Special interests overtake homeland security.

After the Senate ensured that an amendment laden with special interest provisions became part of the recently signed Homeland Security Act, all eyes will focus on Senate leadership as the 108th Congress convenes later this month.

Before adjourning the 107th Congress, the Senate gathered to vote on the homeland security bill, which, at nearly 500 pages, included seven tacked-on, special interest provisions. One created new liability protection for pharmaceutical companies that make thimerosal, a mercury-based vaccine preservative. Some parents say thimerosal caused their children's autism or other neurological injury.

The provision "basically give[s] a `get-out-of-court-free card' to Eli Lilly and other manufacturers of thimerosal," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). "Let's be clear about this provision. It has nothing to do with homeland security. Smallpox and anthrax vaccines do not use thimerosal. We should not take away the rights of our citizenry under the guise of trying to protect them."

The Homeland Security Act, signed by President Bush in November, takes vaccine-related thimerosal claims out of the courts and forces them first into a federal compensation program. The act's three-year statute of limitations, beginning with the onset of the first symptoms linked to neurological damage, gives pharmaceutical companies an easy opportunity to have pending injury cases dismissed immediately.

How did such a provision survive in the bill that went to the president's desk?

After the House passed the revised bill, Sens. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) offered an amendment to strip the special interest protections from it. The House recessed, which increased the pressure on senators to oppose the Daschle-Lieberman amendment.

Nevertheless, three Republicans--Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island--were willing to support the amendment, and possibly force the House to return.

These senators told then-Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) that they would vote with the Democrats unless they received assurances that the thimerosal issue (and two other special interest provisions) would be reconsidered in 2003.

Snowe, Collins, and Chafee "exacted a pledge from [Lott] that the issue will be `revisited' in the new GOP-controlled Congress," reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

The three senators "told Vice President Dick Cheney, the president of the Senate ... they would buck their party," CNN reported, unless they got the assurances, which they also sought from House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).

"[W]e felt very strongly that until we got the same kind of strong commitment from the House leaders as we had gotten from Sen. Lott, that the deal really was not complete," said Collins.

Once Republican leadership promised to revisit the special interest provisions, Collins, Snowe, and Chafee voted against the Daschle-Lieberman amendment, which failed 52-47.

After the bill passed, Daschle and House Democrat Leader-Elect Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.)issued a joint statement vowing "to remove egregious special interest provisions" in the bill.

"I'm glad that some Republican leaders are embarrassed enough by what they've done to say that they'll go back ... and change the bill," said Daschle.

Other special provisions

The Homeland Security Act also offers special provisions to offshore tax evaders; designates Texas A&M University as a new homeland security research center, ignoring the competitive-award process; authorizes the Transportation Security Administration to issue emergency security rules, as long as they are essential to protecting travelers; gives liability protection to some companies that provided passenger and baggage screening on September 11, 2001; enables the Homeland Security Department to hold secret meetings with influential industries, even if the issue is "nonsensitive"; and provides liability protection to manufacturers of "antiterrorism technologies" that cause harm when used in the war against terrorism.

Manufacturers of products labeled "antiterrorism technology" receive limits on joint liability, immunity from punitive damages, and protection from being sued in state court.

And in some cases, once the secretary of homeland defense designates a product "antiterrorism technology," the manufacturer may enjoy complete government-contractor immunity, even if the product was not provided under a government contract.

Curiously, this provision barely survived when the House first considered the homeland security bill in July. House leaders held the voting time open until they could get the vote needed to beat an amendment striking the provision--218-217. The provision appeared in the revised version of the bill--in effect, the only version the Senate was allowed to consider.

Kristin Loiacono is ATLA's associate director for media outreach and coalition development in the Media Relations department.