SENATE FIGHT SNAGS AID BILL FOR KOSOVO AND COLOMBIA

WASHINGTON, March 21 -- A $9 billion spending bill to help Colombia
combat drug traffickers and to pay for American military operations in
Kosovo is imperiled because of stiff opposition from Senator Trent
Lott, Republican of Mississippi, the majority leader, and fiscal
conservatives in the House and Senate. Mr. Lott said today that he did
not oppose the Kosovo and Colombia aid, but rather just the
legislative vehicle for it. He said the so-called emergency measure,
which is $3.8 billion larger than President Clinton had requested, had
become a magnet for pork-barrel spending.

"It is getting to be far too costly," Mr. Lott said, reiterating a
criticism that he has increasingly sounded for two weeks. "I've urged
all along that if we were going to do a supplemental, it be quick and
clean. It's not quick, and it's not clean."

Mr. Lott wants the antidrug assistance, Kosovo spending and other
domestic aid in the bill, including flood relief to farmers in North
Carolina, to be considered in the regular appropriations process this
spring. That effort tends to prune extraneous spending.

But supporters of the bill say it would delay urgent spending needs
until the start of the next fiscal year, on Oct. 1. The Pentagon, for
example, says it needs $2.8 billion by late April to pay for
unanticipated costs in Kosovo or the military will have to cut flying
hours, cancel training exercises and forgo maintenance, jeopardizing
military readiness.

Senate Democrats and Clinton administration officials seized on Mr.
Lott's new remarks and said his threat to bottle up the bill would
jeopardize foreign policy.

"It's irresponsible not to vote on a supplemental at a time when we're
browbeating the Europeans to do their share in Kosovo," Joseph R.
Biden Jr. of Delaware, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations
Committee, said of the Kosovo item.

Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, speaking about the aid to
Colombia, said, "Procrastination only increases the ultimate cost and
chances of failure."

Mr. Lott is also at odds with House Republican leaders, namely Speaker
J. Dennis Hastert, who has made aid to Colombia a top foreign policy
goal. The House Appropriations Committee this month approved $1.7
billion over two years to support Colombia's fragile democracy and to
help its military fight against drugs by reducing cocaine and heroin
production.

The House package, which added $500 million to the administration
request for money for Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, includes 30 Blackhawk
and 30 Huey helicopters for the Colombian Army and police forces and
$115.5 million for the national police. The House measure includes
$1.6 billion for the Pentagon to cover unanticipated costs because of
rising fuel prices.

"We think this supplemental has truly urgent content," said
Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the majority leader.

Mr. Hastert and Mr. Lott are scheduled to meet on Wednesday to try to
iron out their differences. But even House leaders postponed a floor
vote on the spending until after the House had resolved a battle on
its budget plan for next year.

"The speaker's intent is good, and I support drug interdiction, but
this needs a good airing," said Representative Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma
Republican who has led a group of fiscal conservatives in opposing the
spending bill.

Mr. Coburn has analyzed the bill, which he says is laced with examples
of spending that are not emergencies at all like $75 million for NASA
programs and $16 million to speed environmental cleanups in
Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.

The fallout has spread to the Senate, where the Appropriations
Committee had been scheduled to vote on the spending bill this week,
but has postponed action until the House acts.

"We're in for a real fight on the supplemental," said Senator Gordon
H. Smith, Republican of Oregon. "It's so open ended and such a large
number."