US Senate Approves Establishment of Homeland Security Department

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, November 21, 2002

US Senate Approves Establishment of Homeland Security Department

The US Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill on Tuesday to create a Homeland Security Department, handing a major victory to President George W. Bush who said the legislation is his top priority.

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US Senate Approves Establishment of Homeland Security Department

The US Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill on Tuesday to create a Homeland Security Department, handing a major victory to President George W. Bush who said the legislation is his top priority.

The bill was passed by a vote of 90 to 9 as the 107th Congress was drawing to a close, ending bitter clashes on the legislation between the Republican and Democratic parties for nearly a year.

The measure would implement the biggest government reshuffling since the Defense Department was established in 1947. The new cabinet-level agency will merge 22 agencies including the Coast Guard, Secret Service and Border Patrol, with 170,000 workers and a combined budget of about 40 billion US dollars.

In addition to merging two dozen federal agencies, the bill would provide the president with broad authority to hire, fire andtransfer workers in the department; permit guns in airliner cockpits as a last line of defense against hijackers; extend by one year the deadline for screening of all airline baggage; and provide broad exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Senate rejected a Democratic effort to strip what they called seven "special-interest" provisions from the legislation, thus clearing the last hurdle for its passage.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the legislation last week by a vote of 299 to 121, so Tuesday's Senatevote was the crucial final test. Because of the technical changes the Senate made, however, the House of Representatives is expectedto provide final congressional approval Friday with an anticlimactic voice vote.

Bush promised in a statement that he would sign the bill into law. It would "help our nation meet the emerging threats of terrorism in the 21st century," he said.

"This legislation will improve the security of all Americans inthe age of insecurity that we entered after Sept. 11," said Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who first proposed a Department of Homeland Security a month after the Sept.11 attacks.

Bush, who first rejected the idea of a consolidated homeland security department, offered a largely similar proposal in June, saying the agency was needed to provide a united front against theterrorist threat to the nation.

Bush is expected to nominate Tom Ridge, director of the president's White House Office on Homeland Security, to head the new department, sources said.

The proposed department became a key issue in the Nov. 5 elections that helped Republicans win back control of the Senate and expand their majority in the House.

The House of Representatives approved an initial bill by a widemargin in July, but the Senate debate stalled for months over the labor rights of employees in the new agency.

Many Democrats reversed course after their Election Day loss ofSenate control was attributed partly to the homeland security fight, clearing the way for the House of Representatives to pass the revised homeland security bill overwhelmingly on Nov. 13.

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