Bill to Abolish Foreign Affairs Agencies OKd

The House voted Wednesday to abolish two independent foreign affairs agencies, transferring their responsibilities to the State Department, as part of a $6.1-billion authorization bill festooned with congressional mandates ranging from family planning to declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

The measure was approved on a voice vote after more than a week of off-and-on debate over specific provisions, some of which are strongly opposed by the Clinton administration.

But the overall State Department reorganization plan has been accepted by President Clinton, who opposed a similar initiative last year.

The reorganization would abolish the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency on Oct. 1, 1998, and the U.S. Information Agency a year later. Administrative activities of the Agency for International Development would also be merged into the State Department.

Although backers of the measure predicted that it would save money and increase efficiency, administration officials said most of the two agencies’ programs and personnel would simply be transferred to the State Department.

The bill’s immediate effect would be its requirement that the agencies report to the secretary of State instead of directly to the president.

The authorization bill now goes to the Senate, where the Foreign Relations Committee plans today to take up a version sponsored by committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.).

Meanwhile, administration officials sought to renegotiate parts of a legislative package already approved by Helms and the committee’s senior Democrat, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, offering the United Nations $819 million to pay off Washington’s debt to the world body, which both the administration and the U.N. peg at more than $1.1 billion.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said the plan is a step toward ending the United States’ status as the “world’s leading deadbeat,” but he added that the details had not been worked out.

The administration has not yet agreed to the formula for paying off the back dues at about 75 cents on the dollar, he said.

But Helms insisted that the package was being offered to both the administration and the United Nations on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

Helms’ committee plans to include the U.N. funding provisions in the same bill as the State Department reorganization.

The Helms proposal requires the world organization to accept the $819 million as payment in full for all U.S. debts.

A U.N. official said only about $600 million would go to the regular U.N. budget, while the rest would be earmarked for other funds.

The measure would also require the United Nations to reduce the U.S. share of the world body’s budget from the current 25% to 22% in 1998 and then 20% in 1999 and beyond. The bill would also impose a series of conditions on the U.N., such as requiring the organization to open its books to inspection by the General Accounting Office, the auditing arm of Congress, and prohibiting it from convening global conferences outside of New York, Geneva, Rome or Vienna. It would also cut foreign aid to nations whose U.N. diplomats fail to pay their New York City parking tickets.

In addition, the plan would require the U.N. to cut its budget for the 1998-99 cycle below current spending levels and reduce the number of U.N. employees.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) told a news conference Wednesday that U.S. dues to the United Nations are a contractual obligation and should not be subject to conditions.

Moreover, he said, much of the debt is owed not to the U.N. organization but to U.S. allies for peacekeeping operations. For instance, he said, the United States owes France $60 million and Britain $41 million.

Lugar, the second-ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said he will try to change the measure when the panel meets today.

The House bill would increase spending on foreign affairs and diplomacy by about $200 million over this year’s budget, reversing a decade-long slide in spending. However, it is $228 million less than Clinton requested. The authorization measure sets the ceiling for spending. Actual appropriations will come to a vote later.

Foreign aid will be handled in a separate bill.

The House authorization bill gave lawmakers a chance to write their own policy agendas into law, and few could resist the temptation.

The bill would ban family planning aid to private groups that have anything to do with abortion, declares Jerusalem to be the undivided capital of Israel, orders the United States to move its embassy there and prohibits all aid to Russia if it sells missiles to China. The administration strongly opposes all of those provisions.