Senate Passes Defense Spending Measure

WASHINGTON —  The Senate approved a $287.4-billion defense spending bill Tuesday night after rejecting an effort to eliminate funds for more executive jets for admirals and generals.

The bill pays for Defense Department programs in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. It now must be reconciled with a House-passed version that is about $1 billion more expensive.

On a 65-to-32 vote, the Senate rejected an amendment by Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that would have stopped the Pentagon from leasing more executive jets for its top brass.

The Pentagon already leases six executive jets and wants $48.6 million for six more, Harkin said. “There is no justification for additional luxury jets to ferry generals and admirals around from meeting to meeting,” said Harkin.

But Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said the leasing program was an attempt to save taxpayers money “to lease aircraft instead of replacing them,” as do “most major businesses.”

The final Pentagon spending bill was then passed, 95 to 3. Voting no were Boxer, Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) and Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.). Not voting were Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.).

The Senate also voted, 84 to 14, to restrict the Pentagon’s use of powerful pesticides on installations where there are children present.

Boxer, the amendment’s author, said current rules on permissible levels of toxins “were set to protect essentially 155-pound men.”

Opponents suggested the measure would single out military bases for more stringent requirements than are in place at other federal sites.

Boxer said that the measure would put into law what is already Pentagon policy--and that she was trying to impose the same restrictions throughout the government but that “so far we have not had much luck moving that larger package.”

The measure would ban in areas where there may be children, such as schools and playgrounds, certain pesticides that contain cancer-causing agents and nerve toxins.

The Senate earlier accepted, by voice vote, a Boxer amendment to safeguard the privacy of military medical records.

Ruled out of order--because it did not involve defense spending directly--was an amendment by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that would ease rules governing high-speed computer exports.

Meanwhile, on a related issue, Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, suggested he may seek to withhold aid to Israel--or at least delay it--to protest Israel’s decision to sell advanced radar to China.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Monday urged Congress against any such linkage.

Israel is building a plane for China and equipping it with the U.S.-developed PHALCON airborne early warning radar system at a cost of $250 million.

Callahan has suggested that $2.8 billion in aid to Israel be cut by that $250 million.