Senate OKs Budget, but Ties Up on 2 Bills

The Senate Monday approved an omnibus budget bill to fund many government agencies during the new fiscal year, but efforts to adjourn the 104th Congress stalled over a pair of measures opposed by senators on behalf of constituents.

Less than six hours before fiscal year 1997 began at midnight, senators avoided a repeat of last year’s government shutdowns by voting, 84 to 15, for the budget bill. The House had approved an identical bill on Saturday. President Clinton signed the measure Monday night.

The House wrapped up its work and adjourned so that its members could go home and campaign for reelection. That left the Senate with little choice but to adopt legislation as the House had passed it or let it die. House members were in no mood to return to Washington to consider amendments voted by the Senate.

The Senate’s hopes to get out of town were dashed by challenges to provisions contained in two separate and noncontroversial bills--the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration and the expansion of the national parks system.

The FAA dispute, which delayed final passage of a $19.5-billion bill that would increase anti-terrorism measures at airports and provide money for construction projects, centered on opposition by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) to a measure that would make it more difficult for unions to organize employees of Federal Express.

Calling it “special interest legislation of the worst kind” secretly put into the bill by GOP leaders intent on punishing organized labor, Kennedy promised to argue the matter under Senate rules for as long as it takes to kill the provision.

Kennedy exercised his right to demand that the clerk of the Senate read the entire 122-page bill, a process that would take about 4 1/2 hours.

That drew the ire of Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), who admitted trying to help Federal Express by offering the provision. “No Republican put this in,” Hollings said. “Democrat Hollings put it in. And it wasn’t sneaked in or jammed in.”

A beleaguered Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) urged the senators to resolve the matter quickly. “We cannot leave until we get the FAA done,” Lott said, noting that the FAA reauthorization is critical to airline safety.

The parks bill, by contrast, poses no threat to the public but would have provided lawmakers with a bit of political largess for constituents back home.

But Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and sponsor of the legislation, opposed the House-approved version because it would delete a contract held by a timber company that has exclusive access to timber in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

Murkowski wants the bill to continue the contract, a provision that the House dropped because it feared it would cause Clinton to veto the entire bill.

Appearing at a morning news conference to discuss the status of pending Senate business, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) patted a foot-high stack of papers that made up the omnibus spending bill that would be passed later in the day. It provides $356 billion to pay for domestic programs and $244 billion for defense. “This is as good as it’s going to get,” Daschle said.

Contained in the fiscal 1997 spending bill are funds for nine federal Cabinet departments and other agencies.

Among the allotments in the budget are $1 billion for the Drug Enforcement Administration; $3.1 billion for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, to be used for new agents and detention facilities; and $283 million for the Legal Services Corp.

Also included is $58.7 million in federal funds for the Alameda Corridor, a system of rail and truck routes from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to rail yards Downtown. That money is to be used to leverage loans of $400 million from other lenders to build the transportation link.

A dispute over another project forced the Alameda Corridor project from the Transportation Department appropriations bill, which Congress sent to Clinton separately. But California lawmakers were able to get the funds included in the omnibus appropriations bill.

Times staff writer James Bornemeier contributed to this story.