For the exotic new threat of bioterrorism, a congressional task force offers the mundane antidotes of food inspections, border security, protection of water supplies and improved law enforcement. They are the kinds of measures that have been debated many times in Congress and defeated many times because they represent big government. Changed circumstances will perhaps bring a changed response from Congress.

The House Homeland Security Task Force, which includes Maine Reps. John Baldacci and Tom Allen, offers a broad package, one that would protect against poisoned food supplies by increasing surveillance, vaccine research and even satellite technologies that monitor livestock. It proposes to spend $75 million to improve security at public water supplies, increase the number of test sites for water and assessing security at water-bottling plants. It would hire more law-enforcement and border patrol officers and give them more high-tech tools for detecting explosive devices or biological contaminants and allow them to better communicate with each other.

All of this costs a lot, hundreds of millions of dollars, although a final cost has yet to be identified. But Congress these days is less concerned with budget caps and lock boxes than with correctly anticipating the next line of attack. Short term, this makes sense. If the White House is right, however, and the imminent threat of terrorism is to be with the nation for the long term, the costs of these security programs will have to fit into the confines of a balanced or near balanced budget. Regular assessment of these new programs will be essential because they are far from being the only costly changes contemplated to increase domestic safety.

No one knows how far Congress should go to guard against terrorist attack because no one is certain about what is coming next. This protection package, however, seems like a responsible reaction to the increased awareness of the nation’s vulnerability to attack, whether from al-Qaida or other groups. Some of it can be implemented immediately, some will take many months.

Commentators were quick to conclude after Sept. 11 that the nation had been fundamentally changed, although they were vague exactly how it was changed. This is how. Food inspections will not only test for freshness but to make sure some group isn’t trying to poison large numbers of Americans. Conflicts at the border aren’t about whether cigarettes are properly taxed but whether a container of anthrax is being slipped across. That’s about as fundamental as you can get.