Surface Transportation and Maritime Security Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, yesterday I joined my colleagues Senators Nelson, Thune, and Fischer in introducing the Surface Transportation and Maritime Security Act. The security of our Nation's ports and rail and surface transportation systems is critical to the daily lives of Americans, as well as to the health of our national economy. I thank my colleagues for joining together on this important legislation and hope that it leads to improved safety for our country.

This legislation comes months after the tragic attack on the Brussels metro and airport which killed 35 and injured over 300, and it comes just days after explosives were detonated in New Jersey and New York, threatening the lives of thousands. The sad reality is that attacks like these occur, and we must do more to protect our citizens.

The fact is mass transit and rail systems are challenging to secure. Meeting this challenge requires us to have a strategy in place that recognizes the evolving threats to surface networks and puts sufficient resources in place to match those risks. Currently, less than 2 percent of the Transportation Security Administration's, TSA, budget and staff are dedicated to protecting surface transportation networks. While the Federal role has been to support and oversee State and local efforts to secure transit and other surface networks, we need to ask ourselves whether we are doing enough to protect passengers.

The Surface Transportation and Maritime Security Act requires the TSA Administrator to implement risk-based security plans for surface transportation in order to ensure resources are being driven to the most high-risk places. The bill directs TSA to conduct careful analysis to consider risks and provide mitigation strategies using information from global terrorist attacks. Additionally, I thank my colleagues for working with me to include language to the bill that will authorize more bomb-sniffing canines to be utilized to deter threats in our railroad networks and surface transportation. The bill also helps improve the screening of maritime workers and includes further measures to reform and improve port security. The bill includes several other important provisions that will yield new data to help inform future security needs. The bill is a product of compromise with my colleagues, and we will also need to work with our appropriator colleagues to ensure TSA has the resources to take these important security measures.

Again I thank my esteemed colleagues for partnering together on this legislation.

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