Houses OKs Defense Bill With Dornan Provisions

Setting up an election-year confrontation with President Clinton, the House on Wednesday passed a $267-billion defense authorization bill loaded with such hot-button provisions as a revival of the ban on homosexuals in the military, a requirement to discharge HIV-infected service personnel and a prohibition on the sale of skin magazines at base stores.

The White House said that Clinton would veto the bill unless it is toned down in the Senate.

The bill, approved by a 272-153 vote that largely followed party lines, would add $13 billion to Clinton’s budget request for the Defense Department, most of it for additional aircraft, ships, submarines, tanks and precision-guided munitions that the Pentagon says are not needed, at least not now.

The Senate version of the bill, approved earlier this month by the Armed Services Committee, also authorizes $267 billion in spending but either rejects or ignores most of the controversial social issues contained in the House measure.

With both the House and Senate measures authorizing $13 billion increases in the Pentagon budget, Congress has drawn a vivid line between the defense policies of the White House and the Republican-led Congress.

Republicans, joined by about one-third of the Democrats in the House, rejected Clinton’s plan to reduce total defense spending by about $10 billion during the fiscal year that starts next Oct. 1. They argued that the administration was trying to cut too deeply into the country’s post-Cold War military capacity.

Although the House bill is about $3 billion higher than the current year’s budget, it amounts to a 1.5% reduction when the numbers are adjusted for inflation.

But the House clouded the fiscal debate between the White House and Capitol Hill by approving a string of social provisions, many of them sponsored by Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), that give Clinton ample reason to veto the legislation without having to address the spending priorities.

The bill would reverse Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of allowing homosexuals to serve in uniform provided they keep quiet about their sexual orientation, by reinstating a flat ban on gay troops. It would require the services to discharge personnel infected with the AIDS virus. And it would prohibit post exchanges and other on-base stores from selling Playboy, Penthouse and other publications containing “sexually explicit material.”

The measure also would renew a provision, contained in previous defense authorization bills, prohibiting overseas military hospitals from performing abortions, except in cases of rape or incest or when the mother’s life is at stake.

The Senate committee’s version of the bill does not address the issue of gays in the military or the sale of sex magazines.

Lawmakers led by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) failed in their attempt to remove the ban on abortion in overseas military hospitals after 40 minutes of impassioned debate in the House.

But Rep. Peter G. Torkildsen (R-Mass.) said he and other moderate Republicans and Democrats plan to seek removal of that item, as well as the provision that would force discharge of military service members who test positive for the AIDS virus during a House-Senate conference on the defense spending package.

Staffers for Senate Republicans who oppose inclusion of the social agenda said they have gained assurances from the House GOP leadership that at least the AIDS provision would be eliminated.

States News Service contributed to this report.