Senate votes to confirm Ridge as homeland security chief

WASHINGTON - The Senate moved Wednesday to endorse Tom Ridge as the new secretary of homeland security, but only after holding him accountable for protecting civil liberties as he embarks on the difficult task of protecting the nation from terrorists.\n"It is essential that Gov. Ridge understand that he will be responsible not only for defending the homeland, but also for defending against the abuse of power within the new department," said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.\nThe former Pennsylvania governor, said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, will be assuming "a Cabinet post that may well be the most challenging position created by Congress during the last 50 years."\nRidge, expected to be confirmed by an overwhelming vote, takes over a newly created department that is still without a headquarters and months away from getting organized.\nRidge, 57, has been President Bush's chief adviser on homeland defense since the Sept. 11 attacks. He takes over a department that, when it evolves, will bring 22 security-related agencies and 170,000 civil servants under one roof.\nSen. Tom Carper, D-Del., in debate Tuesday night, said Ridge was "more than qualified for the job," while pointing to two areas - rail security and funds for first responders at the local level - where he said the administration wasn't doing enough.\n"States and localities are in desperate need of additional new resources to help prepare their police, their fire and emergency personnel for any future terrorist attack," Carper said.\nBush nominated Ridge to head the new department last November on the same day he signed into law the biggest federal reorganization since the creation of the Defense Department in 1947.\nThe department officially comes into being on Jan. 24, but it won't assume operational control of the agencies until March 1 and it will be months before it is fully functioning.\nAmong the agencies to become part of the new agency are the Secret Service, Coast Guard, Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies with security-related functions.\nThe CIA and FBI, responsible for intelligence analysis, will coordinate with the Homeland Security Department but will remain independent.\nRidge, a Harvard graduate and decorated Vietnam War veteran, was elected to the House in 1982 from his hometown area of Erie, Pa., and served for 12 years. In 1994 he became Pennsylvania's governor, winning re-election in 1998.\nClose to Bush, he was among those considered as a possible running mate on the Republican ticket in 2000, After the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, Ridge resigned as governor to become Bush's adviser as head of the White House Office of Homeland Security.\nLast Friday the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously approved Ridge's nomination.\nSenators urged him to make sure the department had the resources to improve the readiness of first responders and meet the myriad threats posed by terrorists to air, rail and sea commerce and energy and water resources.\nThey told Ridge he must find a balance between tracking and monitoring possible terrorists and assuring that people's civil liberties and privacy rights are respected.\n"The road will be long, and the mission difficult," Ridge told the hearing. The new department, he said, "will not in and of itself be able to stop all attempts by those who wish to do us harm."\nOn Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee is to hear testimony from Asa Hutchinson, a former congressman from Arkansas and director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, on his nomination to be the new department's under secretary for border and transportation security.