Immigration overhaul survives first attack

WASHINGTON — The Senate turned back an early attack on a broad bipartisan immigration overhaul Tuesday, keeping alive a temporary-worker provision that could bring in as many as 600,000 foreign laborers each year.

Senators voted 64-31 to reject an amendment by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., to strike the program, one of the measure's key elements.

The vote was the first big test for the improbable coalition that wrote the measure with White House officials, and that is struggling to keep the fragile deal from unraveling under pressure from across the political spectrum.

The bill still faces myriad assaults, including further Democratic attempts to limit or alter the temporary-worker program, which would bring in foreign employees on two-year visas.

The immigration measure would also toughen border security and offer a path to legal status to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.

Mortgage-oversight measure advances

Legislation to tighten federal oversight of the two biggest buyers of home mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, cleared the House on Tuesday.

The vote was 313-104 for the measure providing for stricter federal supervision of the two government-sponsored companies, which together finance or guarantee more than three-quarters of U.S. home mortgages.

The legislation also would create a housing-aid fund, worth as much as $3 billion, to be financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

House backs suit over OPEC quotas

Decrying record-high gasoline prices, the House voted Tuesday to allow the government to sue OPEC over oil-production quotas.

The White House objected, saying the move might disrupt supplies and lead to even higher costs at the pump.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is the cartel that accounts for 40 percent of the world's oil production.

"We don't have to stand by and watch OPEC dictate the price of gas," Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., the bill's chief sponsor, declared, reflecting the frustration lawmakers have felt over their inability to address people's worries about high summer fuel costs.

The measure passed 345-72. A similar bill awaits action in the Senate.

Internet scams, spyware targeted

The House passed legislation Tuesday to fight the criminal use of Internet spyware and scams aimed at stealing personal information from computer users.

Spyware is software that secretly collects information about a person or organization and sends it to another entity without the user's consent.

The bill makes it a criminal offense, subject to a prison term of up to five years, to access a computer without authorization to further another federal criminal offense.

Obtaining or transmitting personal information with the intent of injuring or defrauding a person or damaging a computer is punishable by up to two years in prison.

Also

• The House voted mainly along party lines Tuesday to reject a Republican bid to reprimand Rep. John Murtha, a senior Democratic lawmaker accused of threatening legislative reprisals against a GOP member who had crossed him.

• Opposition from Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has blocked a resolution to honor environmental author Rachel Carson on the 100th anniversary of her birth, congressional staffers said Tuesday.

Coburn says Carson used "junk science" to turn public opinion against pesticides, including DDT, that could prevent the spread of insect-borne diseases such as malaria.

Seattle Times news services