Panel votes to keep Coast Guard at Transportation Department

A House panel with much at stake in the Homeland Security Department debate--the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee--Thursday afternoon approved a manager's amendment proposed by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, on a voice vote.

Young's amendment, co-sponsored by Transportation and Infrastructure ranking member James Oberstar, D-Minn., would leave the Coast Guard in the Transportation Department and retain the Federal Emergency Management Agency as an independent agency--while transferring the Transportation Security Administration, now part of DOT, to the new Homeland Security Department. It would also transfer the Federal Protective Service to the new department. Another provision of the bill would prohibit transportation trust funds from being transferred to the Homeland Security Department for use in security-related pursuits.

Young--who has noted the new department would get half its staff and budget from four agencies now under his panel's jurisdiction--has been a vocal critic of the administration plan to move the Coast Guard into the Homeland Security Department. His panel's recommendations--along with those of about a dozen other House committees--now go to a select committee headed by Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, that will shape the legislation to be considered by the full House.

In an interview earlier this week, Young was pessimistic about ultimately being able to stop the Coast Guard from being transferred. But today, Young urged the committee to stick together--declaring that, if the select committee comes out with an unacceptable plan that goes to the House floor under a closed rule, Transportation and Infrastructure members should vote to the defeat the rule. A sizable number of House members--75--sit on the Transportation and Infrastructure panel.

"We must act or we will be ignored," Young declared. However, Young's manager's amendment also takes into account the likelihood that the Coast Guard will be rolled into the new department by the select committee: The amendment includes provisions designed to insure that non-security functions, such as search-and-rescue, do not get downgraded.