Senate passes homeland security bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed a bill giving new job protection to airport screeners and providing billions of dollars to deal with terror attacks, but the Republican White House threatened a veto over the labor provisions.

The bill, approved on a 60-38 vote, would implement the remaining security recommendations from the bipartisan commission created after the September 11, 2001, attacks, refine others and establish new ones. The commission did not take a position on collective bargaining by airport workers.

House and Senate Republicans said they have the votes to maintain a presidential veto. In order to overturn a presidential veto, Democrats would have to win a two-thirds majority in both chambers.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said the bill would make Americans safer. The labor provision in the bill would give airport workers many of the same rights enjoyed by border patrol agents, firefighters and police, he said.

"This bill will strengthen our ability not just to respond to terrorist attacks, but also to prepare our federal, state and local governments to better respond to natural disasters," Lieberman said.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who voted against the bill, said the labor provision was "dangerous" and would weaken U.S. security.

The Senate has to work out differences with the U.S. House of Representatives, which passed its version of the bill in January, before sending the bill to President George W. Bush.

The Senate bill would authorize about $3.1 billion in grants to state and local government for each of the next three years to help them improve responses to terrorist attacks or natural disasters.

The House version of the bill includes new labor bargaining rights for airport screeners, but does not include specific funding for homeland security grants or for a grant program to help state and local governments make communications systems more compatible. The Senate bill authorizes $3.3 billion over five years for emergency communications grants.

The Senate bill also would require screening of cargo on passenger planes, but does not include a provision in the House bill that would require 100 percent screening of shipping containers from foreign ports.

The Senate bill also would require the Department of Homeland Security to track departures of foreign visitors who travel to the United States under the visa waiver program, and waive visa requirements for visitors from countries deemed to be allies in the war against terrorism.