By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House and congressional leaders agreed Tuesday to begin pushing a bill to create a Homeland Security Department through Congress this week, moving toward a major legislative victory for President Bush.

Officials said the Republican-run House could approve the measure as early as Wednesday while the Democratic-controlled Senate would begin debating it the same day. Possible procedural delays by Senate opponents could delay final passage there until next week.

Either way, approval would give the president one of the key parts of his plan for responding to last year's terrorist attacks. It would also suggest the political muscle he gained from last week's Election Day wins by congressional Republicans.

According to a description circulating on Capitol Hill, the measure would include a provision allowing airline pilots to be armed in cockpits. Initial versions of similar legislation have already passed both the House and Senate, but the two chambers have not finished a compromise bill.

The overall legislation would include language taking a small step to address complaints by Senate Democrats that the new agency's 170,000 workers would lack sufficient job protection.

It would require the department to negotiate any workplace changes with the employees' union and require federal mediation if no agreement was reached. But in the end, the department could make whatever changes it wanted — flexibility that administration officials have argued they will need.

Meanwhile, House and Senate leaders were ready to postpone completion of overdue spending bills until at least January.

Only two of the 13 spending bills financing agencies in the current federal budget year have become law. Leaders were planning to push legislation through Congress keeping agencies open until Jan. 11 in hopes that the House and Senate Appropriations committees could complete work on a final, huge spending package by then.

Congressional leaders are hoping to limit their postelection session — which started Tuesday — to little more than a week.

The breakthrough on homeland security came after congressional GOP leaders met at the White House with Bush, who has made its passage the top priority of the session.

Bush opened the meeting by telling the lawmakers they should "see the election for what it was" and get working quickly on homeland security and terrorism insurance, said a senior White House official who was present.

It remained in doubt whether the separate legislation creating federally backed insurance against terrorists' acts could be approved during the lame-duck session.

But the homeland security bill seemed destined for rapid-fire passage by the House. Senate officials said there appeared to be enough votes there for approval as well, though it was uncertain whether delaying tactics would slow that work.

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has complained that creation of what would be one of the government's biggest and most important agencies should be phased in, rather than created in a single stroke. Aides to Byrd said it was uncertain whether he would try to slow passage of the legislation.

Ranit Schmelzer, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Daschle believes the measure's worker protections do not go far enough, but he would bring the bill to the Senate floor because the new department is needed. She said the bill appears to have enough votes to pass the Senate.

The measure would combine nearly two dozen federal agencies into a new department. They would include the Coast Guard, Customs Service, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and much of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2002