Wednesday, July 12, 2006; A04

Senate Approves Revisions to FEMA

The Senate yesterday voted to revamp the troubled Federal Emergency Management Agency to improve its response to natural disasters or another domestic attack.

Senators voted 87 to 11 to replace FEMA with a new independent agency within the Department of Homeland Security, called the U.S. Emergency Management Authority, with a director who would have direct access to the president.

The Senate also approved about $1 billion in additional funds for border and port security. The money would pay for more inspectors and more advanced equipment to scan shipping containers.

The Bush administration is preparing a crackdown on intelligence leaks to the news media and will try to pursue prosecutions in some recent cases, the chairman of the House intelligence committee said yesterday.

"There will be a renewed effort by the Justice Department in a couple of these cases to go through the entire process . . . so they can prosecute," Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) said in a speech to the Heritage Foundation.

He also said CIA Director Michael V. Hayden was conducting aggressive internal investigations against leakers.

Hoekstra suggested some unauthorized leaks could have been deliberate attempts to help al-Qaeda.

"More frequently than what we would like, we find out that the intelligence community has been penetrated, not necessarily by al-Qaeda, but by other nations or organizations," he said.

The Medicare plan may ask senior citizens and disabled people to pay 11 percent more next year in health-insurance premiums for services such as doctors' visits.

Medicare intends to charge $98.40 a month in 2007, the program's administrator, Mark McClellan, told reporters yesterday. The plan now charges $88.50.

Monthly premiums were $45.50 in 2000. Costs are growing as elderly Americans make more doctors' visits and for more complicated services and procedures, McClellan said. Medicare's costs are rising faster than are payments from Social Security, the U.S. retirement system.

The Health and Human Services Department released another $225 million to states and cities yesterday to use in preparing for a pandemic of bird flu or other disease.

The allotment is the largest share of $350 million designated to help state and local governments buy supplies and fix up medical and emergency services. The first $100 million was distributed in February to identify the gaps.

HHS has stressed that state and local governments, businesses and individuals must bear most of the burden of preparing for a pandemic or biological attack.

The Senate moved yesterday toward opening the way for Americans to import prescription drugs from Canada, seeking to ease a ban on cheaper medicine crossing the border.

The proposal, which was approved 68 to 32, would create a Canadian loophole in a Food and Drug Administration ban on importing prescription medicine. It was offered as part of a $31.7 billion Department of Homeland Security spending blueprint for the next fiscal year.

-- From News Services