WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats said Friday they would try to strip what they called GOP special interest provisions from the homeland security bill, a move Republicans said might kill the measure already passed by the House and advocated relentlessly by the White House.

"If this is a homeland security bill, let's keep it homeland security related and let's take out all this terrible special interest legislation that has nothing to do with homeland security," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

But Republicans denied their provisions were unrelated to homeland security. They also said if Senate Democrats succeeded in their changes, the GOP-controlled House then would have to vote again -- and the House left for the year early Friday morning.

Also, if the homeland security bill fails, it will take longer to get a final vote on a terrorism insurance provision, said Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas. "I just think it's a risk we shouldn't take," he said.

The fight is over an amendment offered by Daschle and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. that would strip seven provisions from the legislation approved by the House on Wednesday that would create a new Homeland Security Department.

"In the dead of night with no one watching, after we thought we'd made the compromise, a few things were snuck into the bill," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

Included is language that would create at least one new university-based homeland security research center at a major university -- Democrats say it was intended for Texas A&M University, a favorite of Gramm and Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who will be House majority leader in the next Congress. Republicans say it could go to any number of universities including Texas A&M.

Also, Democrats say there is language in the bill that would protect pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits over the vaccines they create and their side effects, including wiping out lawsuits already in court.

The provision "provides liability protection for pharmaceutical companies that actually make mercury-based vaccine preservatives that actually have caused autism in children. It wipes out all of the litigation," Daschle said. "I can't understand why we would put a provision in there relating to that kind of liability protection."

Republicans deny that the provision would wipe out current lawsuits, and say future liability protection is needed to ensure that pharmaceutical companies will produce the vaccines that America needs to fight the war on terrorism.

"Why would (companies) stand out totally exposed for making a medicine that is lifesaving but one that, with one lawsuit, can wipe out their whole development process, their whole manufacturing process today?" said Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., the Senate's only doctor.

After the Senate finishes with the homeland security bill, on Monday, it will move on to the terrorism insurance legislation passed by the House.

Under that bill, the government would cover up to $90 billion annually in insurance claims from any future terrorist attacks for the next three years. The government would cover up to 90 percent of insured losses from major attacks, with the insurance industry covering up to the first $15 billion in annual claims.

The measure does not cover last year's terrorist attacks, which generated an estimated $40 billion in insured claims that insurers had to cover.

Gramm says the bill is an insurance-industry bailout that also allows businesses attacked by terrorists to be sued by the people injured in those attacks. But he helped craft an agreement that if the homeland security bill passes, the Senate would be able to quickly move on to a final vote on the insurance bill.

By linking the bills, "I thought it might get us a vote or two" on homeland security, Gramm said.

If homeland security doesn't pass, Senate Democrats can't shut down debate on terrorism insurance and by the time a final vote comes around, "it would be Thursday, Friday or Saturday and people would be gone. You wouldn't be able to keep people here," Gramm said.