Senate Makes Progress on Aviation Bill
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate was within sight of ending a deadlock on terrorism-inspired legislation to tighten aviation security, but the measure faced future obstacles in the House where a Republican leader said the Senate bill was unacceptable.
The Senate planned a vote Thursday on proceeding with a divisive amendment to couple aviation security with money to help laid-off airline workers. Rejection of the amendment could clear the path for quick passage of the legislation after more than a week of stalemate on the Senate floor.
The agreement to hold the key vote came after several days of legislative action and accusations by both sides that the other was undermining the spirit of bipartisanship they have tried to maintain since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"I'm embarrassed that both sides of the aisle, for reasons less than national security, have not agreed to taking up and passing this legislation," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a chief sponsor of the aviation security bill, said Wednesday.
House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri said Thursday that House inaction on the security bill was at "the top of the list" of failures of bipartisanship in the month since the attacks.
The bill, modeled after recommendations made by President Bush, has wide support for provisions that would increase air marshals aboard flights, take steps to fortify cockpit doors, require additional anti-hijack training for flight crews and increase surveillance of flight training schools. It also would impose a fee on passengers of $2.50 per flight leg to help pay for increased security.
But for more than a week it has been bogged down in the Senate, with the administration and some Republicans opposed to language that would put all airport security screeners on the federal payroll. Democrats in turn angered Republicans by moving to amend the bill to include $3 billion in aid for laid-off airline workers and another $3 billion to meet an Amtrak request for security, safety and capacity upgrades.
"I'm not interested in delay, I'm interested in helping workers," Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., said in introducing her amendment, scaled back to $1.9 billion, to provide added unemployment compensation, health benefits and training for the 140,000 aviation industry workers who have lost their jobs since Sept. 11.
Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, protested the attempt to attach the Carnahan amendment to the bill by further amending it to allow 2,000 acres in Alaska's Arctic Natural Wildlife Refuge to be opened for oil and gas exploration.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., co-sponsor of the bill with McCain, predicted that if Carnahan failed to get the 60 votes needed to cut off debate on her amendment she would withdraw it, and other contentious amendments would be withheld. That would open the way for final passage.
The Senate on Thursday approved one amendment, offered by Sen. John Breaux, D-La., that would initiate a study of the range of non-lethal weapons that could be made available to flight crew to disable a would-be hijacker.
The Bush administration has indicated that it could accept the Senate approach on federalizing security screeners as long as those workers couldn't strike and could be fired. But Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the House's third-ranking Republican, said he would oppose full federalization and work to hold up any consideration of the bill in the House unless that provision was changed.
DeLay and other Republicans are against creating a new federal bureaucracy of some 28,000 airport security personnel, and favor the approach originally suggested by Bush that would put standards and training in federal hands but keep the screening work force private.
Leaders in the Democratic-controlled Senate considered setting the aviation bill aside and moving to a White House-approved anti-terrorism bill to give police new powers to hunt down and jail suspected terrorists. But in the Senate just one senator can stop a bill from moving to the floor, and on Tuesday Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., seeking added civil liberties safeguards, exercised that right.
On Wednesday a Republican, McCain, kept the anti-terrorism bill off the floor to ensure continued debate on his aviation security legislation.
The GOP-controlled House was having similar problems moving legislation. A giant spending bill to fund major federal health, education and labor programs in 2002 had to be put off Wednesday because of a dispute over whether to allow a vote on banning schools from offering the "morning after" birth control pill to girls under 17.
Police, meanwhile, are banning non-delivery trucks larger 1 1/4 tons from a 40-block area around the Capitol as part of stepped-up security in. The ban, set to take effect Thursday, is not related to any specific threat, Capitol Police spokesman Lt. Dan Nichols told reporters.
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The aviation security bill number is S.1447 and the anti-terrorism bills are S. 1510 and H.R. 2975.
On the Net: for bill text: http://thomas.loc.gov
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