WASHINGTON – House and Senate negotiators refused to give ground yesterday toward a compromise on putting in place the September 11 commission’s terror-fighting recommendations. The White House and victims’ families appealed for a deal.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is in charge of the negotiations, acknowledged that three straight days of meetings among aides to key lawmakers have proved fruitless.

Yesterday’s public session, the first involving the negotiators themselves since the House and Senate passed different versions of bills to overhaul the intelligence agencies, produced no movement.

The bipartisan commission urged Congress to create a national intelligence director to oversee 15 different military and nonmilitary intelligence agencies. The hope was such a step would prevent attacks like ones three years ago in New York and Washington.

But the House and Senate voted to maintain the current wall between military and nonmilitary intelligence operations even while building some bridges over them.

The commission also called for more safeguards: national standards for driver’s licenses and other IDs, improved “no-fly” and other terrorist watch lists, and greater use of biometric identifiers to screen travelers at ports and borders.

House Democrats have joined the Senate negotiators in preferring the Senate version. It does not include suggestions from senior House Republicans to tighten border security and give law enforcement powers to fight illegal immigration and identify theft in addition to terrorism.

Democrats say differences on those issues will bog down the debate and may kill the bill. “If we try to do this on this conference committee, my friends, we are going to be here for months without producing a product,” Senator Durbin, a Democrat of Illinois, said yesterday.

House Republicans defended their legislation, saying without the measures they added, the work would be only half done. “I strongly believe that we must not be deterred by the well-intentioned belief expressed by some that these ideas in the House bill are too controversial to be enacted,” said House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Republican of Wisconsin.

Mr. Hoekstra, a Republican of Michigan, plans to meet with the Senate bill’s two supporters, Republican Susan Collins of Maine and Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and Rep. Jane Harmon of California, a Democrat.