Ridge nears confirmation as homeland security chief

? Tom Ridge sailed through Senate confirmation hearings Friday on his way to becoming the nation’s first Homeland Security Department chief and taking on the task of harnessing a giant federal bureaucracy responsible for protecting America from terrorist attack.

“The inertia of the old way of doing things will be enormously difficult to change,” Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, told Ridge before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously approved him for the new cabinet post.

The full Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on the nomination.

Ridge, in a hearing before the committee Friday morning, said “terrorism directly threatens the foundations of our nation” and eradicating that threat would be “a long struggle.”

Lawmakers said the fight should not come at the expense of civil rights or the free flow of commerce.

The department will officially come into being next Friday, although it won’t assume operational control of the agencies until March 1. The government has yet to decide where the headquarters will be.

Ridge is a former congressman and governor of Pennsylvania who since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been President Bush’s chief adviser on homeland security.