Print This Page Email This Page See Most Sent

• Is Black-White Friendship Site Offensive? • EXCLUSIVE: Mom Says Eminem Was Shy Boy • Write A Brilliant Film Script? Send It To Kevin Spacey

Nov. 18

— By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The outcome of a showdown vote in one of the final battles of the 107th Congress became more unclear on Monday when Republican Sen. John McCain said he would side with Democrats in seeking to kill new pro-business provisions attached to homeland security legislation.

The Senate will decide on Tuesday whether to keep the half dozen provisions. They include ones to provide new liability protections to vaccine makers and ease a restriction on the proposed Department of Homeland Security from contracting with companies that move offshore to escape U.S. taxes.

Regardless if these provisions are kept, the Senate is expected to soon pass the underlying bill, which would create President Bush's proposed Department of Homeland Security by folding into it all or parts of 22 existing federal agencies. Elimination of the provisions would require the concurrence of the House of Representatives.

"It is unclear how the vote (on the provisions) will turn out, but Senator McCain opposes the provisions. He sees them as a bonanza for special interests," said spokesman Marshall Wittmann.

"We still think we're going to have the votes to win," replied Don Stewart, a spokesman for Sen. Phil Gramm, a Texas Republican and a chief sponsor of the bill that was drawn up in response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Stewart said while Republicans will lose McCain, of Arizona, on this vote, they will pick up at least one Democrat, Zell Miller of Georgia, a co-sponsor of the bill.

A senior Democratic aide said, "We're not predicting victory, but we're very hopeful. It's going to be close."

The Senate has 49 Republicans, 49 Democrats and two independents, one of whom, James Jeffords of Vermont, regularly votes with Democrats.

Stewart said Republicans hope to pick up support on the pro-business provisions of the other independent, Dean Barkley of Minnesota, who as of Monday had yet to publicly stake out a position on them.

Barkley was sworn in last week to finish the final two months of the six-year term of Sen. Paul Wellstone, a Democrat, who was killed in a small plane crash in October.

VACCINES FOR BIOWEAPONS ATTACK

Once the Senate deals with a proposed Democratic amendment to drop the pro-business provisions, it hopes to move to a vote on passage of the homeland security bill as one of the final acts of the 107th Congress.

The homeland security legislation was a key issue in the Nov. 5 elections, when the Republicans made big gains that will put them in control of the next Congress. Bush had accused Democrats of stalling the bill over a dispute about workers' rights.

Last week, the Republican-controlled House passed a compromise version of the legislation, which included the new pro-business provisions, and sent it to the Senate for final concurrence.

Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, voiced concerns on Monday about the provisions, particularly the way they were adopted without public hearings.

"Ultimately I think the necessity for homeland security outweighs this disadvantage, but just barely," Specter said.

Democrats said the vaccine provisions in the bill appeared to be aimed at shielding major U.S. pharmaceutical companies -- which were among the biggest donors to Republican campaign coffers -- from a wave of lawsuits seeking to link a mercury-based vaccine preservative to childhood autism.

But Republicans said the move was necessary in light of the possibility of terrorist attacks with bioweapons like anthrax or smallpox, which might require millions of people to get vaccines that can have serious, sometimes fatal, side effects.

"The urgency of it is the fact that we are a nation at risk," said Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Frist, a medical doctor.

photo credit and caption:

Copyright 2002 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.