Senate spending panel set to approve homeland security reorganization

The Senate Appropriations Committee could move to reorganize as early as Tuesday in order to accommodate plans for a new subcommittee to oversee homeland security spending, sources said.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was scheduled to meet Monday afternoon with ranking member Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., to discuss his plan, which mirrors a House proposal, to create a new subcommittee to oversee the new Homeland Security Department.

Top on the list to take the gavel of the new subcommittee is Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the full committee's second ranking Republican, although nothing is confirmed at this point. Cochran currently heads the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, and his likely exit from that chairmanship would force a shakeup among the various subcommittee "cardinals" and their assignments.

On the Democratic side, Byrd himself could decide to take over the ranking member slot and vacate his current position as the ranking member on the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee.

Last year, Byrd tangled with the Bush administration over the creation of the Homeland Security Department and has been one of the Senate's strongest critics of the administration's spending priorities when it comes to homeland security. A Byrd spokesman, however, said Byrd has not yet made up his mind on whether to switch subcommittees, and no decisions have been made regarding which Democrats would also switch subcommittee assignments.