WASHINGTON - The Senate voted overwhelmingly last night to establish a Department of Homeland Security to protect the nation against terrorism, delivering a major victory to President Bush on a bill he had championed throughout this year's elections.
The senators broke a four-month logjam and capped an extraordinary year in a Congress defined largely by its response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The vote reflected the political muscle that Bush gained in the wake of that catastrophe and his party's sweeping gains in the midterm elections.
Once the Cabinet department is fully in place - which could take years - it would consolidate 22 agencies, take in 170,000 workers and mark the largest reorganization of the government in more than a half-century.
By last night, months of intense Democratic opposition to Bush's plan had all but lifted. The Senate passed the bill 90-9; the House is expected to pass it Friday, preparing it for Bush's signature as early as next week.
It was one of the last votes of the 107th Congress. It was cast hours before the Senate passed a resolution to keep the government funded at current levels through Jan. 11 and was later to adjourn for the year.
"We're making great progress in the war on terror," Bush said on Air Force One, en route to Europe for a NATO summit. "Part of that progress will be the ability for us to protect the American people at home."
Bush called the measure "landmark in its scope."
Many Senate Democrats, including their leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, said they were voting for the bill only grudgingly. Many agreed that such a department was necessary to fight terrorism but expressed uneasiness about the expanded new authority it would give the president.
Eight Democrats - including Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland - and one independent voted against the department. They argued that Congress was ceding too many prerogatives to the executive branch with too little debate.
"We might as well just dive under the bed and say, 'Here goes nothin','" said Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat.
The president's signing of the bill will start the clock on what is sure to be a long and complex process of bringing nearly two dozen federal agencies and offices under one sprawling Cabinet department.
A budget dispute has prevented most of the government's spending bills from passing this year, meaning that no additional money has been allocated to the new department to carry out its functions.
The last time the government undertook a restructuring of such magnitude was in 1947, when President Harry S. Truman proposed bringing the War and Navy departments together under one agency, now called the Defense Department.
The Homeland Security Department will be in charge of preventing terrorist attacks and reducing the nation's vulnerability, by securing U.S. borders, developing science and technology to counter threats and consolidating intelligence gathered from inside and outside the department. It will also coordinate a response to any terrorist strikes that do occur.
Senate passage came after a series of near-death experiences for the department on Capitol Hill this fall.
The most recent occurred yesterday morning, hours before the overwhelming bipartisan endorsement. Democrats tried unsuccessfully to strip the measure of a handful of what they called "special interest" provisions added by House Republicans leaders late last week, before that chamber completed action on the bill and adjourned.
Had the effort succeeded, the bill might have died.
But by 52-47, the Senate killed an amendment that would have dropped new liability protections for drug companies that are sued over the effects of vaccines, airport screeners sued for security breaches and manufacturers of security equipment sued for harming Americans.
The amendment would also have dropped a provision that hands a lucrative research program to Texas A&M; University and another provision Republicans added that essentially guts a ban on awarding department contracts to companies that relocate abroad to avoid taxes.
Three Democrats, as well as Dean Barkley, the interim independent senator from Minnesota, joined 48 Republicans in opposing the amendment. The three Democrats were Sens. Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, who faces a run-off election Dec. 7 to retain her seat, Zell Miller of Georgia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
Only one Republican, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, joined 45 Democrats and Sen. James M. Jeffords, a Vermont independent, to try to eliminate the provisions.
McCain called the provisions "special deals for special interests" and said he is worried that the private sector is engaging in "war profiteering."
Wavering senators who voted against removing the provisions - including Nelson and Susan M. Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, both Maine Republicans - said that Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi promised to work with House Republican leaders to narrow the provisions once the 108th Congress convenes in January.
Senate Republicans spent most of the fall delaying action on a Democratic-written Homeland Security bill. They wanted to give Bush more authority to reshuffle agencies in the new department and to oversee its personnel and budgets.
Democrats protested. In particular, they criticized Bush's plan to bypass civil service laws to establish new personnel practices - such as rules for hiring, firing and promoting employees - for the department.
The bill reflects an agreement on the workplace rules reached last weekend between Senate moderates and Tom Ridge, the White House's homeland security adviser, who is likely to head the new department. That agreement gave Republicans enough votes to pass their plan.
The measure will give the administration the final say on establishing labor practices at the department, though it will allow labor's representatives a chance to appeal rules they oppose.
On another key issue for organized labor, the measure will let Bush exclude workers from unions if he determined it was necessary to protect national security. But the exclusion would expire after four years.
Labor representatives and many Democrats said they still believed the personnel provisions fell short of protecting federal employees' rights. But many overlooked those and the items added by Republicans last week to support the overall bill.
"I'm absolutely committed to the belief that we do need this agency, and I feel so strongly about it that I'm prepared to vote for it, even though on the issues of workers' rights, I continue to be disturbed," said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat.
Mikulski said she would use her position on the influential Senate Appropriations Committee to "stand sentry" next year on behalf of the new department's employees.
"We all feel that this meets a compelling need that's before the nation," Mikulski said.
But Sarbanes, who voted against the measure, said the department could create more problems than it solved.
"It diverts the energy and attention of a lot of people who are responsible for homeland security away from the immediate substance of the problem and to moving desks and chairs around," he said.
Before adjourning, the Senate also approved an agreement creating a three-year federal terrorism insurance program - another effort for which the White House lobbied forcefully.
Enactment of the terrorism insurance measure will create the first-ever federal cost-sharing of losses incurred by insurance companies as a result of terrorist attacks. In case of a future terrorist strike, the government would cover 90 percent of a company's terrorist-related losses above a threshold level.