Clinton Plucks $20 Million Out of 2 Spending Bills

A cemetery for veterans and an underground emergency center were among 10 government projects worth $20 million that President Clinton eliminated Saturday with his line-item veto.

The projects were tiny parts of huge spending bills. The White House said seven were cut from a $69-billion measure financing veteran, housing, environmental and other programs. The other three were tweezed out of a $42-billion transportation bill.

An Alabama Republican immediately attacked as “a dreadful mistake” the decision to cut a $450,000 appropriation for the emergency center in Arab, Ala. The central Alabama town is in a tornado-prone area, where Sen. Richard C. Shelby said at least 59 people have died in storms in the past 10 years.

Combined, the vetoes would save $1.9 billion over the next five years--a tiny percentage of almost $9 trillion in federal spending over that period.

The administration said the projects were being cut because they duplicated other government projects, were ineligible for funding or were not needed.

Among seven projects worth $14 million cut from the veterans administration bill:

* A veterans cemetery at Ft. Sill Military Reservation in Oklahoma. The facility is not needed, the administration said, because the Department of Veterans Affairs just opened one cemetery and will open four others in the next two years. The veto will save $900,000 in 1998.

* A police training facility, also in Arab, that would have cost $15,000.

Clinton whittled three projects out of the $42-billion transportation bill: a $5.3-million railroad dock project in Alaska, a $500,000 project providing funds to private companies to set up an electronic bulletin board for surplus transit equipment and the emergency center.