Senate passes intelligence overhaul bill; House prepares for debate

In the hours following the Senate's 96-2 approval Wednesday of legislation to overhaul intelligence programs by implementing the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, the House Rules Committee worked late to structure House debate on a competing, broader and more controversial plan.

The House panel's Republican majority was expected to reject appeals from Democrats and a few Republicans to give them a vote on a House bill nearly identical to the one the Senate passed.

Attempts by Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and their supporters to offer their bill or parts of it during House committee markups last week of the House GOP leadership's bill were all rebuffed.

Democrats, members of the 9/11 Commission and families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have objected to the GOP leadership bill because they contend its "extraneous" provisions on immigration and law enforcement will make it impossible to enact a bill before the November elections.

But House Republicans have dismissed those arguments while defending a bill they say will go further toward the goal of protecting Americans. "It's about the policies this nation must employ to fight and win the war on terror and protect the American people from terrorists and terrorism,"Majority Leader DeLay said at a Wednesday news conference.

Meanwhile, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, voiced confidence in the bipartisan Senate bill she co-sponsored with Governmental Affairs ranking member Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. It passed with only Democratic Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Ernest (Fritz) Hollings of South Carolina casting votes against it.

"We are going to conference with a very strong bill," Collins said. Lieberman added, "We sent a strong bill to the Senate from committee, and it emerges today even stronger." He noted that "some colleagues who started out most skeptical ... ended up supporting it because they believed it was right."

During the past eight days of debate on the bill, Collins and Lieberman successfully beat back numerous amendments that sought to weaken the role of a new national intelligence director proposed in their bill.

However, both managers said that despite some of the more vexing turf battles that took place, and complaints from senior members that debate was too brief, the bill is now better.

The bill, dubbed the "Collins-Lieberman National Intelligence Reform Act," incorporates 39 of the 41 recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission.