House GOP Begins Drive to Slash Social Spending : Congress: Debate starts with bill to cut housing programs, EPA. Republican moderates may break ranks.

WASHINGTON — Moving toward a vision of a smaller, less powerful federal government, the conservative-led Congress has opened debate on legislation to dismantle the edifice of housing, environmental and other social programs that touch the lives of millions of Americans.

The House is expected to vote today on a far-reaching spending bill that would slash funding for federal housing programs by one-fifth, cut the Environmental Protection Agency budget by one-third and block enforcement of major anti-pollution regulations.

And next week, the House will take up another appropriations bill even more breathtaking in its sweep through the federal bureaucracy. The measure would abolish more than 170 education and labor programs--including programs to help the poor pay their energy bills and find summer jobs--and rein in the power of agencies that regulate workplace safety and labor-management relations.

This is an important milestone in the Republicans’ audacious new agenda in Congress. So far, much of the action on Capitol Hill has focused on the more legalistic and ideological issues, such as religion in schools, the line-item presidential veto and regulatory reform. These two social-spending bills, by contrast, are at the core of the conservative effort to cut back the government’s budget, size and authority.

The bills also pose the toughest test yet of Republican leaders’ ability to hold onto the support of GOP moderates, many of whom have threatened to oppose the two measures because of anti-abortion riders and provisions to relax environmental regulations.

“We are slowly and methodically--and with a fair amount of exhaustion--moving to reshape the federal government,” House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said of the work on the 13 appropriations bills needed to finance the government.

Two of the largest and most controversial appropriations bills are those that provide the largest chunk of social spending: the housing and environment bill that came before the House on Thursday and another to finance the Labor Department, the Health and Human Services Department and the Education Department. That bill is scheduled to go to the floor next week.

There is a long way to go before the bills become law. They must go through the Senate, where moderate Republicans have more influence and are likely to rearrange spending priorities. And they must be signed by President Clinton, who has vowed to veto both unless they are substantially changed.

But while Senate Republicans and the Administration may win modifications around the edges, it will be hard for them to change the broad parameters of the spending bills, which are set by the balanced-budget plan already adopted by Congress.

If Clinton vetoes either of the bills, House Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston (R-La.) said, “we’re going to make some cosmetic changes and come back with fundamentally the same bill.”

But first House Republican leaders face a more immediate political challenge, as they have had to scramble to shore up support among their own troops in the House. Many moderate Republicans have threatened to oppose the labor, health and education bill because of provisions that would eliminate federal funding for family planning and allow states to cut off Medicaid funding for abortions in cases of rape or incest.

GOP leaders have promised moderates in their party that they will be allowed to offer amendments changing those anti-abortion provisions during next week’s floor debate. But the efforts to appease moderates on the abortion issue is sparking opposition from anti-abortion forces, which may drive GOP leaders to postpone action on the bill.

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Gingrich and other GOP leaders tried to head off a similar mutiny on the housing and environment bill. Soon after the measure was brought to the floor Thursday, the House approved an amendment restoring $685 million for housing and veterans programs--a change backed by the leadership to win support from moderate Republicans who objected to the deep cuts made in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But even with that additional money, the bill would still cut the HUD budget from $25 billion this year to $20 billion in fiscal 1996.

Republican moderates also opposed the bill’s environmental provisions. It would cut the EPA budget from $7.2 million this year to $4.9 million next year and would block the agency from enforcing regulations aimed at protecting wetlands, setting standards for drinking water and other anti-pollution measures that conservatives say are classic examples of regulatory overreach.

Those provisions have drawn fire not only on environmental grounds, but because critics say that such major policy changes are being shielded from public and legislative scrutiny by being sandwiched into a sweeping appropriations bill.

“This appropriations bill is no less than a back-door attempt to rewrite--and in many cases repeal--the nation’s environmental statutes,” said Reps. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) and Louis Stokes (D-Ohio) in a letter seeking support for an amendment to drop the provisions.

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The bill includes a total of about $79 billion for HUD, the EPA and a hodgepodge of other agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration--about $10.5 billion less than was appropriated for those agencies this year.

While the measure makes deep cuts in HUD and the EPA, it would maintain current levels of funding for the Veterans Affairs Department--an agency whose budget has been deemed inviolable because of the political clout of the veterans lobby. And the bill would make a relatively modest cut, from $14.7 billion this year to $13.7 billion in fiscal 1996, in NASA’s budget. That includes $5.4 billion for the space station and other human space flight projects.

Democrats assailed GOP spending priorities during Thursday’s debate. “This bill is a polluters’ bonanza,” said Rep. Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.).

Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), offered an amendment that would transfer $1.6 billion from the space station to veterans’ medical benefits, housing assistance and other NASA projects. Obey and his allies said the current budget crunch makes human space exploration a luxury.

The amendment was rejected, 299 to 126, after opponents--including members from California and other states with financial stakes in the space station--argued that eliminating that project would undercut public support for the entire agency.

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