House Democrats are turning to national security for their first legislation in the new Congress: a bill to screen all cargo containers shipped to the U.S. and enact most remaining recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
Just five days after taking control of Capitol Hill, Democrats planned to push the legislation through the House on Tuesday as part of the first 100 hours of action promised by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The bill's fate was less clear in the Senate, which was only beginning hearings on Tuesday. Because of questions about the costs and impact of some provisions - such as cargo inspections that might tie up U.S. ports - it is uncertain how much of the bill is likely to become law.
The House measure would also require screening of all air cargo, distribute more federal aid to states based on risk instead of population, and provide money to improve emergency agencies' communications gear. It includes steps aimed at preventing nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.
House leaders, who symbolically labeled the bill H.R. 1, were eager to contrast their action on the issue with the Republican-run Congress' failure to approve some of the 41 recommendations the commission. That panel made its proposals three years ago in an effort to prevent a repeat of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Democrats will be - and hopefully we'll be doing this in a bipartisan way - putting the protection of the American people very high on our priority list," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters on Monday.
Though many Republicans were expected to support the measure, some objected to provisions of the bill and the speed with which Democratic leaders planned to whip it through the House, bypassing hearings.
"To make it part of a 100-hour show shamefully trivializes an issue of life or death," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee.
Democrats declined to cite the bill's total price tag. A similar measure introduced in the Senate last year by Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., was estimated at $53 billion over five years, but it included some costs not covered in the new proposal. Funding for the bill would come in separate spending legislation.
The House also planned to vote on a separate measure creating a new House committee that would closely monitor the budget and actions of the U.S. intelligence community. Congressional jurisdiction over intelligence is currently spread among several committees.
The bill moves toward the 9/11 Commission's recommendation to centralize congressional oversight in either a joint House-Senate panel or one committee in each chamber.
Many of the commission's recommendations have already been enacted, including some changes in the organization of intelligence institutions, in air security systems and in strategies for disrupting terrorist financing.
Other recommendations were not acted upon because of costs and political differences. Among them was one that would give Transportation Security Administration screeners at airports the right to join unions and provide them with whistle-blower protections.
King cited last summer's alleged plot in Britain to blow up U.S.-bound airliners. King said if Transportation Security Administration screeners had union protections, he wondered if "would we have been able to move round the inspectors as quickly as possible" in the stepped-up U.S. security precautions that followed.
But House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said fears of reprisals have surfaced among the screeners.
"Anybody who's tasked with protecting the public ought not to be intimidated about reporting anything that they see that's wrong," he said.
The Democrats' bill would direct the Homeland Security Department to phase in the inspection all cargo carried on passenger aircraft over the next three years.
It would also require scanning of all containers bound aboard ships for the U.S. Large ports would be given three years and smaller ports five years to comply.
Homeland security grants would be allocated to states according to risk assessment rather than population under the bill, which also calls for shoring up ways to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorists' hands. Better emergency communications systems for state and local first-responders would be sought as well.
The provision calling for scanning all containers entering the U.S. by 2011 also has drawn concern. Customs and Border inspectors screen all containers by examining paperwork, including manifests, but pull out for physical inspection only those containers they consider to be high-risk - currently fewer than one in 10.
Some argue that not only is there not sufficient technology to scan all containers, but if it were done rigorously, all commerce could be shut down, costing jobs and potentially billions of dollars. A pilot program the Homeland Security Department has been running in just six ports has cost $60 million for one year alone.
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