950809

Legislative

stalement in

US Senate

intensifies

WASHINGTON: With Defence Authorization Bill still hanging fire due to current bipartisan tussle over Republican legislative measures, Senate majority leader Bob Dole on Tuesday postponed debate on another bill on welfare reforms initiated by him.

Senate sources said behind-the-Senate negotiations between Republican and Democratic leaders to smooth over difference on legislative process continued. The prospects of hammering out an agreement before the Senate begins its August recess this week-end, however, were dim. The Senate will resume session on September 5 and a Dole aide hoped a bipartisan arrangement could be worked out by that time.

The Brown Amendment facilitating Pak-US co-operation in economic and other non-military fields, is part of the Defence Authorization Bill whose debate was deferred on Friday night. The house debated Dole's Welfare Reform Bill till Tuesday which too was postponed following a spate of Democratic members' amendments designed to overwhelm Dole proposal. It has now taken up Interior Appropriation Bill.

At one stage Dole threatened to keep the Senate in session through August. But after a meeting with his counterpart in the Democratic Party, Tom Dasehle, he said he had received "clear signals" that the Democrats would not allow the Senate to finish work on the welfare bill this week. The weary senators are averse to further postponing August recess.

Dole said it is time to put partisanship and politics aside and to get the job done. But with dozens of amendments to the welfare bill pouring in, Dole observed that "faced with the reality of what we can do and what we cannot do", he concluded that the Senate could not finish work on the legislation this week.

The complex legislative process in US Congress allows members to delay adoption through amendments and filibuster.-APP