Senate approves bill, creates new agency

WASHINGTON -- Winding down the 107th Congress, the Senate approved the largest government reorganization since World War II in hopes of helping prevent another Sept. 11-type attack. But the monthslong effort may have been just a warmup for a bigger battle to come: getting the new Homeland Security Department up and running.\n"Setting up this new department will take time, but I know we will meet the challenge together," a jubilant President Bush said after the Senate, nearing adjournment for the year, voted 90-9 on Tuesday to authorize the new Cabinet agency.\nOn a day that gave Bush a number of decisive legislative victories, the president hailed the bill as "landmark in its scope."\n"The United States Senate voted ovewhelmingly to better protect America and voted overwhelmingly to help people find work," Bush said at a news conference Wednesday in Prague, Czech Republic, referring to bills creating the new department and bolstering businesses with terrorism insurance. "I want to thank the members of the United States Senate for working with this administration to do the right thing for the American people."\nSpeaking with Senate the Republican leaders from Air Force One as he flew to NATO meetings in Europe, the president said the Senate's work "ends a session which has seen two years worth of legislative work which has been very productive for the American people."\nEight Democrats and independent Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont voted "no" on the homeland security bill, which merges 22 diverse agencies with combined budgets of about $40 billion and which employ 170,000 workers. It will be the largest federal reorganization since the Defense Department was created in 1947.\nBut the battles over the department are just beginning. It will take months for the new agency to get fully off the ground. And a budget stalemate continues to block most of the extra money for domestic security enhancements both political parties want for the federal fiscal year that began Oct. 1.\nOn top of that, many senators were not happy with the final version of the bill and said they would work to make changes next year.\n"I have no doubt that next year we will back addressing the shortcomings that are in this bill," said outgoing Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.\nBut Republicans cheered the bill's passage, saying it was better to have a final product than to keep trying to amend this legislation this year.\n"The terrorists are not going to wait for a process that goes on days, weeks or months," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who will be next year's Senate majority leader.\nThe Senate also:\n•Sent Bush a bill making the government the insurer of last resort for terrorist attacks, with a maximum annual tab to taxpayers of $90 billion. The vote was 86-11.\n•Voted 55-44 to approve U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Shedd to be an appeals court judge.\n•Sent Bush a measure keeping federal agencies open through Jan. 11, needed due to unfinished spending bills.\n•Used voice votes to approve about 130 land and water bills. They included a bill sent to the House extending for three years the CalFed project, aimed at restoring the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which provides water for drinking and irrigation for much of the state.\nThe 107th Congress isn't officially finished yet. The Senate was to meet again Wednesday, with no voting planned. The House was to meet Friday to give final, voice-vote approval to small changes the Senate made in the homeland security bill before sending it to Bush for his signature.\nMost senators fled Washington on Tuesday, cleaning out their desks and saying goodbye to departing members like 99-year-old GOP Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, as well as GOP Sens. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Bob Smith of New Hampshire and Phil Gramm of Texas.\nSome Democratic senators were on their way out as well, including Sens. Jean Carnahan of Missouri, Robert Torricelli of New Jersey and Max Cleland of Georgia, all of whom either lost re-election campaigns or did not run.\nCleland, who lost his legs and an arm in Vietnam, used a variation on Gen. Douglas McArthur's famous farewell that "old soldiers never die, they just fade away" in his final Senate speech.\n"This old soldier is not going to fade away, but I will take my battles to another front," Cleland said to Senate applause.\nCompletion of the homeland security bill ended a topsy-turvy odyssey for legislation that started inching through Congress nearly a year ago against Bush's will, only to see him offer his own version after momentum became unstoppable.\nDemocrats resisted Bush's bill because it restricted labor rights of the new department's workers. But many reversed course after their Election Day loss of Senate control was attributed partly to the homeland security fight.\n"This is a substantial accomplishment, a historic day in the age of insecurity we've entered," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., one of many authors of homeland security legislation.\nThe 107th Congress has seen the world change around it during a tumultuous two-year run.\nBush won a $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax cut but saw a vibrant economy stall and federal surpluses become deficits. Terrorists killed nearly 3,000 last year when they crashed commercial airliners in Washington, New York City and southwestern Pennsylvania. And a historic 50-50 Senate tilted Democratic after Vermont Sen. James Jeffords left the GOP, only to see Republicans grab it back on Election Day.\nLeft unresolved in this Congress were such issues as prescription drug benefits for the elderly, retirement fund protections and the rights of patients in managed care programs.\nCongress also completed only two -- both dealing with defense -- of the 13 spending bills it must pass to fund federal programs for this fiscal year.