Agreement Reached on Defense Budget

House and Senate negotiators reached final agreement on a $270.5-billion defense budget that supports President Clinton’s decision to keep U.S. forces in Bosnia, gives the military a 3.6% pay raise and imposes new restrictions on the export of U.S. missile technology. The compromise backed away from a ban on exporting satellites to China that had passed the House. But the legislation would return jurisdiction over such sales to the State Department by March, overturning Clinton’s 1996 decision to lodge the authority in the Commerce Department. That realignment is at the center of Republican-led inquiries into whether the satellite export process had been politicized--and national security put into jeopardy.