Industry wins initial skirmishes in battle over 100% cargo inspection
Security experts agree on two things: A terorist WMD will likely arrive in the U.S. inside a freight container, and the only solution is 100% container inspection; shipping industry says 100% inspection would hobble commerce, and its friends in Congress have so far managed to prevent inserting this requirement into shipping safety legislation
Security experts agree on two things: First, the best platform for terrorists to use to smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the United States is a ship-borne freight container; second, there is a need, therefore, to strengthen and make more sophisticated the security mechanisms used on containers (GPS-equipped tamper-proof seals; pressure sensors, etc.) and subject all U.S.-bound containers to radiation scanning.
The shipping industry objects to the 100-percent-container-screening approach, arguing that it would interfere with commerce and add to shipping costs because of the delays it would cause (if a scanner detects radiation emanating from a sealed container, the container would have to be manually inspected). The shipping industry and its legion of lobbyists have engaged in a determined battle to make sure Congress does not pass 100-percent-screening legislation. So far, the industry, helped by strategically placed campaign donations to (mostly Republican) legislators, has managed to postpone the day of reckoning.
As we wrote yesterday, the House rejetced including a 100 percent container inspection in its version of a shipping security bill. The Senate version, however, is tougher. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs has approved the GreenLane Maritime Cargo Security Act. The Act calls for 100 percent container inspection overseas “as soon as practicable and possible,” and a proviso that DHS secretary identify three ports within ninety days of enactment where a pilot program would begin. The author of the inspection provision, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey), conceded that imposition of a deadline (he had hoped to insert a five-year deadline for cargo screening) for general implementation world wide was not politically expedient at this stage becasue of Republican opposition. The language agreed to in the Senate bill holds out 100 percent inspection as a goal.
The House, in the meantime, is getting ready to pass its own SAFE Port Act. Under the changes the House will likely introduce to SFAE, DHS secretary would have to provide Congress with the name and domicile of each entity that leases, operates, manages, or owns property or facilities at each U.S. seaport. The draft requires a study of the adequacy of security at the ten largest U.S. container ports. Note that the final version of the House bill which emerged from the Homeland Security Committee has not included proposed amendments that would have mandated 100 percent container inspection.
House Democrats have been unsuccessful in efforts to insert a deadline into SAFE, and the Republican-controlled Rules Committee disallowed the 100 percent inspection amendment from being considered during the debate scheduled for later this week.
World Shipping Council president Christopher Koch says the glass is half-full: “The fact that the House version does not require 100 percent inspection shows that [the industry] is making progress in educating lawmakers that 100 percent inspection is just not practical.”
