August 7, 1993

If nothing else is clear after the three-month public debate over President Clinton's budget package that ended tonight, this is: the Senate is not the House. Not in style, not in oratory, not in political machinations. The House is lightning, unpredictable and borne along by political squall lines that trigger sudden ruckuses and then die. The Senate is the lightning bug, but would clearly prefer to be known by the more dignified Latin appellation: lampyridae.

New York City officials have determined that asbestos tests to certify the safety of every city public school were so unreliable as to be meaningless. The officials yesterday described the Board of Education's asbestos testing as grossly mismanaged, incompetent and possibly fraudulent. Mayor David N. Dinkins ordered an immediate emergency inspection of each of the city's 1,069 schools after city investigators found asbestos in nearly two dozen schools that had previously been judged as clean. The Mayor said no school would open this fall until it had been tested and any problems corrected.

Senator Bob Dole's 1988 Presidential campaign has agreed to pay more than $120,000 in civil penalties for election law violations, the largest settlement for any Presidential campaign organization, the Federal Election Commission said. Article, page 5.

With Vice President Al Gore casting the tie-breaking vote, the Senate gave final Congressional approval tonight to President Clinton's five-year economic program. This means that the budget plan, the most important legislative issue of the Clinton Presidency so far, cleared Congress by the narrowest possible margin and awaits only the President's signature before becoming law. Enactment of the legislation was viewed at the White House as essential to Mr. Clinton's ultimate success as President.

Norway has a reputation for being ecologically correct. Its melodramatic mountains and fjords are kept pristine. Hotels are apt to post notes requesting guests to reuse their towels to cut down on the use of detergents. Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland is so widely known as an environmentalist that she has been nicknamed "the Green Queen." So it is an odd twist of fate that Norway is becoming a pariah among ecologists and a target for direct action campaigns by groups like Greenpeace. It is the first country to face the serious prospect of trade sanctions by the United States for undermining a conservation effort. Insist on Their Right The reason is to be found in this tiny harbor village of 500 people in the Lofoten Islands, 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It is home to men who insist that they have a right to do what their fathers did -- to venture across the icy waters to hunt the minke whale.