Conferees approve Homeland Security spending bill

House and Senate appropriators unanimously approved the fiscal 2007 Homeland Security spending bill Monday night with a provision that allows U.S. citizens to import prescription drugs from Canada, but rejected a last-minute effort to allow imported drugs from Mexico.

The bill is expected to be approved by the full House and Senate within days and sent to President Bush by the end of the week. Enactment of the bill, along with the fiscal 2007 Defense appropriations measure also due to reach the president by week's end, has been an election-year priority for lawmakers from both parties.

As approved by the House-Senate conference, the bill would allow U.S. citizens to import Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs from Canada as long as the supply is for 90 days or fewer and carried on the person. Citizens would be prohibited, however, from importing controlled substances and some biological products.

But appropriators rejected a push from some House Republicans that would have required senior citizens to get permission slips from their physicians to import drugs.

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, also made a last-minute amendment that would have allowed drugs to be imported from Mexico.

Adding to the last-minute drama, Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., crossed party lines to support the amendment, and it was approved by House appropriators on a 9-8 vote. Senate appropriators, however, refused to vote on the measure, meaning it will not be included in the final conference report.

The spending bill also includes language written primarily by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, and House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., that gives the Homeland Security Department authority, for the first time, to regulate security within the chemical industry.

"The fact is, this is the best proposal we could get and it is, in my opinion, significantly better than nothing," said Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H.

Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said the language was agreed to "behind closed doors" and gives industry too many loopholes.

He offered an amendment calling for appropriators to use language originally approved by the Senate in its version of the spending bill. Senate appropriators rejected the amendment on a 9-8 party-line vote. House appropriators also rejected Byrd's amendment on a 9-7 party-line vote.

Byrd offered another amendment that would have added $190 million for port security grants, to bring the funding level up to $400 million -- the same dollar amount approved by House and Senate authorizers in their respective port security bills.

But that amendment failed on a 9-8 party-line vote. Also, an amendment by House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., that would have added about $1 billion to the bill for immigration enforcement, transportation security and preparedness, was defeated on a 9-8 party-line vote.

Notably, however, the bill approved by conferees would delay implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative until June 1, 2009. The initiative, passed by Congress in 2004, requires travelers to and from the Americas, the Caribbean and Bermuda to have a passport or other accepted document that establishes the bearer's identity and nationality to enter or re-enter the United States.