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US House votes on airport security

"The companies that have been doing this have failed the American people. It is time for them to be accountable. It is time for them to be replaced."

House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt

The US House of Representatives voted on Thursday to make flying safer by transferring oversight of airport security to the federal government from the airlines.

But the lawmakers narrowly rejected a competing overhaul of aviation security passed unanimously by the Senate, which would put the nation's 28,000 airport baggage screeners on the government payroll.

The House's approval of a Republican-backed bill pleased US President George W. Bush, who favored federal oversight of private security contractors as the best way to improve flying safety in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The bill that passed the House 286-139 also gives Bush the latitude to decide to make some or all of the baggage screeners federal employees if he chooses. It was sponsored by Representatives Don Young and John Mica.

But differences will have to be ironed out by House and Senate negotiators before a final measure can be sent to the president to sign.

House Republican whip Tom DeLay said, "We want to go to conference as quickly as possible and get this out."

"If the Senate will listen to the president, we can have a bill out in a week," DeLay said. But he added, "If they want to play politics as they have played ... then this could drag out."

A dragged-out "cul-de-sac" conference was exactly what House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt had said he feared earlier as he argued for passing the Senate bill in the House instead.

The rejection of the Senate bill was nail-bitingly close, 214-218. Had the Senate bill passed the House, it would have gone straight to the president's desk, and his chief of staff had indicated Bush would reluctantly sign it.

The debate over how to make airports safer has been the biggest legislative fight on Capitol Hill since Sept. 11.

Supporters of the Senate-backed bipartisan bill said baggage screeners should be federal law enforcement officers, wearing a uniform and a badge, to reassure the flying public.

"The companies that have been doing this have failed the American people. It is time for them to be accountable. It is time for them to be replaced," Gephardt argued during debate.
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