B-2 beyond the 20 airplanes that the Pentagon says are required. Its defeat is a setback for Northrop-Grumman, which had waged a long campaign to win the crucial production order.

Since some lawmakers opposed the bill because they think it provided too much for defense, its defeat could reopen the B-2 funding question. “It puts the bomber back on the table,” Rep. Jane Harman (D-Rolling Hills) said.

The issue that led to rejection of the Interior bill involved whether to continue a moratorium that for the last year has blocked the department from awarding to mining companies the rights to Western mineral deposits.

Under a law dating from 1872, mining companies have paid $2.50 to $5 an acre for the right to extract gold, copper, silver and other minerals, in what critics have called a federal government giveaway--in some cases to foreign mining firms.

The original appropriations measure passed by the House continued the ban for another year; the Senate version repealed it. The House-Senate conference committee sided with the Senate, infuriating House members who favor withholding the “patents” to mine.

The vote, which sends the bill back to conference, brought together Democrats who worry about the environmental impact of mining operations and fiscal conservatives who think the government is being shortchanged by private interests. The vote split the GOP: 91 Republicans, most of them Easterners, voted to send the bill back to conference; 137 Republicans, most of them from the West, voted to accept the bill.

Vice President Al Gore said last week that Clinton would veto the Interior Department measure as approved by the conference committee, in part because of the mining provision.

Late Friday, the Senate approved by voice vote the stopgap funding bill to keep money flowing to federal agencies until Nov. 13. The measure won House passage a day earlier.

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But Senate Republican leaders were still trying to finish action before the weekend to allow senators to join the House in a weeklong recess. GOP leaders pleaded with Democrats to allow quick action on the appropriation bill for Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.

But Democrats said they wanted to keep offering amendments to highlight the provisions that they and Clinton find objectionable. .

Approved in the pre-recess rush was a major funding bill that the President has vowed to veto: the appropriation for Commerce, Justice and State Department programs. Among other things, the bill would slash the U.S. contribution to the United Nations and dismantle some key anti-crime programs and subsidies for developing high-technology.

Action on the compromise legislation came on a voice vote after senators spent two days easing some of the spending cuts to which Clinton had objected earlier, including grants to help localities hire more police officers and funds to provide free legal services for the poor.

Even so, sponsors conceded that enough deep cuts remained--particularly in the State Department’s day-to-day operating budget and in U.S. contributions to U.N. peacekeeping activities--virtually to guarantee a presidential veto.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher warned Friday that the cuts the legislation would make in salaries and spending levels would force the Administration to close consulates and embassies and impair the nation’s ability to carry out U.S. foreign policy.

Times staff writers James Gerstenzang, Gebe Martinez, Art Pine and Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this story.