In the Senate tonight, a major development in the struggle to make public the final report of Independent Counsel David Barrett, the man whose investigation of former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros began in 1995. The Senate voted to cut off funds to Barrett’s office — he has spent about $20 million on the investigation — but more importantly, lawmakers required that Barrett’s report be released to the public within 60 days of final passage of the law. The report has been finished since late last year, and its release has been delayed by lawyers for Clinton-era figures named in the report. The document is said to go far beyond the Cisneros matter. “Media reports are giving very credible commentary that the independent counsel report discusses problems at the office of criminal investigation at the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice,” Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley said on the Senate floor tonight. “These matters do not involve Mr. Cisneros but raise extremely important questions about the administration of the tax code.”

The Senate bill calls for the release of the report, “except for any such portions that contain information of a personal nature that the division of the court determines the disclosure of which would cause a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy that outweighs the public interest in a full accounting of this investigation,” according to the text of the bill. The Senate bill still has to be reconciled with one passed by the House. If the measures are finally passed, Barrett will be required to go out of business within 45 days after the report is released.