
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 20, 1990                   TAG: 9006200298
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

HOUSE UPS BUSH'S ANTE ON SPENDING

The House ignored Republican protests and began appropriating money Tuesday for the next fiscal year despite the lack of an overall spending and tax accord with the White House.

Its first step: raising by $350 million what President Bush would spend on environmental cleanup of the nation's atomic-weapons complex next year and launching 25 new water projects opposed by the administration.

On a 355-59 vote, the House approved a $20.8 billion energy and water spending bill that is $575 million more than Bush requested in his proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

The amounts appropriated almost certainly will have to be trimmed once the administration and congressional leaders agree on a budget for the new year. The Senate has not passed its version of the bill yet.

The bill also increases by some $400 million what Bush wanted to spend on 637 water projects. But it also grants his request for $318 million to begin construction of a massive $8 billion atom smasher in Texas.

Amendments calling for across-the-board cuts of 10.5 percent, 5 percent or 2 percent were overwhelmingly defeated.

The bulk of the money - $10.9 billion - would go to maintaining the Energy Department's vast atomic-weapons complex, including $3.3 billion for environmental cleanups around nuclear warhead manufacturing plants.

That is 15 percent more than Bush requested and 66 percent above what is being spent this year on cleanup, an effort expected to cost between $50 billion and $200 billion over the next 20 years.

Also approved was a $1.3 million amendment to continue helping foreign countries convert their research reactors from highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium to a lower-grade, proliferation-proof commercial-power variety.

Bush wanted to scuttle the program, which in recent years has helped cut U.S. exports of bomb-grade uranium from 1,500 pounds to about 300 pounds.

Republicans failed on a 260-157 vote to block consideration of the bill until after the White House and congressional leaders reach a deficit-cutting agreement next year.

by CNB