GAO: TSA may not meet deadline for cargo checks
Passenger planes carry about 7.6 billion pounds of cargo a year; all suitcases have been screened since 2002, but cargo has been subject to much looser inspection requirements, raising concerns that terrorists could slip a bomb into a package; TSA was given an August 2010 deadline or guarantee that all cargo carried on passenger planes is being screened
A plan to check every package of business cargo for explosives before it is loaded onto passenger airplanes faces major obstacles, according to a government report scheduled for release today. The report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) may not have enough inspectors nor adequate equipment to guarantee all cargo is checked for bombs.
USA Today’s Thomas Frank writes that passenger planes carry about 7.6 billion pounds of cargo a year, including electronics, auto parts, clothes, fresh produce, and medical supplies. The cargo is placed alongside luggage in an airplane’s belly. All suitcases have been screened since 2002, but cargo has been subject to much looser inspection requirements, raising concerns that terrorists could slip a bomb into a package.
The report raises questions about whether TSA will meet an August 2010 deadline set by Congress to guarantee that all cargo carried on passenger planes is being screened. The TSA and cargo groups “face a number of challenges in meeting the screening mandate,” the report says.
Most cargo screening will be done by private entities at warehouses and plants where goods are loaded into boxes. TSA inspection teams will oversee the screening, but the agency may not have enough inspectors by August 2010, the report says.
TSA spokesman Greg Soule said inspectors are being hired rapidly and a study is underway to determine how many inspectors are needed. DHS, which includes the TSA, “is committed to staffing the most effective inspector workforce possible,” he said.
Frank notes that the screening program also faces problems because there are no machines that can screen crates up to 10 feet long carrying dozens of cargo pieces, the report says. Such screening machines are essential, said Brandon Fried, executive director of the Airforwarders Association, a trade group of cargo-transport companies. Without them, packages will have to be removed from a crate, screened individually and put back in a crate - a long process that could delay shipments, Fried said.
The crates are typically used on wide-body airplanes such as 747s. On smaller planes, cargo is loaded individually and can be screened with the same machines that check luggage, Fried said.
Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), told Frank she will press the TSA today to verify that it has met an interim deadline for cargo screening. Under that deadline, the TSA was supposed to certify in February that 50 percent of cargo on passenger planes is being screened. The TSA has said it met that deadline, but the congressional report said “the agency cannot yet verify” the requirement is being met.
