May 11--PROVIDENCE -- The House yesterday passed a bill that would effectively prevent liquefied natural gas tankers from coming into Narragansett Bay.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Raymond E. Gallison Jr., D-Bristol, would require tankers to maintain a "safety and security zone" two miles ahead, one mile behind, and 1,000 yards on either side of the ship.

That zone is based on a Coast Guard regulatory definition.

Gallison's bill would require LNG tankers in transit to maintain the specified distances from any person, pier wharf, dock, bulkhead, waterfront facility, or hunting grounds, as well as from flammable materials and from "welding, torch cutting or other hotwork" taking place.

The bill would conflict with a plan to build an LNG terminal in Fall River, because to reach the Fall River destination, tankers would have to pass within several hundred feet of densely populated coastal areas in Narragansett and Mount Hope bays. However, it would not affect the existing LNG terminal at Fields Point in Providence, because gas deliveries there arrive by truck, not ship.

"We have to protect the people and the other assets of the state of Rhode Island," Gallison said yesterday.

He said he would support siting an LNG terminal offshore, or in a remote part of Canada instead. "It can be done other ways besides bringing the tankers up here," he said.

In response to the governor's concerns that the bill might tread on the federal government's right to regulate interstate commerce, Gallison cited a section of federal law that reads: "Nothing contained in this section" -- a chapter pertaining to ports and waterways safety, within a title pertaining to navigation and navigable waters -- "prohibits a statefrom prescribing highersafety standards than those which may be prescribed by regulations hereunder."

Gallison said no companion bill was introduced in the Senate, but his bill was transmitted there yesterday.

In the Senate yesterday, lawmakers approved a bill providing for the mandatory spaying or neutering of cats, in response to problems with large and growing numbers of feral cats.

If the bill -- sponsored by Sen. John J. Tassoni Jr., D- Smithfield -- becomes law, people wanting to breed cats would have to get a permit and pay a fee of $100 per cat, and keeping an unaltered cat would require another permit, also $100. People feeding cats for 60 days or more would automatically become the owners, and subject to the law.

Violators would have 30 days to have their cat spayed or neutered, and would be subject to $75 fines for every 30 days they failed to do it.

The bill also makes provisions for low-cost services for the poor.

The companion cat-breeding bill, a House version sponsored by Rep. Charlene M. Lima, D-Cranston, is scheduled for a vote today.

By Elizabeth Gudrais and Bruce Landis