Autocratic chairmen like Robert Sikes, who used his position on the military appropriations panel to increase the value of his stock market holdings, were forced to step aside.

Its Republican-controlled appropriations panel voted to distribute $700 million to New York, Washington and other densely populated, vulnerable localities across the nation.

Mr. Taylor was chairman of the appropriations panel on the interior and environment, making him a spending "cardinal" in the House.

Mr. Spratt said he believed that the policy panels tended to give such requests a "closer scrub" than the appropriations panels.

In the Senate, where support for the weapons initiative has been stronger, an appropriations panel has already approved all of the research money.

The chairman of the appropriations panel, Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, urged his Democratic colleagues not to drag the defense measure into the intelligence controversy.

"I'm not interested in turf," insisted Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who is chairman of the appropriations panel.

But as a matter of political philosophy, rightward-leaning Republicans fault the appropriations panel on two counts.

The appropriations panel boasts of canceling 60 agencies or programs so far, with many more to come, though some of its claims, like the closing of a House parking lot, seem a bit strained.

If the negotiations produce a plan requiring deeper cuts in domestic programs than those Congress has envisioned in its own budget plan, the appropriations panels may have to scale back housing funding.