Informant38

The bill, approved 299 to 121, would reverse an earlier measure and allow American companies that have moved offshore in order to evade taxes to contract with the Homeland Security Department. It would also extend protection against liability suits for airline screening companies and many other businesses that contract with the department, and adds a similar provision protecting the makers of smallpox vaccines.

Most Democrats voted against the bill, with many raising objections to the new provisions and the altering of Civil Service rules.

The House voted 215 to 203 along party lines not to create an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks. Several members of both parties in the two chambers said they would try to include the commission in an intelligence spending bill that has still not been passed. But Republican House leaders said the commission needed more planning, drawing complaints from relatives of attack victims that they were trying to hide failures that might have prevented the attacks.