Security and Accountability for Every Port Act
SECURITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR EVERY PORT ACT -- (Senate - September 14, 2006)
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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota for his leadership on this issue and for his excellent comments. This issue was debated at length yesterday, so I am going to make my comments very brief.
I do oppose Senator Schumer's amendment. I do not think it is practical at this point to require 100 percent scanning of 11 million containers coming into this country. And it ignores the very real improvements that are included in the underlying bill.
I am disappointed to hear the Senator from New York describe our bill as yet another study or yet another pilot project. It is way more than that. It has a layered security system that greatly strengthens the Container Security Initiative, the C-TPAT Program, the automated targeting system. And it includes the provisions we added yesterday at the behest of the Senator from Minnesota that will help us move toward 100 percent scanning when it is feasible and practical, when the technology is there and able to be in an integrated system.
It also ignores the fact that our bill includes a mandate--a mandate, I would say to the Senator from New York--that the Department of Homeland Security has to install radiological monitors in the 22 busiest ports by the end of next year, which will result in 98 percent of all cargo being screened for radiation, and addresses the issue the Senator has raised about a nuclear bomb or the makings of a dirty bomb.
So this bill does a great deal. I must say, it disappoints me to hear the Senator imply that it does not, even though we disagree on this one particular issue. This has been a bipartisan bill. Senator Murray has worked very hard on it, as well as many of the rest of us.
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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I will yield myself 1 minute, and then I will reserve a minute for after Senator Schumer speaks.
Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting to table the amendment offered by the Senator from New York, which would require 100-percent scanning of all 11 million cargo containers entering the United States, regardless of whether they are incredibly low-risk containers or high-risk containers.
Now, the amendment that was adopted yesterday, the Coleman amendment, provides for 100-percent scanning of high-risk containers. The bill before us has a pilot program in three foreign ports to find out: Is it feasible and practical? Is the technology available? Can we, in fact, do 100-percent scanning without significantly slowing the flow of commerce? Right now it appears that we cannot do that. The technology is not there. But eventually we will be able to get to that goal. The approach in the Schumer amendment ignores the technological limitations we now have.
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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, once again, I will explain the provisions of the bill. It has a layered system of security for our cargo and, by the end of next year, it requires that the 22 busiest ports in the United States, which handle 98 percent of all cargo containers, will have installed the equipment to screen for radiation, for radiological devices, including a nuclear device. So it is not just studies and plans, as the Senator from New York repeatedly says; it has specific mandates.
The Coleman amendment, adopted yesterday, requires 100 percent screening and scanning of all high-risk containers. But the fact is that we do not yet have feasible, efficient, practical technology in place to allow us to do 100 percent scanning of all containers without significantly slowing container movement, producing a backlog, and harming our economy.
I move to table the Schumer amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
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Ms. COLLINS. You are correct, Senator Levin. The bill contains provisions which would strengthen security measures for containers transiting either land or sea ports of entry.
Mr. LEVIN. It is my understanding that the following provisions in the bill, for example, would apply to all containers, whether they moved by truck or by ship: section 201, which would call on the DHS Secretary to establish a strategic plan to enhance the security of the international supply chain; section 211, which would codify the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism Program; section 301, which would establish the Office of Cargo Security Policy; and section 303, which would increase research into ways to strengthen cargo security.
Is it your understanding that these provisions would apply to containers traveling through both the seaports and land ports?
Ms. COLLINS. Yes, it is the intent of the bill that those provisions apply to all containers, whether transiting U.S. seaports or land ports of entry.
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