House approves GOP anti-terrorism bill

WASHINGTON – House Republican leaders on Friday easily pushed through sweeping new law enforcement powers as part of a Sept. 11 anti-terrorism package, but the House now must negotiate a truce with the Senate on those measures to get President Bush’s signature before the elections.

The House voted 282-134 to approve the GOP leaders’ bill to create a new national intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center as recommended by the 9-11 commission. But they also included new government anti-terrorism, deportation, border security and identity theft powers to the bill that the Senate had rejected.

The two sides will now come together to try to find a middle ground before Election Day, Nov. 2, Congress Republican leaders said.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said in a joint statement that House and Senate negotiators would be appointed quickly and instructed “to begin working to reconcile the two bills expeditiously.”

After negotiators agree on a compromise, the leaders said, “we will bring both houses back into session to vote on it and send it to the president for his signature.”

Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said in a joint statement, “We knew the bills would not be identical but we have faith we can resolve our differences in conference. Our goal remains enacting as quickly as possible legislation implementing intelligence reform and the other 9/11 Commission recommendations.”

Congress also:

. Stalled on passing a $136 billion corporate tax bill when lawmakers upset about tobacco regulation, new overtime rules and combat pay employed delaying tactics to keep the measure from coming up for a vote.

. Prepared to authorize $447 billion for defense programs for the fiscal 2005 budget year that began Oct. 1. The legislation was awaiting final votes by the House and Senate.

. Neared agreement on an election-season $14.7 billion package of aid for East Coast hurricane victims and drought-stricken farmers, participants said. One of the major stumbling blocks, an effort to extend milk subsidies, was likely to be removed from the legislation, said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., and a Senate Republican aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Hastert earlier assured families of Sept. 11 victims that Congress would agree to something for the White House to sign despite major differences between the House and Senate bills.

But House leaders also say they plan to fight to save most of their bill. In addition to creating a national intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center, the House bill would expand powers to fight terrorism, illegal immigration and identity theft and tighten border security.

House members added a provision Friday allowing U.S. authorities to deport foreigners under the same terrorism regulations that can keep them out. They also tempered an amendment that would have made it easier to deport illegal immigrants to countries accused of torture by instead added a provision to detain them indefinitely.

None of those provisions are in the Senate bill, which the opponents of the GOP bill presented to the House but failed to get approved. The Senate bill more faithfully follows what the commission wanted and does not divide lawmakers down partisan lines the way the legislation crafted by House Republicans does, Democrats, and some Republicans, said.