Agriculture Committee wants APHIS to remain at USDA

The House Agriculture Committee voted Thursday to recommend that Agriculture Department inspectors at U.S. ports of entry and the USDA research facilities at Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York state be transferred to the proposed Homeland Security Department--but that other functions of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service stay at the USDA.

President Bush had proposed moving all of APHIS to the new department. But farm groups and state agriculture commissioners have said they fear that APHIS's large role in dealing with domestic plant and animal threat would get short shrift if the whole agency is transferred.

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge met with farm groups last week and indicated the administration would be open to splitting up the agency or segregating the APHIS function within the Homeland Security Department.

Meanwhile, another major player in the debate--the House Government Reform Committee--Thursday took up its part of the legislation creating a Homeland Security Department, while bracing for a contentious session that was expected to last all day and perhaps into the night. Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., unveiled a manager's amendment that would preserve civil service protections for federal workers who move into the proposed department, while addressing other concerns of the Democratic minority.

Government Reform ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., called the substitute an improvement, but said more changes were needed. "We are creating more bureaucracy, not less," Waxman said.

He also cited Wednesday's Congressional Budget Office estimate that Bush's reorganization plan would cost about $3 billion to implement over five years--notwithstanding an earlier pledge that his homeland security would not "grow" the size of the federal government.

On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Thursday reaffirmed the goal of floor action on the proposed department before the August recess. He said that a "vast majority" of both parties support the bureaucratic reorganization, adding that they "support the schedule and support the overall project."