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The House pushed through sweeping legislation Friday implementing many unfulfilled recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, sending the bill to President Bush's desk for his signature.

The Senate voted 85-8 late Thursday to approve the conference agreement on the bill (H.R. 1). The House vote Friday was 371-40.

"This comprehensive, bipartisan legislation will do many things to make our nation stronger, our cities and towns more secure and our families safer," said Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., a key architect of the bill.

Notably, the bill would require the Homeland Security Department to ensure, within five years, that all U.S.-bound ship cargo is scanned at foreign ports. The department could give deadline extensions to ports that need more time to comply.

Industry made a last-minute push Friday against the 9/11 bill. In a letter to all House members, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it "strongly opposes" provisions dealing with cargo scanning and private sector preparedness standards.

"If enacted, the 100-percent scanning provisions of the legislation would have a crippling effect on global trade, without significantly improving security," the letter said. "The Chamber also objects to the creation of private sector preparedness standards that would impose costs and burdens on the business community without measurably improving preparedness."

At 900 pages long, the bill -- dubbed H.R. 1 to reflect the priority House Democrats have given it -- covers everything from distributing grants to local emergency response agencies to international relations with Pakistan. But Republicans point out that the bill fails to implement at least one key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission: consolidating congressional oversight of homeland security affairs.

COMMENTS

• The nation's non-federal healthcare industry is characterized as the "weakest link in the Homeland Security chain" It may not stand alone as a weak link but all objective evidence supports the title. A mixture of apathy and denial pervades all segments of the sector. Homeland Security readiness is not listed among the important enterprise Risk Management issue by Industry experts. The AIA 2006 guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities remains at a pre-9/11 state. The National Response Plan(Framework)expectation's that the sector will voluntarily become a full-partner in the Nation's strategy for homeland protection has fallen on deaf ears. The Private/Public sector controls 90% of the country's health delivery capacity. The 10% federal sector with a 200% effort is ill equipped to meet the known dangers in an increasingly hostile environment. The Katrina/New Orleans death and destruction is stark evidence of the sectors failure to respond to an event which provided 2 days warning and an existing "just in time" support system which could not meet a realistic "protect in place" scenario. A trusting public may take the old "fool me once......." response to the next industry failure. Jim Blair Posted August 6, 2007 4:50 PM
• What happened to the section of the bill that included LEO for Customs & Border Protection Officers ? They are the ones who are on frontline enforcing and defending this country from terrorist and other related issues. Mike Holloway Posted August 1, 2007 1:42 PM
• When is the "business" community going to understand that the cost of security and freedom is also the cost of doing business, not just the cost in lives of our military personnel. If these measures increase the security of our country, then so be it. If a ship gets in to the US with a mass destruction weapon and it is used, how much will that affect business in that port? New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chesapeake Bay area - the destruction would cripple business in those areas and affect business throughout the country. The next bill needed by the Senator is to get the double fences built on the southern border, and increased security on the northern border in conjunction with the Canadian authorities. william spidahl Posted July 28, 2007 10:12 PM