Congress Expected to Approve Foreign Aid Authorization Measure

With some features of the foreign aid authorization measure that President Ford had cited as objectionable excluded in newly-prepared legislation by House and Senate committees, Congress is expected to approve next week a 27-month program totaling $9.9 billion, of which almost half is earmarked for Israel.

The White House has not indicated how the President may ultimately regard the new bills adopted yesterday by the Senate Foreign Relations and the House International Relations Committees, but the fact that Republican members on both panels, close to the White House, accepted them was seen as a sign of Administration approval.

The new authorization bills incorporate the current fiscal year that ends June 30, the new fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 and the transitional quarter between them to take into account new governmental budgeting procedure. Both bills, as previously, include funding for the transitional quarter at the rate of 25 percent of the 1976 appropriation.

While Ford had indicated he would veto any additional funding in the 1976 bill through transitional quarter allowances, an appropriation bill never reached him. His veto last week was on the 1976 authorization measure.

FINAL ENACTMENT EXPECTED IN JUNE

Congressional sources indicated that since the policy provisions in the new authorization bills have been softened to help accommodate Ford’s views that Presidential authority on foreign affairs was being inhibited, he will go along on the funding formula.

Appropriation bills that will fund the programs outlined in the new authorization measures are expected to be completed by Congressional appropriations committees later this month for final enactment of the program sometime in mid-June.