Congress moves on homeland security

? The White House and congressional leaders agreed Tuesday to begin pushing a bill to create a Homeland Security Department through Congress this week, moving toward a major legislative victory for President Bush.

Congressional officials said they expected the Republican-run House to approve the bill today while the Democratic-controlled Senate will begin debating it the same day. Possible procedural delays by Senate opponents could delay final passage there until next week.

Passage would give the president one of the key parts of his plan for responding to last year’s terrorist attacks. It would also spotlight the political muscle he gained from last week’s Election Day wins by congressional Republicans.

“I believe we can get this done. I believe Congress can show the country that they can finish their work on a high note of achievement,” the president said in a day of prodding lawmakers to complete the bill.

Passage also would represent a reversal by Senate Democrats who before the election opposed the bill because they said it would undermine civil service protections at the new agency.

According to a description circulating on Capitol Hill, the measure would allow airline pilots to be armed in cockpits, another proposal that became popular after the Sept. 11 attacks. Initial versions of that plan have already passed the House and Senate, but the two chambers have not finished a compromise bill.

The bill would also allow a one-year delay in the Jan. 1 deadline for airports to screen all luggage for explosives, and let the new agency do business with American companies that move offshore to avoid U.S. taxes if there are national or economic security reasons to do so, congressional aides said.

The bill would drop Senate language that would have established an independent commission to investigate why U.S. authorities failed to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, congressional aides said.

The overall legislation would take a small step to address complaints by Senate Democrats that the new agency’s 170,000 workers would lack sufficient job protection.

It would require the department to negotiate any workplace changes with the employees’ union and require federal mediation if no agreement was reached. But in the end, the department could make whatever changes it wanted – flexibility that administration officials have argued they will need.

The measure would combine about two dozen federal agencies into a new department. They would include the Coast Guard, Customs Service, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and much of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.