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By Spencer S. Hsu and David A. Vise
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 2, 1999; Page A1

The Clinton administration yesterday proposed a budget that includes more than $2 billion in federal support for the region, including $56 million for the first phase of a plan to consolidate the Food and Drug Administration in Montgomery County.

The FDA relocation proposal, shelved by the new Republican Congress in 1995, would transfer 100 agency workers from five sites into a new building at the former White Oak Naval Research Base near Silver Spring. The proposal also would begin planning for a $500 million, 2.1 million-square-foot complex for 6,000 workers.

President Clinton's overall $1.8‚trillion spending plan, reflecting a robust economy, would fund numerous projects and other initiatives in the District, Maryland and Virginia. District high school graduates would get $17 million in new subsidies to attend public colleges in Maryland and Virginia at in-state tuition rates, federal workers would receive a 4.4 percent pay raise worth $500 million to area employees, and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge replacement project would get $135 million for engineering and right-of-way acquisition.

The White House plan faces major revisions by the Republican-controlled Congress, area members said. But they stressed that there is key bipartisan support for federal worker and military pay raises and the D.C. tuition plan, proposed by Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), and strong momentum to complete several big-ticket construction projects.

"This is clearly a wish-list budget, with the president having to please everyone," said Jonathan Dean, spokesman for Rep. Constance A. Morella (R-Md.), whose district would receive $110‚million to complete a $203‚million National Institutes of Standards and Technology lab in Gaithersburg and $40‚million to finish a $333‚million National Institutes of Health research center in Bethesda.

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a minority member of the House Appropriations and Budget committees, said there is a strong likelihood that federal workers will receive what is projected to be their largest pay raise since 1981. "This is a good budget and a responsible one," Moran said. "The Washington metropolitan area is particularly advantaged by this budget."

The budget item with perhaps the greatest local impact is the across-the-board 4.4 percent pay raise for 270,000 federal workers in the region. Senate Republicans want a 4.8 percent increase in pay for military personnel, about 150,000 of whom are based locally.

The proposed FDA consolidation ultimately could bring employees now scattered in 40 buildings in 20 locations across the region to one 130-acre site. The budget earmarks $26 million to plan the complex and $30‚million to build a new Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, now split among Rockville, Beltsville and a five-person office in the District.

Rep. Albert R. Wynn (D-Md.) called the FDA move "by far the most important" economic development item for his district. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said he believes congressional opposition to the plan has waned since 1995, when GOP leaders criticized the agency's mission and objected to FDA regulation of nicotine.

Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) thanked Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.) for lobbying for the project, which he hailed as a contribution to the county's "emergence as the biotechnology capital of the world."

In the District, the federal budget provides for a one-year extension of the popular $5,000 first-time home buyer tax credit and $17 million to give D.C. high school graduates a tuition break if they attend Maryland and Virginia universities.

Davis, sponsor of the tuition measure, said he would prefer that tuition be subsidized at any public university. But "putting the money aside really helps," he said. "I hope this is the first of a number of initiatives where we can work across party lines to accomplish good things."

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) told University of the District of Columbia students that she hopes to use a portion of the $17 million to improve the university's technology and infrastructure.

In addition to more than $1 billion to fulfill federal obligations for a city pension fund, courts, prisons and Medicaid, the budget includes $4 million to beautify the Anacostia River and a proposal to plant trees and shrubs and fix up parks.

Norton said she is thrilled that the Clinton administration, at her request, extended the home buyer credit, which real estate agents say is a driving force behind surging sales in the District.

D.C. Council member Charlene Drew Jarvis (D-Ward 4) also praised Interior Department plans to move forward with "D.C. Sparkle," a program that includes spending up to $2 million to improve Meridian Hill Park. This "is the follow-up of a promise to revitalize neighborhoods outside of the federal enclave," she said.

Norton, who has been fighting to keep federal agencies from leaving the District, said the budget includes $15 million for city property for a new $83 million headquarters for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

"The way in which it is structured," Norton said, "those [ATF] jobs will remain in the District."