The New York Times
Monday, November 15, 1999
Deal Is Reached on Dues Owed U.N., Breaking Impasse
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON -- White House and Republican negotiators in the House reached a tentative agreement late Sunday night in a dispute over abortion rights that would pave the way for the United States to pay nearly $1 billion it owes the United Nations, officials familiar with the deal said.
The deal reached Sunday night breaks an impasse that has been running for three years and that has jeopardized United States global leadership as well as Washington's vote in the United Nations General Assembly. It is also one of the last remaining hurdles for Congress and the administration to work out before striking a session-ending budget deal.
Several details of the settlement, including provisions to pay the back dues as well as settling an issue about debt relief to the world's most impoverished nations, must still be worked out in the next few days.
Under the compromise, the administration agreed to a demand from House conservatives on language in the final budget deal to cut off United States financing for international organizations that promote abortion rights overseas.
The White House was able to win important concessions from the negotiators Sunday night. Under the agreement President Clinton could issue a waiver for international groups that provided abortions or lobbied for abortion rights. Invoking such waivers would reduce the corresponding amounts the administration spends on grants to such organizations, now about $385 million a year, by perhaps as little as $10 million a year.
Administration officials said the reductions negotiated would be so small that the impact would be negligible on the services provided by these organizations to women in developing nations.
In another aspect of the deal, the White House was able to limit this condition solely to this year's appropriation. House Republicans had sought to make the language permanent for all future spending grants and had sought a much larger penalty for President Clinton to use the waivers.
Administration officials said Sunday night that they believed the deal hewed closely to the principles on abortion rights that Clinton has made a hallmark of his domestic policy since he was elected President in 1992.
Late last week senior administration officials let it be known that Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright had volunteered to be the lightning rod for criticism from abortion-rights groups on any deal over the language that Clinton's aides were able to strike.
It remains unclear whether House conservatives will support the deal reached Sunday night. Their demand has been to write into law an executive order issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 that Clinton rescinded in 1993 shortly after taking office.
The United States has barred direct financing for abortions since 1973, but the 1984 policy, known familiarly as "Mexico City" because Reagan announced in during a United Nations conference there, denied grants to international family planning organizations for any purpose if the promoted abortion rights.
Although the agreement Sunday night would codify that language for the first time it would only be in effect for one year and be subject to waivers from President Clinton. Meantime the administration would have achieved one of its top foreign policy goals of the year by repaying the United Nations $926 million over three years.
The United States will lose its vote in the General Assembly if it fails to meet a Dec. 31 deadline for payments. The dispute does not threaten the United States vote or seat on the Security Council.
Sunday night's deal ended several weeks of contentious and painstaking negotiations, mainly between Steve Ricchetti, a White House deputy chief of staff, and Scott B. Palmer, chief of staff for the speaker of the House, Representative J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois.
The conservatives had been led by Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey.
