Security and Accountability for Every Port Act

SECURITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR EVERY PORT ACT -- (House of Representatives - May 04, 2006)

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in very tepid support of this bill. It is a very nice bill. It has some nice provisions. None of it matters very much if we do not at least electronically scan every container before it is put on a ship bound for the United States. All it would take is one atomic bomb, one radiological bomb, to make 9/11 look like a fire cracker, to kill hundreds of thousands of people, to cost hundreds of billions of dollars, to bring commerce to a total halt for weeks or months while every ship, every container is not scanned, but searched, inspected by hand before they are allowed to proceed into this country, because that is what will happen if there is, God forbid, a disaster in this country.

We have no protection against that now. Even with this bill, we depend on risk-based analysis, on paper as Mr. Markey said, to defend us. What the motion to recommit does is to say that no container can be put on a ship bound for the United States until it is scanned for radiation and for density, until the result of that scan is transmitted electronically in real-time to American inspectors in the United States, and until a tamper-proof seal that will tell us whether that container has been tampered with after it is scanned is put on that container.

We are told this is not feasible. Mr. King says the technology does not exist. But it is done in Hong Kong today. It is done in Hong Kong today. The two biggest terminals in Hong Kong have this. Of course, nobody bothers reading the scans because the Department of Homeland Security cannot be bothered. They are on a hard drive in Hong Kong.

It is relatively cheap, $6.50 per container, 10 seconds per container, no delay. But the DHS has no urgency. Mr. Gingrey, a Republican of Georgia at the Rules Committee, said that he had a company in his district that makes those tamper-proof seals that can talk to the global positioning satellite; but he cannot get DHS to talk to them, they are not interested.

The motion to recommit we are told is irresponsible and partisan. It is, in fact, word for word identical as the amendment that was agreed to by the chairman of the Transportation Committee and adopted unanimously by a bipartisan vote in the Transportation Committee. But suddenly when it comes to the floor, it is a partisan amendment.

The Republicans on the Transportation Committee understood the necessity for protecting our homeland.

The Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee apparently do not, nor does the Republican leadership, because they will not agree to this obvious thing to do that everyone, bipartisan, on the Transportation Committee agreed to do.

Mr. Chairman, the main risk comes from the so-called low-risk containers, not the high-risk containers. Wal-Mart ships a shipment of sneakers from a factory in Indonesia. And on the truck on the way to the port, the truck driver goes to lunch. And while he is at lunch, someone takes out a package of sneakers and puts in an atomic bomb. The bill of lading is fine. It is a reliable company. It is low-risk, and there is an atomic bomb on that container, and no one sees it because that container is not scanned.

Maybe it is scanned under this bill in Boston or in Los Angeles. It is too late to look at it in Los Angeles if there is an atomic bomb on board.

Mr. Chairman, this motion to recommit, which I hope Members will vote for on the merits, not vote party line against it because it is a procedural motion or some such nonsense, makes this a worthy bill, and makes this a bill that will really protect Americans.

Without the motion to recommit, despite what Mr. King says, this bill does a number of things that are nice, but does nothing really to protect the United States.

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I offer this motion to recommit with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), and I thank him for his efforts on this issue.

This is a reasonable bill, but none of it matters much if we don't at least electronically scan every shipping container. All it takes is one atomic or radiological bomb to make 9/11 look like a firecracker, to kill hundreds of thousands of people, to cost hundreds of billions of dollars, to bring commerce to a total halt for weeks or months while every ship is searched by hand because we don't have in place the means to scan every container.

That is what this motion is about. If we really want to make this country safer, we must demand that before any container is put on a ship bound for the United States it must be scanned electronically in the foreign port. It is too late if we find a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles or New York.

The container must then be sealed with a seal that will tell us if it is tampered with after it is scanned, and the results of the scan must be transmitted electronically to people in the United States for examination.

This motion is identical to an amendment that was unanimously agreed to by Chairman Young and the entire Transportation Committee a month ago. This is not a partisan issue, unless you choose to make it so by voting ``no.''

They say the technology doesn't exist. The technology most certainly does exist. It is installed right now in Hong Kong. The technology is installed in Hong Kong now, except that the results of those scans are stored on disks because no one at the Department of Homeland Security can be bothered to read them.

The people who say we can't do this are the same people that told us 2 years ago that we couldn't get a bill of lading for every container 24 hours in advance, the same people who told us that if we searched every passenger, the airports would be gridlocked, the planes would never take off. Scanning every container is feasible, it is relatively cheap, and it will not delay global commerce.

If we continue to rely solely on so-called risk-based strategy, the terrorists will simply put the atomic bomb in a low-risk container from Wal-Mart. The real risk is that a good company will have a container with sneakers on a truck in Indonesia. On the way to a port, the driver will stop for lunch; and while he is at lunch terrorists will take out some sneakers and put in a bomb. And the bill of lading will be fine.

The question on this motion is, do we or do we not want to risk American cities and American lives on the chairman's confidence in Wal-Mart's paperwork?

Mr. Speaker, I yield now to a leader on this issue, Mr. Markey.

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