The House will consider a $39.9 billion homeland security authorization Wednesday, with partisan debate likely to erupt on a manager’s amendment that would considerably scale back the bill.

The measure (HR 1684) would authorize $2.1 billion more for the Homeland Security Department in fiscal 2008 than the Bush administration requested. Aides said they expect a vote on passage Wednesday evening, but up to 21 amendments could be considered, possibly delaying passage until Thursday.

The bill’s passage would represent something of a landmark for the House Homeland Security Committee, which approved an authorization bill in 2006 that never reached the House floor. The House passed an authorization of the Homeland Security Department for the first and only other time in 2005.

Republicans protested loudly Tuesday at the Rules Committee markup when Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., submitted a manager’s amendment that they said would alter 26 of 86 provisions in the bill and completely scrap 14 others.

“As I understand it, the bill has basically been gutted,” said California’s David Dreier, the ranking Republican on the Rules Committee.

Peter T. King of New York, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, called attention to the omission in the manager’s amendment of a “sense of Congress” calling for a single point of homeland security oversight in the House and Senate — a recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission.

King also expressed disappointment with the omission of a section that would allow the use of emergency communications grants for expenses other than purchasing communications equipment, such as training and usage of the equipment.

The omission was an apparent concession to the Energy and Commerce Committee, which also deals with emergency communications issues.

“We weren’t consulted on any of this, and I think there’s just been a rush to bring the bill to the floor,” King said. “It’s bad precedent.”

Although King said that he still supported the bill, he added that Republicans are working on a motion to recommit that likely would address the concerns he expressed at the rules markup.

Thompson defended the amendment, contending that Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee did not pass an authorization bill last year because the House GOP leadership would not allow them to. He conceded that jurisdictional conflicts had forced many of the changes in the manager’s amendment.

“I’m not about to get in a conflict with my [fellow] chairmen,” Thompson said. “While this not the perfect bill, I will work as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee to get these things done in concert with the other chairpersons.”

Turf issues have clearly complicated the passage of the authorization measure. Thompson last week narrowly averted a markup of the measure by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee by working out a compromise with the panel on civil service and procurement provisions, which are modified in the manager’s amendment.

But Democrats said that passage of even a limited authorization measure would mark an important accomplishment for the committee, which also aided the passage earlier this year of a broad-ranging measure intended to enact Sept. 11 commission recommendations (HR 1).

The authorization bill would give law enforcement officer status to Customs and Border Protection officers, which would allow them to eventually collect the same retirement benefits as other federal law enforcement officers.

The bill would mandate a comprehensive homeland security review — akin to the Pentagon’s quadrennial defense review — to be conducted in fiscal 2009 and, subsequently, at the start of the term of the next president.

Another provision in the bill would officially scrap the Homeland Security Department’s unique personnel system, known as MaxHR, which has been troubled from its start because of numerous court challenges.

The bill also would block the transfer of a biometric border screening program to the department’s National Protection and Programs Directorate if the department does not submit a strategy for the program’s exit portion, which the department has not implemented.

The measure would authorize $300 million from fiscal 2008 to 2010 for a new grant program to help states with expenses in issuing secure driver’s licenses and identification cards, which are required under a 2005 law (PL 109-13) known as the Real ID Act.

Steven R. Rothman, a New Jersey Democrat, filed an amendment to the bill that would bar the Homeland Security Department from pre-empting stronger state and local chemical security regulations.

Rothman’s amendment largely mirrors a provision strongly opposed by the Bush administration in the first House-passed war supplemental spending measure (HR 1591).

First posted May 8, 2007 9:00 p.m.