Lawmakers Urge Changes in Security Plan

WASHINGTON -- Moving to assert congressional authority, key lawmakers urged a select House panel today to make major changes in President Bush's proposed Homeland Security agency.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., and the panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, led a parade of powerful lawmakers who want to change Bush's proposed merging of 22 agencies and offices into a single Cabinet department.

Young and Obey said the House Select Committee on Homeland Security should reject Bush's request for authority to transfer up to 5 percent of the new agency's budget without congressional approval.

"In our view, the administration's transfer proposal is overly broad and unprecedented," Young told the panel.

Added Obey: "It gives the agency, in effect, a totally free hand."