Hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee- Security of our Nation's Seaports

Interview

Hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee- Security of our Nation's Seaports

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SEN. MARIA CANTWELL (D-WA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for holding this important hearing. Our nation's ports are an integral part of the fabric of our nation's economy, and certainly now improvement in its security is of utmost importance.

The U.S. ports handle more than 95 percent of our national overseas trade, and the total volume of goods shipped from the U.S. is expected to double over the next 20 years. So ensuring security and safety of our ports, as I said, is of utmost importance.

We know this well in Washington State, because Puget Sound is one of the most busy and complex waterways in the world. The ports of Seattle and Tacoma are the nation's third largest port center, and move more than 11,000 cargo containers daily.

Cruise ship traffic has increased tenfold in eight years from five vessel calls in 1990 to 200 vessel calls last year, and oil tankers and tank barges made more than 4,000 trips across Puget Sound last year, and our ferry system covers more than 25 million passengers each year. That's more than the Amtrak system.

So let's just say we have a very busy waterway in the Northwest. We are also home to a lot of other smaller ports, but very important ports in Washington State that carry everything from our agriculture products to various markets in Asia and overseas.

And we certainly have quite a few pleasure boat traffic coming between U.S. and Canadian waters that also demand custom import inspection. All of these activities make this hearing in the security of our waterway system one of our most complex challenges.

And we depend on the Coast Guard and Border Patrol to make sure that that security is implemented. Our laws such as the Marine Transportation Security Act and SAFE Port Act have established a strong framework for improving our national support security.

But these important programs and their implementation are challenging us, I believe, to look further beyond -- to get that system deployment done effectively, but also to look beyond our U.S. shores to make sure that the implementation of these overseas inspections are also happening.

I firmly believe that waiting until cargo gets to the United States is a little late, and making sure that we actually have the resources. So Admiral Pekoske, I plan on asking you about whether we have sufficient funds to do those international inspections that are so important for our port security.

And since 9/11, the Coast Guard's maritime and security mission has grown significantly, making sure that we have the resources to carry that out, also making sure that the acquisition of those resources are done in an effective manner that doesn't delay but delivers cost-effectively to the taxpayers is something that we are going to continue to explore.

So I look forward to hearing the testimony, Mr. Chairman, and again thank you for this important hearing.

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SEN. CANTWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just wondering from a broad perspective, if you could give us a grade as a nation on where we are with port security?

I'm not asking where we are with the resources we have or the implementation of SAFE ports or sea patter (ph), any of the TWIC -- I'm just asking, where we are versus the goal of making sure that we have a redundant security system?

What grade would you give of us, the United States, and where we need to be in future, if you could just --

ADM. PEKOSKE: Senator, I'd give us a grade of a "B." I think we have some of the fundamentals securely in place. We know the direction we need to go and the challenge is just getting to the end point.

But I think we're at a B right now, I would say we were probably at a "C" last year so just in the past year we've made some progress.

SEN. CANTWELL: Why do you think we've gone from a "C" to a "B"?

ADM. PEKOSKE: Because we have done a much better job of our International Port Security Liaison Officer program where we inspect and assess international ports.

We have continued to gain knowledge as to how to integrate operations at the port level -- that's best and very successful. We've done a lot of work at looking at the small vessel threat and how we would close that threat gap. So, there's been a lot of progress that's fundamental to providing good port security overall.

SEN. CANTWELL: Can the rest of the panel answer that?

MS. FANGUY: I would agree and I feel like that we're trending upward. We're working closely with our partners within DHS and trying to continue to look for areas of improvement.

MR. WINKOWSKI: I want to step out here a little bit Senator, and give as a "B-plus." I really think that we have come a long way since 9/11 and in Customs and Border Protection and as a department in this whole area of screening and scanning cargo, advance information pushing our borders out.

MR. CALDWELL: I'm going to give an incomplete -- one of the frustrations for us, as well as Congress is, are there really performance measures to measure a lot of these programs? In a lot of cases that is one of the weaknesses that we have. It's very difficult.

How do you measure security? It's easy to talk about, but measuring it is pretty hard.

MR. COSCIA: Senator, from the industry's perspective I would say, if the first day of school was September 12th, for some reason we didn't show up at school at all for some period of time, and then we finally woke up and realized we needed to, I think since then a lot of progress has been made.

The agency is represented by the others who are here today. I've seen some real promise for encouragement. But I do think we have a long way to go at recognizing just how comprehensive this issue is. So, I'm afraid I can't do much better than a "C" but I hold us all essentially responsible for that grade.

SEN. CANTWELL: I want to thank you for that answer and I think I agree with you and Mr. Caldwell. I wasn't asking about necessary performance, although I do think that there have been some issues about implementation and performance and measurements, as Mr. Caldwell said, but I'd find it hard to give us better than a "C," given the threat and the challenge that we face and I think we're always going to be short on resources.

Our resources are going to be dear. So, making sure they are deployed in a cost effective manner is going to be of imperative importance. So, I want to get back to Mr. Pekoske -- Admiral Pekoske -- about this.

Well, Mr. Caldwell, you mentioned and Mr. -- well, I think most of you mentioned this international issue and where we are and the challenge, Mr. Caldwell, you mentioned smaller ports not having regimes on international basis.

So, how do we feel secure if you are thinking about an entire worldwide infrastructure? And as I said, when we have the thousands of cargo containers coming in everyday to our ports, this is a real concern.

The fact that there might -- so you're saying we have -- I can't remember what percentage you said -- of how many ports on an international basis have been protected? But, we still have this "web," and you're saying we'll have to do -- two years of checking systems?

To me, we should be much more aggressive on the IMO, International Maritime Organization, of getting everybody to agree to a security regime, and then having a security regime check on a consistent basis.

So, why can't we move towards that so that we're upping our numbers instead of cargo containers? Because obviously we already are well aware that terrorists go at the weakest point in the link, that's their assessment.

They don't say, oh, well, we know that Asia has got its act together on the SAFE Ports, so, we're going to go over here instead. I mean, how do we -- how do we get this regime into better shape?

ADM. PEKOSKE: Senator, we have an international regime, a global regime right now, called the "International Port and Facilities Security Code," and when we make foreign port assessments, we're basically assessing a country's performance against that global code.

SEN. CANTWELL: We were just -- we were just hearing from him about that voluntary system, and so what I'm saying is, don't we have to go -- we want to get it better than a "C" or "incomplete," which I think we want to, don't we have to come up with a better system?

ADM. PEKOSKE: We -- the system is not entirely voluntary. I mean, you know, countries agree to the code and if they don't comply with the code, then there are conditions of entry that we place on them that has an economic impact on their ability to conduct business in this country.

And we've already seen countries improve their security profile as a result of that incentive. And Senator, we're over at IMO right now, the Maritime Safety Committee is meeting in Copenhagen over the next two weeks.

One of the things they're talking about is the implementation of a long-range tracking system, which is a global tracking system. It will give us for the very first time, visibility -- as soon as the port -- as soon as a ship declares, no matter where it is on the globe that it's heading to the United States, we will be able to track that ship on its voyage over.

We'll also be able to see every ship that's a 1,000 miles off our coast, and that's a very significant improvement in capability. And if I could, I'd like to make just one other point, it's been raised a couple of times this morning.

We are revising our port security assessment model to go to a risk assessment model. We want to base our decisions, our funding allocations, our activity levels, on risk, and we've got a very good maritime security risk assessment model in place.

We've deployed it to each one our captains of the port, and that's how they are designing not just their response plans but also their recovery plans. And those recovery plans -- I couldn't agree with Mr. Coscia more -- the key part of these recovery plans has to be the private sector.

And we've -- we fully agree with that and that will be part of the process that as we develop these individual port specific plans, the private sector will be a key part of it.

SEN. CANTWELL: I would say, I appreciate that but I would say I don't think someone wanting to do harm to the United States cares whether a cargo container sits in the "red lane" or not -- as long as it makes it here, right?

So, the question is, how do you get these other countries to participate in a security regime? And I think -- I personally believe we need to up this effort. But I want to tell them this thing because we're in that implementation stages of TWIC I believe, at the Port of Tacoma, is that correct?

MS. FANGUY: That is correct; it will be coming in November.

SEN. CANTWELL: And I'm -- we're hearing -- we're a very integrated port system, so we have workers -- from both the Port of Seattle and the Port of Tacoma. So, they don't always work at the same spot, they don't always work at the same place.

So, how are, I mean, I'm concerned that the -- how the TWIC cards are being implemented, if they're not being implemented on a regional basis, how are -- how is that security regime going to work when you have people working all around -- may be not even just the Port of Seattle and the Port of Tacoma, but the Port of Everett, Port of Vancouver, because obviously people are employed in -- where they are needed?

MS. FANGUY: Compliance will be enforced at the regional level, by the Captain of the Port sector and so what we're really announcing now is opening the doors of -- of a service center where you can go and get your TWIC.

The center in Tacoma will be one of many in your area -- but before we actually begin to work with the Coast Guard to determine when compliance will be enforced, all of the centers will be open and we are trying to make it as convenient as possible by opening 147 fixed enrollment centers, so that people can go get their card, at a place that's most convenient to them.

In addition, we're also working with local stake holders to identify opportunities to take TWIC to them, so as an example by taking a mobile enrollment station to a Union Hall, or to a major employer, again so that we can make sure full coverage in this initial enrollment period.

So, Tacoma is really just the first of many in your area and all across the nation.

SEN. CANTWELL: So, you're saying they're going to be deployed but not implemented until the rest of the region is implemented?

MS. FANGUY: Before we can actually enforce having a TWIC, we need to make sure everybody has an opportunity to get a TWIC. So, this is where we're trying to make it convenient to workers so that they have plenty of opportunity to apply, but then when enforcement is brought in, everyone in the region would have had an opportunity to apply.

SEN. CANTWELL: I know I'm over my time, Mr. Chairman, but I wanted to -- I'm -- we want to continue to work very aggressively on this, because I think that there are -- I think that the contractor has failed to realize that there are multiple shifts, that there are workers that are needed -- that need access to the secure areas.

There's a variety of different people who read power meters, who collect garbage, work at the various -- work at a variety of entities, and so, I think all of this integration, and as I said, we have truckers who make deliveries to different ports, so they are not necessarily just at the Port of Tacoma.

So, all of that integration system works and obviously the TWIC program in and of itself and its challenges, so we want to make sure that those concerns at the local level are being heard, and that we're having a dialogue about them because we do want an implementation that works for everybody.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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