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Fourteen months after Sens. Dianne Feinstein, DCalif.,
and Al D'Amato, RN.Y., embarked on a bipartisan effort to
call attention to the growing problem of narcotics
smuggling from Mexico, the Senate has given Congress more
leverage in conducting the war on drugs. What began as a
lonely campaign in January 1996 by two senators from
opposite ends of the country to get tough with Mexico
culminated this week in a nearunanimous vote by the
Senate. The bill passed Thursday holds the administration
accountable for efforts to stem the scourges of drug
trafficking and drug consumption at home.

When Feinstein and D'Amato first got together to
complain about Mexico, Colombia was the focus of the
nation's concern about drugs. Now, according to federal
drug agents, Mexico has emerged as the chief foreign
criminal and narcotics threat to the United States.

Although President Clinton's Feb. 28 annual
certification of Mexico as fully cooperating in fighting
drugs remains in place under the Senate action, the
legislation provides a new mechanism aimed at allowing
Congress to pressure the administration for more than talk.

If the Senate action is approved by the House, the
administration will have to report to Congress by Sept. 1
on progress made by the U.S. and Mexican governments on
implementing certain specific steps to combat drugs. And if
there is no action, the Senate has vowed to oppose
certification a year from now. Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, RN.C., says the measure
will give both Clinton and Mexico ''an opportunity for
redemption.''

Indeed, the reporting requirement is aimed at forcing
the administration to reveal, for instance, what progress
has been made in deploying more Border Patrol officers and
whether Mexico has begun extraditing drug criminals to the
U.S.

Furthermore, the legislation would require the
administration to report on how the drug battle is being
waged throughout the entire Western Hemisphere. This
reflects the view that if the drug trade is stopped in one
nation it will just move to another.

''Technically,'' explained, Sen. Paul Coverdell, RGa.,
cosponsor of the measure with Feinstein, ''this will cause
the administration to come to Congress and demonstrate to
us that they have renewed this battle against drugs not
only in the hemisphere but in the United States.''

D'Amato, characteristically, expressed himself more
pungently. The administration, he said, no longer will be
able to ''make niceycq, niceycq'' toward Mexico. Feinstein
acknowledged that the administration may be able to evade
the legislation's requirements, depending on what action it
takes and how it chooses to report to Congress.

If the White House does fail to respond to the
legislation's intent, Feinstein said, it will face serious
consequences.

''This is either the first step to a new partnership in
fighting drugs,'' she said, or it is ''the first step in a
major debate on decertifying Mexico'' next year.

For some members of Congress the controversy over
Clinton's decision to recertify Mexico is symptomatic of
grave problems with the entire certification process

Under a 1986 law, the president each year must certify
whether major drugproducing and drugtrafficking nations
are cooperating with antinarcotics efforts.
Decertification means losing most U.S. aid.

''It is clear to me that the present situation with
Mexico demonstrates that the law, itself, simply does not
work,'' said Rep. Lee Hamilton, DInd., ranking minority
member of the House International Relations Committee.
Certification, Hamilton explained, ''is a blunt instrument
that provides the president only limited and inflexible
options that may not coincide with broader U.S.
interests.''

While the revelations of widespread corruption in
Mexico's law enforcement agencies shows a lack of full
cooperation in fighting drugs, decertification could
endanger what bilateral cooperation does exist.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, DConn., declared that ''''we
ought to scrap this certification process and try to come
up with some alternative that would allow us to develop''
more effective ''partnerships'' with other nations ''in our
own hemisphere.''

But it is the certification process, ineffective or not,
that has led to the present debate about Mexico.

''Only by virtue of the process have we made the
judgments with regard to Mexico that lead us to understand
the dire circumstances we find ourselves in today,'' said
Sen. John F. Kerry, DMass.