Date: 95-09-13 15:45:36 EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The House approved the annual U.S. intelligence agencies funding authorization bill Wednesday, rejecting an effort to cut it on grounds that spy agencies should share more of the pain of federal budget cutting.

The total in the bill for the Central Intelligence Agency and 11 other U.S. intelligence agencies for next year is secret, but has been widely reported to be $28 billion.

The House approved the bill by voice vote and sent it to the Senate after rejecting 262-161 a proposal by Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, to cut it 3 percent.

Frank said the total is 1.7 percent higher than this year and 1.2 percent more than President Clinton requested at a time when the Republican-controlled Congress is cutting domestic programs to balance the federal budget by 2002.

Rep. Lynne Woolsey, a California Democrat, agreed, saying ``We're asking college students, working families and the elderly to cope with many cuts in almost every important program. Let's cut the bloated intelligence budget. Let's ask the CIA to sacrifice along with the rest of us.''

A report accompanying the bill said part of the increased funding would go to development of more drones like the Predators used in Bosnia which can hover over an area and send pictures back to a ground station.

But it said the Tier II+ Conventional High Altitude Endurance drone duplicates U-2 spy plane missions. It said that unless Defense Secretary William Perry can provide a better justification, the $117 million in the bill for Tier II+ should go instead to better cameras and other improvements for the U-2 planes.