A Senate committee approved a major maritime security bill Tuesday that would require the Homeland Security Department to take steps toward scanning all cargo containers at foreign ports before they are shipped to the United States.

While marking up the measure, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved an amendment by Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, to require Homeland Security to set up test programs at three foreign ports within a year.

Through those ports all cargo containers will be given a radiation and image scan before being loaded on ships bound for the United States.

After analyzing results from the test programs, Homeland Security officials would be required to implement a program for scanning all U.S.-bound cargo at every foreign port as soon as practicable and possible.

Lautenberg said his amendment originally called for cargo to be scanned at every foreign port within five years. But he changed the amendment to help win its approval.

The underlying bill would provide eight hundred thirty five million dollars a year for maritime security.

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House members working to advance a bill to overhaul the U.S. Postal Service continue to put off naming conferees to negotiate a compromise with the Senate that will meet the White House's approval.

The House passed its bill last July, but a veto threat has stalled the legislation as White House aides push lawmakers to eliminate provisions that were part of both the Senate and House bills.

Senate conferees were appointed last February, just after that chamber passed the legislation. Under debate is language that would shift the cost of funding pension benefits relating to military service of postal workers to the Treasury Department.

That move would add nearly twenty seven billion dollars to the federal deficit.

Both bills also would grant the Postal Service access to a growing escrow fund to pay for employee health benefits and operating cost for the agency.

The White House contends the escrow should be used strictly to fund future health benefits. But the two proposals have wide support in Congress.

It is widely considered that the Postal Service would have to increase rates to cover the costs of the veteran's pension liability.

For daily coverage of action on the Hill, visit National Journal's CongressDaily.

With barely a month to go until the start of the 2006 hurricane season, there is intensifying debate - but little agreement - on Capitol Hill over the future of the much-criticized Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Tuesday is slated to release its full report on what went wrong last year during Hurricane Katrina.

Among the 86 recommendations is a contentious proposal to abolish FEMA - which Committee Chairman Susan Collins last week characterized as a "bumbling bureaucracy" - and to create a new National Preparedness and Response Authority within the Homeland Security Department.

But the White House already has rejected the suggestion that FEMA be abolished, and several senators are saying that FEMA should remain intact - but removed from Homeland Security Department and restored to its previous status as an independent agency.

Similar divisions exist within the House of Representatives. The House Homeland Security Committee wants to leave FEMA within the Homeland Security Department, but expand its powers.

The panel intends to move aggressively on legislation to overhaul the emergency preparedness and response system prior to the start of this year's hurricane season.

But the leaders of at least two other House panels - including Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis of Virginia - want FEMA restored as independent agency.

For daily coverage of action on the Hill, visit National Journal's CongressDaily.