barge toll that would guarantee that commodity prices would not increase more than 1 percent because of the waterway fee.

Not until yesterday afternoon were the details resolved. But at 6 o'clock last night an excited Domenici was able to drop on the desk at the front of the Senate chamber an amendment, with 13 cosponsors, that would assure farm support for the barge toll.

Long, meanwhile, was being pressed from both sides. The barge industry, concerned that Domenici had them beat, had been asking him to find some wayeven a filibuster-to prevent a vote.

But Long's allies in the Senate, Sens. John Danforth (R-Mo.) and Thomas Eagleton (D-Mo.), argued that they ought to let the bill come to a vote on the floor.

Last night, as the bill was formally brought up so debate could begin this morning, it was still not clear when-or even if—the Senate would finally vote on the waterway toll.

U.S. WATERWAY TOLLS APPROVED BY SENATE

The Senate yesterday approved legislation that would require commercial barge lines to pay tolls for using federally built and maintained inland water

ways.

In a legislative skirmish that pitted a first-term Republican, Sen. Pete V. Domenici (N.M.), against one of the Senate's senior Democrats, Russell B. Long (La.), Domenici prevailed with the argument that "railroads and truckers pay for their rights-of-way and barge lines should, too."

About 16 percent of the nation's freight is shipped by barge over 25,000 miles of inland waterways built and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Department of Transportation estimates that federal spending on the waterways is about $1 billion annually.

Since the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which declared that the waterways should be "forever free," shippers have not been required to reimburse the government for its waterway expenditures.

Yesterday's vote marked the first time that either house of Congress has voted for a waterway fee.

The waterway fee proposal has been introduced in the House, but appears to be making no progress.

Yesterday's Senate vote came as an amendment to a $730 million rivers and harbors bill, which contains several politically popular projects and should pass in the House. When that bill comes to a House-Senate conference, Domenici hopes to add the Senate-passed waterway toll to the conference version, which will go back to both houses.

However, Long warned that Domenici's strategy might be unconstitutional, citing a clause in the Constitution requiring that revenue bills originate in the House.

In passing the waterway toll plan, the Senate also approved a $421 million authorization for a new lock and dam on the Mississippi at Alton, Ill.

The crucial vote in a seven-hour Senate session that was alternately crackling and comatose came when Long and Sen. Adlai E. Stevenson (D-Ill.) suggested a study of the toll proposal in place of the Domenici bill.

The two Democrats argued that too little was known about the impact of a waterway toll on the freight industry and consumer prices to approve it without further study. Domenici and his supporters replied that the idea has been extensively studied and that the Long-Stevenson move was a backhanded method of killing the toll proposal.

The study proposal was defeated on a 51-to-44 vote, and a subsequent Stevenson study proposal lost by a larger margin. When those votes made it obvious that proponents of the toll had a majority, support for Domenici's bill grew. The final vote was 71 to 20.

The Senate legislation would empower the Department of Transportation to develop a system for collecting the barge fees. Unless it was rejected by a twothirds vote in Congress, that system would take effect in 1979.

The long day on the Senate floor was relatively anticlimatic for proponents of the waterway fee, who have been battling in Senate committees and corridors since Domenici proposed the bill in February.

Domenici adroitly maneuvered the proposal through two Senate committees and managed to keep it away from the Finance Committee where Long, a strong advocate of the barge industry, would almost surely have buried it.

The proposal prompted a major lobbying fight between barge interests, who opposed it, and the railroad industry, which backed it, causing a difficult choice for senators in states where both industries operate.

When Stevenson's amendment came up yesterday, for example, Sen. Charles H. Percy (R-Ill.) stood at the front of the chamber carefully tabulating the vote. When it became clear that Stevenson's proposal would lose, he voted for it.

That move allows Percy to tell the barge interests that he supported them by voting for the plan and the railroads that he waited until he was sure they would win before voting against them.

WATERWAYS TOLL BILL FACES NEW THREAT: DEATH BY "BLUE SLIP"

In Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island," the pirates exchanged death threats by passing notes marked with "The Black Spot." In the Congress, the same message is conveyed via "the blue slip."

A "blue slip" is a parliamentary form letter through which the House of Representatives can kill, irrevocably, certain bills passed by the Senate. Next week, when Congress comes back from recess, that fate may await S. 790, the waterways toll bill.

It is a frustrating prospect for Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), the sponsor of the waterways toll bill, which would require, for the first time, that barge lines pay a fee for using inland waterways built and maintained by the federal government.

Despite opposition from some of the Senate's most powerful Democrats, Domenici had successfully steered his bill through two committees and onto the floor. There, two weeks ago, he staved off potentially crippling amendments and won passage of the waterways toll by a healthy 71-to-20 vote.

When the senators had finished action on the bill, it was passed on to the myriad clerks and secretaries responsible for informing the House that the Senate had acted.

The Senate's legislative clerk compiled, with scissors and tape, a final version of the toll bill containing all the last-minute amendments adopted during the floor debate.

The resulting compilation of paper went to the bill clerk, who logged it in his huge ledger and passed it to the enrolling clerk, who logged it in his ledger and passed it to the public printer, who printed a final text and passed it back to the enrolling clerk, who passed it to the secretary of the Senate, who certified its official passage by the Senate and passed it back to the enrolling clerk, who walked over to the House chamber. In a brief ceremony unchanged since the birth of Congress he formally presented "a message from the Senate to the other body."

Beneath all the ancient protocol, however, lay a constitutional provision that made the waterways toll bill a possible candidate for a "blue slip."

Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution-one of the few clauses in that document that divides responsibilities between the two houses of Congress-provides that "all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives." That sentence, known to scholars as the "origination clause," was based on 18th century practice in the British parliament, where only the House of Commons-considered the more representative of the two houses could originate tax levies.

Although it is not frequently invoked, the "origination clause" is dear to the hearts of the members of the House. They jealously guard their prerogatives and they have prepared a form letter-printed on a blue slip of paper-to inform the Senate whenever they feel their power of origination has been violated by a Senate-passed bill.

Such a letter makes a Senate-passed bill a legal nullity in the House. And the Senate has no recourse.

As soon as the waterways toll bill was formally delivered to the House-about a week after it passed in the Senate-Rep. Al Ullman (D-Oreg.), chairman of the House's tax writing Ways and Means Committee, asked his chief of staff, John Martin, to determine whether the Senate was treading on the House's constitutionally guaranteed turf.

Accordingly, opponents and proponents of waterway tolls quickly engulfed Martin in legal briefs arguing whether Domenici's bill is a proper target for an origination clause "blue slip."

Like bands, slang, and dress styles, constitutional clauses tend to go in and out of fashion over the generations. The origination clause was highly popular among constitutional lawyers in the last quarter of the 19th century, and has been invoked rarely since.

Thus Martin found himself reading briefs about a series of century-old Suprme Court cases in which citizens had challenged various federal taxes on ground that they had originated in the Senate.

The decisive issue in those cases seemed to be whether the "revenue raising" aspect of a particular bill was the bill's main feature or an incidental effect of legislation primarily designed for other purposes.

In 1897, for example, when Congress enacted a Senate-originated bill that taxed bank notes, the Supreme Court upheld the tax because its main purpose was to regulate banking, not to raise money.

There is some question, though, whether all the legal arguments would carry much weight if the waterways toll bill came up for a "blue slip" in the House. Under House rules, a floor vote would be required on the origination clause question. But House members rarely vote against measures that seem to protect their own prerogatives. If Ullman were to decide that the waterways toll bill violates the origination clause, the House would be extremely likely to vote for a "blue slip."

So, just two weeks after their triumph on the Senate floor, Domenici and his pet bill were in serious trouble.

WITH TIMELY TUG, BARGE TOLL MAKES SUDDEN TURNABOUT

With a timely tug from Tip O'Neill, the barge toll bill, S. 790, slipped past a potentially lethal parliamentary obstacle last week and seemed, all of a sudden, to be in line for quick approval in the House of Representatives.

It was a remarkable turnabout in the fortunes of the bill, which had appeared, just two weeks ago, to be facing an insurmountable constitutional problem.

The legislation, which would require barge lines to pay a fee for their use of federally built and maintained inland waterways, had squeaked through the Senate late in June and been sent to the House.

But the House's chief tax writer, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Al Ullman (D-Oreg.), took one look and raised his furry eyebrows.

Th waterway fee would, of course, produce revenues. That made S. 790 a "revenue bill." Al Ullman knew that the Constitution specifically states that all revenue bills must originate in the House. So Ullman began hinting that S. 790 might be a candidate for a "blue slip"-the form notice the House sends the Senate when it finds that the Constitution's origination clause" has been violated.

A blue slip would have killed S. 790. That prospect dismayed proponents of the waterway fee. It also caused consternation in the barge industry, which opposed the fee but strongly favored another section of the bill that authorized construction of Locks and Dam 26, a major new barge facility on the Mississippi.

Accordingly, friends and foes of the waterway toll began searching for a compromise that would avoid the blue slip. Inevitably, their search led them to Rep. Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill, Jr. (D-Mass.), the Speaker of the House and a compromiser par excellence.

Personally, O'Neill was inclined to let the Senate bill move on to a House vote. For one thing, his close friend, Brock Adams, the Secretary of Transportation, was pushing hard for the waterway fee. For another, the Speaker wanted to clear away as much pending legislation as possible so the House could get down to uninterrupted work on the White House energy package.

Professionally, however, O'Neill felt he could not let S. 790 go unchallenged. Like Winston Churchill, who declared that he had "not become the King's First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire,” O'Neill wanted everyone to know that he had not become Speaker to stand by while the Senate violated the House's constitutional prerogatives.

O'Neill conferred with Adams. He huddled with Ullman. He chatted with Harold T. (Biz) Johnson, the California Democrat who chairs the Public Works

Committee. And last week, in a meeting with all the principals, the Speaker spoke.

To avoid the origination problem, O'Neill said, the House would have to originate its own version of S. 790. Johnson's committee would approve the locks and dam project. Ullman's committee would write a waterway fee bill. The two measures would be linked on the House floor, passed, and sent to the Senate.

It had taken the Senate five months to achieve all that, but O'Neill said he couldn't wait that long. The two committees were to finish their work by July 25. The full House would vote a day or two later. By Aug. 1—when O'Neill wanted to start debate on the energy bills-the waterway toll would be back in the Senate.

With both Adams and the barge industry backing that proposal, the Speaker's tight timetable seemed likely to be met. Both committees immediately scheduled hearings and "markup" sessions for this week, and all concerned were predicting that the bill would move through the House almost precisely the way O'Neill programmed it.

The problems, if there were any, lay in the Senate. With a new waterway toll bill coming over from the House, the Senate would have to vote on the measure a second time. Would opponents of the toll try again to defeat it?

Apparently not, according to Sen. Russell Long (D-La.), who had been the bill's leading Senate adversary.

"There's only so long you can drag these things out," Long said in his gentle bayou twang. "We tried to beat this bill once, and we lost. Not by much, but we lost. We're not going to get anywhere trying to do it again."

For the present, at least, there was smooth sailing ahead for the waterways bill.

CLEARS COMMITTEES, NEARS HOUSE FLOOR-WATERWAY FEE IS WATERED DOWN With a sudden surge of support from a most unlikely source the barge industry-the waterway toll bill moved lickety-split through two House committees in a week, and yesterday it seemed almost sure of House passage by Friday. The controversial legislation, which would require barge lines transporting freight on the nation's inland waterways to help the government pay for maintaining those waterways, was approved by the Public Works and Ways and Means committees after both held rapid-fire hearings last week.

That meant that the tight schedule established by House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) would most likely be met. The legislation could pass in the House and be dispatched to the Senate later this week.

The Senate has already passed a waterway toll bill. But O'Neill shelved that measure when it came to the House, on grounds that it violated the House's constitutional prerogative to originate all revenue bills.

In a meeting on July 12, O'Neill directed Ways and Means Committee Chairman Al Ullman (D-Ore.) and Public Works Chairman Harold T. Johnson (D-Calif.) to "originate" a House version-and get it done by the end of July.

The bill that emerged from those committees reflects the basic structure of the Senate bill.

Both the House and Senate versions would force barge lines, for the first time, to pay for using inland waterways. Both provide the same "sweetener" to offset that blow : funding for a major new barge facility at Locks and Dam 26, the 26th dam down the Mississippi from Minneapolis.

But the House bill takes a sharply different course toward collecting the barge charge. While the Senate bill contemplates a system of tolls or license fees, the House Ways and Means Committee yesterday approved a considerably simpler mechanism: a tax on the diesel fuel that drives the barges.

The fuel tax proposal was put forth by Ullman, and it quickly found support from almost everybody interested in the legislation. Even the barge lobbyists said that, if they had to pay at all, a fuel tax would be the least painful way.

For one thing, the "tax" would be distributed more evenly over the industry than a "toll" system, the bargemen said.

Further, a "tax," unlike a 'fee" or a 'toll," would be the province of the Ways and Means Committee in the House and the Finance Committee in the Senateboth of which include mostly pro-barge members. If there had to be some waterway charge, the bargemen felt, it would be nice to kep it under the thumb of those two committees.

With that issue settled, the Ways and Means members turned to the central question in every tax bill they write: how much?

To collect the same amount that the Senate bill would raise, Transportation Secretary Brock Adams told the committee, the proper fuel tax would be about 42 cents per gallon, phased in at 4 cents annually for the next decade.

The barge lobbyists had a more modest idea. They suggested 4 cents per gallon once and for all-without the yearly increase Adams suggested.

The tax writers, as is their wont, looked for a compromise—and hit on one that deeply pleased the bargemen. They would phase in a tax that would go no higher than 6 cents per gallon-just 14 percent of what Adams had asked.

Lobbyists for railroads, the large lines' arch competitors, were aghast when that proposal surfaced. Barge lobbyists, in contrast, found themselves actually working for a barge charge as long as it was strictly the 6-cent plan.

With Ullman, O'Neill and the bargemen all in favor, the Ways and Means members went happily along, passing the 6-cent tax and sending it to the floor. It was a watered-down waterbill, to be sure, but the central concept-the barge charge was intact.

RAILROADS RAISE IMPEDIMENT IN COURT TO BARGE TOLL BILL

For a piece of legislation that started the year with scarcely a chance of passage, the waterway toll bill, S. 790, was in fairly good shape when Congress went home last week.

But with the legislators out of town on vacation, the bill ran into a new kind of trouble.

The new trouble is not legislative; the bill is in jeopardy because of a suit in federal court.

And ironically, the suit was filed by railroad association-even though the barge toll bill would indirectly benefit, and is backed by, the railroads.

When Congress recessed, the House had still not voted on its version of the Senate-passed measure, which would require barge lines to pay for using the inland waterways.

Nonetheless, backers were sanguine. Everybody seemed to think the bill would slide through somehow this fall without any more serious problems.

But everybody was ignoring Judge Richey.

Judge Charles R. Richey of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is in a position to create a significant problem for S. 790. The judge is about to rule in a lawsuit that could scuttle the careful legislative linkage that has propelled the waterway bill through Congress all year.

When Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) first proposed the waterway charge in February, he knew it would face resolute opposition from the barge industry, which has never paid a penny for the federal government's multibillion-dollar investment in inland waterways.

To neutralize the industry's opposition, Domenici linked his proposal with a piece of legislation which the bargemen forcefully favored; authorization to build a major new barge facility on the Mississippi at Alton, Ill.

Domenici's legislative construct received presidential sanction in May, when Jimmy Carter announced that he would veto any bill authorizing the Alton project unless a waterway charge bill was passed.

With that assurance, Domenici had used the Alton project to drive the waterway fee to passage in the Senate. The same ploy had pushed the fee succesfully through two House committees.

In short, the waterway fee looked like a winner in Congress as long as it had the Alton facility to push it forward. But the judge is preparing to rule in a case that could stop the Alton project indefinitely.

The case came to Richey in 1974, when the Army Corps of Engineers first announced its plan to build the $500 million lock and dam on the Mississippi at Alton.

A group of railroads, concerned that a big new barge facility would drain away Midwestern freight traffic, went to Richey's court to stop the corps. They won the first round in September, 1974 when the judge told the Army that it needed specific authorization from Congress to undertake the Alton work.

The authorization which Domenici attached to his waterway bill was the answer to that lawsuit.