Obey; Albright make their moves (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Albright Wants Separate Vote on IMF
Date: Tue Jun 16 18:05:33 CDT 1998
                                         
        WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
urged Congress to hold a separate vote on the administration's
request for $18 billion for the International Monetary Fund. But
House Majority Leader Dick Armey said it was unlikely. 
        ``IMF funding is critical to demonstrate U.S. support for its 
mission and to prevent international financial problems,'' Albright 
told a Senate panel Tuesday. ``And we must separate it from the
family planning issues (which) should be discussed separately and 
not attached to a national security issue.'' 
        Some lawmakers want to attach to the IMF legislation anti-
abortion limits on U.S. aid to family planning groups. President
Clinton has said he will veto any such bill. 
        Albright called the IMF funding a security issue, saying that
if it is not provided, the 182-nation organization would be weakened 
as a tool for dealing with financial crises that are deepening in
Asia and threatening Russia. 
        The IMF funding measure passed the Senate, 84-16, earlier
this year but it has stalled in the House because Armey wants the 
administration to provide more information on the operations of an 
organization he considers secretive. 
        Indicating growing GOP concern at the stalemate, Senate  
Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, told
Albright the problems facing the IMF request are ``getting more 
acute daily'' and the administration had to work harder to get it 
passed. 
        Armey, who controls what legislation reaches the House floor, 
said, ``I do not see right now a freestanding piece of legislation 
on the IMF.'' 
        Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the House Appropriations Committee's 
top Democrat, plans to start collecting the 218 signatures necessary
to force the IMF legislation to the floor, but Armey said he was
almost certain Obey cannot get a majority of the House to sign. 
        ``An informed decision about this (funding) request cannot be 
made when the IMF budget is treated as a secret document,'' the House
Republican leadership wrote to Clinton last week. It would be
``irresponsible if not reckless for Congress to provide another $18 
billion to the IMF without this information,'' they wrote. 
        Signing were Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, Majority Whip
Tom Delay of Texas, GOP Conference Chairman John Boehner of Ohio and 
GOP Policy Chairman Christopher Cox of California. 
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