WASHINGTON - The Senate divided sharply yesterday on a Democratic proposal to strip a handful of special-interest provisions from the bill that would create a new homeland security agency.
The Democratic amendment has prompted a heated debate over legal protections for vaccine makers and other businesses at a moment when Bush stands on the verge of achieving the most significant government reorganization since the start of the Cold War.
At issue are seven provisions in the House-passed homeland security bill. They include liability protections for certain industries, a waiver of open-meeting law, and a proposal for a research center that may be aimed at a lawmaker-favored university.
Senate Democrats criticize most of these provisions as gifts to big business that have nothing to do with the creation of a new Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security to defend against terrorism.
The provision drawing the most attention would grant liability protection to Eli Lilly & Co. and other companies that make a mercury-based vaccine preservative. Several lawsuits have alleged that such preservatives cause autism in children.
Several Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, have attacked this provision.
Some prominent Republicans and the White House, though, have said it is necessary if drug companies are to join the war on terror with products meant to thwart biological attacks.
Other senators have criticized the provision, but so far have stopped short of saying they would vote for the amendment to delete it from the bill.
The swing votes include independent Sen. Dean Barkley of Minnesota, whose short tenure as the replacement for the late Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone will end with the lame-duck session.
GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona plans to vote for the amendment, said his spokesman, Marshall Wittmann. He said McCain believes the special-interest provisions in the House bill are "a poor way to do business." Republican and Democratic aides said yesterday the vote appears to be too close to call. Democrats would need a simple majority to pass the amendment.
Nick Anderson writes for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.