WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Saturday gave final approval to a $22 billion energy spending bill containing another year's funding for the $10 billion Superconducting Super Collider, sending the measure to President Bush.
The bill's $517 million appropriation for the giant atom smasher being built south of Dallas will keep the project on track in fiscal 1993, which begins on Thursday.
But opponents, who persuaded the House to kill funding in June only to see the vote reversed, said they will take another swing when Congress considers 1994 funding next year.
Offering documents for $250 million of lease revenue bonds that Texas issued for the project in December indirectly link payments to the federal funding.
Mr. Bush is expected to sign the 1993 spending bill, despite previous White House veto threats over an unrelated provision to ban nuclear testing at the end of 1996, congressional sources said.
A controversy over the nuclear testing provision held up final congressional action on the bill for a week. But after the House approved the test ban amemdment on Friday in the face of veto threats, the White House signaled it would drop its opposition.
One Republican source said the administration was fearful that a veto fight would endanger the super collider funding and other parts of the bill that the President favored.
