>But, thanks to last-moment add-ons approved by the U.S. House, the
>measure goes even farther. It:
>
>-- Reverses a lopsided previous vote that would have prevented
>companies that set up headquarters off-shore to avoid taxes from
>benefiting from Homeland Security contracts.
>
>-- Protects drug companies from lawsuits over vaccines. Although
>Republican leaders claimed they would revisit the issue, the bill
>ends lawsuits against companies that have already been sued over
>some vaccines, including ones that contain mercury and are alleged
>to have caused autism in children.
Financial Times - November 20, 2002
US bill rewards Republican contributors By Edward Alden in Washington
The Senate on Tuesday cleared the way to creating a new Homeland Security Department, a decision that will be touted as the most important action by the US since September 11 to protect itself against future terrorist attacks.
But the outcome also marked the most thorough partisan triumph for the Republican party since the passage of President George W. Bush's $1,350bn tax cut last year.
In the final manoeuvring on the bill, the White House and its congressional allies managed to punish the two most generous donors to the Democratic party - labour unions and trial lawyers - while rewarding the pharmaceutical companies that have been among the largest Republican contributors.
The union defeat came last week when the Democrats backed down and agreed to White House demands that the roughly 170,000 employees of the new department be largely exempted from union work rules. The American Federation of Government Employees donated $500,000 to candidates in 2002, 93 per cent to Democrats.
And on Tuesday, Senate Republicans recruited a handful of Democratic allies to defeat an amendment that would have stripped from the bill a half dozen "special interest" provisions added to the bill that passed the House of Representatives last week.
Democratic opponents say the most egregious of those measures is an amendment that will halt several court cases against US drug companies that manufacture thimerosal, a vaccine preservative that some advocacy groups charge has been responsible for a surge of autism in children. No member of the House has yet claimed any responsibility for putting the measure into the 500-page bill before it was passed.
The largest maker of thimerosal is Eli Lilly, the St Louis-based drug maker that this year was the industry's largest donor to congressional candidates at $1.6m, with 80 per cent going to Republicans. Mitch Daniels, the White House budget director, is a former president of North American operations of Eli Lilly, and the administration supported the measure.
But the bill takes an even broader swipe at US trial lawyers, who were the largest soft money contributors to Democrats for the 2002 elections.
It will exempt from all product liability lawsuits any company that is deemed by the government to be making products needed for the war on terrorism. Special provisions will also further protect airlines and companies manufacturing smallpox vaccines.
Even Republicans had trouble with some of the last-minute additions. One directs that a $120m new homeland security research centre be housed at Texas A&M University, the home state of Mr Bush and House majority whip Tom DeLay.
The university's incoming president is Robert Gates, the former CIA director for former President George H.W. Bush, who bragged to the Houston Chronicle last spring that his Washington connections would bring home the project.
Trent Lott, the Senate Republican leader, on Tuesday denounced the measure as special favouritism, and promised to change it next year.
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