Homeland Security Employee Issues Deferred

The Senate has joined the House in recessing until Labor Day without voting on its version of a proposal to create a Homeland Security Department out of some two dozen current agencies and sub-agencies. During the recess, officials will work on the differences between the House-passed measure (HR-5005) and the version that emerged from the Senate committee level (S-2452). The work will come under the cloud of repeated White House threats to veto a version that tracks the Senate approach, which the administration contends would be more restrictive in terms of the President’s authority over union activities in the new agency than is current law.