Lawmakers Push Homeland Security on Cargo Screening

Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010

Three Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday pressed the Homeland Security Department to step up efforts to meet the congressional mandate for screening all U.S.-bound sea cargo for weapons of mass destruction and related materials (see GSN, March 9).

(photo) (Aug. 4) - A forklift moves a cargo container at the Port of Baltimore last year. Several U.S. lawmakers yesterday urged the Obama administration move faster to implement a law requiring that all U.S.-bound sea cargo be scanned for weapons of mass destruction (Paul Richards/Getty Images).

Representatives Bennie Thompson (Miss.), Edward Markey (Mass.) and Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) submitted a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on the third anniversary of the entry into force of the law that established the requirement.

"For the past three years, we have waited for DHS to take concrete steps to implement this provision, or alternatively to propose legislation to amend the law," the letter states. "Neither has happened. Therefore, we remain concerned about the significant homeland security risk to our nation as a result of the department's continued inability to articulate a path forward in this important area."

Comments from Napolitano and Customs and Border Protection Commission Alan Bersin suggest the department is not trying to meet the July 2012 deadline, according to the letter. Instead, "it is our understanding DHS is seeking to extend the deadline by two years for all ports worldwide without developing a plan to implement the scanning requirement by a date certain pursuant to the statute," according to its authors.

Napolitano has said in congressional testimony that an extension is necessary due to issues including the absence of certain technologies and the high cost of scanning the 10 million cargo containers that enter the United States each year.

The lawmakers said they want the department by Aug. 17 to deliver a written accounting of the implementation "challenges" at all foreign ports that ship cargo to the United States. The list should cite justifications for each port that would receive a deadline extension, which are allowed by the 2007 legislation under certain conditions.

The letter also calls for the Homeland Security Department before the beginning of fiscal 2011 on Oct. 1 to submit a plan that addresses in detail how the agency would implement the cargo scanning requirement, financing and personnel requirements for that plan, and how resources connected to existing U.S. cargo scanning programs could be used in establishing the program.

“I am extremely concerned that the Department of Homeland Security is dragging its feet and making insufficient efforts to meet the 2012 deadline for 100 percent cargo scanning, as mandated by Congress,â€