House Gives Solid Backing to $270.5-Billion Defense Measure

The House voted solid approval Thursday for a compromise $270.5-billion defense bill that would raise military pay by 3.6%, support President Clinton’s decision to keep U.S. troops in Bosnia and impose new curbs on satellite exports.

The bill supports the Pentagon’s practice not to separate the sexes for basic training in the Army, Navy and Air Force, although the legislation requires that bathroom and sleeping areas be separated. The Marine Corps’ boot camp trains men and women separately.

Originally, the House had voted for separate-sex training and living quarters.

The compromise bill, hammered out by House and Senate negotiators, is $2.6 billion less than 1998 levels when adjusted for inflation. Approved in the House 373-50, it next goes to the Senate.

The legislation would return to the State Department jurisdiction over satellite export licenses, such as those approved for China.

Effective next March, that provision would overturn Clinton’s decision in 1996 to lodge the authority in the Commerce Department. The realignment is at the center of Republican-led inquiries into whether the satellite export process has been politicized or jeopardized national security.

The bill would also require congressional approval for future satellite-technology exports to China, but House-Senate negotiators dropped a ban on such exports that the House initially passed.