Washington ? In a biting rebuke to President Bush, a lopsided and bipartisan majority of a major House committee voted Wednesday to nullify portions of a deal that would hand operation of U.S. port facilities to a Dubai company.

Congress and the White House advanced on a collision course as the House Appropriations Committee approved a measure that President Bush has promised to veto – and attached it to a bill that the president dearly wants.

The ports measure, sponsored by House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., would ensure that Dubai Ports World, a company partly owned and operated by the government of the United Arab Emirates, would not operate any U.S. port facilities.

“We want to make sure the security of America’s ports is in American hands,” Lewis said.

The committee, long a bastion of support for the Bush White House, passed the prohibition 62-2 as part of a bill that includes $68 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and $19 billion for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. If the full House and the Senate go along, the strategy could force Bush to choose between the ports deal and another year of war funding.

As resistance grew, critics of the ports deal gained new ammunition Wednesday from a State Department report critical of human-rights practices in the United Arab Emirates, a federation of sheikdoms without a democratically elected government.

Like past annual State Department reports on rights practices around the world, the document cited violations in United Arab Emirates, including in the emirate of Dubai. The report said that courts applying Islamic law imposed flogging sentences for prostitution, adultery and consensual premarital sex. In one case, a Dubai court sentenced a pregnant Asian woman to 150 lashes and deportation for adultery.

In the face of solidifying congressional opposition, the White House maintained its support for the turnover of some management authority at the ports to the Dubai company. “The president’s position is unchanged,” spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on Air Force One on the way to New Orleans with Bush.

The House measure was headed toward approval by the full chamber by next week.

In the Senate, attempts to block the ports deal moved more slowly as a result of efforts by Bush’s allies. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., proposed a measure to scuttle the ports deal as part of a bill designed to end cozy relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists. Many Senate Democrats supported Schumer, as did some Republicans from states where affected ports are located.

But Republican leaders moved Wednesday to quash Schumer’s amendment, saying it was out of order and not germane to the ethics bill. Among the powerful Republicans who lined up against Schumer’s amendment was Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.