LAWMAKERS VOW HOMELAND DEPARTMENT ACTION

WASHINGTON (AP) - Both Democrats and Republicans pledged Friday to move quickly toward creating the new Department of Homeland Security sought by President Bush, but challenges were emerging from employee unions and from lawmakers reluctant to give up clout.

For House Republicans, meeting the president's goal for passage this session is ``our top priority for the rest of the year,'' said John Feehery, spokesman for Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

Yet even before the details were out, one senior Republican, Rep. Don Young of Alaska, served notice that he has no intention of relinquishing oversight of the Coast Guard and the just-created transportation security agency. Young chairs the House transportation committee.

A prominent Democrat, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, criticized the president's plan over immigration issues - saying a homeland security agency might exclude too many immigrants - and for the secret way the proposal was drafted.

``I am concerned that this is a damage control document'' intended to divert attention away from pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures, Conyers said.

Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, sponsor of a similar homeland security measure that is already moving in the Senate, said in an interview that White House officials told him Friday to expect a detailed legislative proposal within two weeks. Lieberman said the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee he chairs probably will begin hearings before then.

``I feel strongly that every day we don't get our act together by creating a homeland security department is a day of additional vulnerability,'' Lieberman said. ``Shame on us if we don't get it done this year.''

House GOP leaders are considering a special committee to put the legislation together - possibly chaired by Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas - in an effort to avoid jurisdictional fights among existing panels. Yet that could have partisan repercussions and could spark jealousies between lawmakers chosen to serve and those left out.

Bush's proposal to transfer some 100 federal entities into a single Cabinet agency threatens the power bases of senior committee chairmen, who will be loath to loosen their grip. Lobbyists and interest groups also might resist change.

``This is going to involve a massive rearrangement of jurisdiction,'' said Norman Ornstein, congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. ``You're talking about a significant battle to determine which one goes where.''

Bush acknowledged the dangers of congressional and bureaucratic turf fights Friday, asking an audience at the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa, to help him lobby lawmakers.

``This is going to be a tough battle because we are going to be stepping on some people's toes. ... We're just going to have to keep the pressure on the people in the United States Congress to do the right thing,'' the president said.

Beyond the turf strife, there are a multitude of substantive questions. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents thousands of affected Customs Service employees, is urging Congress to focus on increased spending on such needs as border security rather than reorganization of the government. Many Democrats also say more resources are the key.

Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, compiled a list of government functions having little to do with homeland security that would fall under Bush's new department.

These include the Coast Guard's work on oil spills, the Agriculture Department's programs to eradicate boll weevils and grasshopper crickets, the Secret Service's anti-counterfeiting duties and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to floods, tornados and hurricanes.

At the Department of Health and Human Services, many researchers concerned with bioterrorism also work on a wide range of other health and science issues. For example, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has led the National Institutes of Health bioterrorism effort, including work on the anthrax cases and a study on smallpox vaccines, is one of the world's foremost AIDS experts.

An HHS spokesman said researchers like Fauci probably would remain within his own department but work on a contract basis for the new agency.

The president's proposal does not involve moving parts of agencies such as the FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency despite mounting evidence of intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said lawmakers envision this information flowing through the new department for a fresh, high-level analysis.

``You will have the chance of putting all of that material before one human being who, hopefully, is imaginative and creative and can see what it means and act upon what it means,'' Graham said.

Lieberman and Graham also want to create a White House Office of Counterterrorism to help coordinate the new homeland security agency with the intelligence services, the Defense Department and other departments.

I live in the South, and I for one feel that boll weevil eradication is indeed a national security issue.

Seriously, now that Congress is holding "seekrut" hearings to let all us taxpayers know we don't get to know what we paid for, there is now a citizen's inquiry. Press conf June 10. And a Bush I cabinet secy and a republican congressman are on board, so I am hoping it won't be partisan demopolitics:

http://www.unansweredquestions.org/

HERE ARE SIMPLE THINGS ALL AMERICANS CAN DO
TO HELP WITH HOMELAND SECURITY

1. If you see a suspicious foreigner with his fingers in his ears running away from a spherical item with a lit fuse, watch out for that guy.

2. Do not attempt to bring fingernail clippers onto an airplane. You never know when some terrorist maniac will somehow manage to fish them out of your pocket and decide to go on a wild fingernail-clipping spree.

3. If a guy walks onto your bus with a bomb strapped around him, distract him with idle chit-chat about how his mom's doing.

4. If you are in the country illegally, please report to the INS for deportation. Come on, play along.

5. All persons entering the USA from suspicious countries must now be fingerprinted. After a massive explosion, please search the site for bomb fragments with fingerprints to help identify the perpetrator.

6. If you see anyone who even resembles a terrorist, give them a verbal death threat. Because you never know.

7. If you come from a country where people wear weird hats, you may not want to wear them here. I'm just saying.

8. If you do not look remotely like you are from the Middle East, please arrive at the airport five hours early for your strip-search and thorough body exam.

9. All others, please get in the line marked "Express Lane."

10. At the exact moment of a nuclear blast, go into the nearest Marble Slab ice cream parlor and order the biggest ice cream cone they have, with extra sprinkles. I mean, live a little.

This we all should have expected!!!

When the grades are falling, create another agency to solve a problem, of course FULLY fund it. Never mind that we have loads of agencies in place that were supposed to fix the problem. We must have one more to fix it!! This is BULL what is needed is LEADERSHIP to tie the agencies we have together and make them do what they were HIRED to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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