A Senate panel says it will not consider legislation to expand the executive branch’s surveillance authority until it receives long-withheld presidential orders authorizing the warrantless eavesdropping program.

In the report accompanying the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill, the panel wrote, “The administration’s refusal to satisfy these document requests spans over a year and hampers the committee’s ability to move forward on the legislation before it.”

The report said the panel also needs Justice Department opinions on the legality of the program. Before the committee will act on any legislation, it says it must first complete its review of the administration’s proposal and alternatives. President Bush’s orders and department opinions are crucial to that review, the panel says.

Senate Intelligence Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., made the intelligence authorization bill and its accompanying report (S 1538 — S Rept 110-75) public for the first time May 31. The largely classified measure, approved by a vote of 12-3, would authorize funding and set policy for the nation’s spy agencies.

The bill addresses CIA interrogation policy, seeks to terminate a flawed satellite surveillance program and sets new requirements for other troubled acquisition programs.

The administration has put forward a comprehensive bill that would overhaul the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA, PL 95-511).

It has asked for authority within the law to conduct surveillance without warrants of foreign-to-domestic calls, similar to the controversial warrantless surveillance program for which the committee is seeking documents.

The administration’s proposal also would permit surveillance without a warrant of foreign-to-foreign calls that are routed through the United States; provide a liability shield to companies involved in surveillance programs after Sept. 11, 2001; reduce the amount of information the administration must submit to the secret FISA court when seeking a warrant; and extend the life of a surveillance warrant from 120 days to a year.

The House has been no more receptive than the Senate committee to the administration’s request to overhaul FISA. During floor consideration of its intelligence authorization bill (HR 2082), the House adopted an amendment reaffirming that domestic electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence must be conducted under the ground rules laid out in the FISA bill as it now stands.

House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, also plans a series of hearings on FISA.

The Judiciary committees in the House and Senate share jurisdiction over FISA with the Intelligence panels.

Although the Senate committee made some details of its bill available after it completed the markup, the report reveals new specifics.

According to the report, during a closed markup of the bill that spanned May 17 and 23, senators sparred over how tough to be in stating opposition to or concerns about the administration’s interrogation and detention policies.

Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Dianne Feinstein of California offered an amendment to prohibit funding for any interrogation techniques that differ from those authorized by the U.S. Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations. It was defeated, 7-8.

Instead, the committee added a passage about the CIA’s detention and interrogation program: “[B]oth Congress and the administration must continue to evaluate whether having a separate CIA detention program that operates under different interrogation rules than those applicable to military and law enforcement officers is necessary, lawful and in the best interests of the United States.”

The bill’s funding levels are classified, but it would cut off funding for a joint Pentagon-intelligence community spy satellite program, which one estimate predicts could cost $77 billion by the time it is finished. The committee also recommends ending the program.

The bill also is critical of many intelligence agency projects and spy community financial and contract management.

It would require the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to evaluate vulnerabilities in any element of the intelligence community valued at more than $500 million. Numerous failures of such systems prompted the provision.

“There have been major systems that were essentially obsolete by the time they were finally deployed,” the report states.

The panel requires annual reports on those major systems in an attempt to avoid cost overruns. In one agency, the report says, 21 out of 30 acquisitions had cost overruns of more than 30 percent, and half of intelligence community space acquisitions have had cost growth of more than 50 percent. Under the bill, for projects with cost overruns of at least 40 percent, the president would have to certify that the project meets certain standards before it can continue.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the committee notes, the number of intelligence personnel has grown by 20 percent, with an increasing reliance on contractors. The panel recommends no more personnel growth until past problems associated with the increase, such as a lack of training and office space, are addressed.

As in the House bill, the Senate bill would compel the intelligence community to produce a National Intelligence Estimate of the national security ramifications of global warming.