WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate leaders reached a bipartisan agreement Wednesday night to extend expiring and controversial provisions of the Patriot Act for six months.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, announced the agreement from the Senate floor, ending an impasse over the measure.
Last week, the House of Representatives voted 251-174 to renew the 16 provisions after striking a compromise that altered some of them.
It is unclear how the House will act on the six-month extension.
If an agreement is not reached, 16 provisions in the act will expire on December 31.
GOP leaders in the Senate have been unable to overcome a filibuster by critics of the act.
Earlier, President Bush urged Congress to renew expiring provisions of the act, telling reporters, "The terrorist threat is not going to expire at the end of this year."
Bush called a Senate filibuster "inexcusable."
"The senators obstructing the Patriot Act need to understand that the expiration of this vital law will endanger America and will leave us in a weaker position in the fight against brutal killers," Bush said.
At a separate media event, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said, "If the impasse continues, when Americans wake up on January 1, we will not be as safe."
Bush has said he would veto a three-month extension, arguing it would be inadequate.
Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said the extension would enable common sense to re-enter the debate over the act. Leahy told reporters that 52 senators -- including eight Republicans -- had signed a letter to Frist calling for an extension.
On Friday, the Senate rejected a similar proposal.
Sen. John Sununu, R-New Hampshire, who co-sponsored the measure with Leahy, said there are "a number of different ways that we could work through this issue."
Sununu, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the extension would give ample time for senators to work out differences on the sticking points of the debate.
The Senate needs 60 votes to override a filibuster and end debate, which is called "invoking cloture." Cloture would have brought the Patriot Act to a final vote, allowing the Senate to renew it by a simple majority.
But only 52 senators voted Friday to cut off debate; 47 voted against cloture.
Republicans who voted against cloture included Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Lisa Murkowski of Arkansas, Larry Craig of Idaho and Sununu.
The Bush administration has lobbied intensely for making key elements of the provisions permanent, as well as making some changes to the existing law. Top officials, including Gonzales, have called lawmakers in hopes of swaying them to the administration's position.
The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, created after the September 11, 2001 attacks, allows the government broad authority to investigate people suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. Controversial measures include those allowing the FBI -- with a court order -- to obtain secret warrants for business, library, medical and other records, and to get a wiretap on every phone a suspect uses.
Frist is among the most outspoken supporters of re-authorizing the provisions and has argued that voting against immediate reauthorization "amounts to defeat and retreat at home."
But because of the complexity of Senate rules, Frist voted against cloture. The vote allows him to try to bring the act up for another vote.
The Senate remains stuck over the changes to the act, but Sununu said he thinks Congress will reach an agreement.
"I do think there are changes that can be made, acceptable to both the House and Senate, that will enable us to get strong, bipartisan majorities in both chambers," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/21/pat....act/index.html
