GOP Foes of Tax-Financed Arts Win Victory in House : Congress: Republican leadership bows to conservatives, agrees to seek phaseout of such aid. $12-billion measure was being held hostage.

WASHINGTON —  House Republican leaders bowed to pressure from conservatives Thursday and agreed to try to phase out taxpayer-financed aid for the arts over the next two years.

The concession ended a mini-revolt by five dozen of the House’s newer, more conservative members and allowed the chamber to resume debating a $12-billion measure financing federal land and cultural programs for the coming year.

The overall legislation, part of the GOP’s campaign to eliminate federal deficits by 2002, would trim $1.6 billion from this year’s levels. It would kill about two dozen energy conservation programs, shrink the Bureau of Indian Affairs and erase or trim many other programs.

Though conservatives won the fight over cultural funding, they lost a battle in which they said they were defending property owners’ rights. By a 256-168 vote, the House voted to allow trained volunteers to help the National Biological Service gather information on endangered animal and plant species. Such findings sometimes result in limits to private development of lands.

“I think it virtually saves the program,” said moderate Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (R-Md.), who sponsored the amendment.

Conservatives scored a victory, however, when the House rejected an amendment by Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento) by 227 to 174 that would have protected federal financing for newly formed California desert wilderness areas. The bill strips virtually all money for administering the lands.

Another victory for conservatives came as House GOP leaders agreed to limit themselves to providing money for the National Endowment for the Arts only for the next two years. The House leaders also promised to seek separate legislation that would terminate the agency after two years.

The ultimate fate of the endowment is unclear, however, because the Senate has yet to act on its financing.

The Senate-approved budget for next year envisions cutting the arts agency by 50%, but not phasing it out. And the Senate Labor Committee’s education subcommittee plans to write a bill next week reducing the budgets of the arts endowment and its sister agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities, by 5% annually over the next five years, but not killing the programs.

The House bill would provide the arts and humanities endowments with $100 million each in fiscal 1996, about 40% less than they received this year. But only the arts endowment would be phased out of existence.