GovernmentExecutive.com

Senate Democrats and a handful of Republicans joined forces late Tuesday to pass a massive homeland security bill, moving one step closer toward a showdown with the Bush administration over a controversial provision that would give federal airport screeners collective bargaining rights.

By a 60-38 vote, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, were handed a victory in their effort to pass the bill, which would implement unfulfilled recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

Final passage followed a 73-25 vote to table an amendment from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., that would have required the Homeland Security Department to divert rail cars carrying hazardous materials away from population centers and other high threat areas.

The 9/11 Commission and family members of victims to the attacks have waited for more than two years for the security recommendations to be put in place.

"This bill is a direct response to the appeals of the 9/11 commissioners and 9/11 families to take constructive action," Lieberman said.

But Republicans argued the bill will be dead on arrival at the White House, where a veto threat has been issued if a provision giving Transportation Security Administration screeners collective bargaining rights survives in the bill.

Enough Republicans in the House and Senate have pledged to sustain the veto, if necessary.

Lieberman said the dispute over collective bargaining rights was overshadowing discussion of other major provisions in the bill. But he added he will continue to champion the rights of screeners to have collective bargaining power.

"I sure hope we can continue to discuss this section, why we think it's fair and why we are totally convinced it will have no [adverse] impact on public safety," he said.

The most immediate hurdle is a potentially contentious conference with the House, given several stark differences between the Senate bill and companion legislation in the House, the first bill passed by the new Democratic majority in January.

The Senate bill, for example, would guarantee that each state receives 0.45 percent of total funding available under the state homeland security grant program. The House bill would give states only 0.25 percent of that funding, leaving more money to be distributed based on risk and threat assessments.

The bills also have different formulas for other grant programs.

Twenty-five lawmakers sent President Bush a letter last Friday urging him "to weigh in and encourage the Senate to adopt" the House formula for grants. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., were the only two senators to sign the letter.

"While we commend Senators Lieberman and Collins for their diligent work in drafting the Senate bill, we believe the House-passed version of this legislation, which makes our homeland security funding more risk-based, is far more representative of the needs of our country -- especially those locations facing the greatest risk, such as New York," the letter states.

"Specifically, we are concerned about language in the Senate measure that provides state minimum funding levels that are far too high and ignore the more pressing needs of those states, cities, and localities at greatest threat of attack."

The bills also differ on requiring the Homeland Security Department to ensure within five years that all cargo at foreign ports is scanned before being shipped to the United States; whether to include more countries in a program that would let their citizens come to the United States for up to 90 days without visas, and whether to declassify the nation's overall intelligence budget.

"This is a wonderful step toward finally fulfilling the 9/11 recommendations," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said of the Senate bill. "I look forward to continuing negotiations with the Senate to resolve outstanding issues, including the risk-based grant funding formula."

COMMENTS

• It would have been nice to know who the twenty-five lawmakers were who sent President Bush the letter encouraging him to cave-in to "big state" (e.g. rich in electoral collage votes) demands to purchase on the cheap, homeland security for fly-over country. It should be noted that by in large it is from those fly-over states that the $40.00 steaks they (the lobbyists) and their whores (the congress) sup on in Washington are bred and raised. Hans N. Weiffenbach Posted March 20, 2007 9:37 AM
• This collective bargaining issue has no bearing at all on the government's ability to move TSA employees like baggage screeners in an emergency. First you have to ask what type of emergency would cause a mass temporary or permanent transfer? I thought of a scenario of having mass TSA casualties at a facility, which would mean the facility would be destroyed or uninhabitable, like an airport terminal. Would you reroute planes to other airports or allow flights into that airport? Then would you do a mass transfer of TSA screeners from other airports? Or would you be better served having backup screeners at the affected city? What about the airports losing screeners? Would they now become more vulnerable to other attacks? Depending on how many you'd transfer, the costs for travel, temporary housing and per diems would be high. Additionally, relocation costs for the family and furniture would be high. I would envision a temporary reassignment of screeners, while new screeners are being trained. FEMA, the military, law enforcement agencies, and others have moved bargaining unit employees around the country for many years now. Hurricane Katrina caused agencies to move bargaining unit employees around the country for many months. GovExec.com reader Posted March 15, 2007 1:00 PM
• Doesn’t the effort to deny TSA screeners bargaining rights smack in the face of congressional findings that the employees’ right to organize, bargain collectively, and participate through labor organizations of their own choosing in decisions which affect them safeguards the public interest and contributes to the effective conduct of public business? According to 5 USC 7101 and contrary to the current Executive branch and anti-labor entities such as the Public Service Research Foundation, labor organizations and collective bargaining in the civil service can and do serve the public interest. With that understanding, what does the current wave of anti-collective bargaining efforts say about DHS and DoD in general? More specifically, what do those efforts say about their respective subordinate agencies such as TSA, the National Guard Bureau and the Guard management structure in some of the states? Fred Hall Posted March 14, 2007 6:27 PM