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U.S. Senate Panel OKs Lifting of Cuba Travel Ban

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A measure to alter the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba to permit legal travel there was reintroduced in Congress on Thursday and cleared a Senate panel, but final passage could again be elusive.

The appropriations subcommittee on Transportation and Treasury Department programs also approved an amendment to a $90 billion spending bill that would short-circuit Bush administration regulations to outsource more federal work to private contractors.

"I'm not against privatization when it's based on thoughtful consideration," said Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski who offered the amendment. "My amendment throws out the new rules for public-private competitions, which put federal employees at a disadvantage."

On Cuba, the House of Representatives and the Senate overwhelmingly approved proposals in recent years to lift the travel ban only to see Republican leaders strip them at the last minute from bills overshadowed by a veto threat.

Enforcement of the 40-year-old travel ban has been stepped up during the Bush administration. That action is viewed by some as a maneuver to further pressure the communist government of President Fidel Castro and bolster support for Bush among Cuban-Americans in Florida, a battleground state in the November election.

The Bush administration and supporters in Congress argue that easing trade and other economic restrictions would only benefit Castro's government, not the Cuban people, with tourist and other travel-related revenue.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat and a longtime supporter of loosening the trade restrictions, reintroduced the proposal on Thursday before the Senate subcommittee's vote on the 2005 funding bill.

Dorgan said U.S. policies to identify and fine U.S. citizens who traveled to Cuba were wildly misplaced and a waste of government resources.

"We ought not to be tracking a few Cuban cigars in a suitcase or someone attempting to take a vacation," Dorgan said.

A spokesman for Dorgan said the lawmaker wanted Americans to be able to travel freely and that farmers would benefit greatly from open travel and trade with Cuba.

Since 2001, U.S. farmers have sold $650 million in agricultural products permitted under trade policies that allow U.S. food, medicine and other goods to go to Cuba, Dorgan spokesman, Barry Piatt, said.

The Senate subcommittee approved Dorgan's amendment with little debate and forwarded it to the Appropriations Committee, which will also consider rolling back the administration's expansion of outsourcing rules. The full panel could meet within the coming weeks, congressional aides said.

But Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican and chairman of the appropriations subcommittee, said: "This comes up year after year. I believe this will draw a serious veto threat from the president."