SPENDING BILL CLEARED MINUS CUBA PROVISION

The House gave final approval last night to an $11.2 billion emergency
spending package after Democratic senators forced GOP leaders to abandon
plans to include compromise language easing economic sanctions against Cuba.

Congress has spent the better part of four months dickering over funds
requested by the White House for troops in Kosovo, anti-drug efforts in
Colombia and disaster relief. The House adopted the package, 306 to 110,
and the Senate was expected to approve it today.

The final package includes $1.3 billion earmarked for Colombia and other
Andean countries for their war on drugs and $6.4 billion for the military,
including $2 billion to replenish operating funds used for Kosovo. There is
also $361 million for relief from Hurricane Floyd and other disasters, $661
million for the damage a New Mexico forest fire caused to homes and the
national laboratory at Los Alamos, $600 million for low-income heating
assistance and $700 million for the Coast Guard.

While approval of the emergency funding was assured late yesterday
afternoon, after final talks between House and Senate leaders, Republicans
will have to find another legislative vehicle for the Cuban sanctions
agreement after they return from the Fourth of July recess.

The compromise plan for easing economic sanctions against Cuba that House
Republicans worked out earlier this week was dropped from the package after
Senate Democrats critical of the plan threatened a filibuster.

The dispute pitted Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Byron L. Dorgan
(D-N.D.) against House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who helped
negotiate the compromise for allowing the sale of food and medicine to Cuba
for the first time in nearly 40 years.

Dodd and Dorgan contend the terms of the agreement are too restrictive
– denying Cuba access to U.S. credit or private loans – and would
do little to open Cuba to U.S. grain sales. Dodd also strongly objects to a
provision that turns current restrictions on travel to Cuba into law.

"The agreement is a political fig leaf that's not going to result in our
ability to sell food to Cuba," Dorgan said. "And it's a step backwards in
terms of travel."

Hastert vowed to retain the Cuba language but backed off after Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) advised him there was no way they
could get around the filibuster until after the recess.

Dodd's state has an economic stake in the bill's passage because the
measure would provide $234 million to purchase 18 Blackhawk helicopters to
be used by Colombia's army and national police in their drug interdiction
campaign. The Blackhawks are manufactured by United Technologies Corp. of
Hartford, Conn.

Meanwhile, environmentalists and Clinton officials complained about the
Republicans' decision to insert language at the last minute to block the
Environmental Protection Agency from implementing rules aimed at cleaning
up the nation's waterways.