Bush to Make Homeland Security Office Cabinet Level

Congressional Democrats are hailing President Bush’s proposal to create a new Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security that will cut a swathe through eight existing agencies and draw from scores of other offices dealing with intelligence, border security and related responsibilities, news services reported.

The restructuring, which White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called the biggest government restructuring since 1947, was outlined in a televised speech Thursday.

The new department would be divided into four parts: border transportation and security; emergency preparedness and response; chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear countermeasures and information analysis and infrastructure protection, the Associated Press reported.

The border transportation and security unit will have the most direct contact with trucking. The new group will take over the Immigration and Naturalization Service from the Justice Department, the Customs Service from the Treasury Department and the Coast Guard from the Department of Transportation.

Strong support for the move has already been voiced by leading Democrats like House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), Reuters said.

In setting up the department, Bush is bowing to demands of members of Congress who had argued for an agency that would be subject to oversight.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge is the current homeland security adviser and is virtually certain to be Bush's choice to head the new department, AP said.

The White House said its aim is to transform what it called a confusing patchwork of more than 100 government agencies with some responsibility for homeland security into one effective and responsive agency.

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