Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4954, Security and Accountability for Every Port Act
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 4954, SECURITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR EVERY PORT ACT -- (House of Representatives - May 03, 2006)
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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Nadler, Mr. Oberstar and I requested an amendment to be put in order, and the Republicans said no. In the former Soviet Union, there is deadly nuclear weapons material that is still unsecured that al Qaeda could purchase, bring to a port in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, put it on a ship and bring it into the port of the United States and detonate a nuclear weapon without ever having been inspected.
Now, the amendment which we asked the Republicans to put in order was one that required all containers coming into the United States to be screened overseas before they are put on ships to come into American ports so that we can identify which ship has the nuclear weapon.
In the Homeland Security Committee, our amendment lost 18-16. The Republican majority refuses to allow the coastal representatives to vote on this issue.
We should have learned something from the Dubai debacle, the threat to our container ships coming into our ports. Our amendment says no deadly uranium bombs allowed in, no Dubais. The Republican majority says, we are not going to screen any containers coming into the ports of the United States.
It is dangerous. The least that we should be able to say when that nuclear weapon goes off is that we tried, we really tried to prevent it from happening. The Republicans are not only not trying to stop it from happening; they are stopping us from having a debate on the floor of Congress on this issue.
This is the issue that is at the top of the al Qaeda terrorist target list, to bring a nuclear weapon into the port of an American city. And instead of allowing for this debate to take place, they are saying they cannot figure it out. They are going to study it for three more years. So that will mean we went from 2001 to 2009 studying this issue.
When the Soviet Union threatened the United States in 1961 with Sputnik, President Kennedy did not say, we are going to study it until 1969. He said, we will put a man on the Moon and bring him back to Earth; we will control the heavens, not the Communists.
What the Republicans with the Bush White House say is, they are going to study the issue of the greatest al Qaeda threat to our country, a nuclear bomb in a container in a port in the United States. They are going to study it for all 8 years, 2001 to 2009. President Kennedy said, rocket science, we will master it. The Republicans say, we cannot even figure out how to screen a container; we cannot even figure out how to put a tamper-proof seal on a container.
The price our country will pay will be too high a price. It will be the most horrendous event in the history of our Nation.
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