By Eric Pianin and Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writers

House and Senate GOP negotiators agreed last night on a plan to allow the sale of food to Cuba for the first time in nearly four decades, a move they said would
clear the way for an easing of sanctions against communist leader Fidel Castro's regime.

The agreement would end the unilateral trade embargo against Cuba and four other countries blacklisted by the State Department: Iran, Sudan, Libya and North
Korea. Farmers would be allowed to begin selling grain and rice to these countries, although in the case of Cuba they would not be able to use U.S. banks to finance
the deals.

Democratic negotiators opposed the plan, saying it was still too restrictive to help farmers or foster improved relations with Cuba. The provision was the last
remaining item as negotiators worked through an $80 billion agriculture spending bill for the coming year.

The bill also includes a measure that puts the final touches on a GOP-crafted drug reimportation measure designed to increase American consumers' access to
lower-cost drugs marketed overseas.

Republicans are pushing the plan to counter Democratic criticism that Congress will not approve a new prescription drug benefit for seniors this year. However, the
White House and Democratic lawmakers complained that the provision was riddled with loopholes that would undermine the effectiveness of the legislation.

"This is all a charade," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). "The real issue is prescription drugs for seniors. This is not going to do anything to lower the cost of drugs.
It's much ado about nothing."

The agriculture spending bill still must receive final approval in the House and Senate. But the underlying measure is so packed with election-year spending for
farmers that it will be hard for members on either side of the aisle to turn down. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said the bill contained enough
pork-barrel spending "to gag a horse."

Meanwhile, the Senate followed the House in giving final approval to an $18.8 billion interior spending bill containing a dramatic expansion of federal land
conservation efforts. Negotiators separately reached agreement on a nearly $109 billion bill for housing, veterans and environmental programs--including a measure
that would slow Environmental Protection Agency plans to cite communities with high levels of air pollution.

The high-stakes, politically charged negotiations over the Cuba legislation have spanned the better part of a year and pitted farmers, grain merchants and humanitarian
groups--demanding an end to the sanctions--against influential lawmakers representing the anti-Castro Cuban American community in Florida, a key presidential
battleground.

House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), Lott and other prominent critics of Castro's policies sided with the Cuban American lawmakers and repeatedly sought
to derail efforts to lift the sanctions. But with a clear majority of lawmakers arguing that the sanctions have been ineffective in promoting social change in Cuba while
denying farmers access to a potentially lucrative foreign market, the leadership had no choice but to try to forge a compromise.

Moreover, the leadership had to do something to help GOP lawmakers from farm states who are locked in tough reelection battles keep their pledge to open new
overseas markets to their financially strapped constituents. One of those lawmakers, Rep. George Nethercutt (R-Wash.), has taken a leading role in the drive to end
sanctions.

In the end, both sides could claim some measure of victory. Under the compromise struck by House and Senate GOP leaders, farmers could sell their products to
Cuba for cash or with credit from third-country banks. But U.S. banks would be barred from financing the sales and could serve only as conduits for confirming sales
and paying farmers for their shipments.

While softening restrictions on trade, the tentative agreement would also toughen the ban on travel to Cuba. Restrictions on travel to Cuba currently enforced by
executive order would be written into law for at least one year. However, U.S. exporters of grain and other food products would be authorized to visit Cuba to
promote sales, just as scholars and journalists are currently allowed.

Nethercutt said that after months of emotional and bitter wrangling over the issue, the agreement "doesn't meet the needs of everybody, it's not perfection, but it's an
opening and it's a new day for sanctions policy in this country."

Underscoring the dilemma for some farm state Republicans up for reelection, Sen. Conrad Burns (Mont.) initially sided with Democrats in trying to remove
restrictions on U.S. financing of grain sales but then voted with his party after the House negotiators held firm against any change.

In a statement issued yesterday in Havana, the Cuban government said it "will not engage in any trade transactions whatsoever with the United States" under the
proposed congressional agreement. Cuba charged that the will of Congress in favor of lifting food and medicine sanctions had been thwarted by Cuban American
legislators and the Republican leadership using "dirty and anti-democratic tactics."

The sanctions were first imposed in 1962 to isolate Castro after he began accepting Soviet aid. Proposals to loosen or even end the four-decade-old embargo have
been regularly introduced in Congress, but until now such measures usually withered under fierce opposition from the far right and the Miami-based Cuban American
community.

Cuba imports more than $320 million in grain products annually, with the European Union and Canada supplying about 90 percent of the country's wheat imports.

U.S. farm exports to the communist country could reach $1 billion within five years, with wheat, rice and livestock farmers reaping the majority of the benefits, said
Tim Galvin, a top Agriculture Department official. In the short term, exports could total $300 million to $500 million a year.

Before the discussion on Cuba and drug reimports, House and Senate negotiators battled over several provisions of the underlying agriculture spending bill.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), fighting for the interests of sugar refiners, failed to remove language that U.S. beet and cane
growers had inserted in the bill to buttress sugar prices.

Another amendment was approved that would expand eligibility for food stamps, at a cost to taxpayers of about $350 million a year. Current law denies the aid to
persons owning a car with a value of slightly more than $4,000 or with housing costs of more than $275 a month. House and Senate negotiators agreed to an
amendment raising both ceilings.

Staff writer Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.

                                                   © 2000 The Washington Post