The measure carries out major recommendations of the independent 9/11 Commission.

The bill, passed by the House on a 371-40 vote, ranks among the top accomplishments of the six-month-old Democratic Congress. The Senate approved the measure late Thursday by 85-8, and the White House said the president would sign the bill.

Six years after the Sept. 11 attacks and three years after the 9/11 Commission made its recommendations, "Congress is finally embracing what the 9/11 families have been saying all along," said Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.

"It takes a willingness to do things a different way."

The bill elevates the importance of risk factors in determining which states and cities get federal security funds that would mean more money for such cities as New York and Washington and also puts money into a new programme to assure that security officials at every level can communicate with each other.

It would require screening of all cargo on passenger planes within three years and sets a five-year goal of scanning all container ships for nuclear devices before they leave foreign ports.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, who steered the legislation through the Senate with Sen Susan Collins, R-Maine, said it would "make our nation stronger, our cities and towns more secure and our families safer.”