WASHINGTON - A stalemate that has blocked efforts to renew an antiterrorism surveillance law and shield phone companies from lawsuits may be resolved within a week, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said yesterday.
Lawmakers may consider a compromise bill that would renew the law, which expired last month, and possibly grant some sort of protection to phone companies from lawsuits. But it would probably differ from a Senate-passed measure backed by the White House that would provide blanket immunity.
"We think we're very close," Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, said of efforts to craft such legislation.
Roy Blunt, House minority whip and Republican of Missouri, said he wasn't as optimistic. "But I am committed to the idea that we have to work this out," Blunt said.
Reyes and Blunt made the comments in separate appearances on CNN's "Late Edition."
Many Democrats have opposed immunizing phone companies that participated in the warrantless domestic spying program begun by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying they first needed to know what the companies did.
Reyes said House Democrats were now reviewing confidential US documents they received in recent weeks about the warrantless electronic surveillance program and were talking with phone companies.
He said he now had an "open mind" on whether to shield companies from lawsuits.
Congressional Republicans have backed Bush's demand for immunity and renewal of the law that expanded the power of US authorities to track suspected terrorists without a court order.
The law expired on Feb. 16.
