Washington ? The NBA’s steroids policy was branded “pathetic” and “a joke” by lawmakers Thursday, and the head of a congressional panel said he would propose a law creating drug-testing standards for the four major professional sports leagues.

House Government Reform Committee chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., opened a hearing focusing on the NBA by saying he’ll produce a uniform testing bill next week. Davis promised the legislation he’s drafting with ranking Democrat Henry Waxman of California and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., “will have more teeth than other bills introduced.”

Davis didn’t go into specifics, but Waxman said their legislation would follow the Olympic model and would call for a two-year ban for a first offense and a lifetime ban for a second offense.

Those mirror the penalties in the Drug Free Sports Act, introduced last month by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., chairman of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee conducting a separate inquiry into steroid use.

Testifying before that panel Thursday, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said Stearns’ bill “is not appropriate to be enacted in its present form. … At least as it applies to the NFL, we feel that it is unnecessary.”

At the same time, in a nearby hearing room, Davis’ committee was directing the sort of criticism at NBA commissioner David Stern and union leader Billy Hunter that it heaped on major league baseball officials in a March 17 hearing.

Since then, though, commissioner Bud Selig has proposed toughening baseball’s drug policy, including punishing first offenders with 50-game suspensions instead of 10-day bans, issuing lifetime suspensions for a third offense, and banning amphetamines.

“Our investigation already has spawned results, evidenced most profoundly by major league baseball’s abrupt about-face on the need for more stringent testing,” Davis said.

He said the bill he would propose would cover baseball, the NBA, the NFL and the NHL.

Washington Wizards guard Juan Dixon and Houston Rockets trainer Keith Jones also testified Thursday, and both said they didn’t know of any steroid use in the NBA.

“Certainly, the NBA is not suffering under the same cloud of steroid-use suspicion that has been hovering over other professional sports,” Davis said.

But, he continued, “How do we know for sure there’s no steroid problem in the NBA if its testing policies are so weak?”

Waxman called the NBA’s policy “simply inadequate.” Rep. William Lacy Clay, a Missouri Democrat, called it “a joke.” Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, said the NBA’s policy was “weaker than the NFL or MLB’s.” And Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, said: “It is, in my opinion, rather pathetic.”

Stern repeated what he told Stearns’ subcommittee Wednesday: He has told Hunter that he wants to add more in-season tests, double the penalty for a first offense to 10 games, and kick players out of the league for a third positive test.

“The union supports some changes,” Hunter said.