WASHINGTON, May 2 (UPI) -- Congress moved closer Thursday to creating a Cabinet-level department of homeland security directly responsible for protecting U.S. borders and infrastructure and responding to an attack if necessary, under new bipartisan legislation pending in both houses of Congress.
Lawmakers from both parties expressed frustration that government efforts to defend against terrorist attacks are bogged down in bureaucratic turf battles and infighting in the Bush administration.
"We know that in Washington, turf battles are both endemic and epidemic," said one sponsor of the new legislation, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
The momentum in Congress to take aggressive homeland security steps was further fueled by Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge's refusal to attend a fourth hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday as the panel tries to decide how to spend some $40 billion in homeland security funds. The White House has said Ridge would not appear because Ridge is a presidential adviser and not a member of the Cabinet.
Instead, the White House dispatched Ridge to the Senate to participate in an informal briefing with some senators as the Senate committee was trying to go about its business.
Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., expressed frustration over Ridge's failure to appear when homeland security is not working as well as it should.
"While the American people expect their homeland security to be an absolute, at this point, it is nothing but an aspiration," Byrd said.
Lawmakers have complained of spotty security at airports, porous borders and ports, bumbling by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, vulnerabilities in the U.S. food supply and a fractured chain of command for evaluating threats and responding to potential emergencies.
Ridge, however, remains popular in Congress. Instead, lawmakers said he simply lacks the authority to do the job.
"We cannot settle for half-measures," Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said about a patchwork effort to improve security in the federal government. "After Sept. 11, warfare has changed significantly and our defenses must change significantly."
The new bill would create the new department and merge the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Border Patrol, Customs Service, Coast Guard, Immigration and Naturalization Service and parts of the Agriculture Department. It would hand new authority to the Cabinet-level position at the White House to control homeland security budgets. That position would be subject to congressional oversight.
The new bill has support from both parties and in both Houses of Congress. Sponsors include Specter, Lieberman, Bob Graham, D-Fla., and Reps. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, Jim Gibbons, R-N.V., and Jane Harman, D-Calif.
"In the months since Sept. 11, it has become increasingly clear that our government is not properly organized to deal with homeland threats," Thornberry said.
In his meeting with senators Thursday, Ridge remained aloof on steps Congress might take reorganizing the federal government to better protect U.S. borders and improve homeland security.
"There has been no formal recommendation to the president," Ridge said.
