In what may be an ominous sign for smooth and easy passage of remaining appropriations bills, the House Thursday night overwhelmingly rejected a rule on the Treasury-Postal conference report, with conservatives and Democrats protesting three contentious riders on the measure.
The House rejected the rule, 294 to 106, a move that likely will recommit the measure to the conference committee.
House conservatives were unhappy with a provision that would guarantee that federal employee health plans provide contraceptive benefits.
Democrats protested a provision that would require a four-vote majority vote among the FEC commissioners to retain the general counsel and executive director.
Finally, some House members were upset with a provision that would provide green cards for certain Haitian refugees.
One House Republican aide said GOP leaders may have underestimated Democratic feelings about the FEC provision.
"I don't think they thought they'd have that much opposition from the Democratic side," the aide said.
Democrats made it clear they did not oppose the funding levels in the bill. The Treasury-Postal measure has proven to be a difficult one to pass. During the summer, the House defeated the first rule on the bill.
Other spending bills moved more smoothly Thursday. House and Senate negotiators struck agreements on global warming and public housing as members raced through another of the overdue spending bills for the new fiscal year, the Associated Press reported.
The global warming and public housing language was included in the $93.5 billion VA-HUD measure financing veterans, housing and environmental programs for FY99.
The international climate treaty negotiated in Kyoto last December, which the Senate has not ratified, has produced a backlash among some members, who expressed fear that President Clinton would begin to implement its restrictions.
The Kyoto treaty calls on industrialized countries to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gases, mainly by slowing down the growing amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels.
Earlier this year, the House approved language prohibiting the administration from trying to "develop, propose or issue" regulations implementing the treaty.
Compromise language bargainers agreed to Thursday dropped the word "develop" and made another minor change, slightly easing the earlier House-approved restrictions.
In the same bill, the negotiators tentatively agreed to an overhaul of the country's 60-year-old public housing laws.
To move toward demands made by Clinton, the Republican-written compromise would allow fewer working poor people into public housing than the earlier Republican legislation.
Also included were $283 million for housing vouchers for 50,000 poor families, which Democrats said was a major concession.
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