The Senate on Thursday sent President Bush a broad bioterrorism bill that devotes $4.6 billion to stockpiling vaccines, improving food inspections and boosting security for water systems.
“Because of the initiatives we approve today, American families can go to sleep tonight knowing that their security will be enhanced,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), one of the legislation’s chief authors.
The Senate approved the measure 98-0 after the House passed it Wednesday. Bush is expected to sign it when he returns Tuesday from a trip to Europe.
The bill would spend $640 million to manufacture and stockpile smallpox vaccines for vast numbers of Americans in the event that terrorists reintroduce the eradicated disease.
In addition, the measure expands the availability of potassium iodide for communities near nuclear plants to treat radiation poisoning in case of terrorist attack.
The legislation also would pump more money into the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, secret stashes of medicine at sites throughout the United States.
A separate House bill aiming $29 billion at the fight against terrorism bogged down Thursday in an election-year dispute over the rising national debt.
Passage that bill was still a virtual certainty because both parties strongly support its spending for the Pentagon, intelligence, airport security, aid to U.S. allies and New York’s recovery from the Sept. 11 attacks.
Also on Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are nearing agreement on changes in the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund that would allow scores of American families from past terrorist attacks to receive hundreds of millions of dollars collectively in compensation.
The agreement would mean compensation for families of the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, as well as the families of the 168 killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, said aides to Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Don Nickles (R-Okla.).
The plan is being worked out by negotiators for the two senators. Payments would total $1.85 million for each family, said staff involved in the talks.
