Democrats draft bill to expand antiterror efforts

WASHINGTON -- House Democrats have drawn up sweeping legislation that would authorize billions of additional dollars to screen all cargo bound for the United States, purchase new screening technology for airline passengers, and dramatically expand efforts to secure nuclear materials around the world, according to congressional documents obtained by the Globe.

The legislation, which is expected to be considered by the full House as early as next week, also would require that federal homeland security funding be allocated to cities and towns based on an assessment of their risk of terrorism. That would change the current formula that has resulted in some less populated areas receiving more security money per capita than large cities such as New York, Washington, and Boston.

It also provides for greater oversight to ensure that government anti terrorism efforts do not infringe on civil liberties by establishing an independent agency to review complaints of violations of privacy, according to a summary of the bill.

Democratic leaders have made beefing up homeland security one of their top priorities in the opening days of the new Congress, vowing to implement all the recommendations of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The House proposal would create costly new government programs -- such as more thorough screening of cargo arriving by air and sea -- that many homeland security specialists had been pushing for several years.

"It is quite comprehensive," Lee Hamilton , a former Democratic congressman from Indiana who co chaired the 9/11 Commission and has been briefed on the broad outlines of the plan, said in an interview yesterday. "I think it focuses on a lot of the issues we tried to highlight."

But while the Democratic initiatives have attracted some Republican support, conservative think tanks have warned about the budgetary implications of creating large programs that may not achieve their goals.

"Simply authorizing more Homeland Security spending will not make Americans safer," wrote James Carafano, a security specialist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, in a paper issued yesterday.

Carafano and other conservatives have expressed particular skepticism about massive efforts to protect local bridges, tunnels, and transportation networks.

"The far better investment of federal dollars is on counterterrorism programs that break up terror cells and thwart attacks before they occur," Carafano wrote.

The Democratic plan would add significant aid money to local governments, and redirect grants to locations considered most vulnerable to a terror attack, which could result in more money coming to Boston and other large urban areas.

A draft of the bill stipulates that it will require "larger grant awards to applicants that have a significant international land border and/or adjoin a body of water within North America that contains an international boundary line."

In 2004, the 9/11 commission made 41 recommendations, some of which have been partially implemented, others not at all.

In a "final report card" issued in December 2005, the commission gave the Bush administration and Congress poor grades for their efforts to increase the country's preparedness. For example, it gave the government F's both for failing to allocate homeland security funding based on risk and for failing to enable police, fire, and other first responders to communicate with each other.

The government's efforts to screen checked baggage and cargo on passenger planes received a "D," as did the government's efforts to prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. Overall, the government received five F's, 12 D's, nine C's and two "incompletes."

The new legislation would require that all cargo loaded onto passenger aircraft in the United States, regardless of destination, be screened, with a program in place by late 2008.

But such a program would be costly. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded in a Dec. 27, 2006, assessment that domestic screening of air cargo would cost at least $3.6 billion in federal dollars over the next decade.

The bill would also create a program to ensure that all cargo containers destined for US ports be checked overseas using the best-available technology, including "scanning for radiation and density," according a draft of the bill.

Representative Edward J. Markey , a Malden Democrat and senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he is confident that most of the enhanced homeland-security measures will pass both houses of Congress with large majorities, and that President Bush will approve them.

He called such homeland-security enhancements "overdue."

The draft legislation also contains major provisions to address another looming threat: nuclear terrorism. It would repeal some bureaucratic limitations now placed on US assistance to Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union to help secure vulnerable weapons material, such as a requirement that funds to help secure the nuclear arsenal be linked to progress on human rights.

The legislation would also require the government to name a chief coordinator for all efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction -- a move long urged by specialists on proliferation. The Senate, Democratic aides said, plans to hold hearings on homeland-security funding next week and members have not drawn up a proposal as has the House, which plans to move ahead with the legislation in the first 100 hours of the new Congress.

However, Carafano, the conservative analyst for the Heritage Foundation, warns in his paper against approving a bill in the first 100 hours.

"Moving quickly to mark up this legislation without hearings or floor debate will leave little time to consider the bill," he wrote.

Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.