Senate Defies Veto Threat, Passes Foreign Aid Bill, 74-18 : Assistance: Measure would overturn ban on funds for abortion counseling abroad. Whether a veto can be overridden is uncertain.

WASHINGTON —  Defying a veto threat, the Senate Friday approved a $28-billion foreign aid bill that would overturn an Administration ban on funding for private organizations that promote abortion counseling overseas.

After several days of complex maneuvering and Republican filibustering, the chamber sidestepped unresolved differences over military aid to El Salvador and two abortion-related issues to pass its first foreign aid authorization bill in six years, 74 to 18.

Despite the lopsided vote, it is by no means certain that the Senate would be able to muster the required two-thirds majority to override President Bush’s threatened veto because debate on one of the emotional and controversial issues in the bill could change the way many senators vote.

California’s two senators, Democrat Alan Cranston and Republican John Seymour, joined the bipartisan majority in voting for the bill, which, as in previous years, gives the two largest pieces of the foreign aid pie to Israel and Egypt.

The House has passed a similar bill, including the abortion provisions. Conferees must reconcile the differences before sending the legislation to the President’s desk.

Bush has vowed to veto any bill that would change U.S. abortion policy, and this measure would change it in two ways. One provision would reverse the so-called Mexico City policy, under which the Ronald Reagan and Bush administrations have refused to provide aid to private organizations involved in abortion counseling overseas. The Reagan Administration first endorsed the ban in Mexico City in 1984.

The other abortion provision would restore $20 million in aid to the U.N. Population Fund, which lost U.S. assistance because of its involvement in family planning programs in China, where coerced abortions are used to enforce a one-child-per-family policy. The Population Fund provision, sponsored by Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.), was adopted on a voice vote after a Republican-led effort to kill it was defeated, 57 to 39.

Even if Bush does veto the bill, its other major provisions--such as the $6 billion it grants to Israel over the next two years--will not be imperiled because the actual amounts of money Congress approves for foreign aid are allocated under separate appropriations measures.

The most significant outcome of Friday’s vote was a largely symbolic one: In maneuvering an authorization bill all the way through final passage this year, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee finally signaled its re-emergence as an influential voice in the annual foreign aid debate.

This year was the first time since 1985 that the Senate has passed a foreign aid authorization bill. In the past, efforts to draft a bill were thwarted by an ideological stalemate between committee Chairman Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), the committee’s ranking Republican.

In the absence of an authorization bill, Congress has relied on appropriations measures to fund programs on a year-to-year basis.

This year, however, Pell was persuaded by the committee’s other Democrats to delegate more authority to subcommittees. In this instance, it meant that Sens. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the chairman and the ranking minority member of the panel’s international economic policy subcommittee, respectively, took the lead in drafting the bill and moving it to the floor.

“The fact that we were able to pass a bill this year is a reflection of the reorganization that took place on the committee,” a senior committee staff member said. “We were able to sidestep Helms because he found himself isolated this year, without the manager’s role that gave him real power in the past.”

The other indirect significance of the debate lay in the way it proved to be a barometer of sentiment on controversial foreign policy issues that will be fought again in earnest when the appropriations bill is taken up in September.

On Thursday, the Senate voted, 56 to 43, to prevent Republicans from killing an amendment that would have cut military assistance to El Salvador by half. However, the amendment was later withdrawn when its sponsors, Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), determined that they did not have enough votes to cut off a Helms-led Republican filibuster.

Another filibuster threat was defused when the Senate voted, 63 to 33, to limit debate on Simon’s amendment restoring funding for the U.N. Population Fund. Opponents argued that the fund’s presence in China, where forced abortions and sterilizations are practiced, constitutes a collaboration that disqualifies it from receiving U.S. aid.

But Simon and others argued that the fund does not participate in those coercive practices and should receive U.S. support as the largest provider of family planning services in the Third World.

In all, the authorization bill provides $14 billion in foreign economic and military assistance in fiscal 1992 and $14 billion more in fiscal 1993. Israel is the largest recipient, getting $1.8 billion in military aid and $1.2 billion in economic assistance in each of the two years. Egypt receives the second-largest check--$1.3 billion in military aid and $815 million in economic assistance in each year.