THURSDAY, JUNE 20 1996, THE WASHINGTON POST
Senate Urges President to Reopen Avenue
Resolution Signals Threat To Funding for Redesign
By Stephen C. Fehr
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Senate voted yesterday to ask President Clinton to reopen the closed part of Pennsylvania Avenue, rejecting the administration's argument that the two-block area must remain shut to protect the White House from a car bomb.
The resolution was largely symbolic because it does not require the president to take action. But the vote signals that there is likely to be little support in the Senate for a $40 million proposal by the National Park Service to change the look of the closed street.
"It's so important that we don't define ourselves as a beleaguered, besieged nation," said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), who has been instrumental in the redevelopment of Pennsylvania Avenue.
The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Rod Grams (R-Minn.), was approved on a voice vote. Earlier, an attempt to kill the amendment failed by a 59 to 39 vote.
Similar legislation has not been proposed in the House, although several lawmakers, including Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), have expressed displeasure with Clinton's decision in May 1995 to close Pennsylvania and four nearby streets to vehicle traffic. House members who oppose the closing have held up money for the Park Service beautification plan.
Senators who supported the closing said they were angered that their colleagues would jeopardize the safety of the president. They said senators were given a classified briefing by the Secret Service shortly after the closing that indicated terrorists were capable of blowing up the White House complex with a car bomb.
"I think it would be bad policy for the United States Senate to start handling security for the White House," said Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who led the fight against the resolution. To those critics who say the closing was a victory for terrorists, Reid countered, "Blowing up the White House would be a victory for terrorists."
Sen. Wendell H. Ford (D-Ky.) said that if George Bush had been reelected in 1992 and decided to close Pennsylvania Avenue, Grams would not have objected.
"This To grandstanding," Ford told Grams "If you want to take the blood on your hands ... and something occurs after that, it's not going to occur with my vote."
Grams said that the Secret Service had been trying to close Pennsylvania Avenue for 30 years but that no president until Clinton had approved it.
"If the Secret Service had its way, we'd build a protective bubble around the president from which he'd never emerge," Grams said.
"We can't eliminate every risk.... When we try, we start down a slippery slope."
Despite the lawmakers' distaste for the street closings, the Senate resolution included language that reaffirmed the authority of the secretary of the treasury, who oversees the Secret Service, to take what steps he deems necessary to protect the president. The current secretary, Robert E. Rubin, made the initial recommendation to Clinton.
"We believe the amendment as passed protects an important principle: Namely, the security decisions affecting the president and the White House will continue to be made in a nonpolitical way and by those who have the expertise to make them," said Howard M. Schloss, a spokesman for Rubin.
Some senators, such as Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), said it was hypocritical of the Senate to demand the reopening of Pennsylvania when streets around the Capitol also are closed. Grams said he supports opening those streets to vehicles also.
``We can't eliminate every risk.... When we try, we start down a slippery slope."
--Sen. Rod Grams (R-Minn.)
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