Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005 -- (House of Representatives - June 18, 2004)

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the Millender-McDonald/Ferguson/Pascrell/Nadler amendment to increase funding for port security. This amendment will transfer $275 million from the Disaster Relief Program to the Port Security Grant Program, which will then provide a total of $400 million for our Nation's seaports. Of course, I support increasing funding by much more than this $400 million, but this amendment is an extremely modest approach to begin doing something feasible right now to protect our Nation, and I firmly support the amendment.

The Coast Guard has said the amount in this amendment is the absolute minimum that is needed. Remember, we are at war. It is time to begin acting like it. We all know an attack can come at any time, and we must do all that we can do to stop it. That means investing more money in port security.

Frankly, this is a drop in the ocean. The fact is 2 percent of the containers of the 6 million containers that come into our ports every year are inspected; 98 percent could have an atomic bomb in them, or radiological bomb, or anything else, and we do not know about it. The fact is we should insist, and this amendment does not do it but it is a step in the right direction, and an amendment to do the right thing would be ruled out of order, the right thing would be to insist that no container gets put on a ship bound for the United States in a foreign port until that container is inspected by an American team in the foreign port. It is a little late to be discovering in New York or Los Angeles that there is a nuclear weapon in a container. And if a foreign country does not want an American team in their port, that is fine, they are sovereign, but they do not ship anything to the United States. That ought to be our policy.

We ought to spend the several billion dollars a year. If we are serious about protecting our people, we ought to spend the several billion dollars a year to inspect every container before it is put on a ship in a foreign port. We are at war, and this is serious business.

Last year on this floor I engaged in a colloquy on this subject, and a distinguished gentleman on the other side of the aisle said well, we will inspect the high-risk containers. And I said, so, well, the terrorists will put the weapons in the low-risk containers.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I am aware of that. And I am aware that if I offered an amendment
to do what we ought to do, it would be ruled out of order, as it was last year, so I am using this opportunity to talk about this amendment, to talk about what we really ought to do, which the majority would rule out of order if we attempted to do it.

So the fact is what we really ought to do is inspect every container in a foreign port. We cannot do that because the administration does not take the war being waged against us seriously enough. They think the tax cuts are more important for the American people. They will not let us spend that money; the majority will not let us spend that kind of money, so we are reduced to doing what we are talking about in this amendment, which is a very modest step to increase to $400 million the total for port security because maybe we will catch in our ports here what we elect to put in containers abroad because we did not inspect them when they should be inspected.

So I support the Millender-McDonald amendment as a very modest first step. The vote on this amendment will tell whether the Members voting take the security of the American people seriously or not. I urge Members to take the security of the American people seriously and vote for this amendment as a very modest first step.

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