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Washington, D.C.—The head of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) today sharply criticized the Bush administration for politicizing the debate over homeland security legislation.

“It is inappropriate for the president of the United States to be using inaccurate anecdotes about front-line border security personnel at multi-million dollar political fund raisers,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley. “How can he possibly say that he is not politicizing this debate?”

She added: “I am afraid and very concerned that the administration has decided that it would rather have a political issue to take into the election than work out an agreement on homeland security.”

At a press briefing to address misstatements and inaccuracies about NTEU and Customs Service employees advanced by the administration and some of its supporters in the Senate, President Kelley said she “takes exception to the idea that working with unions and employees is not time well spent.”

The NTEU leader also criticized the administration for its adamant refusal to accept compromise language on civil service protections for workers in the Senate bill on homeland security. “We have stepped back” by accepting compromise language proposed in the Senate, she said, but the administration “has stepped nowhere.”

Responding to a reporter’s question, President Kelley called the proposed Nelson-Chafee-Breaux amendment to Senate homeland security legislation “a compromise on what NTEU thinks should be in the final bill,” which is language on civil service rights authored by Sen. Joseph Lieberman. The compromise language is by Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.) and John Breaux (LA) and Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee (RI).

President Kelley emphasized that the compromise language is modeled on the same personnel flexibilities provided by Congress to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 1998—a model that is being held up as an example of the personnel flexibilities the president wants in the new department. “It seems odd that the administration will now not accept what it has been asking for,” she said.

As an example of the inaccuracies that the administration has used in pursuit of its position, the NTEU leader pointed to a Customs plan to make mandatory the wearing of radiation detectors by Customs inspectors and canine enforcement officers.

“At no time did NTEU or its members refuse to implement the Customs policy regarding radiation detectors,” she said. The only reason not all affected employees are wearing the devices now, she added, is that Customs has yet to supply them.

She further noted that personnel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), who work closely with Customs employees at border crossings, have not been issued the devices—calling that “a serious security risk.” The union president said, “I would suggest that the administration should be more concerned about addressing the lack of detectors than trying to manufacture issues about front line employees that have no basis in fact.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 26 agencies and departments, including about 12,000 Customs employees who would be transferred to the new department.