Quick Homeland Bill OK In Doubt

With victory secured in the House, President Bush is calling on the Senate to quickly approve a bill creating his proposed Homeland Security Department. But things might slow down instead.

Mr. Bush and Senate Democrats are clashing over the president's insistence on broad powers over personnel. Mr. Bush says these are vital in confronting an agile, shadowy terrorist threat; Democrats say it amounts to a Republican assault on collective-bargaining rights and civil service protections.

The House gave Mr. Bush those powers in the legislation it passed 295-132 Friday night. The bill also mirrors most of the president's blueprint for merging 22 existing agencies into a new Cabinet department with 170,000 employees and a $38 billion budget.

In a statement, Mr. Bush said the House "has shown a strong commitment to improving the security of the American people, and I urge the senators to do the same before they leave for the August recess." That break begins next Friday.

In his weekly radio address Saturday, the president added, "This department will coordinate our nation's response to grave national threats, to anticipate our enemies, analyze our
vulnerabilities and act forcefully to address them. The Senate must give the Department of Homeland Security all the authority and flexibility it needs to protect the American people."

On Friday, Mr. Bush made it clear that he would not sign a bill unless it gives him that personnel and budgetary flexibility, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller.

"A time of war is the wrong time to weaken the president's ability to protect the American people," Mr. Bush told a White House audience that included governors, mayors, firefighters, police and lawmakers.

The chief sponsor of the Senate bill, Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, said the labor dispute amounts to a "tempest in a teapot" but added that it threatens to engulf the issue in political acrimony.

"Let's all tone down the rhetoric and stop sounding false alarms," Lieberman told reporters.

There are other factors at play in the Senate, where opposition from any one of the 100 senators can put the brakes on bills. Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has expressed concerns about the haste with which the bill is moving, and Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., also has problems with it, Lieberman said.

Finishing the bill next week "is in jeopardy now," he said, but action remains possible. Congressional leaders have ambitiously aimed to get the bill to Mr. Bush by Sept. 11, the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It is almost certain to pass this fall.

The legislation would trigger the biggest government reorganization since the 1940s, when the Defense Department was created. The Coast Guard, Border Patrol, Customs Service, Transportation Security Administration, Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency are among those to be transferred.

On the labor issues, the House approved an amendment by Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., allowing the president to waive collective-bargaining rights for Homeland Security employees for reasons of national security.

Republicans say the overall bill eases some inflexible civil service and labor rules that could hamper the department's ability to act quickly against emerging threats and replace workers who perform poorly.

"It's about agility. It's about meeting the enemy's agility with our agility," said Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.

Democrats, however, suggested that the GOP was using the creation of the new agency to undermine strong labor and civil service protections intended to keep political favoritism and nepotism out of the federal government, guarantee pay and benefit levels and protect whistleblowers from reprisals. Their efforts to make changes, however, were defeated.

"We are supposed to be fighting terrorism. We are now fighting workers," said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.

As for Democratic accusations that his positions are anti-labor, Mr. Bush on Friday said emphatically, "I reject that as strongly as I can state it."

Debating more than a dozen other amendments during a daylong session, the House also reaffirmed in a 217-211 vote a one-year delay in this year's deadline for airports to begin screening checked baggage for explosives.

Opponents of the postponement - to Dec. 31, 2003 - said it would endanger the flying public, but sponsors said it would give airports time to install the necessary machinery. "Do we want chaos, or do we want order? This requires order," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation aviation subcommittee.

In addititon, Democrats won an unexpected victory in their campaign-season effort against corporations that relocate their headquarters to tax havens such as Bermuda, often reducing their U.S. taxes by millions of dollars.

Democrats used a parliamentary maneuver to attach language sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., barring the new agency from entering into contracts with publicly traded companies incorporated in 10 tax havens.

Republicans initially opposed the measure, but once it appeared likely to pass more than 100 lined up at the speaker's podium to switch their votes. After reaching 205 votes against at one point, the measure eventually passed by 318-110.

Although limited in scope, Democrats were gleeful about the vote, saying it presages more victories on the issue of corporate relocations to tax havens. The issue is one of several that Democrats are pushing ahead of the November elections to highlight corporate ethics and wrongdoing.

"This is a victory for patriotism and the American taxpayer," said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass. "This is seismic ... This issue is resonating across the country."

The tax haven countries are: Bermuda, Barbados, the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Cyprus, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Monaco and the Seychelles.