The Senate proposal, scheduled for floor debate next week, makes little or no reference to these topics. Some lawmakers said yesterday that these and other differences will present major challenges for House-Senate negotiators trying to agree on a single bill later this year.
The two bills differ in dozens of areas, including the way the Pentagon and a proposed national intelligence director would divide power over budgets, planning and personnel. The Senate measure would create a comptroller for intelligence spending and declassify the total spent annually on intelligence. The House bill would keep that sum a secret and leave the Defense Department's comptroller in charge of spending oversight.
Both bills may be changed before they reach final floor votes, especially in the Senate, where amendment rules are less restrictive.
Leaders of both chambers said their respective bills reflect the findings and recommendations of the bipartisan commission that studied the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and issued a 567-page report in July. The commission's chairman and vice chairman have praised the Senate bill -- sponsored by Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Joseph Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut -- but have withheld comment on House proposals until their details were known.
"Making America more secure has been our highest priority since the tragic attacks of September 11th," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, told reporters yesterday. "This legislation reflects the good work of the 9/11 commission, and it will make America safer."
But Representative Jane Harman of California, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the measure was loaded with controversial items likely to sink it unless they're removed during committee meetings next week or on the House floor. "There are some folks out to kill the whole thing," she said.
Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said the bill was "written behind closed doors" and "goes far outside the recommendations of the 9/11 commission."
