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Veto showdown with Bush possible
By Tim Johnson. Tjohnson@herald.com. Posted on Wed, Jul.
24, 2002 in The Miami Herald.
WASHINGTON - For a third consecutive year, legislators Tuesday night voted
to ease a sweeping ban on U.S. citizen travel to Cuba -- setting the stage for a
possible veto showdown with President Bush.
The House voted 262-167 to block the Treasury Department from enforcing
travel restrictions and issuing fines to U.S. citizens who travel illegally to
Cuba.
The vote underscored the increasingly bitter stalemate between the White
House and Congress over the direction of U.S. policy toward Cuba. A growing
bipartisan tide of legislators appears in favor of easing a four-decade-old
embargo that has failed to dislodge Cuban leader Fidel Castro from power. Castro
has ruled the island for 43 years.
''This policy has not worked,'' said Rep. George Nethercutt, a Republican
from Washington. "Castro has not yielded to the embargo that has existed
all these years.''
U.S. citizens who travel to Cuba without approval from the Treasury
Department face federal fines that average between $7,500 and $8,000 and the
possibility of prosecution.
The House approved a similar bill by smaller margins in 2000 and 2001. In
both years, congressional leaders jettisoned the controversial measure before it
went to the White House.
A Senate panel approved a similar measure last week, although its fate on
the full Senate floor is uncertain.
The Bush administration has pledged to veto any easing of the Cuba embargo,
warning Congress earlier this month that a veto was certain.
Cuba has demonstrated ''implacable hostility to the United States,''
Secretary of State Colin Powell and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said in an
extraordinary joint letter July 11 to Congress.
''The Cuban government has refused to cooperate with the global coalition's
efforts to combat terrorism, refusing to provide information about al Qaeda,''
Powell and O'Neill wrote. They noted, moreover, that Cuba gives refuge to dozens
of U.S. fugitives.
Legislators voted on a series of five amendments related to Cuba tacked on
to an $18.5 billion appropriations bill to fund the Treasury Department, the
Postal Service and other government services next year.
Legislators turned back an amendment by Rep. Porter Goss, a Republican from
Sanibel, that would have conditioned any easing of the travel ban on a White
House determination that Cuba is not developing offensive biological weapons or
providing support to international terrorists. The amendment failed 182-247.
Nearly 200,000 U.S. citizens travel to Cuba each year, many of them with
Treasury Department licenses that permit travel for religious, humanitarian,
journalistic, artistic and other reasons.
In separate action, by a vote of 243-169, legislators approved an amendment
by Rep. Jeff Flake, a conservative Republican from Arizona, to lift a cap on how
many dollars U.S. citizens can send to Cubans each year. Current law limits
individual remittances at $100 a month.
Legislators shied away from trying to roll back enforcement of the U.S.
embargo altogether.
An amendment sponsored by Rep. Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, that
would block the spending of funds to enforce the embargo in its entirety lost
204-226, a similar margin to a vote last year on the same amendment.
Supporters of the U.S. embargo fret over the movement in Congress for
relaxing sanctions, and hope that the Bush administration can rally efforts to
derail the moves, as in the past two years.
''We're very disappointed in the vote,'' said Dennis K. Hays, executive vice
president of the Cuban American National Foundation, a pro-embargo lobby group.
"But this is just one phase of the legislative process.''
''We'd rather not get to the point where the president has to save the day
[by vetoing legislation],'' Hays said.
Debate over U.S. policy toward Cuba, which once split largely along partisan
lines, now is seriously dividing Republicans who once staunchly defended
pressure on Castro. Some of the greatest advocates of relaxing U.S. sanctions on
Cuba are now Republican legislators from grain-producing states eager to sell
foodstuffs to Havana.
Other legislators say restricting U.S. travel to Cuba is a constitutional
infringement. They note that U.S. travel is permitted to other repressive
countries like Iraq, North Korea and Libya.
U.S. courts, however, have repeatedly upheld the right of the federal
government to restrict travel to Cuba.
Bush administration officials say allowing U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba
would not improve the lot of ordinary Cubans, who cannot get jobs at the tourist
enclaves.
''Most jobs at resorts are carefully assigned to a privileged dollar elite
of Communist Party and ex-military cadres, and to their families,'' a recent
State Department white paper said.
Cuba believes it could double the number of tourists arriving and increase
its tourism earnings by $1.7 billion without the embargo.
But the white paper said increases in tourist flows to Cuba from Canada,
Europe and Latin America already are hurting the economies of other Caribbean
destinations with open economies. | 
