Lantos: We Need More Cargo Inspection at Nation's Ports Than the Newly-Signed Security Law Requires
Lantos: We Need More Cargo Inspection at Nation's Ports Than the Newly-Signed Security Law Requires
Congressman Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo, San Francisco) said today that the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress have all but ignored port security for five years, and the latest move to improve it is just one small step.
"I am aggravated and exasperated that we have not done more to protect our ports," Lantos said. "The threat is clear but our response has been lackluster. Doing only part of the job is not acceptable."
Today with much fanfare, the President signed the SAFE Port Act of 2006 (H.R. 4954) to provide $400 million a year for port security grants and funding for the Container Security Initiative. Although Lantos supported these provisions, he and other Congressional Democrats had pressed for an additional provision requiring 100% scanning of containers bound for U.S. ports -- but this effort was blocked when the Majority kept them from amending the bill during debate.
The blocked provision would have required that all shipping containers be scanned and sealed using new technology before they are loaded onto ships going to the United States. X-ray machines and radiation detectors would have been used scan the containers.
"If a nuclear weapon, or even a comparatively small radiological 'dirty bomb,' were loaded in a container coming into an American port, it could cause hundreds of thousands of casualties," Lantos noted. "The new law should have included a screening 100% requirement. Two very busy ports in Hong Kong already scan all their cargo containers, and other ports should be required to do so as well."
Lantos last week decried the shortcomings of the annual funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As in recent years past, this spending bill significantly under-funded border, port, aviation, rail and transit security, and short-changed programs to improve first responder preparedness. Funding for first responder preparedness programs has been cut by almost a third since 2003. Federal support for state and local law enforcement funding has been slashed by 46% since 2001.
Lantos has been particularly critical of the distribution of funding determined by the DHS. In May, the Department reduced funding to high-risk urban areas under its Urban Areas Security Initiative grant program. At that time Lantos stated, "I am simply at a loss to understand any allocation that would cut funding for New York, Washington, D.C., and the Bay Area while at the same time increase funding for such cities as Louisville and Omaha."
Lantos questioned the ignorance of the Administration's failing to provide homeland security funding for the ports of San Francisco and Oakland as part of a $168 million allocation of funding to enhance the security at the nation's ports.
"How can the Administration justify the fact that once again it has ignored the needs of the Bay Area to protect at risk facilities?" Lantos asked. "Homeland Security appears to doing its usual 'heckuva job' in excluding our busy ports."
Oakland has the nation's fourth busiest container port. In 2005, the port handled 2.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units of cargo, an 11.2% increase over 2004. The Port of San Francisco is an important commercial and tourist hub that attracts millions of passengers a year.
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