House prepares to pass $383 billion defense bill

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans pushed on Thursday for approval of the biggest increase in military spending in a generation to help fight the war on terrorism, including money for a new mobile artillery cannon the Pentagon doesn't want.

Lawmakers moved toward a vote even as Democrats fumed about provisions in the $383 billion measure outlining 2003 defense spending that would exempt the military from major environmental laws.

Across Capitol Hill, the Senate Armed Services Committee completed work on its defense authorization bill behind closed doors. Senate lawmakers agreed to about $1 billion less in missile defense spending than President Bush requested and put off their debate over the politically popular $11 billion Crusader cannon until next week, Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters.

The White House Budget Office said President Bush's advisers would recommend a veto if the spending bill tells him not to cancel the artillery system.

The House's Republican leaders beat back a Democratic attempt to force votes on the environmental provisions and on various other proposals concerning U.S. nuclear weapons policy, base closures and missile defense.

While lamenting the lack of wider discussion, Democrats mindful of the war on terror were eager to show support for the overall bill's increased military spending.

"This legislation will allow us to wage war effectively in the year ahead," said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., but "this is symptomatic of a pattern we have seen in the last few months, with a majority that wants to close down debate on issues that are critical to the American people."

Republicans argued the rules for debate were fair, and the measure answered the nation's military needs in time of war. House Armed Services Chairman Bob Stump, R-Ariz., said the bill provides the largest real increase in Pentagon spending, in inflation-adjusted dollars, since 1966.

"We are starting to dig out of the budget hole we created after 13 years of budget cuts," Stump said.

Democratic proposals to prohibit the use of nuclear bombs on deeply buried military facilities and bar spending on space-based national missile defense programs were defeated on largely party-line votes. Lawmakers did agree to squeeze the missile defense budget to boost funding for land-based interceptors.

Further debate was expected on a Democratic amendment to allow female troops posted overseas to obtain privately paid abortions at military hospitals.

To express displeasure at being denied the chance to raise other issues, Democrats repeatedly engineered time-consuming procedural votes that dragged the day's business late into the evening.

The blueprint for military spending by the Pentagon and nuclear weapons-related programs at the Energy Department roughly matches Bush's request to Congress for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. A $10 billion reserve fund proposed by the White House for future war costs is contained in separate legislation. Taken together, the two bills would provide an increase of about $50 billion, or 15 percent, over what Congress authorized for 2002.

Sen. John Warner of Virginia, the top Republican on the Senate panel, criticized the House plan to tap the $10 billion war contingency fund for $3.7 billion.

Warner said he and Levin will abide by a commitment not to tap the contingency fund. The White House wanted to use it for unspecified war needs without prior congressional approval.

The House legislation would authorize accelerated development of unmanned surveillance planes and billions for a new generation of stealth jet fighters and fighting terrorism.