Senate sponsors of legislation repairing the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget-balancing act served notice Wednesday that they would attempt to attach the fix to a measure Congress must pass before it goes home for its summer recess.

"We think it's an imperative," said Sen. Pete Domenici (R., N.M.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, referring to the effort to fix the law's key provision which was declared unconsitutional by the Supreme Court earlier this summer.

The sponsors said they would put the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings modification on a short-term $73.3 billion extension of the national debt ceiling which must be approved or the government will run out of money in early September before Congress returns from recess.