Nick of Time

ust hours before the fiscal year ended, the Senate Monday night passed -- and President Clinton later signed -- the FY97 omnibus appropriations conference report that provides some $600 billion for discretionary and entitlement programs for large portions of the federal government.

The Senate approved the spending package, which also includes immigration reform legislation, on an 84-15 vote around 6:30 p.m. The House had passed it 370-37 Saturday night. However, the Senate remained tied up in knots over the separate FAA authorization bill and parks legislation, delaying sine die adjournment.

Clinton around 10 p.m. signed the appropriations package, which includes the Defense, Labor-HHS, Commerce-Justice-State, Foreign Operations, Interior and Treasury-Postal appropriations bills. "This bill is good for America, and I am pleased that my administration could fashion it with Congress on a bipartisan basis," Clinton said in a statement. "It moves us further toward our goal of a balanced budget, while protecting our values and priorities."

Also Monday night, Clinton signed the Energy and Water and Transportation appropriations bills, which earlier had been sent to the White House. He previously had signed the Military Construction, Legislative Branch, Agriculture, District of Columbia and VA-HUD appropriations bills.

After days of intense negotiations between appropriators and the administration on the spending package, Monday's Senate vote was somewhat anti-climactic, with much of the debate time taken up with extraneous subjects. In a closing statement, Senate Majority Leader Lott applauded appropriators and others for passing the legislation before funding for many federal agencies expired. "We got the work done," he said. Lott paid particular tribute to Senate Appropriations subcommittee chairmen and their ranking members, saying, "They had to make compromises and they're not very happy about some of them."

Senate passage came after Democratic senators earlier Monday agreed not to offer any amendments to the appropriations measure. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., over the weekend had said Democrats wanted to reserve the right to offer amendments if they found provisions they did not like. But after a Senate Democratic caucus Monday, Daschle said Democrats would not offer amendments and entered into a unanimous consent agreement to have the vote some six hours before the end of the fiscal year. White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta had attended the caucus to urge Democrats against trying to amend the measure. The bill contains some $6.5 billion in extra domestic spending which Democrats said was essential to making it acceptable.