OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2007

Date: March 14, 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: National Security Transportation Foreign Affairs


CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2007

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, first I thank my colleague from New Hampshire. He is a tough old New Englander, but he has a heart of gold, even when he is wrong on the merits.

Mr. President, I salute my colleague from New Jersey for offering this amendment. It says one thing loudly and clearly. Even though, as we hope and believe, the Dubai Ports World deal is now scuttled as far as American ports, we have miles and miles to go on port security. This is not new to this Chamber. I have introduced amendment after amendment. I know my colleague from Washington, PATTY MURRAY, and the Senator from Maine, SUSAN COLLINS, and others have all tried to do more for port security. This amendment does much of the job. We have to inspect more than 5 percent of the containers. We need a crash research project so we can develop devices that can scan for nuclear or biological or chemical weapons. We need our ports to have employees who cannot forge documents and get a job for bad purposes.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we need to make sure, for those who operate the ports, when they are checked for security that it is a real check and they can't forge documents or sneak in.

There are so many things to do on port security. Even if every port were owned by an American company that had the best of intentions, we would not be doing close to enough.

So I urge my colleagues to support the amendment of my colleague from New Jersey because we have such a long way to go on port security. It is a neglected stepchild of our homeland security project, and you cannot do it, you cannot do it without the dollars the Senator from New Jersey has suggested.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to make sure more cargo is scanned, to have better screening equipment, tighter security among employees, and the other many good things this amendment does.

I yield my remaining time back to my colleague from New Jersey.

http://thomas.loc.gov/

arrow_upward