[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 4954,
THE SAFE PORT ACT
=======================================================================
FULL HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 4, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-71
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Peter T. King, New York, Chairman
Don Young, Alaska Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Lamar S. Smith, Texas Loretta Sanchez, California
Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
Christopher Shays, Connecticut Norman D. Dicks, Washington
John Linder, Georgia Jane Harman, California
Mark E. Souder, Indiana Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
Tom Davis, Virginia Nita M. Lowey, New York
Daniel E. Lungren, California Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Jim Gibbons, Nevada Columbia
Rob Simmons, Connecticut Zoe Lofgren, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey
Katherine Harris, Florida Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin
Bobby Jindal, Louisiana Islands
Dave G. Reichert, Washington Bob Etheridge, North Carolina
Michael McCaul, Texas James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Charlie Dent, Pennsylvania Kendrick B. Meek, Florida
Ginny Brown-Waite, Florida
(II)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements
The Honorable Peter T. King, a Representative in Congress From
the State of New York, Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security 1
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security.............................................. 2
The Honorable Donna M. Christensen, a Delegate in Congress From
the U.S. Virgin Islands........................................ 25
The Honorable Tom Davis, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Virginia.............................................. 17
The Honorable Peter A. DeFazio, a Representative in Congress From
the States of California....................................... 22
The Honorable Bob Etheridge, a Representative in Congress From
the State of North Carolian.................................... 34
The Honorable Jane Harman, a Representative in Congress From the
State of California............................................ 18
The Honorable James R. Langevin, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Rhode Island................................. 36
The Honorable Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Texas........................................ 39
The Honorable Daniel E. Lungren, a Representative in Congress
From the State of California................................... 20
The Honorable Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Massachusetts..................................... 29
The Honorable Bill Pascrell, Jr., a Representative in Congress
From the State of New Jersey................................... 32
The Honorable Stevan Pearce, a Representative in Congress From
New Mexico..................................................... 24
The Honorable Dave G. Reichert, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Washington........................................ 27
The Honorable Mike Rogers, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Alabama............................................... 31
The Honorable Loretta Sanchez, a Representative in Congress From
the State of California........................................ 2
The Honorable Rob Simmons, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Connecticut........................................... 14
Witnesses
Panel I
The Honorable Michael P. Jackson, Deputy Secretary, Department of
Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 5
Prepared Statement............................................. 7
Panel II
Mr. Clark Kent Ervin, Private Citizen, Former Inspector General,
Department of Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 58
Prepared Statement............................................. 60
Mr. Jonathan E. Gold, Vice President, Global Supply Chair Policy,
Retail Industry Leaders Association:
Oral Statement................................................. 51
Prepared Statement............................................. 54
Mr. Christopher L. Koch, President and CEO, World Shipping
Council:
Oral Statement................................................. 42
Prepared Statement............................................. 44
Ms. Bethann Rooney, Manager of Port Security, Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey:
Oral Statement................................................. 61
Prepared Statement............................................. 63
H.R. 4954, TO IMPROVE MARITIME AND
CARGO SECURITY
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Tuesday, April 4, 2006
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:04 p.m., in Room
311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Peter King [chairman of
the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives King, Davis, Lungren, Simmons,
Rogers, Pearce, Reichert, Dent, Brown-Waite, Sanchez, Markey,
Harman, DeFazio, Jackson-Lee, Pascrell, Christensen, Etheridge,
Langevin, and Thompson.
Chairman King. [Presiding.] The Committee on Homeland
Security will come to order.
The committee is meeting today to hear testimony on H.R.
4954, the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act, known
as the SAFE Port Act.
My opening statement will be very brief, but I want to at
the very outset commend Chairman Lungren, who I know is going
to be here in just several minutes, and also Congresswoman
Harman and Subcommittee Ranking Member Ms. Sanchez for the
excellent job they have done in coming up with the SAFE Port
Act.
It was legislation which last week passed the subcommittee
by voice vote, and enjoyed broad bipartisan support. I believe
it is a very significant step forward in addressing an issue
which is obviously essential if we are to have true homeland
security. If there was anything positive to come out of the
whole Dubai Ports issue, it was an awakening of the American
people as to just how important port security is.
Our committee scheduled these hearings and legislation on
port security before Dubai Ports, but that certainly gave us an
opportunity to take advantage of that moment, of that window of
opportunity to move the legislation forward. I certainly look
forward to the testimony of the witnesses today, each of whom
is an expert in this field, which again is so vital.
Coming from New York, where I suffered the loss of many
constituents on September 11, I have a very keen awareness of
just how vital the whole issue of homeland security is, and
also having the Port of New York and New Jersey right there in
lower Manhat-
tan and New Jersey again drives home to me how vital it is, and
how essential it is that we do protect our ports.
All of us know how vital port activity is. We know the 9
million to 11 million containers that are shipped into our
country. We know the devastating impact that could result from
either an attack on our ports or a dirty bomb going off in our
ports. So this is an issue which must be addressed. I strongly
believe that this legislation as it is written now is a very,
very positive step. There may be some changes made as we go
forward. It is my intention to have the full committee hearing
today and then schedule a markup the week of April 24, probably
on April 26 will be the day we actually do the marking up of
the legislation. And then hopefully get it to the House floor
as soon as possible after that as we can.
Also, our committee and subcommittee have been working
closely with Senator Collins, Senator Murray, and Senator
Lieberman in the Senate as they go forward with their
legislation. In many ways, our legislation parallels theirs, or
theirs parallels ours. So if we can again keep this process
going and get bipartisan legislation coming out of the
committee, coming out of the House, legislation which is
closely synchronized with the legislation coming out of the
Senate, I think we can see real progress being made this year.
As I speak, the chairman of the subcommittee which has done
such yeoman work has entered the room. I want to again, while
he is here, publicly commend him for the leadership he has
shown, along with Ms. Harman and Ms. Sanchez.
So with that, I yield to the distinguished ranking member
from Mississippi, Mr. Thompson.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I, too, join the chorus of platitudes for this bipartisan
legislation. What I would like to do is to give the ranking
member of our subcommittee my time to speak on this effort, Ms.
Sanchez. She has been very interested and involved in this
process. So if I may, I would yield the balance of my time to
her.
Chairman King. Surely, and she can have additional time
after that if she wishes on her own.
Ms. Sanchez?
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Ranking Member Mr. Thompson. I
appreciate all the help that you have given us on this bill,
and also to you, Chairman King, for the way both of you have
brought this up in a very bipartisan manner.
I would also like to commend Chairman Lungren for his
willingness to work with me and others on this committee to
achieve what I thought was a very successful subcommittee
markup last week.
And of course, I want to thank the witnesses that are
before us today to testify. I am hoping that we get more
information so we make this bill even better as we move forward
to mark it up in committee when we come back from the spring
recess.
One of the biggest questions that I have today is regarding
a CBP request from February 8, 2006 soliciting short-term
private contractors to be hired by CBP to perform C-TPAT
validations. I guess I am a little frustrated and disappointed
that Assistant Commissioner Ahern didn't mention the
solicitation at our March 16, 2006 subcommittee hearing on the
SAFE Port Act, when I specifically asked him about CBP and
whether it would consider using third party entities to
validate C-TPAT member security plans. And then later I find
out that you actually have an RFP out there on the market that
was dated before the March 16 meeting.
All of us on this committee are committed to improving our
nation's security, but if CBP and the Department of Homeland
Security refuse to communicate and share basic information with
us, that makes it really difficult for many of us to do our
job. I would like to ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, to
add a copy of the February 8, 2006 CBP solicitation for
contractors to work on C-TPAT validations to the record. \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ See the committee file.]
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Chairman King. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Sanchez. And, Deputy Secretary Jackson, I am looking
forward to getting some answers to several questions I have on
the topic of that solicitation. In addition, I believe that it
is a good opportunity to get feedback on the current bill. I am
interested in the C-TPAT section of the bill, on the need for
the implementation of the TWIC card, and what we can do to
improve our ability to know what is in the box, what is in the
container before it lands on our shores.
I hope that our discussion today will provide analysis of
the current provisions of the SAFE Port Act, of which I
continue to be a proud cosponsor. I also hope that this will be
an opportunity for our witnesses to provide additional
information as we go into full committee markup.
Thank you, and I yield back my time to Mr. Thompson, who
will yield back, I guess, to the chairman.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman King. I thank the gentlelady for her statement.
I now recognize the chairman of the Subcommittee on
Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection and Cybersecurity,
the gentleman from California, Mr. Lungren.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to begin by commending your commitment to this
issue on port security. No one can question whether or not this
is something the committee would like to move on. Already we
have held a hearing and a markup on the legislation at our
subcommittee level. We will be meeting in markup session at the
full committee level after the Easter recess. I understand that
the leadership is committee to a floor date for this bill at
the beginning of May.
In this Congress, the Committee on Homeland Security was
very involved in passing the Border Security and Terrorism
Prevention Act. We now look to pass port security legislation.
So these are important times for our committee, ones in which
we continue to establish our jurisdiction. But more
importantly, we work to perform oversight over the Department
of Homeland Security in such a manner that allows flexibility
for the secretary, while still ensuring that those of us on
this committee are held accountable to our constituents that we
are elected to protect.
The Security and Accountability for Every Port Act, or the
SAFE Port Act, has one primary aim: to push the United States's
security borders out. It is my belief, shared by many, that if
the terrorist threat reaches our shores, it is far too late.
The SAFE Port Act, rather, works to build on the multi-layered
defense that the administration has established so that we
ensure security and accountability at each step in the global
supply chain, from factories overseas to the United States
seaports and everything in between.
I would say the legislation has three key ideas: first,
enhancing security at U.S. ports by establishing a risk-free
port security grant program with, and this is very important,
dedicated funds from customs duties requiring the
implementation of the TWIC or transportation worker
identification credential, sooner rather than later, and I
stress sooner. Actually, I just stress getting it done, and
then furthering the deployment of radiation detection
equipment.
Second, preventing threats from reaching the U.S. by
authorizing through legislation and improving upon two Customs
and Border Protection cornerstone security programs, the CSI,
the Container Security Initiative and the Customs-Trade
Partnership Against Terrorism, that is C-TPAT.
And third, tracking and protecting containers en route to
the U.S. by improving our ability to detect high-risk
containers through strengthening our automated targeting
system, establishing container security standards, and
supporting additional cargo security research and development,
including reviving the Operation Safe Commerce.
Again, I thank the chairman for taking up this important
piece of legislation in this committee. I disagree with those
who say that nothing has been done to secure our ports. Much
has been done, but much, much more remains to be done. This
bill is not contradictory with what the administration has
done, but rather builds on the foundation it established, but
we need more than a foundation. We need a super-structure of
legislation which means real, live programs that have a
continuing basis.
I would like to thank the ranking member of my
subcommittee, Ms. Sanchez, for the work that she has done on
this. I would also like to thank Congresswoman Jane Harman for
co-authoring the bill with me as well. We were working on this
long before the Dubai controversy erupted. The Dubai
controversy allows a focus on this issue, which we may not
otherwise have had. I think it assists us in moving forward
with all due dispatch. I think it is a testament to the
leadership and direction of the committee that partisanship has
been put aside in order to create laws to protect our homeland.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman King. I thank the gentleman for his statement, and
again commend him for his leadership on this issue.
Let me remind members, but under our committee rules,
opening statements are limited to the chair and ranking
members. However, all members are entitled to submit opening
remarks for the record.
With us on our first panel today is the deputy secretary
for the Department of Homeland Security, the Honorable Michael
Jackson. Mr. Jackson is doing a fine job, an outstanding job,
and is certainly dedicated to this country. He has proven it in
the past and he is demonstrating it more in his service today
at the Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. Jackson, as we discussed, your full statement will be
made part of the record. If you could try to keep your remarks
to 5, 7, 8, minutes, it would be greatly appreciated. I can
assure you that there will be many questions asked by both
sides of the aisle here.
So with that, I recognize Secretary Jackson.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL P. JACKSON, DEPUTY SECRETARY,
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Chairman King, and thank you,
Ranking Member Thompson. I am very grateful to this committee
for the work that they are doing and grateful for the
opportunity to talk today.
Maritime security is an important and vital part of our
overall homeland security work. We are confident that we have
made transformational progress since 9/11, but I am very much
in agreement with the members who have stated that much remains
to do ahead. We need to and we will build upon the base that we
have created, but there is much more work to do.
Since September 11, we have put significant resources at
this. We are spending at the rate of about $2.5 billion this
year on maritime security. And if the president's fiscal year
2007 budget is enacted, we will have spent some $9.6 billion in
the period fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2007.
Today, I would like to talk particularly about the path
ahead to strengthen cargo security from a risk perspective. We
have focused at the department principally on weapons of mass
destruction, not exclusively, but this very high-risk and very
high-consequence threat merits particular focus. I am going to
start by just talking about a couple of principles that we
bring to this table. I think honestly they are very much
embedded in the work that the committee has done and that the
subcommittee has done in this area, very much in intellectual
and philosophical alignment about the approach.
First, what we are looking for is a layered system
supporting a global network. We are looking for multiple,
mutually reinforcing tools which can prevent single-point
failure, so it is actually multiple tools around this network
that we have to focus on. Some layers are more immediate and
obvious, like screening a container. Others like nuclear
nonproliferation, help us provide a context where we can
guarantee that this work is made more solid.
Security is seldom adequately delivered via a single silver
bullet. It begs the obvious, but we have to note that the
framework for this, it is a global system. We don't control all
the moving parts. Most of this work is done in the private
sector. The vast bulk of it is done in the private sector. It
also involves work with multiple foreign governments.
To push security out the border has been a second principle
that we have to face, and it is one that is embedded in the
SAFE Port Act today that we are discussing. It strengthens our
hand to partner with governments, so this is a third element
that we consider crucial to our success, a series of
government-to-government partnerships and also leveraging
groups such as the World Customs Organization, the
International Maritime Organization, and the International
Standards Organization. So that is the context for it.
There are really eight moving parts to this equation. Your
bill in one way or another touches these eight moving parts.
First, the components are vessel security, personnel security,
port infrastructure security, and cargo security or the
security of container and break-bulk moving through the system.
If you take those four elements and you say we have to address
them both domestically and internationally, you have eight
components to focus in the work that we have ahead.
I would like to start just by beginning briefly to discuss
two particular areas that I think offer high up-side potential
for increasing security. First is a series of things that we
collect under the idea of secure freight; and second is TWIC,
the transportation worker identification card. I will just say
a word about those and a word about the bill, and then I would
be happy to take questions, sir.
On the first, what we have in the initiative that Secretary
Chertoff has launched under the name of secure freight, really
captures some of the core moving parts that you are also
discussing in your legislation. First it is better targeting;
and second, it is enhanced inspection tools.
Better targeting, the automated targeting system, ATS, is a
first-generation tool to gather data about what is in-bound,
essentially by scraping the weigh-bill electronically and by
comparing this with a large historical database about container
movements abroad. We augment that by conversations in the CSI
program, the Container Security Initiative program, on a port-
to-port conversation so that when we find a container of
concern, we then can drill down with those officials and bring
additional data to the table.
This is a first-generation tool. It is a good tool. It is
not a perfect tool. The next generation tool we would like to
suggest really requires us to re-think in a much more
aggressive and innovative way what data we get, how we fuse it
together, how we collect it, and how we share it
internationally, and how we use it to drive the container
profiling that needs to happen when we go into an assessment of
each container.
I won't try to unpack that fully, but I would just say that
I think that we can gather data that exists in multiple
entities' databases, fuse it together in effect to create a
pre-history of container movement that will allow us to
understand much more clearly the risk associated with that
particular move.
Second, enhanced inspection tools. Better detection systems
can be deployed both at home and abroad. At home, our goal is
to have 100 percent inspection of all containers as they depart
U.S. ports into the country. Abroad, our goal is to increase
materially the number of containers inspected by radiation
detection tools and by non-intrusive inspections such as large
X-ray-type of devices.
The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, which I am very
grateful to the committee for authorizing, is focused on
bringing a new generation of tools here. Secretary Chertoff is
just returning from a trip overseas to Asia and has inspected
the integrated container inspection system, the ICIS pilot.
After extensive discussion with industry, we believe that this
pilot and its underlying technology and business concept offers
a very valuable opportunity for us to strengthen in a
significant way the data that we are gathering.
Second, I would like to talk just a little bit about the
transportation worker identity card. We can talk in
conversation. I am just going to tell you, Mr. Chairman, we are
committee to this. Chairman Lungren, we are committed to this.
We are sharing the same view that you have. Get it done, get it
out and get it going. It has been too long in coming. I want to
tell you that we are prepared to do exactly that.
On this particular legislation, we share many, many things
with you in agreement. There are some tweaks and suggestions
that we have. We believe that the work of the manager's
substitute and particularly the work, Chairman Lungren, that
you have done, and Congresswoman Sanchez, Congresswoman Harman,
we are very, very grateful for the cooperation that you have
brought to this. We think that there are very valuable tools
here.
I have already talked about the next generation of ATS. The
bill calls for increases and improvements here. We are
committed to doing that. That is what secure freight is about.
We are open to ideas also. The radiological threat we have
talked about, and the tools that we bring to this, are part of
what you are talking about. You have asked for strengthening C-
TPAT and CSI. We are in agreement that we need to do so.
You have authorized the creation of an under secretary for
policy office that would be focused on cargo security. We are
in agreement. I will tell you that I have already interviewed
people for this position and we are preparing to move right
ahead with is.
Port security grants, we would ask you to consider the
administration's proposal for transportation infrastructure
protection programs which would bundle maritime security and
transit security and a few other programs together. As we look
from time to time at changes in the risk profile, we see that
we would like flexibility at the local level for us to be able
to put significant funds into infrastructure protection at the
local level and to give discretion there. We think bundling
them offers a significant opportunity.
So, Mr. Chairman, I will just stop here and say that I am
very grateful for the work that the committee has done. I am
eager to continue to work with you, and I look forward to
passage of a bipartisan piece of legislation that will help us
strengthen our work in the maritime domain.
[The statement of Mr. Jackson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael P. Jackson
Chairman King, Ranking Member Thompson, and members of the
Committee, I am pleased to be here today to discuss maritime cargo
security in general, and in particular H.R. 4954--The SAFE Port Act.
Maritime security has been important to the United States since its
earliest days. Today we have an efficient maritime transportation
system that acts as the backbone of the global economy. That
transportation system can also be used to move dangerous cargo to our
ports and cities. Any disruptions to that system will have immediate
and lasting consequences for our economy and the world at large. The
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) commends the work of this
Committee in addressing the vulnerabilities of containerized cargo. Our
leadership is grateful to this Committee for this hearing and your work
to pass important legislation to strengthen maritime cargo security.
Since September 11, 2001 we have made transformational improvements
in the extent and quality of the layered system of systems now deployed
to strengthen cargo security. This year, the DHS will spend $2.5
billion on maritime security. Overall, the Federal Government is
spending $2.8 billion, including the Department of Energy's Megaports
program. If the President's FY 07 budget is enacted, we will have spent
some $9.6 billion in this area in four years (FY04-FY07).
Today I would like to talk particularly about the path ahead to
strengthen maritime cargo security from a risk perspective. We have
focused specifically on the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) threat
because of its potential impacts, but I will also touch on measures
that will strengthen our ability to detect all forms of contraband.
A Layered System of Systems Supporting a Global Network. First, a
brief word about our overall approach to maritime cargo security. Our
security doctrine is grounded on a commitment to deploy a strong,
layered system of security systems. By deploying multiple, mutually
reinforcing security layers and tools, we diminish the risk associated
with failure at a single point. Some layers may have a more immediate
and obvious security function, such as the physical inspection of a
container by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) field agents. Others,
such as the Administration's work in global nuclear non-proliferation
are complementary, aimed at making it more difficult to acquire WMD
components. Security is seldom adequately delivered via a single silver
bullet.
It begs the obvious, but bears noting, that we are talking about a
global supply chain that serves an interdependent global economy. Thus,
a second doctrinal component of our cargo security strategy has been,
where possible, to push security measures out beyond our borders. Close
partnerships with the private sector are essential because the private
sector owns most of the assets and moves the goods. CBP's Customs-Trade
Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) is an example of such a
partnership program.
It strengthens our hand to partner closely with other governments,
which is why bilateral and multilateral solutions to supply chain
security continue to be a focus for this Administration. The Container
Security Initiative (CSI) and our work with the World Customs
Organization, the International Maritime Organization and the
International Standards Organization have improved security.
Existing Security Architecture. The existing security architecture
consists of four core components: (1) vessel security; (2) personnel
security; (3) cargo security; and (4) port facility security. Some
elements of each of these four components are focused abroad, others at
home--thus there are essentially eight areas of activity that capture
most of the programmatic focus of our supply chain security work. The
draft legislation that is the focus of this hearing appropriately seeks
to strengthen most of these categories.
I would like to discuss two particular areas that present
significant near-term upside for improving security: (1) improvements
regarding DHS's targeting of highest-risk containers and our tools used
to inspect containers; and (2) deployment of the Transportation Worker
Identification Card for unescorted access to U. S. ports.
Secure Freight. The Department's Secure Freight initiative has two
major components: better targeting and enhanced inspection tools.
Better Targeting. CBP's Automated Targeting System (ATS), which is
used by the National Targeting Center and field targeting units in the
United States and overseas, profiles inbound cargo and identifies high-
risk cargo entering the United States. ATS is the system through which
we process advance manifest and passenger information to detect
anomalies and ``red flags,'' and determine which passengers and cargo
are high risk, and therefore should be scrutinized overseas or at the
port of entry.
ATS is a flexible, constantly evolving system that integrates
enforcement and commercial databases. ATS analyzes electronic data
related to individual shipments prior to arrival and ranks them in
order of risk based on the application of algorithms and rules. The
container scores are divided into thresholds associated with further
action by CBP, such as document review and inspection.
ATS is an extraordinarily powerful ``first generation'' tool, and a
more sophisticated, next-generation tool is under development at DHS as
part of the Secure Freight initiative. ATS data is derived from filings
of cargo waybills and an extensive historical risk scoring algorithm
derived from years of data about containers and inspections.
The next-generation tool will fuse existing data along the supply
chain gathered from multiple actors who touch the box from the order,
to container origin, to destination. This data aggregation would, in my
view, best be fused by a third party intermediary--perhaps formed by
the industry itself. The U.S. government would then receive this richer
set of data about each container move in advance of lading overseas. It
would then inform CBP's container risk assessments. Ideally, the U.S.
government would certify one or more such qualified entities formed for
this purpose, and would set standards for such data fusion. The
intermediary would be rigorously audited.
This approach is the natural extension of the requirement to have
better data upon which to score risk of inbound containers. It would
support not only the needs of the United States better to understand
and assess risk of inbound containers, but also could serve the exact
same needs for other nations. This would serve to improve security in
the global cargo network and in more nations. This next-generation tool
will not grow overnight. But stronger container profiling is possible,
and I am convinced that we can make great progress in the near term. I
ask this Committee to support our efforts in this area, and would
welcome an opportunity to elaborate further in response to your
questions.
Enhanced Inspection Tools. Better detection systems can be deployed
both abroad and at home. At home, our goal is to have 100 percent
inspection of all containers as they depart a U.S. port headed into our
country. Abroad, our goal is to increase materially the number of
containers inspected by radiation detection tools and by non-intrusive
inspections, including large-scale X-ray devices. The Domestic Nuclear
Detection Office (DNDO) recently tested new and better fixed, mobile
and handheld radiation detection equipment that can be deployed to
ports of departure, ports of entry and the marine environment.
In this regard, I would note that last week Secretary Chertoff was
in Hong Kong and saw first-hand the Integrated Container Inspection
System (ICIS) pilot program underway there. CBP is engaged in a
technical exchange to evaluate how the data gathered by ICIS can be
used to strengthen our inspection capabilities. After extensive
discussion with industry about the ICIS pilot and its underlying
technology and business concepts, I am highly optimistic that this
pilot can point the way to a collaborative network that can
significantly enhance CBP's capabilities physically to inspect a larger
number of containers from points worldwide. I'd be happy to discuss
with the Committee DHS's thought about how this might develop.
Transportation Worker Identity Card (TWIC). On Friday of last week,
the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) published a ``request
for qualifications'' seeking firms who are appropriately experienced
and interested to help DHS deploy certain components of the TWIC
program. The TWIC architecture, compliant with FIPS-201 technical
architecture, will provide an open standard and ensure interoperability
and real-time exchange for supply chain security cooperation between
the Department and the private sector. This is the first step toward
operational deployment of the TWIC program for unescorted access to all
U.S. ports. This day has been too long in coming.
This deployment includes accelerated and parallel rulemakings by
both TSA and Coast Guard. And it includes a procurement needed to help
launch the operational program. Secretary Chertoff has given his team
instructions to get this done as quickly as possible. Further details
will be forthcoming as part of the rulemaking and procurement actions.
This tool will add another valuable layer of security to domestic port
operations and will strengthen overall supply chain security.
H.R. 4954--The SAFE Port Act. The Department is committed to moving
forward on all eight areas of activity regarding cargo security. We
believe that there is much in this proposed legislation that will
provide the springboard for further advances. We would like to commend
the Manager's Substitute Amendment that the subcommittee on Economic
Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity passed last
week, which we believe provided further improvements to the
legislation. At this point I would like to offer comments on a few
specific sections of the SAFE Port Act.
Next Generation ATS. Your legislation calls for improvements in
CBP's ATS capability. As my previous discussion of the Department's
Secure Freight Initiative shows, we agree that this already powerful
tool should be made stronger. We very much look forward to working with
Congress on operational details of a second-generation system.
The Movement of Radiological Material. The capacity to detect and
identify the illicit movement of radioactive materials across our
borders in the commercial supply chain is a critical concern of the
Administration. DNDO is working closely with CBP to develop a new
deployment strategy that will provide an optimized mix of current and
next-generation systems to balance capability, coverage and cost. That
deployment strategy will result in screening 98 percent of all
containerized cargo crossing the southern border by fiscal year 2006
and at seaports by fiscal year 2007.
Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. DHS appreciations the
authorizing language for DNDO included in your legislation. The
legislation establishes DNDO to detect nuclear and radiological
material, improve that detection capability over time and develop a
global detection architecture to ensure linkages across Federal, State
and local agencies. We appreciate the Committee's recognition of the
important work of DNDO by including this provision and formalizing the
role of DNDO in protecting our nation against this threat.
Improvements to the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism
Program. The DHS supports any effort that aids the Secretary in
strengthening and improving the overall security of the international
supply chain and U.S. border security. The DHS considers the C-TPAT
section as particularly constructive because it does not seek to
establish regulatory requirements for a voluntary government and
industry partnership program, yet it supports strengthening C-TPAT.
Additionally, the provision on the utilization of third party entities
to conduct validations is a concept that merits near-term serious
exploration.
Director of Cargo Security Policy. The legislation calls for the
establishment of a Director of Cargo Security Policy to coordinate
Department-wide cargo security policies and programs with other
executive agencies relating to cargo security. We strongly agree with
such a proposal and greatly appreciate both the Committee's support for
the creation of an Under Secretary of Policy as called for in the
Department's 2SR recommendation and this modification to our
organizational findings. We are moving ahead to implement this
recommendation by actively recruiting a well-qualified individual to
lead this effort.
Port Security Grants. While the legislation does not specify
whether the port security grant program authorized is part of the
Administration's proposed Targeted Infrastructure Protection Program
(TIPP), I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that the
Administration supports the creation of the TIPP to enable increased
funding for protecting infrastructure on the basis of risk that may, if
warranted, increase funding for ports. Under the President's FY07
budget request, $600 million is requested for the TIPP grants, which
would allow additional resources to flow to port security needs based
upon the most up-to-date threat risk assessment.
Technology Investments. The DHS fully supports the concept of
investing in research and development to improve our maritime cargo
security. The DHS is engaged in a substantial amount of research and
development on maritime cargo security solutions, which includes
bringing to bear the innovation and market forces of the private
sector. While we differ in our method and timing on container
standards, we agree in the need to launch a six-sided container
intrusion detection system. The DHS is participating in a number of
development efforts regarding container standards. We must ensure that
any standards are based on the right technology, lest the rush to
endorse a standard could result in operational practices that do not
appreciably enhance security and may unintentionally impede
international trade.
Conclusion. The Department is working closely with other government
departments and agencies, with industry, and the international
community to establish workable solutions to improve supply chain
security. We recognize the challenges that face our programs and the
importance of protecting our nation from terrorist threats to our vital
economic engine. We are making significant progress. I would like to
thank the House Committee on Homeland Security again for this
opportunity to discuss our efforts and comment on this legislation
which is so important to the Department and the nation.
This completes my prepared statement. I would be happy to answer to
any questions you may have.
Chairman King. Thank you, Secretary Jackson, for your
testimony.
I have two basic questions at the start. On the issue of
container security, specifically dealing with CSI, the
container security initiative, a number of critics, including
Mr. Ervin who will be testifying later today, raise the point
that less than one-fifth of the containers that we believe
should be inspected abroad, I think about 17 percent, are in
fact inspected. We have heard that in France, they refused to
inspect about 60 percent of the cargo that we deemed to be high
risk.
Considering that, how secure should we feel about it?
Again, these is just the cargo that we ask to be inspected. If
60 percent of that is not inspected, it seems to me that we are
leaving ourselves very much as risk. What do you see is the way
to improve that? What are the prospects for improving it?
The second question then you can answer is on the TWIC. I
know you said that they are going to be done, but I would ask
if you could tell us why there has been such a delay up until
now. I know you want it done as quickly as possible, you say,
but what does that mean? Are we talking about next month or 6
months from now or 1 year from now? Because this to me, and
especially as there are several ongoing investigations around
the country which indicate that are very serious issues with
people working at the ports who should not be working there.
Each day that goes by, I just think increases that risk.
Secretary Jackson?
Mr. Jackson. Let me say just a quick word about the CSI
examinations. There has been some misunderstanding about the
metrics, and I would like to make a distinction to help further
unpack this particular question you are asking about. What
portion of the containers that we ask to be inspected by a
foreign government actually are inspected? The distinction I
would like to make is a distinction between referral and
request. When we do the initial targeting and begin our
profiling of a container before it is loaded onto a ship, we
have many, many, many cases where we ask the foreign government
if they have additional information about what we consider to
be a preliminary container of concern.
That is what the CBP would refer to as a referral. So we
make a referral, and we say, can you give us more information
about this? For example, we may have scored higher for risk a
container that is being moved by a firm that we have little
knowledge of, but it may be that the port and the customs
service in the foreign government has extensive experience with
that particular firm. They may export to multiple other
locations.
So we can use these referrals to gather additional data. We
do that routinely. And then for those that we want to make a
specific request, we do that and ask for a request that those
containers be opened or inspected through physical means. Our
numbers for these examinations reached towards the 89 percent
range when we actually make a request that they open the
container or further examine the container in a physical way.
So that number is on aggregate higher.
There are some ports where we honestly have to work on that
relationship to keep it strong and to make that connection
work. Some of these containers are loaded onto ships and come
our way. If we have flagged it, 100 percent of those containers
are inspected through physical means when they arrive on the
shore. So we agree that the idea of pushing the borders out
should get the maximum number of containers inspected with
tools and cooperation overseas, and that is where our focus is.
In cases where we need to put extra push on our partners
overseas, we are thoroughly committed to doing that and helping
them understand the importance of this.
Chairman King. We are very interested in the comments of
the second panel when they come on. That is an issue that we
have to address, I think, and I appreciate your testimony.
Now, on TWIC?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. I would say it probably will come up
later when we talk about radiation, this idea of trying to get
better radiation inspection overseas is something we are also
very strongly committed to and would like to discuss with the
committee as well.
On the question of the TWIC, Mr. Chairman, I can't tell you
why it has taken so long. I can tell you I am very impatient. I
can tell you Secretary Chertoff is very impatient. And I can
tell you that our entire team is focused on this as a very high
priority issue. I am loathe to give you an exact date, but it
will be measured in terms of months, and not years, when we are
actually beginning to issue these cards.
We have put out as of last Friday a request for
qualifications for what is one of three moving parts to make
this work. One moving part is to get some outside consulting
firms and outside vendors who would be willing to prepare to do
on validation by us and with certification from us and by
auditing from us and with oversight from us, some of the intake
process that we would need here to gather fingerprints and data
for the TWIC background investigation tool.
Secondly, we are going to need two regulations: one from
Coast Guard and one from TSA to make this work. We are in the
accelerated drafting phase on both of those rules. We have a
concept of how this will work. We are leveraging three pilots
that we did earlier. We have an IG report on internal studies
of how to strengthen the software platform that we will use
here. We have an operations concept of how to get the cards
back and forth to the frontline.
So we are moving very aggressively at this. We have been
instructed by the secretary to press the margin of time for
every single stage of this: NPRM, final rule, and award of
contract to move forward. We are going to do that very
aggressively.
Chairman King. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
The ranking member?
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jackson, the Senate Homeland Security Committee report
recently stated that only 17.5 percent of high-risk containers
are inspected overseas. Now, what that means on the other hand,
is that 82.5 percent of the high-risk containers arriving in
the U.S. are not inspected at all. Moreover, the GAO in 2005
found that inadequate staffing resulted in 35 percent of
containers not being targeted, so now these containers were
never subject to inspection.\2\
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\2\ GAO, A Flexible Staffing Model and Minimum Equipment
Requirements Would Improve Overseas Targeting and Inspection Efforts,
GAO-05-557 (Washington, D.C., April 2005).
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I, along with some of the other members of this committee,
have tried to increase personnel at our seaports to accomplish
these things. Your budget request is $12 million for 106
seaport inspectors. Do you think this is enough?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. Let me start with a distinction, and
then I will answer the budget question if I can. What we are
doing to look at containers, the distinction between screening
and inspection is the crucial one. We are screening through use
of automated targeting and container profiling 100 percent of
all containers in-bound into this country. We are inspecting
100 percent, every single one of the containers that we
identify as high-threat or high-risk containers. Of those, we
screen them in two locations: overseas and then domestically
when they arrive in our ports.
We are working on a third leg of this screening process,
which is to screen 100 percent of all containers in the United
States before they leave a port on their way out the door. We
are going to be at 98 percent of that, of all containers, with
the plan that we have on the table, by the end of next year. We
are making very, very substantial progress. We are a little
over 51 percent right now.
Mr. Thompson. Excuse me. So you are saying to me that
nothing comes to our shores without being inspected?
Mr. Jackson. Screened. Everything is screened, meaning we
do a risk assessment, and then inspected, which is using
physical tools such as radiation or large-scale X-ray devices.
Mr. Thompson. I don't want to get caught up in semantics
between screening and inspection. So if we don't have the
personnel to inspect everything that is targeted and 35 percent
of that is never even identified for inspection, you don't
count that?
Mr. Jackson. We do inspect 100 percent of all high-risk
containers. That is to say, we use radiation portal monitors or
large-scale X-ray machines or we use physically opening so-
called ``de-vanning'' of the container.
Mr. Thompson. So is your testimony that the GAO report was
wrong?
Mr. Jackson. I am not familiar with the specific passage in
the GAO report. I would be delighted to look at it, sir, and to
provide written comment on the specific observation there.
Mr. Thompson. I am just trying to make sure, because the
public and members of this committee are told time and time
again that many items come to this shore not inspected, and
some not screened. So now you are separating the two, that 100
percent screening occurs--
Mr. Jackson. Yes.
Mr. Thompson. --before it reaches out shore. That is your
testimony.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Thompson. And so therefore the need for additional
personnel in the screening area, we don't have it?
Mr. Jackson. Here is what I would say in the screening
area, sir, and I am not convinced we wouldn't use additional
personnel in this regard. In my written testimony, we talk
about bringing the next generation of screening technology and
tools to understand better and more richer the data that is
associated with the pre-history of a cargo container move.
There is area for growth in this to get a second-generation
tool. We are proposing with the Secure Freight Initiative to
begin exactly that. I think we can do a better job on that.
I am not trying to say a story that everything is happy and
don't worry. There is work to improve on the screening side. On
the inspection side, we can do and should do more overseas, as
possible, with the investment and the tools, especially
radiation detection tools, and large-scale X-ray devices. We
will do more here in the domestic environment as well. So if I
made those eight buckets of activity for us and said that there
are four essential areas of focus, one of them overseas, that
is four, and in the inland domestic environment, that is eight.
The screening work takes place in the overseas environment
before it comes here. The inspection work occurs both
domestically and overseas.
Mr. Thompson. I see my time is up, Mr. Chairman. I will
submit the other questions for Mr. Jackson to respond to.
Chairman King. Fine.
The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Simmons?
Mr. Simmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the witness, Mr. Jackson, for his testimony.
I also commend my colleagues for doing what I think is a
really terrific bill here, working in a bipartisan fashion to
come up with something that is good for America's ports and
good for America's homeland security.
I would like to focus a little bit on the issue of $800
million in port security funding. We have 361 ports in America,
according to staff information in my notebook, and $800 million
sounds like lot of money, but if you do the math, and I already
have, that is about $2,216,066.50 per port. When you consider
that some of our ports like New York, Baltimore, Long Beach,
California, Louisiana, are really large and very significant
ports, my guess is that they are very quickly going to consume
a lot of those security dollars.
So that leaves some of the smaller niche ports, if you
will, largely unprotected. I have a particular interest in New
London port, which is the host to a nuclear submarine base, a
nuclear submarine manufacturer, the Coast Guard Academy, the
Coast Guard R&D Center, both the Amtrak and the I-95 Boston-New
York lines, Pfizer Global Headquarters and various other
resources located in a very compact area in a port that has
ferry service to New York and to Rhode Island, but does not
appear on the list of ports at risk. In other words, the
professional assessments that we have had before this committee
on those ports and areas at risk does not include the New
London port.
How can we anticipate that the Homeland Security Department
is going to allocate these resources, when it seems to me that
$800 million is really not an adequate amount? How can we be
sure that some of our smaller ports located in less populated
areas are going to get the assistance they need?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. Let me just try to unpack a couple
of components of your excellent question.
On how to give some flexibility to provide port funding and
port grant funding, this is an important area. This is why we
have proposed the so-called TIPP program, which would allow for
flexibility. If you area needs to put your infrastructure
protection dollars more in, say, rail security rather than port
security, it would give you flexibility to see that that
happens. If it is port security that is the highest on the
priority list, then it would give you flexibility to do that.
So we proposed $600 million this year in this consolidated
grant program. It is a substantial increase on the order of
magnitude, I believe without checking the exact numbers, of
twice what aggregated dollars would be for the individual
programs. So we proposed a substantial increase in this
infrastructure protection grant money available for fiscal year
2007.
In the current year, we are trying to focus with the most
care possible on the areas of highest risk and we are trying to
identify very specifically the types of risks that we think are
the highest impact and also present the greatest consequences,
a Cole-type of attack, for example. So we have structured the
grant guidance to say, come back with recommendations to focus
on the things that matter most.
We had a very interesting experience with that last year.
Some people did that very, very well, and got good money. Some
people ignored that, focused on much less risky items, and
didn't get as much money. So we are trying to focus on the risk
and then we are trying to say, look, let's look as we go
through this year and see if we need to adjust the numbers, the
size, the eligibility criteria. We are in the final stages of
that for port security grants this year, and that is a topic
that the secretary and I will be taking up imminently.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you for that response. I think this is
something that we will continue to watch very closely.
Again, I thank the chairman and the ranking member for this
excellent hearing today.
Chairman King. I thank the gentleman.
The ranking member of the subcommittee, Ms. Sanchez.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Again, thank you, Mr. Jackson, for being before us today.
I alluded earlier to a subcommittee meeting that we had, a
congressional hearing on this particular bill, on March 16. I
had asked Assistant CBP Commissioner Ahern about using third
parties to conduct C-TPAT validations. He replied that CBP was
looking at using third parties for certain functions, but that
generally he believed that this was a federal responsibility to
conduct these validations. He was pretty adamant about that.
I asked how many people he had onboard to conduct those
validations, and he said that he had 88, and that he had about
40 more scheduled to be trained and brought on shortly. While
he said that CBP was looking at the possibility of using these
third party validators, in fact his agency had already issued a
solicitation to use contractors to validate the security plans
of C-TPAT members. According to the solicitation, CBP will use
an intermittent contractor to perform validations, training and
provide technical assistance.
So knowing that, I would like you to answer the following
questions about that process. First of all, when was the
department planning on telling the committee that it was
issuing invitations for contractors to conduct C-TPAT
validations? And why didn't Mr. Ahern just simply tell me that
he had solicited for this already?
Mr. Jackson. I am at the disadvantage that I saw the
document that you are referring to after I had already sat down
at this table. But let me give you my understanding of it, and
a pledge, Congresswoman Sanchez, that I will get you
immediately the facts that you need to answer these questions
fully.
What I understand is that CBP has put our periodic requests
such as this one to be able to hire individuals to work on the
CBP team with them. For example, with one of these recent
solicitations, CBP hired 19 retired Customs Service officers to
come back in and work for CBP and to help manage the process of
doing validations.
I would make this distinction from that type of internal
hiring, to the third party screening. Let me just say that I
understand CBP has some reluctance to experiment in this area,
but I would tell you that after some recent discussions, it is
the determination of the secretary and the deputy secretary
that we do not share that hesitation and we are eager to try to
experiment along the lines that your bill proposes.
This procurement, according to what was just told to me, is
not that movement. So let me validate that for you and let me
get additional details about it, and help unpack for you the
staffing plan and how we use people in this. I think the third
party validator is a powerful idea. It is a force multiplier.
It is one that if controlled properly can get us farther down
the road faster. I am very much open to that.
Ms. Sanchez. I am concerned about the fact that you have
certified over 5,000 companies, but really only validated about
1,500, and yet you are giving lower score points to these
companies that really haven't proven that they have, or we
haven't seen that in fact they are putting into place the plan
that they have submitted to you. So if you are trying to tell
me, then, that you believe that that solicitation is for prior
people who worked for the agency who are now going to come back
as contract employees. Is that what your belief is?
Mr. Jackson. That is what I was told, but again I would
like to get factual confirmation there, ma'am.
Ms. Sanchez. What about these 40 new people that Mr. Ahern
was talking about? Are they going to be federal employees or
are they also contract employees?
Mr. Jackson. I would like to get the facts for you ma'am
before I speculate with you about the 40.
Ms. Sanchez. Okay. And lastly, what protections have you
put in place to ensure that C-TPAT member companies'
proprietary information is protected, if you are using
contractors or if you are going to use outside third party
validators?
Mr. Jackson. There is a requirement and protections in
employment that people sign to preserve private data and
nondisclosure agreements. These are enforceable by sanctions
from us. So there are multiple tools in the hiring process to
protect this data.
Your underlying question, as we grow C-TPAT and as we look
at the question of third party validators, is the core
question. How do you protect privacy, how do you protect
business confidentiality, and how do you make sure that we can
get that data in a timely way and use it? These are all core
components of a successful program, the type of program that
this legislation calls for.
Ms. Sanchez. And then that would also follow to what type
of solicitation is really out on the street.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Sanchez. If it is just to the contractor, that is
different. But if it is really for third parties, then these
types of assurances should be in place.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, ma'am. I do not believe this is a solicit
third party contract. I have been told that that is not the
case. I will, again, get more facts, but if we do that, we are
going to do it in a very public, very deliberate way. This
committee is going to know about it. We are going to ask your
counsel on how we proceed. We are looking as a reference point
in the legislation that you have drafted, and we will do this
with all due protection, all sense of urgency, but care in the
structuring of the program.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman King. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Davis?
Mr. Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Jackson, I am very supportive of the framework that is
established by this bill to further strengthen the C-TPAT
program. I think that an independent third party validation
process really offers great promise in ensuring secure
shipping, while helping to manage costs within reasonable
limits.
Now, a process which leverages private sector efficiencies
and competition, but meets stringent standards set by DHS, is
far preferable than government hiring thousands of new
employees to conduct the work, as well as the cost allocation
that comes with that in terms of who bears the cost.
A key component in such a program is that companies engaged
in third party validation should be financially independent of
the shippers that are evaluating and free of any other
entangling business or other relationships. I am pleased to see
that your statement says third party validations merit near-
term serious exploration, but could you share further thoughts
on this? Do you think independence is going to be critical in
this?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir, I do. I think that that is an
important component, and make sure that we have insularity from
any possible business conflict of interest that is there in
that process. In the same way, the government validators have
to have that same kind of assurance. So I think that any
successful program in this area would require us to be very
explicit and to set stringent requirements to make sure that is
preserved.
Mr. Davis. When you note that cargo coming in is 100
percent screened, what does that mean, to ``screen'' it? When
you go through an airport and you are screened, it means one
thing, but with cargo, it means something else.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. This is the confusing world of DHS
vocabulary. I apologize for it and I will try to explain it as
best I can.
It is a different thing in the airport screening
environment. We call that physically walking through a machine
that inspects you in one way or another through X-rays or other
devices. In this world, the screening, if you think of it as
profiling, we are trying to profile a container based upon the
data that we have about that container, and score it for risk.
In doing this, we gather today information from the weigh bill,
I believe it is some 22 variables, I may be wrong on the exact
number, but on that order of magnitude.
What we do is use that to score risk. We look at who is
shipping it, who are they shipping it to, who has touched it,
what do we know about what is said in here, what do we know
about the various different variables that go into assessing
risk. Then, and attached to that is a very significant database
of historical records of individual shippers, of pattern
analysis that flows from the types of shipments that have
proven troublesome to us, where we found contraband. We take
this historical record, run it through quite a large number of
algorithms that sort, stack, rack and try to count in a very
precise way and score in a very precise way that risk. That is
the screening component.
Mr. Davis. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Jackson. I would just say, sir, we had none of this in
any material way up to 9/11. I really am deeply respectful of
the work that CBP has done to make this work in this way. We
can do better, and that is not to say that we haven't done a
lot. I think that in our world, we are constantly pressing to
make sure that we stay one step ahead of the bad guys. We can
never rest with having done a good system and stop.
Chairman King. I would like to recognize the gentlelady
from California, who not only did such a great job in working
on this bill, but also has become a proud grandparent. The
gentlelady from California?
Ms. Harman. How much time do you have to talk about Lucy
Asher Peck, Mr. Chairman?
[Laughter.]
Chairman King. No filibustering. I know this would go on
for days.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Harman. She lives in New York City, so there.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all the members
of this committee who have done such a good job highlighting
and moving legislation on this issue. It is rare around here
that the stars and the moon align so that we can move big
bills. The last one I remember, at least that I was involved
with, was the intelligence reform bill. I think this is going
to be the next big one that moves through the House very
quickly and moves through the Senate. I think when we are
doing, we will have done something extremely significant.
I appreciate, Mr. Jackson, that the Homeland Security
Department is working on many of these issues. However, I don't
think you have gotten the job done yet, and we are going to
push you a little bit by making certain that in our bill, which
is still a work in progress, we have the right programs and the
right amount of funding. I want to come back to that.
The subcommittee ranking member, Ms. Sanchez, said that she
hoped that more good things would be added to this bill. I just
want to note that the subcommittee, Mr. Lungren's and Ms.
Sanchez's subcommittee, did add some more good things. The TWIC
program, the TWIC language is critically important and so is
Ms. Sanchez's language on third party validators. So I commend
you. I am not a member of the subcommittee, but I commend you
for doing that.
Now, at this level, I am excited about the fact that we
will report to the full House what I think will be a strong
bill. I am very, very proud to be one of the co-authors, along
with Mr. Lungren.
Let me make a couple of points. First of all, Mr. Jackson,
do you agree with me that at least up until now, between 9/11
and now, we have underfunded port security?
Mr. Jackson. No, ma'am, I don't allow myself to jump to
that word ``underfunded.'' I think that we have been juggling
massive requirements to put the country in the right order. The
job is not done, as you said at the beginning. We have much
more to do. That is why we have proposed a very significant
increase in fiscal year 2007 to help on infrastructure for
ports and for transit and other critical infrastructure.
Ms. Harman. Well, I believe we have underfunded port
security. Just to take one little old port, the Port of Los
Angeles, which with the Port of Long Beach, is the largest
container port complex in America. Almost 50 percent of our
containers go in and out of those ports, and $26 million has
been provided since 9/11. The request was $100 million. I can't
vouch for every dollar requested, but my guess is that that
funding level is 25 percent or so of where it ought to be to
provide for real port security, not just for the residents,
those who work in the port and the residents around the port,
but for our country, given the fact that it is such a gateway.
At any rate, I hear you about the transportation dollars. I
guess I just respectfully disagree. We have spent nine out of
ten transportation security dollars, as I recall, on airport
security, another huge area, but we have severely underfunded
port security and that is why many of us feel strongly that we
dedicated revenues for port security. The high-risk ports,
whichever they are, should get those dollars. They should go
for multi-year improvements and for things like this bill
funds, which is a layered program for container security.
I know you support the thrust of the bill. I just hope you
will get to ``yes'' on the whole deal because I think it has
been carefully put together.
I want to ask a little about the ICIS project in Hong Kong.
I know that numbers of senators and maybe some members of this
committee, and Secretary Chertoff have visited it. It, I think,
sounds like a very exciting idea. I am just wondering if you
think that ICIS is some kind of magic bullet so that we can get
to 100 percent of container inspection off-shore, hopefully in
the next 3 or so years, which was an idea that was floated at
the subcommittee level and which I still think is a valid idea.
Mr. Jackson. I am very positive on the ICIS opportunity. We
are very eager to take this to an additional step of
implementation and work. There are a couple of parts of this
that are particularly notable. One, this is a case where the
industry, who have been valuable, valuable partners in this
whole area of maritime security, have themselves stepped
forward and said we are willing to tax ourselves to improve
security. We should not lose that moment. It is a generous and
right impulse to try to share the costs of making security
work.
If we have that, and we could put in the in-bound lands in
the overseas ports this type of rapid through-put, we could
then multiplex the images, which is to say, electronically
transmit them in real-time back to the United States for those
containers that are headed to the United States, assess them if
we have identified that container as a high-value target, a
high-risk target. We could assess it instantly before it is
loaded to help give additional data about it.
If there are some that we can assess on a random basis in a
much more aggressive fashion, that type of tool, that type of
framework over time would allow us to grow the amount of
inspection that we are doing overseas. I think that we should
move very aggressively here. I will tell you we are engaged in
conversation with industry about just that and how to do it.
Ms. Harman. My time has expired, Mr. Chairman, but I
strongly agree, and I hope ``aggressively'' means within 3
years.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman King. I thank the gentlelady.
Mr. Jackson. Better than that, ma'am.
Chairman King. The chairman of the subcommittee, the former
attorney general of California, Mr. Lungren?
Mr. Lungren. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, again I would like to go back to the
screening versus inspection. As I understand what you just
said, you said that the Hong Kong experiment is intriguing. It
looks like the equipment they use at least can provide some
additional information, and that it would be something that we
might look forward to to have I thought you said 100 percent
inspection from the standpoint of running the containers
through one of these large machines as they come into the port.
Is that what you were saying?
Mr. Jackson. I think I tried to say, a very large number of
inspections, but I avoided the word ``100 percent.'' Let me
just talk about that a little bit. I will give you an example,
first, on the domestic nuclear detection work that we have. The
plan that we have in place with the support from Congress and
funding in our 2007 budget, would allow us to get to 98 percent
inspection of all containers that have arrived in the United
States and are leaving a port facility for radiological
inspection.
Mr. Lungren. And that would be they would pass through this
piece of equipment as they are beginning to drive out?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir, before they depart the terminal.
That is going to be using existing and a second-generation of
tools which are much more robust and powerful, and which with
the Congress's support we have been urgently pressing forward
with the DNDO office on basic research.
Mr. Lungren. Is cargo leaving the United States?
Mr. Jackson. No, it is leaving the U.S. port going into the
United States. It is on port territory, but as it goes out.
That is our objective.
Mr. Lungren. It is on the trailer pulled by the truck just
before they would be able to exit the actual terminal?
Mr. Jackson. Right. So why 98 percent? To go from the ports
that carry that amount of through-put to get 98 percent, and
then take the last 2 percent may be a disproportionate
investment. So how would we work those 2 percent? We would
probably use hand-held devices, temporary mobile devices that
would come and do a lockdown on a port and do maybe 100 percent
in a given day, and then go to another small port where there
may not even be a ship arriving every day, but on a periodic
basis, so that we can work that last 2 percent.
I would say this is a reasonable tool so that we spend
money based upon real return on investment. It is risk-based
investment. Overseas inspections now, the ICIS program that
Congresswoman Harman raised, is an inspection as a container
enters into a port overseas before it comes our way, using the
same types of tools. Could we get to 100 percent? Probably not
without very, very severe imposition on both the industry and
costs to the U.S. government.
But if we didn't inspect one of those in that way, and we
have taken so much hay off the haystack, we could when it hits
our ports have a much more intense look at the ones that didn't
get that type of in-bound inspection. None of them get it
today. So we could in layers and over time bring much more
discipline to that. I don't think that we have to say we will
promise to be at 100 percent. What we have to promise is tough-
nosed, hard risk-based analysis about how to spend the precious
resources of the taxpayers here.
Mr. Lungren. One of the points I would like to make is, I
have looked in vain to find any magic bullet. No matter what
system you have, there are going to be shortcomings on those
systems. It seems to me that we have to keep the emphasis on a
multi-layered approach to security that includes the best
technology applied, the application of intelligence, first of
all the gathering of intelligence, but the analysis of that
intelligence. We also need to have these algorithms and random
inspections so that in fact we have a multiple attack on those
who would attack us.
Because I just hope that when we talk about 100 percent of
this or 100 percent of that, in reality there is never going to
be 100 percent. We need to get the best technology we have and
apply it as best we can, but always understand that we are
going to have to have multiple layers so that we keep the other
guys guessing. But also, we know that there are going to be
shortcomings of any particular aspect of the system. It just
makes sense for us to understand that.
The other thing I was intrigued about when we went to Long
Beach-L.A. Ports, and went to the Maersk port, pier 400, where
we saw what I was told is the largest ship that they have. It
contains 8,000 containers. They are able to unload or load I
think in a day-and-a-half. Someone mentioned that if you just
added 2 minutes additional inspection of some sort, it might
raise the time to 10 days.
So what I am suggesting is we need to be smart as to how we
do these sorts of things. We need to understand the kinds of
inspections we have, not that we shouldn't have inspections,
but we have to keep in mind we are dealing with this commercial
enterprise and how we do it is also important. We have to be
smart about this thing.
Mr. Jackson. I couldn't be in more agreement, sir. You have
nailed it, I believe. It is a series of layered measures. It is
not letting perfect be the enemy of good enough. It is
continuous innovation, continuous commitment to reform. It is
growing and growing, and it is the combination of all those
layers working together that gives us greater security.
Mr. Lungren. I know my time is up. The only thing I am
going to say, it is going to take money, though. I understand
you put money on it, and I understand you have had grants. I
don't think it is sufficient to have it just part of the $600
million you are talking about. That is why we are trying to
dedicate a big chunk in this bill.
Chairman King. The gentleman from Oregon?
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jackson, always good to see you.
At home, our goal is to have 100 percent inspection of all
containers as they depart a U.S. port headed into our country.
Why is that? We think there might be a threat contained in
those containers of some sort? Yes, would that be it? I mean,
why else would we want to do that before they went inland? You
must think there is a potential threat.
Mr. Jackson. The threat is about risk and consequences and
the intent to use these, the capability of using these as
tools. So the consequences of a nuclear device being enclosed
in a container is so high that it merits an unusual financial
and physical work effort.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Now, that is once it has arrived in a
U.S. port before it goes to a different large urban area in the
United States. So are our ports then sacrifice zones? Why
wouldn't we set this goal on the other side of the ocean? That
is what concerns me. Mr. Lungren resisted this as an amendment
last week. It sounds to me like you are saying technology
exists. It is working real well in Hong Kong. They did it
voluntarily. They are talking about expanding it. It could
work. We could get to maybe 98 percent overseas. But in your
testimony, it is our goal is to increase materially the number
of containers inspected.
Now, we want to do 100 percent once they get in the U.S.
before they go inland, so we think there is a risk of a nuclear
bomb being inside, but we don't want to do 100 percent before
they get to the port. Now, if I represent one of those ports, I
would be real concerned about that. I might begin to change my
position on whether or not we want to move this overseas if the
technology has now been proven and say we want to set a
timeline within which we want to have as near as practicable
100 percent. As you explained, we may not get to 100 percent.
Wouldn't that be a reasonable goal?
Mr. Jackson. Let me answer it this way for you, sir, rather
than a yes or nor answer.
Mr. DeFazio. Be quick, because 5 minutes isn't very long. I
have other questions.
Mr. Jackson. Okay. The technology is not totally proven. We
need to innovate more there. We need to do more testing. The
technology that is taking these samples is basically going onto
a disk and being stored.
Mr. DeFazio. Right. I know we are not reviewing it. I
understand that. We have to hire someone to actually review it.
Mr. Jackson. We would have to do that and we would have to
get it over here. The next generation of technology has to be
brought to bear.
Mr. DeFazio. Sure, a lot of fiber-optic capacity under the?
Mr. Jackson. We can do this, sir. I am with you that this
is not a technology barrier that can't be overcome.
Mr. DeFazio. Right.
Mr. Jackson. Why did I say ``materially'' rather than ``100
percent''? I think it is early enough to where we are entitled
to be optimistic, but we should not be starry-eyed about
understanding this with a layer of precision we haven't brought
to the table yet. We would come back and tell you what
percentage targets we would go for. We need more time to test
whether this works and to make sure that before investing a
large amount of money that it works.
Mr. DeFazio. But of course in Hong Kong, there was no U.S.
investment and I understand they are willing to expand it to
the entire port at no cost to the United States of America.
Mr. Jackson. Well, it would have a cost to the United
States of America to be able to staff and use their bulk
operation.
Mr. DeFazio. Right, but I mean, that is pretty minimal, and
we have had amendments to have more staff to review these
things.
Mr. Jackson. I am in agreement that it is a very generous
commitment and we will try to explore this.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. And then you said in this other
testimony, which got a little confusing with the ranking
member, but let me see. You said 100 percent were screened
overseas, but in the GAO report they say here in the CSI ports
alone, which are voluntary, cooperating, good people, that is
34 ports, we were able to target approximately 65 percent of
the shipments to determine whether they were high risk.
So I am confused as to, and then when you go to the non-
cooperating, non-CSI ports, it is a much lower percentage. So
they say the total of containers coming in which we are able to
actually target overseas is 43 percent, but you said they are
all screened. So I guess that means we have a manifest on every
one, but we haven't necessarily applied these additional
measures that we are trying to do in the CSI ports, which we
can do 65 percent of the time. Is that right, approximately?
Mr. Jackson. What we have done is screen 100 percent of all
in-bound containers for risk.
Mr. DeFazio. ``Screened'' meaning we looked at a manifest.
Mr. Jackson. We looked at it for risk and we have done the
algorithms and the history check, and we have done that work.
In the CSI ports, we are able to inspect with their cooperation
a variety of cargo.
Mr. DeFazio. I am running out of time, but let me get to
how you lower your score. My understanding is an overseas
shipper submits paperwork, more than 10,000 submit it, and then
sooner or later someone comes by to see that they actually have
the security measures in place. We are told that they get their
score lowered just by submitting the paperwork. In the Senate,
they said 1,545 of 10,000 have been verified. No, the Senate
said 27 percent. The GAO says 1,545 of 10,000.
So we have 8,500 shippers out there who have submitted
paperwork and they get their score lowered. Now, don't you
think that is pretty extraordinary? Wouldn't you say that
really would merit putting a few more people on the job to
actually at least go out once and see that al Zarquawi isn't
there supervising the loading of these containers, at least 1
day when we come to inspect?
Mr. Jackson. Let me tell you how it works, and the answer
is we do need to do more validations is the punchline here. We
have about 5,800 businesses, which account for 45 percent of
all imports. I think that was the 45 percent number that you
were talking about. Of those, 27 percent have been through a
completed validation.
Mr. DeFazio. What was that? I am sorry.
Mr. Jackson. About 27 percent of the 5,800 businesses have
gone through a completed validation, and 65 percent will be
completed by the end of 2006, with the assets that we have in
the pipeline. So we are trying to accelerate those validations.
That is why I think the idea presented by the committee of
third party validations is also a valuable one, so that we do
it once, we do it again, we go back, we have some baseline that
we keep checking.
This didn't exist at all. I have to give a lot of credit to
Rob Bonner. We have come this far. We have to go farther.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman King. The gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Pearce?
Mr. Pearce. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your presentation.
The cargo screening, does it work if the radiation sources
are lead-shielded?
Mr. Jackson. There is a certain amount that I would rather
talk about in a non-public hearing that can get into classified
information. But at a high altitude with open-source data, lead
shielding presents one type of problem, or shielding presents
one type of problem, and we use multiple tools to find those
problems or those efforts.
Mr. Pearce. You mentioned on a combination of page one and
page two about a lot of your work is going into the global
nonproliferation, making weapons components more difficult to
acquire. Exactly what are you doing there and how much more
difficult is it?
Mr. Jackson. Well, it is a challenge to try to work on
nonproliferation issues. It is not principally a Department of
Homeland Security task. It is a State Department and Defense
Department and Energy Department, other efforts. In ports, to
give you one example, the Department of Energy has the so-
called Megaports program where they deploy radiation detection
equipment at foreign ports and then help train foreign
governments to look for radiation. This is not all about
screening things headed just to the U.S., but it is about
trying to make sure that all countries are putting a priority
on this.
There are multiple components to the nonproliferation that
we have, which is deconstructing nuclear weapons, making sure
that we tag inventory and monitor the repositories that contain
nuclear materials, the various security elements associated
with protecting and managing the production, the storage and
the movement of nuclear materials.
I would be happy to provide considerable more detail is
that would be helpful to you from an interagency perspective.
Mr. Pearce. You refer to the ATS as being an
extraordinarily powerful tool. It computes the algorithms and
things that I don't know much about. It seems like that one of
the threats of terrorism is that people tend to go underground
and they operate for years in cells, and then they simply come
out when needed. How does your algorithm process, anticipate
those risks from sources who have not previously been
identified and who haven't yet been activated?
Mr. Jackson. It is an excellent question. It is an enduring
security focus. There are multiple ways to tackle that problem.
First, in the risk-scoring, there is an element of randomness
in all security programs so that you can't get a free pass
every day, every way just because we think that on the whole
you are lower profile.
Second, this is all about the layered security work that we
do, some amount of random inspecting virtually all containers
as they leave, for radiation, for example, is a trust-but-
verify tool; working with our counterparts from foreign
governments to do physical inspections overseas. For example,
we had a problem with some individuals smuggled in an empty
container. We then worked with the firm that was affected and
the country that was the origin of this shipment, and have put
in place a multiplicity of tools to look at the empty container
issue.
So it is a constant press to innovate and to look and to
take multiple different tools, some physical, some cyber
analytic tools, but to focus on these issues so we do not have
a predictable way to circumvent this scrutiny.
Mr. Pearce. On the budgeting, the numbers of the bill,
section 14, joint operations centers is $100 million. I am not
really seeing a very thorough explanation of exactly what that
means and implies. I see a grant process that is R&D related,
but can you explain that just a little bit?
Mr. Jackson. That was not per se an administration figure
or number. We in principle believe that the idea of connecting
virtually and physically the various components that are doing
assessments is important. We have not proposed that type of
investment and would need to do some further analysis about
what we would recommend by way of missing appropriations or
additional appropriations in that area.
We have centers, for example the Coast Guard does. It is
profiling its review of in-bound vessels and mariners at a
facility in Maryland. CBP's excellent facility to do the
container profiling piece of this is done in Virginia. Those
two connect very, very seamlessly in the passage of information
back and forth at various points along the supply chain, and
our work with them.
So we have to continue to work and improve those
capabilities, but we don't necessarily have to co-locate
physically to make that happen effectively.
Mr. Pearce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman King. The gentlelady from the Virgin Islands?
Mrs. Christensen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to welcome the secretary and also commend our
colleagues for the SAFE Ports Act. I am glad to be a cosponsor
of it.
Of course, now that it comes to me, many of the questions
that I wanted to ask have been answered already, but I wanted
to just underscore that like my colleagues, my constituents are
very concerned with the short staffing and the lack of adequate
staffing in Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection, and
of course the lack of a border patrol, which would help us to
help our nation prevent attacks before they get to our shore.
We cannot do that right now.
We want to work with you. I have the support of my chair
and ranking member on this to rectify that deficiency in my
area of the world. We also still have those concerns with the
advance passenger information system program. We are working
with your department and would like your support in working to
alleviate some of the triplicate requirements that our charter
boats have.
Last week, I guess it was, Secretary Jackson, the port
security expert and former Coast Guard Commander Stephen Flynn
testified that the Maritime Transportation Security Act
regulations are a sketch, rather than a security blueprint, and
that it sets forth general requirements that are not well
defined. He stated, for example, that the requirements require
safety security plans, but do not define what ``security'' is;
that they require a qualified individual to implement the
security actions, but do not define what ``qualified'' is.
I know that all ports are not the same and that the regs
therefore were issued to be very broad, but after the events of
the past month or so, has the department looked into the
possibility of tweaking the regulations to give ports guidance
of what is required of them? In our case, we have some very
small ports that are within the Virgin Islands that perhaps
also need some tweaking for their unique situations.
Mr. Jackson. First of all, let me say that we would be
happy to entertain a discussion about any particular points of
rub in the security plan as related to the Virgin Islands, and
I would be delighted to have the Coast Guard work with you on
that and CBP on that issue.
As a general rule, Congress has given us a broad
architecture and framework. We bring that down to a more
specific level with our regulations. You are exactly right that
we cannot anticipate every single plan in those regulations.
The cornerstone of this tremendous MTSA authority, the maritime
security bill's authority, is to give the captain of the port
the capacity to make these adjustments and to focus within the
port community, public sector, private sector, the federal
agencies, to make a workable plan, and then to push it and to
understand it and to test it, and to gauge its success.
This is, again, a work in progress. I think we have made
tremendous progress in this area. Is it perfect? Nothing is
going to be perfect and we are committed to continuous
innovation here. But I think that we have with the regulation,
and then the concomitant authority exercised through the
captain of the port, a very strong capability to get very
granular and to get very specific and to be very precise in how
we improve security.
Mrs. Christensen. Thank you. I really don't see the need to
ask a question about this. I would just want to sort of
underscore what was said before about the dissatisfaction I
have with the APS system as well, and my concern that it really
is not what we need in terms of cargo security, and say that I
hope as we and the department look at the ICIS that the
secretary looked at last week, I guess it was, in Hong Kong,
that you will help us to help you to make sure that we can move
as quickly as possible to get to that 100 percent inspection
that will make all of us a lot more comfortable.
Relying on reports and written statements as to what is in
a cargo and despite the fact that it is all coordinated and you
try to come up with as specific as possible and as targeted as
possible ways to look at what the manifest says and the
container, there is a lot of discomfort with that still. There
have been times when the department has not really relied on
the committee to be the kind of support that we are here to be
for the department. We want to make sure that the funding is
available and whatever authorities are necessary are there to
ensure that we can move to 100 percent of cargo inspections as
soon as possible.
Mr. Jackson. We welcome very much that spirit of
cooperation. Mr. Chairman, I would just make the invitation
that for any members that would like to come out to our
targeting center and see a demonstration of this layered
security profiling work that is done for containers, we would
be more than happy to make a time for members and staff to see
this in more detail. It is a substantial tool. We need a
layered system of multiple tools to answer the mail.
Chairman King. I will be taking you up on the offer.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. I would like to go with you when you
want to go. It is quite a tour and something that really is
provoking of deep reflection on how best to move this.
Chairman King. The gentleman from the state of Washington,
the chairman of the Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee, Mr.
Reichert.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Mr. Secretary. First, I want to say thank you
personally. You have been very responsive to my requests. In
fact, you have initiated two or three phone calls to me
personally as the new chairman of the Emergency Preparedness
Subcommittee. I appreciate your open communications style and
your willingness to work with me and members of our
subcommittee.
Mr. Jackson. Thank you.
Mr. Reichert. I want to touch on, I know there is a layered
approach in many different ways as you look at port security.
In the organizational structure, too, I know that section 14 of
this bill seeks to create a maritime security command center.
As the sheriff in Seattle for a number of years, we
participated in the joint analytical centers and the JTTFs. I
am just curious as to how the maritime security command
centers, JTTFs, and joint analytical centers, how that layered
approach, how they interact with each other and work with each
other.
Mr. Jackson. In various different ways. The JTTF model has
been in a specific tailored way replicated, for example, in San
Diego, where they physically have created a fusion center where
federal, state and local officials are co-located and work very
closely with each other on the maritime domain awareness issues
and on the law enforcement issues associated with port
security.
That is not the only model that works well. We can create a
common operating platform, a COP, that can be shared virtually,
and we do rely on the JTTFs in our port areas to work with the
law enforcement community especially closely to work on port
security issues. So it is information exchange. It is sharing
it across the wide body of people that need to know it. It is
making sure everybody is in the family and talking together. It
is using that captain of the port to be the central point of
focus.
Mr. Reichert. That was my next question. The captain of the
port, which is a member of the Coast Guard, how will they now
interact with the director of cargo security?
Mr. Jackson. The captain of the port works very closely
with the cargo security officials in each of the terminals and
the terminal operating companies, with the port director, and
with the ocean carriers moving cargo through the port, with the
rail and truck community that is moving in and out, and with
the broader set of actors that are moving commerce. There is a
port security committee that is formed in each of our ports
that manages these issues, that exchanges routine information,
and that provides a single point of focus for getting a game
plan together for the port.
Mr. Reichert. Who is a member of the joint analytical
centers? The captain of the port?
Mr. Jackson. The captain of the port and it depends, the
law enforcement community has access to analytical data, and
then as appropriate, the industry as well, and it is oftentimes
very appropriate for them to be cleared in, let in, and to have
access.
Mr. Reichert. One of the things that I am hearing concerns
about from employees at our ports in Seattle and Tacoma,
Washington is they are very concerned about the training that
may or may not exist in some ports across this nation. Do you
feel there is enough attention that is placed on the training
and exercises? Who has the ultimate authority over the planning
of the training and the exercises? Is it the captain of the
port? Is it the cargo security director? Who really is in
charge?
Mr. Jackson. It is somewhat diffuse, and that is probably
not a perfect circumstance. We have federal exercises. We have
federal grants for exercising and training. We have law
enforcement-related grants for some of this work. We have state
grants for others. Sometimes, the military when, as in your
area of the world, has significant assets, they bring training
and exercise work to the table. So there is honestly a variety
of different points for managing that.
We are trying to consolidate that within our new
preparedness directorate at DHS so that we can have one broad
picture of who is doing what, and try to make sure that we are
being as helpful as possible in stimulating the right work.
Mr. Reichert. What role do the owners of the port terminals
play in port security?
Mr. Jackson. They play a very important role. The
terminating operating companies typically, as is the profile in
your area, a municipal authority or a state authority would own
the port itself and the terminal operator has a long-term
leasehold. The operators of those ports, which sometimes are
ocean carriers and sometimes are firms that are created just
for this purpose of operating a terminal, are indispensably
connected to the security plans. The have requirements under
the law and they are part of the port planning.
Mr. Reichert. So the Japanese owners, the crane owners of
these companies?
Mr. Jackson. They are at the table. They have requirements.
We measure, manage and hold them to account.
Mr. Reichert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.,
Chairman King. The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr.
Markey.
Mr. Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jackson, in the subcommittee last week by a party-line
vote on my amendment, which required 100 percent of all boats
containing cargo coming to the United States, would be screened
before they reached the United States. That vote failed by an
eight-to-six margin, with all six Democrats voting to screen
all cargo before it gets to our country, and the majority of
the Republicans voting not to.
Now, your testimony here today indicates that that is the
position of the Bush administration, that the Bush
administration opposes the screening of 100 percent of cargo,
the screening of 100 percent of cargo which comes into the
United States. Is that correct, Mr. Jackson?
Mr. Jackson. No, sir, that is not correct.
Mr. Markey. Does the administration favor the screening of
100 percent?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, we do, but I think in fairness I need to
make a distinction here, which I think Mr. Defazio?
Mr. Markey. Do you favor the physical inspection of all
cargo coming into the United States?
Mr. Jackson. Not at this juncture. We don't have the
equipment and the capacity to manage that. I think that would
throw out of whack the balance between mobility and security.
Mr. Markey. Okay. So the administration opposes the
physical inspection of all cargo before it hits our shores. Is
that correct?
Mr. Jackson. We do not have the current tools and
capabilities to achieve that objective.
Mr. Markey. Are you saying the technology does not exist,
because in the Port of Hong Kong they have the technology which
makes it possible for them to physically inspect all cargo?
Mr. Jackson. You are speaking, sir, of the ICIS program,
and I am very encouraged. As I have testified earlier in this
hearing about the ICIS program, but the ICIS program has
multiple technological steps and refinements that need to be
pursued in order to make it an operational tool.
Mr. Markey. So according to the industry witnesses, it
would cost only about $100 to inspect physically each container
before it comes to our country. When you compare that to the
$66,000 average value of goods in each container which comes
into our country, we are talking about a cost increase of .02
percent. Is that really too much to ask, Mr. Jackson, in order
to ensure that a nuclear weapon has not been smuggled into our
country on one of these ships?
Mr. Jackson. As I have testified here earlier today, sir, I
am very encouraged that we can get a very, very high amount of
screening and also, well, 100 percent screening, and also a
very high amount of inspection through these types of tools and
through this type of innovation. I believe that we are not
there today with the tool kit, but we should and are moving
very aggressively to try to explore how to make this happen. It
is not something that we are sitting on our haunches about. We
are actively working it.
Mr. Markey. You are actively working on it, but you are
rejecting both the Republicans in the Congress and in the Bush
administration is rejecting 100 percent inspection of cargo.
Mr. Jackson. No, sir. We are talking about what is
practical in the world that we live in today.
Mr. Markey. Well, I appreciate that, but you could argue
that it is not practical to screen every one of our bags that
goes on airplanes, and some people argue that. But I don't
think any American wants to go on a plane that doesn't have 100
percent of all the bags that are going on planes to be
screened, do you think?
Mr. Jackson. I think they do, and that is why we screen 100
percent of bags.
Mr. Markey. Exactly right. I think Americans also want 100
percent of all the cargo which comes into our country to be
inspected as well, in view of the fact that these nuclear
materials, as you know, are all over the former Soviet Union,
can be purchased potentially and put on one of these boats and
brought to our port, and we know that al-Qa'ida has designed
this nuclear event in our country as their highest goal. So why
wouldn't we make that our highest goal, to block them from
being able to accomplish that goal?
Mr. Jackson. That is what my testimony says at the very
outset, which is that weapons of mass destruction is the
administration's highest priority, and then we have to take it,
sir, in a deliberate way to unpack the component tools that we
can use to be able to find any potential weapons of mass
destruction that are secreted in a container. There are
multiple layers, some of them occur overseas, some of them
domestically. I have said, and the administration is strongly
supporting in the U.S. to have 98 percent of all out-bound
containers leaving a U.S. port into a community screened with
sophisticated nuclear detection tools by the end of next year.
We have made tremendous progress so far.
The ICIS program, which I believe you are discussing,
presents I think a terrific opportunity for us to leverage a
commitment by the industry to bring nuclear detection
capabilities overseas to ports that would allow us to inspect
with these tools in-bound containers into the United States.
Mr. Markey. What you are saying, Mr. Jackson, is that the
Bush administration does not want to impose a burden on the
cargo industry; that the Bush administration doesn't to impose
a burden on the shipping industry. This whole attitude that the
Bush administration has of ``in industry we trust,'' for
chemical, for nuclear security in our country, just pervades
these wide-open loopholes that have been allowed to be
maintained.
By not making a goal to have the incoming cargo have the
same level of scrutiny which you are saying that outgoing cargo
is going to have in the U.S., gives al-Qa'ida an opportunity to
plot to bring the nuclear weapon in on a ship into an American
city to create this nuclear event. It is too dangerous, Mr.
Jackson. It is too risky, knowing that they have put it at the
top of their terrorist target list.
Chairman King. The time of the gentleman has expired.
If the secretary wants to respond, he can.
Mr. Jackson. I will just respond briefly that we are
focused on this threat vector in the most intense way. What we
are using is a multiplicity of tools starting with our
screening of 100 percent of all containers that are coming this
way. We are taking physical inspection tools abroad and
domestically, some when they get off the ship immediately; some
when a ship is boarded at sea before it comes into a port.
When we find a container that we believe is a risk, we
inspect 100 percent of those containers. So it is not one
silver bullet that solves the problem. It is multiple tools. It
is not one thing that can be done today, but it is a commitment
to grow and innovate and strengthen the security of the system.
Chairman King. The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Jackson, for being here.
I want to talk about port security personnel.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Specifically, last week in subcommittee there
was a proposal to raise the number of port security personnel
by 450 per year. My question to you, first, is, what is the
level of port security personnel that we have now? What is the
desired level, in your opinion, in the next year and then over
the next 5-year period?
Mr. Jackson. Mr. Rogers, if I could get back to you with
the exact figures, I would be grateful. We need to break them
down into four groups: the Coast Guard people domestically;
Coast Guard people doing port security analysis overseas. Those
are two. And then we need CBP people here domestically, and CBP
people overseas.
There is an overlay for this which is part of the security
plan, of the captain of the port imposed security plan that the
local community provides, the local law enforcement, and then
also that the operators, either the terminal operators, the
ocean carriers or others, are required to bring to the table.
It is that combination of all those assets to get to the
personnel question. Let me try to be just candid. I think that
we are using significant assets here. It is true that you can
always pour more people at these problems. I think the
prioritization issue, and I talked about the new commandant-to-
be of the Coast Guard just as recently as this morning, it is
to focus on those types of attacks that we think are the
highest vulnerability.
We can't afford simply to fund every good idea. This idea
you are raising is an important idea. It is an idea that I am
not dismissing by any stretch. I think that it is possible that
we can use more people to accelerate our review work, and then
we are going to have to just balance the dollars and say, where
should we spend, what do you think, what does the Congress
believe is the right balance on these tools in the tool kit to
fund.
Mr. Rogers. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't my proposal to
raise it by 450. It was raised. The reason I suggest that
proposal, my question was, how will we train those Border
Patrol agents and absorb them? I looked to the Border Patrol
training problem we have now. As you know, nearly 18 months
ago, 10,000 Border Patrol agents were authorized, and to date,
almost 18 months into that period, we have a little over 500
that have been trained and put in the field, solely because we
don't have the capacity to train more than we are training with
our current infrastructure, and absorb them.
In fact, CBP officials have told us that even if they had
2,000 per year trained, they physically could not absorb that
many Border Patrol agents in the field. So my question is, if
we were to need, in your opinion, after you review the process,
and I would appreciate you letting me know your opinion after
you have looked at your facts, how many new port security
personnel you need. Where would they be trained? And what
numbers per year? How much would it cost us to train them? What
kind of training do they need? Do you know off-hand where those
port security personnel would be trained?
Mr. Jackson. It depends on which ones we are talking about.
The Coast Guard at their facilities train their people to do
this MTSA Act inspection and auditing work, and CBP has
different facilities for theirs. So they are done in different
places. I am very well aware of the gating limit on Border
Patrol training at about the level of 1,500 per year, which is
what we will put into the field this year with the Border
Patrol.
Mr. Rogers. I am thinking specifically about our seaports.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Where are those personnel trained?
Mr. Jackson. I would have to ask. I will have to get back
to you on that, sir.
Mr. Rogers. If you would, and what the cost would be, and
what you think with our current infrastructure the number per
year that we could train would be. I would appreciate that.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman King. The gentleman from New Jersey, the ever-
dynamic Mr. Pascrell.
Mr. Pascrell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I ask my questions, I would like to ask the under
secretary, the committee has been asking for an organizational
chart of DHS for months now, and can you assure me that we are
going to get it by the end of the week?
Mr. Jackson. I will give it to you tonight, sir. It is one
that I can show you.
Mr. Pascrell. Thank you for a quick answer.
Let's start off with an easy one. In the aftermath of the
Dubai Ports dispute, I am somewhat weary of the
administration's hiring of Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong-based
company with close ties to China, to help detect nuclear
materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to the
United States and elsewhere.
Now, in fact Clark Kent Ervin, who is going to be
testifying in a little while, he was the first Homeland
Security inspector general, and has stated that the $6 million
contract given could compromise U.S. homeland security. Now, I
understand that the Department of Energy is going to finalize
this contract.
I would like to know the following: What level the DHS has
been involved with in this process?; secondly, to what extent
can you assure the committee that all security concerns have
been addressed, and in particular whether or not we have or
will have in the future CSI inspectors on the ground at this
particular fort? Mr. Under Secretary?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. Let me explain what this contract
is. It is an Energy Department Megaports contract to put
radiation detection material in the Bahamas port. The machines
are in this particular configuration in this port, not fixed
portals that you drive things through, but rather they are
incorporated into the so-called ``straddle'' carriers, the
machines, the trucks that move containers from one point to
another inside of a port.
That equipment is an agreement to manage that equipment, to
run that program, is a government-to-government commitment, not
a commitment with the terminal operating company, the
Hutchison-Whampoa.
Mr. Pascrell. A government-to-government?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Pascrell. Which two governments?
Mr. Jackson. The Bahamian government. So the machines are
on equipment that is run literally by a terminal operating
company, but when the machine is turned on, it cannot be turned
off without the monitoring service, which is the government
function there, knowing about it. The signal about radiation
detection goes to the government agency.
The operating company does not manage the resolution of
these alarms. It is not responsible for the resolution of the
alarms. It is not responsible for the protocols of detection.
It is not responsible for the program. It is simply part of
this process that is used to be able physically to get a
container to a point where it can be inspected with this
device.
Mr. Pascrell. Will we have our own inspectors in that
country?
Mr. Jackson. We are working closely to a CSI designation
for this port. I am told that CBP is confident that we will be
there shortly.
Mr. Pascrell. I think that would be critical and answer a
lot of our questions that we have concerning this particular
deal. We have a lot of questions in many of our minds.
I want to get into the budget right now, okay, if you will.
For fiscal year 2007, the Department of Homeland Security
requested $600 million for the targeted infrastructure
protection program, a unified, non-mode-specific security grant
program. However, over the past 4 fiscal years, the
Appropriations Committees have provided mode-specific funds for
transportation security grants, breaking out port, transit,
rail, intercity bus security grants as separate budget line
items.
What was the reasoning behind having ports and transit and
rail buses and highway watch programs compete against each
other for security funding? Or in your words, why are we
bundling this when each of these areas are categorical and have
their own unique entities?
Mr. Jackson. The principle is to allow the local
authorities and the owners of this infrastructure to be able to
present the highest risk threats and to allow us to fund the
highest risk treats. If I could just go back to last summer
when the London transit attacks occurred, many of us in this
room were focused quite intently on how to strengthen the
transit security needs that we had.
If we could give some flexibility to do transit or port, we
could I think give ourselves a greater degree of focus on the
highest risks. It is not a simple equation to figure out which
is the greater of the competing demands to improve security. We
are saying with this program we are making our state partners a
much more active partnership than us making these priorities.
Mr. Pascrell. Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I just want to
enter for the record, I think that this is the wrong way to
fund these programs. They are competing against each other, and
we will never get to the point of reflecting the emphasis and
priorities of this committee.
Thank you.
Chairman King. The gentleman's remarks are so noted. I
would point out that in the legislation which is going through
the committee, we are segregating out money for port security.
With that, the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.
Etheridge.
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, thank you for your testimony and your time
here today. Let me quickly get to some questions on container
security. I understand that you have 42 offices open now
worldwide on the container security initiative. My
understanding is you plan to expand to 50 by the end of this
fiscal year. However, a recent GAO report states that the
program is experiencing staffing shortages in the offices you
have, of the 42 you have now in existence.
We have also heard reports that some foreign port operators
have been subject to only cursory inspection before being named
CSI sites, despite Customs Border Protection and the Coast
Guard and the State Department receiving outside information
that corruption and fraud at these sites exists.
My question is, how do you decide where to locate a CSI
office? How do you assess the port security capabilities and
their vulnerabilities? And thirdly, do you require the port
management authority to address security concerns before
opening an office?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir, let me try to answer some of those
questions as best I can.
How do we assess? We use multiple different tools. One idea
that is a driver of CSI is that we are trying to move to
capture the largest amount possible of in-bound containers into
the U.S. So at one level, it is the Willy Sutton model. We go
where the money is. Here, we go where the containers are. We
are looking for the big load-out ports that are moving the vast
bulk of traffic in here.
Right now, we are counting through CSI of about 75 percent
of the in-bound traffic. By the end of the year, if we get to
our 50 goal, we will be covering about 80 percent of the in-
bound traffic. So the first screen on that is where are the
containers coming from.
A second screen is that we look at multiple security tools.
You are absolutely asking good questions, fair questions. The
Coast Guard has an overseas program of port inspections. We use
those tools. The Customs Service also does their own
assessments. We have detailed conversations with the government
where we propose to start this. We also assess the private
sector as part of that work.
So it is a series of different screens and tests to try to
figure how best to target the CSI ports.
Mr. Etheridge. How do you verify the progress? You do it
initially, but how do you verify the progress as you move
along? Do you have a place for quality control?
Mr. Jackson. It is a good question. I know I don't have all
the answers to it, and I would be happy to get some more
granular information.
Mr. Etheridge. Would you?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Etheridge. Because I think that is critical in this
area.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. I agree.
Mr. Etheridge. It is one thing to open an office, but if
you aren't going to verify it and monitor the progress--One
final point I would add in this area before moving to another
one is that we hear a lot about technology. I am a great fan of
technology.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Etheridge. But it seems to me, having personnel on the
ground gives you intelligence that you will never get from
technology.
Mr. Jackson. Agreed.
Mr. Etheridge. If the personnel aren't there and we have
opened an office, I think we open ourselves up to feeling good
about having success in inspections, when really and truly we
may be lulling ourselves to sleep for a problem.
Mr. Jackson. If a CSI port is not staffed with CBP
personnel, then we are not operating as a CSI port. We may have
vacancies or shortfalls in moving people overseas. It is quite
expensive and a time-consuming process to get people
transferred to an overseas assignment and there. So there is
some natural amount of turnover, but a corps of people running
the program is indispensable and sir, I agree totally that that
human-to-human contact where you can see it with your eyes and
work with the people on the ground from our counterparts in CBP
overseas is an indispensable part of the layered system of
security.
Mr. Etheridge. All right, since you raised that issue, let
me go a step farther then. How do you intend to handle the
existing shortages? What plan do you have in place to deal with
those, plus for those you plan to open an new office, because
you have to have people to fill the vacancies when they come up
and to make sure you have them. That is critical, it seems to
me.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. It is a staffing plan. In response
to your question, I would be happy to get some vacancy analysis
done and show you where we are with this. It is a commitment of
the CBP leadership and DHS to make sure that we are adequately
staffing the CBP program overseas for CSI.
Mr. Etheridge. Would you? I think this committee would like
to have that information.
Mr. Jackson. I would be happy to give it to the committee.
Mr. Etheridge. I think that is a critical issue.
One final question, we are now dealing with legislation,
and if Congress should provide the additional funding for DHS
beyond the budget request, with all the stuff we have heard on
port security need, if we should do that, how could you best
utilize these funds to improve port security, in your own
words?
Mr. Jackson. There are a couple of high priorities that I
identified in my testimony that I would use money for first.
The secure freight initiative, which gets us a greater capacity
to get the next generation of targeting capacity merits money.
We are reprogramming if necessary and reassigning money as
possible to try to launch that in an effective way this year.
If we need more money, we will ask for that because that is an
indispensably high priority.
The second area that I would mention is the area culled out
of my testimony about next generation detection tools. If we
can leverage the work that the ICIS experiment shows us, that
might require us to assess our future budgets. It is not a plan
that is fully baked now, but if we could get to something there
that required additional expenditure or the reallocation of
assets within DHS, that would be a priority for me.
Third, I would say the TWIC program is a very, very
important priority for making sure that we have fully funded.
We have a path ahead identified inside the department about
what we need for the rest of this fiscal year. We may need to
come back and assess whether we should reprogram, reallocate or
reassign money in some way or another to make sure that when we
implement it fully in the coming year, we are adequately funded
for that.
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank your
indulgence. If I could make just one point on this. I would
hope that as you share with us information between technology
and personnel, as you are looking at these things, I would like
very much to see, and I hope you will share with the committee,
the issue of personnel on the ground for intelligence. I think
this is an issue that we have a gray area that we need to have
covered, and I would like to see that, if you will please.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman King. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Rhode Island, who has been particularly
active on the issue of radiation portal monitors, Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for your testimony
today. I enjoyed reading the testimony and I will have
additional questions for the record. But just briefly, I would
like to begin with, you referenced DHS's plan to expand the
number of the radiation portal monitors and next generation
advanced spectroscopic portals. A GAO study last month
indicated that DHS is 5 years behind schedule to deploy more
than 3,000 RPMs by 2009, and the program is underfunded by more
than $300 million.
My question to you first is, will you come to the Congress
to ask for immediate funding so that the program can be
completed as soon as possible?
And next, a Senate report showed that less than 40 percent
of cargo entering the country is screened for radiation. We
have had an active discussion her already about screening
cargo, but can you tell me what factors limit the rapid
deployment of RPMs so that DHS can meet its goal of 100 percent
inspection of cargo at our ports?
If you can take the budget one, though, on the deployment
of RPMs and the fact that DHS is behind schedule, I would like
you to address that one first.
Mr. Jackson. I would say that we are actually not behind
schedule and that we have made very, very substantial progress
since Secretary Chertoff has come into office. It was one of
his very high initial priorities to explore this area. We have,
with the Congress's help, funded the domestic nuclear detection
office, the DNDO. The DNDO is aggressively working with CBP on
the deployment of radiation portal monitors and the next
generation of these RPMs.
We have a very accelerated, aggressive, and I am telling
you very promising procurement underway for this next
generation of tools. We have been testing them in conjunction
with the national labs where we have actual lab tests that are
showing great promise. So we have a plan. The plan started
predominantly with our land border crossings for this
deployment, where we saw the immediate need to be so high. We
are moving very rapidly into the maritime world.
Right now, we see containers subject to RPMs, radiation
portal monitors, at slightly over 50 percent right now. So we
have seen, even when I first testified in the middle of the
Dubai Ports World, this was lower by five or six points. So we
are now in the very active phase of bringing every month
substantial capacity online. I think that we will get to the
goal that I mentioned of the 98 percent deployment of all
containers screened by the end of fiscal year 2007.
We have asked for a very large amount of money for DNDO,
and the Congress so far has been very supportive. If we feel
like we need more, we will come and ask you. So that is the
budget part of that equation.
Mr. Langevin. If I could ask, in terms of follow up right
there, if you had the additional money now, though, isn't it
true that you could accelerate the deployment of those border
monitors at border crossings in our ports right now?
Mr. Jackson. I would have to go back and look at the
question of whether we can push the supply chain faster than we
are. We are buying very aggressively. One part of what we have
looked at is there are certain components of these machines
that we would like to see available in a more rapid turnaround.
We have looked internally about how to provide incentives to
industry to make sure that those components are available so
that we could accelerate into the next generation as soon as
the technology is refined.
So I don't now for sure whether we are buying up everything
on the assembly line, and if the assembly line is working at
maximum capacity. I know that we are buying a very considerable
amount and that we have invested people and the dollars to do
it as fast as possible.
Mr. Langevin. Mr. Secretary, would you get back to us with
the answer to that question? Because it is my understanding
that it is within our capability, it is within DHS's
capability, that if you had the funds, that you could deploy
the radiation portal monitors at all of our borders, ports of
entry, ports within 1 year. Actually, I had, with the help of
this committee, passed an amendment that would have required
the deployment of these radiation portal monitors within 1
year.
It really is my understanding that it is a budget function,
and it is a very small amount, approximately about $130 million
over what the president has requested for radiation portal
monitors. It would get the job done. I think it is both
shortsighted and it is irresponsible for us not to appropriate
and authorize that additional funding if it is that small
amount of money.
In comparison to what we are spending in Iraq on a daily
basis, another $130 million is a small amount, in comparison to
what it would do and what it would give us in terms of
protection based on the threat.
Mr. Jackson. I would be happy to give you some production
capability figures. I will tell you that in response to a
discussion of the amendment that you raise, I was briefed by my
staff that we thought that there were production limits that
would prevent us from meeting that even if money was not the
issue. But I would be happy to provide a little bit of
additional detail to unpack that assessment from our team for
you, and let you know more detail about why they have that
conviction.
Mr. Langevin. I would appreciate that.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Langevin. With the chairman's indulgence, if you could
just brief answer the last question, that was what are the
limits on the rapid deployment of RPMs so that DHS could meet
its goal. Are there technical things that you can point to?
Mr. Jackson. I think the issues are money, as you have
identified, and the technical production capabilities. There is
also a third element that we are very mindful of, that we see
just around the corner in the near term, some potential
dramatic breakthroughs in the technology. So we are trying to
make a balance here to say, how would you weigh the full-bore,
spend all the dough, get it out as fast as possible, with a
piece of technology which is now going to be replaced by a much
more highly functioning piece of equipment? So we are trying to
cover as much of the mass as we can, have layers of security in
the interim while we move to a new technology.
If this were pie-in-the-sky or we thought that it may or
may not happen, that balancing act might have a different
equation. But because we are so convinced that this next
generation of radiation monitors, which will allow us to
understand the particular types of radiation signal that we are
getting, is around the corner and is possible, we are trying to
balance those type of capital investments so that we have a
long-term tool that will be satisfactory for the country.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you. I know my time has expired, so I
just wanted to end by saying that let's keep in mind, though,
let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good; that there
will always be the next best technology out there; and from
what I understand what we have right now on the market is good
enough to do the detection that we need to do. There will
always be better equipment, but let's not let the perfect be
the enemy of the good.
Mr. Jackson. I understand. That is a valid principle.
Mr. Langevin. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence.
I appreciate that.
Chairman King. The gentlelady from Texas?
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me personally
thank you as well for your courtesies of last week. I
appreciate it very much.
Mr. Jackson, welcome. Let me thank you for your service. I
have been known on this committee to be pointed with respect to
my belief in some of the responses given by the Department of
Homeland Security. I want to personally thank you for your
leadership on another matter dealing with the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina, and specifically dealing with what I call
the impact states.
As you well know, we are still feeling it. You may hear
from the city of Houston again for a number of issues,
including housing, and maybe your collaborative efforts with
the Department of Justice on security, I know that they are the
ones that are handling that funding, but I do want to thank you
on that.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. You are quite welcome.
Do you have any assessment of the status of the Port of New
Orleans at this time?
Mr. Jackson. I don't have a particular security assessment.
I do know that we have brought back the port to operational
capabilities of a core nature. There are still some
considerable damage and limits on the capacities in the port.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. I would be interested if I could get a
report on the functionality of the port at this time, separate
and apart from security, but adding to that what is its
security status.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, ma'am. I would be happy to get it to you.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. I say that because my questions will be
intertwined with the vulnerability of ports both in terms of
manmade disasters, terrorist acts, but also what we saw, the
catastrophic event of Hurricane Katrina, and to a lesser extent
Hurricane Rita.
As you know, those of us on the Gulf, most of us have very
large ports in our area, and in particular the Port of Houston
is one of the largest in the nation. So I would be interested
in what the vulnerabilities would be on that.
I do want to acknowledge that for those of us who served on
the Select Committee on Homeland Security, we have been working
on this issue of port security for a very long time. I take
note of the legislation by Loretta Sanchez and as well we
offered a Democratic substitute, H.R. 1817. So we have been
conversant with this, and then as a resident of Houston, we
literally live by the port and understand some of its both
deficiencies and its assets. When I say ``deficiencies,'' not
of the Port of Houston, but just by having a port.
I am reminded of after 9/11, if you will, the etching up of
the Coast Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard that many have tended to
take for granted, but have done an excellent job filling in for
enhanced port security.
So having said that, I want to point out what seems to be
driving us at this point, which is the Dubai Ports. I call it
debacle and crisis without a negative alluding to Dubai in any
way. But the incident was negative in terms of what it
generated. The concern there was, of course, about who was in
charge of security. There was seemingly some attempt to deflect
that, oh no, Dubai Ports would not handle security. It is
internally handled by the Coast Guard.
I think that is inaccurate because as a terminal operator,
the terminal operator is by structure, as I understand it
responsible for security. In this instance, Dubai Ports World
would have been responsible for security of their terminals,
and then the Coast Guard would be the entity that checked for
compliance with security plans.
From your knowledge, is that in fact true? And do you know
how often the Coast Guard visits the terminal facilities to
check compliance with security requirements? And does the Coast
Guard engage in unannounced visits? I think that was a fine
line on which we were raising our voices, that the intricate
secrets of security at one port would certainly be similar to
those in other ports, and you would be exposing the nation's
ports to the possible review by individuals who would not have
our best intentions.
If you would answer that, and let me just share another
point with you that I would be interested in having you answer,
is the House homeland security presidential directive which
requires the development of a maritime infrastructure recovery
plan to resume trade in the event of a terrorist act at a port.
I would almost hope that they would amend that and include a
natural disaster.
This plan has been delayed to incorporate lessons learned
from Katrina, which is what I have just asked for. But as the
plans have been delayed, my concern would be what
vulnerabilities do we have as it relates to terrorist acts?
When will the plan be completed? I would like to see a dual
track. I would like to see us move forward on the existing
response to terrorist acts, and work on the natural disaster,
because we can be attacked at any moment. If the terrorist
attack occurred at a port tomorrow, what would be the response?
I understand the Coast Guard would set maritime security
conditions, but what would that mean for CBP? And couldn't the
security actions required after an attack result in a shutdown
even if a shutdown order is not given? I would appreciate your
insight on those questions.
Chairman King. Mr. Secretary, answer the questions here.
Mr. Jackson. Okay. Yes, sir. Who is responsible for
security? It is a shared responsibility under a government
mandated regime that was established through MTSA and other
authorities under law. The Coast Guard has this broad MTSA
authority. Part of that requires terminal operating companies
to have a certain security regime in place. So they have, as
you asked me, affirmative obligations there.
The underlying regime in the security regime is that of the
Coast Guard as established through law through MTSA. Similarly,
the Customs and Border Protection has a security role in
screening and inspecting cargo in a port facility. The port
terminal operator does not know what container is going to be
pulled, inspected or de-vanned. So this is a layer of
protection about which specific containers we are worried
about, and which specific actions will be mandated.
They sometimes have a role in helping us move a container
from one place to the next, they oftentimes have that role, but
it is at the direction of CBP that tells them and doesn't
explain why that we want to look at a particular container. So
the Coast Guard and CBP have therefore routine presence in the
ports.
The Coast Guard's principal presence in the port is
revolving around the captain of the port, a Coast Guard
officer. In Houston, it is a senior Coast Guard officer that
pulls together the port security plan for the entire port and
other port operational integration that is needed for the port.
So the question about sharing the full security secrets of the
U.S. government with a terminal operator is really not I think
a particularly strong concern because most of the most precious
and I would say confidential parts of this which relate to
targeting are, again, not the terminal operators
responsibility.
In the work that the Coast Guard does as a vessel
approaches the terminal, in the work that we do to screen the
vessel itself and the mariners on it, again a public function,
not a private function. So it is a combination of
responsibilities, all of which integrate into a layered system
of security, but which is I think appropriately protected in
terms of the confidentiality of the material.
On the second general question about maritime
infrastructure recovery plan, that was part of the maritime
domain awareness planning work that is required. We have a
broad strategic plan that addresses this issue that has been
published. We have a specific annex on this issue. This bill
calls for further work on this question of recovery.
I think you are right to ask for us to focus carefully on
recovery, not only from terrorist attacks, but natural
disasters. When Hurricane Pam looked like it was headed up the
Houston ship channel, I know that we spoke and we were all very
concerned about the impact upon the economy in this vital
national asset. So our contingency planning and re-starts
should cover both of those threats.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Did you answer me to say there was a plan
completed?
Chairman King. The gentlelady's time has expired and we do
have a second panel and we have run significantly over.
I want to thank the secretary for his testimony. We are
awaiting the second panel. I would like to take the
prerogative, though, of asking you a question which is going to
be raised by each of the members of the second panel, I
believe. I would just like to, if you could give us your
statement on it so at least will have it in some context.
This is on CBP, with the ATS and the 24-hour notice. That,
as I understand it, only requires manifest data. I think each
of the witnesses are going to say that much more comprehensive
cargo entry data would be required for that really to be
effective. How would you address that so we will have this in
context when each of the subsequent witnesses testify?
Mr. Jackson. Mr. Chairman, I would agree that a richer set
of data should be gathered to give us the next generation tools
that we want in the targeting world, and that is core to the
whole idea of secure freight, that we can gather, fuse and use
the information about the pre-history of a given container that
is more than just the weigh-bills information.
So I am in strong agreement with that, and that is a
commitment of this department to get a richer data pool from
which to do our screening.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Mr. Chairman, would you yield please? I
want to make sure that Mr. Jackson is able to answer that
question that I originally posed. I just wanted a simple yes or
no as to whether the plan is completed. If he could give that?
The plan that had to do with the Hurricane Katrina impact is
the original plan.
Mr. Jackson. I understand that we have an annex on recovery
that is completed. I will validate that and be happy to share
that.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Would you please? I would greatly
appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman King. Thank you.
I want to thank Secretary Jackson for his testimony. As
always, we thank you for your cooperation. We look forward to
working with you. I will take you up on the offer to--
Mr. Jackson. I look forward to it. It will be a good day.
Chairman King. Great. Thank you very much. The secretary is
excused, and again I thank you very much for your testimony.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Chairman King. Now, we will call the second panel. Let me
thank each of the witnesses on the second panel for agreeing to
testify today. I realize you had significantly short notice. I
also know that each of you are very busy, so I want to thank
you for taking the time to be here today, and also to thank you
for the contributions that you have made to this whole issue of
port security.
I will just briefly identify the witnesses. This is in no
way giving them the accolades they deserve, but in the
interests of time we will go through it quickly.
Mr. Christopher Koch, who is the president and CEO of the
World Shipping Council; Mr. Jonathan Gold, who is vice
president of Global Supply Chain Policy with the Retail
Industry Leaders Association; Mr. Clark Kent Ervin, who is now
a private citizen, but was the inspector general of the
Department of Homeland Security; and Bethann Rooney, who is the
manager of port security for the Port Authority of New York and
New Jersey, and is involved not just in maritime security, but
in air security as well.
In fact, it seems whenever I show up somewhere in New York
to speak, she is there to make sure that the port authority
doesn't get shortchanged. So even though you are hounding me
and following me and harassing me, you are doing your job very
well and I want to thank you for that.
I now recognize Mr. Koch.
STATEMENT OF MR. CHRISTOPHER L. KOCH, PRESIDENT AND CEO, WORLD
SHIPPING COUNCIL
Mr. Koch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and for the opportunity
to be here today.
Our view of this is basically the strategy that DHS has
established as a fundamentally sound strategy. For
containerized cargo, they have a 24-hour rule strategy which
means do your risk assessment before the container is loaded on
the ship. We think that is the right strategy. The carriers
which I represent provide the government with the data they
have on those shipments 24 hours before loading. This is so-
called the screening process.
The strategy then is to inspect 100 percent of the boxes
that you have security questions about, and hopefully then get
to the point of running through radiation scanners 100 percent
of all containers coming into the United States.
And finally, the piece of build international agreements to
extend this off our shores as best we can.
So if the strategy is sound, that doesn't mean there aren't
opportunities for considerable improvements to how we implement
those strategies. We thank the committee for trying to find
those ways and work with the industry to get there.
A number of comments on H.R. 4954, which we have provided
in more detail in our written comments, but a couple of points
I would like to highlight. First is that we encourage the
committee as they draft this bill to recognize that Congress
already has passed a coherent framework for a lot of these
issues. MTSA, the Marine Transportation Security Act, and the
Trade Act, both passed in 2002, provide a fundamental strategy.
We hope that in doing the amendments to the law that you will
pass, that the layering of these new pieces come on top of it
in a way that is not inconsistent.
Let me give an example. One of the priorities that we agree
with this committee on is improving the trade data used for the
targeting system. We think there is a consensus that needs to
be done. The bill needs to be very clear, however, that it is
consistent with existing law that says that data should be
acquired before vessel loading, so that the targeting center in
Northern Virginia can do the screening on that before it is put
on the vessel. It doesn't do any good to get the data after it
is already on the vessel. So there are some language changes we
have identified in the bill already that we find very important
and hope they are dealt with.
Secondly, we think getting the TWIC out is absolutely
essential. It is already mandated by law. We recognize that,
and it probably should not need another directive from Congress
to mandate what has already been mandated, but if so, we are
supportive of that. The bill before you right now does have a
provision in it calling for an interim security screening of
some sort of port workers. We are not entirely sure how that
would work and we would like to discuss that with the committee
after the hearing.
Finally, in terms of C-TPAT, the program is in place, as
you know, by Customs. Some of the terms of the bill that try to
mandate the provisions in C-TPAT we just urge the committee to
consider carefully. Two in particular is whether or not you
really want to hold importers accountable all the way back to
the point of origin of where the goods are first manufactured
and put in the smallest possible container. That is a kind of
obligation that we think many importers would find very
difficult to implement.
The second thing we would like to have you take a look at
is the bill calls for container security devices to be put on
boxes. For reasons we have outlined in some detail in our
testimony, we have questions about whether or not that would be
a realistic obligation for importers to be able to abide by.
The final two points I would like to make is we are, like
Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Jackson said,
very interested and enthusiastic about the ICIS project. We
think it has great potential, but there are a number of issues
that would need to be worked out for it to become an
operational reality.
So a final comment in relationship to the objective of
that, which is to enhance the inspection of containers, we
would note a number of concerns where the bill, H.R. 4899, the
Sail Only If Scanned bill. We do not think that is a realistic
bill for reasons we have identified in our testimony. There are
a lot of problems with it. We posed some questions to the
committee of clarifications we think would be very important if
that issue is going to become seriously discussed.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement of Mr. Koch follows:]
Prepared Statement of Christopher Koch
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify before you today. My name is Christopher Koch. I
am President and CEO of the World Shipping Council, a non-profit trade
association representing international ocean carriers, established to
address public policy issues of interest and importance to the
international liner shipping industry. The Council's members include
the full spectrum of ocean common carriers, from large global operators
to trade-specific niche carriers, offering container, roll-on roll-off,
car carrier and other international transportation services. They carry
roughly 93% of the United States' imports and exports transported by
the international liner shipping industry, or more than $500 billion
worth of American foreign commerce per year.\1\
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\1\ A list of the Council's members can be found on the Council's
website at www.worldshipping.org.
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I also serve as Chairman of the Department of Homeland Security's
National Maritime Security Advisory Committee, as a member of the
Departments of Homeland Security's and Treasury's Advisory Committee on
Commercial Operations of Customs and Border Protection (COAC), and on
the Department of Transportation's Marine Transportation System
National Advisory Council. It is a pleasure to be here today.
In 2005, American businesses imported roughly 11 million loaded
cargo containers into the United States. The liner shipping industry
transports on average about $1.5 billion worth of containerized goods
through U.S. ports each day. In 2006, at projected trade growth rates,
the industry will handle roughly 12 million U.S. import container
loads. And these trade growth trends are expected to continue. The
demands on all parties in the transportation sector to handle these
large cargo volumes efficiently is both a major challenge and very
important to the American economy. At the same time that the industry
is addressing the issues involved in efficiently moving over 11 million
U.S. import containers this year, we also must continue to enhance
maritime security, and do so in a way that does not unreasonably hamper
commerce.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has stated that there are
no known credible threats that indicate terrorists are planning to
infiltrate or attack the United States via maritime shipping
containers. At the same time, America's supply chains extend to tens of
thousands of different points around the world, and the potential
vulnerability of containerized transportation requires the development
and implementation of prudent security measures. Like many parts of our
society, we thus confront an unknown threat, but a known vulnerability.
The DHS maritime security strategy involves many different, but
complementary, pieces. It includes the establishment of vessel security
plans for all arriving vessels pursuant to the International Ship &
Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code) and the Maritime Transportation
Security Act (MTSA). It includes the establishment of U.S. port
facility security plans and area maritime security plans pursuant to
the ISPS Code and MTSA, and the establishment by the Coast Guard of the
International Port Security Program (IPSP) pursuant to which the Coast
Guard visits foreign ports and terminals to share and align security
practices and assess compliance with the ISPS Code. It includes the
Maritime Domain Awareness program, under which DHS acquires enhanced
information about vessel movements and deploys various technologies for
better maritime surveillance. The challenge of effectively patrolling
all the coasts and waters of the United States is obviously a large
one. The MTSA directives and DHS efforts also include enhanced security
for personnel working in the maritime area. And last, but certainly not
least, these directives and efforts include an array of initiatives to
enhance cargo security, including: (a) cargo security risk assessment
screening, (b) the Container Security Initiative, (c) the Customs'
Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) Program, and (d) container
inspection technology deployment.
I. Introductory Comments on the Current Maritime Security Strategy
The government's multi-layer security strategy is fundamentally
sound, and seeks to address cargo and maritime security on an
international basis as early as is practicable. It does not wait to
address security questions for the first time when a ship and its cargo
arrive at a U.S. port. Implementation of the strategy, however, can be
further developed and strengthened.
It is very important to recognize that Congress has already enacted
a broad, coherent statutory framework and set of authorities to address
the maritime and cargo security challenge. The Maritime Transportation
Security Act and the Trade Act, both enacted into law in 2002, address
many of the issues under current discussion and in H.R. 4954 in a
satisfactory manner. As a result, we recommend that new statutory
provisions should be enacted when needed to fill specific gaps or to
direct specific, needed actions. Care should be exercised not to add
unnecessary layers of general statutory provisions on top of existing
statutory authorities.
The maritime security challenge is to build on the fundamentally
sound strategic framework that DHS has developed and to continue to
make improvements on what has been started. Specifically, we believe
that priority DHS consideration should be given to:
1. Improving the cargo shipment data collected and analyzed by
Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) National Targeting Center before
vessel loading. If cargo risk assessment is to be a cornerstone of DHS
policy--which we believe is a correct approach, and cargo security
screening is to be performed before the cargo is loaded onto a ship
destined for the U.S.--which we also believe is a correct approach, it
should be using more complete cargo shipment data to perform the risk
assessment than only the ocean carriers' bills of lading;
2. Continue expanding international cooperation through the
Container Security Initiative network;
3. Continuing to improve and strengthen the C-TPAT program;
4. Promulgating regulations to implement the MTSA mandate of
maritime Transportation Worker Identification Cards for U.S. port
workers; and
5. Undertaking a priority examination of the merits and feasibility
of the Integrated Container Inspection System (ICIS) pilot project, the
issues that would be involved in the widespread application of ICIS-
type container inspection and radiation screening equipment, and the
interface and use of such equipment and its results by Customs
authorities.
II. Foreign Investment in the Maritime Industry and Infrastructure
Because the recent controversy in Congress over Dubai Ports World's
acquisition of P&O Ports raised the issue of foreign investment in the
maritime and port business, some comments on that issue are in order,
particularly because there are bills introduced in the House to prevent
foreign investment in the nation's maritime infrastructure.
Stevedoring and marine terminal operations are a service industry
that is open to foreign investment. Billions of dollars of foreign
investment has been made in the U.S. over recent years in this sector,
and that investment has contributed substantially to a transportation
infrastructure that is critical to moving America's commerce
efficiently and reliably. The investment has come from Japanese, South
Korean, Danish, British, Chinese, French, Taiwanese, and Singaporean
businesses, just as American companies have been allowed to invest in
marine terminal and stevedoring businesses in foreign countries.
The substantial majority of American containerized commerce is
handled in U.S. ports by marine terminal operators that are
subsidiaries or affiliates of foreign enterprises, usually the
container shipping lines themselves. This is an international, highly
competitive industry, providing hundreds of thousands of American jobs.
The United States depends on it, and it in turn has served the needs of
American commerce well, adding capacity and service as the needs of
American exporters and importers have grown.
An important element of the U.S. government's position in
international trade negotiations for many years, under both Democrat
and Republican administrations, has been the importance of securing the
ability of international investment to flow into various international
service industries. It is a principle of substantial importance to many
sectors of the American economy. There are many billions of dollars of
American service industry investments around the world, including
banking, insurance, food service, accounting, construction, energy,
engineering, etc.
U.S. marine terminal facilities, whether operated by U.S. or non-
U.S. owned companies, must and do comply with all the government's
applicable security requirements. There is no evidence that terminal
facilities' operations conducted by foreign controlled companies are
any less secure, or in any way less compliant with security
regulations, or in any way less cooperative with U.S. government
security authorities than U.S. controlled companies. In fact, these
companies work closely and cooperatively with the Coast Guard, CBP, the
U.S. military, and other U.S. law enforcement agencies.
This is an international industry and has been for many years. Less
than 3% of American international maritime commerce is transported on
U.S.-flag ships, and foreign owned carriers are responsible for the
capital investment in most of those ships. American owned liner
shipping companies transport roughly 5% of the trade, and their vessels
are largely foreign flag.
The leading American liner shipping companies, such as Sea-Land,
APL, and Lykes, were sold by their U.S. owners years ago to foreign
companies, and neither the Executive Branch nor an informed Congress
did anything to protest or stop this change. Foreign ownership of
shipping companies and U.S. marine terminal operating companies has
been part of our nation's economic make-up for years. We live in a
global economy and society where it is simply a fact that most of this
important component of the nation's ``critical infrastructure'' \2\ is
owned and operated by foreign companies. One might wish American
companies were dominant industry actors, but they aren't. Further, U.S.
financial markets have demonstrated little enthusiasm for international
liner shipping due to its high capital investment requirements,
cyclicality, and intense competition, as well as the fact that other
nations' tax laws are more favorable to shipping.
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\2\ The liner shipping industry and marine terminal operators
logically fall within the most commonly used definitions of ``critical
infrastructure''. See, e.g., the National Infrastructure Protection
Plan definition: ``Systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so
vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such
assets, systems, networks or functions would have a debilitating impact
on security, national economic security, national public health or
safety, or any combination of those matters.'' The liner shipping
industry transports roughly 11 million containers of imported goods per
year to American importers and consumers, 7 million containers of
exported goods from American businesses, and important government and
military cargoes. The value of this goods movement is over $1.5 billion
per day, and these supply chains connect the American economy to the
rest of the world. The industry that is responsible for this
transportation service is critical infrastructure.
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The U.S. has been well served by the investment capital these
foreign companies have made and continue to make in serving U.S.
commerce.\3\ The United States' economy and U.S. importers and
exporters would be significantly harmed by policies that discourage or
prevent this foreign investment. This is particularly true now with
trade volumes pressing U.S. transportation infrastructure's capacity,
and with ports, state governments, and the federal government all
searching for additional investment capital to meet the nation's
maritime transportation infrastructure needs and to keep American
commerce competitive in the global market.
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\3\ The hundreds of millions of dollars presently being invested in
Portsmouth, Virginia by Maersk, in Mobile, Alabama by Maersk and CMA-
CGM, and in Jacksonville, Florida by MOL are just three examples of
this ongoing commitment to the construction of improved U.S.
transportation infrastructure.
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This nation is not at risk from foreign capital being invested in
it, but it would be at risk if it were to discourage continued foreign
investment in the maritime industry serving its needs.
There is another aspect to the recent Congressional interest in
foreign ownership of marine terminal operators that has been myopic. In
addition to the Dubai Ports World-P&O Ports transaction being
mischaracterized as a purchase of U.S. ports--which it was not, and in
addition to the fact that no facts were provided that showed DPW to be
a security risk as a terminal operator--and in fact Dubai was shown to
be an important ally and supporter of U.S. efforts in the Middle East
and one which is trusted by the U.S. military to service its vessels
and cargo. The entire controversy ignored the fact that, even with the
six U.S. marine terminals being spun off from this purchase, DPW will
be the third largest marine terminal operator in the world, and will be
loading cargo onto vessels destined for the United States from its
facilities in Australia, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean every day.
Wouldn't it make sense for the U.S. security strategy to try to
include companies like DPW as partners of the government's efforts to
secure international commerce? DPW is a knowledgeable and professional
actor, both globally and in a particularly relevant part of the world.
Instead, the Congress just told the third largest terminal operator in
the world that it did not trust them, when the facts presented did not
justify such a judgment of the company. The unfortunate treatment of
this transaction should be kept confined to the narrowest possible
application.
The international shipping industry and America's foreign commerce
are global enterprises. Devising and implementing effective maritime
security enhancements requires the participation and effort of many
governments and many foreign owned and operated business enterprises.
The U.S. government does not have the capability or the jurisdiction to
do this by itself. It needs the cooperation and assistance of foreign
governments and foreign owned businesses. The Coast Guard and Customs
and Border Protection fully recognize this and are working to build and
enhance global security strategies. Protectionism and unfounded
criticism of foreign owned enterprises will impair those efforts and
will impair security enhancement efforts.
III. Comments on H.R. 4954, the SAFE Port Act
We commend the Committee for its continued interest in maritime and
cargo security, and for its interest in trying to fashion something
that may be of constructive value out of the recent, unproductive
controversy over the Dubai World Ports issue. We can provide the
Committee staff with detailed section-by-section comments at a later
time, and hope the following more general comments on the legislation
will be helpful.
Section 4. Strategic Plan: It is appropriate for Congress to
instruct DHS to develop a strategic plan for the security of the
maritime transportation system, but it has already done so in MTSA (46
U.S.C. 70103). DHS has produced and continues to produce strategic
plans for maritime security and infrastructure protection. Last fall,
DHS issued its National Strategy for Maritime Security, and in addition
is producing eight supporting strategic plans, including: the National
Plan to Achieve Domain Awareness, the Global Maritime Intelligence
Integration Plan, the Interim Maritime Operational Threat Response
Plan, the International Outreach and Coordination Strategy, the
Maritime Infrastructure Recovery Plan, the Maritime Transportation
System Security Plan, the Maritime Commerce Security Plan, and the
Domestic Outreach Plan. The Coast Guard also recently completed the
Maritime Subsector plan component of the National Infrastructure
Protection Plan.
There are plenty of strategic plans. We do not see a need for
Section 4. Maritime security enhancements are more likely to come from
implementing new security measures than instructing the bureaucracy to
produce more strategic planning documents.
Section 5. Protocols for the Resumption of Trade: The Council
supports this section's instruction that DHS develop protocols for the
resumption of trade in the event of a transportation security incident,
but notes that, based on our discussions with CBP and the Coast Guard
on this issue, the issues involved are often highly dependent on the
facts of the situation. One very important issue that should be made
explicit, however, is that, once the federal government has issued its
security approval for foreign or interstate commerce to move, state and
local governments are preempted from second-guessing or trying to
overrule or interfere with those federal decisions.
Section 6. Improvements to Automated Targeting System: This is
perhaps the most important issue addressed by the bill. The existing
and statutorily mandated strategy of the U.S. government is to conduct
a security screening of all containerized cargo shipments before they
are loaded on a U.S. bound vessel in a foreign port. The correct time
and place for the cargo security screening is before the containers are
loaded on a ship.
In order to be able to perform this advance security screening, CBP
implemented the ``24 Hour Rule'' in early 2003. Under this rule,
carriers are required to provide CBP with their cargo manifest
information regarding all containerized cargo shipments at least 24
hours before those containers are loaded onto the vessel in a foreign
port. CBP, at its National Targeting Center in Northern Virginia, then
screens every shipment using its Automated Targeting System (ATS),
which also uses various sources of intelligence information, to
determine which containers should not be loaded aboard the vessel at
the foreign port, which containers need to be inspected at either the
foreign port or the U.S. discharge port, and which containers are
considered low-risk and able to be transported expeditiously and
without further review. Every container shipment loaded on a vessel
bound for the U.S. is screened through this system before vessel
loading at the foreign port. Customs may issue the carrier a ``Do Not
Load'' message on any container that is so screened if it has security
concerns that need to be addressed.
The DHS strategy is thus based on its performance of a security
screening of relevant cargo shipment data for 100% of all containerized
cargo shipments before vessel loading, and subsequent inspections of
100% of those containers that raise security issues after initial
screening. Today, we understand that CBP inspects roughly 5.5-6% of all
inbound containers (roughly 600,000 containers per year), using either
X-ray or gamma ray technology (or both) or by physical devanning of the
cargo.
We all have a strong interest in the government performing as
effective a security screening as possible before vessel loading.
Experience also shows that substantial disruptions to commerce can be
avoided if security questions relating to a cargo shipment have been
addressed prior to a vessel being loaded. Not only is credible advance
cargo security screening necessary to the effort to try to prevent a
cargo security incident, but it is necessary for any reasonable
contingency planning or incident recovery strategy. Today, while the
ATS uses various sources of data, the only data that the commercial
sector is required to provide to CBP for each shipment for the before-
vessel-loading security screening is the ocean carrier's bill of
lading/manifest data filed under the 24 Hour Rule. This was a good
start, but carriers's manifest data has limitations.
Cargo manifest data should be supplemented in order to provide
better security risk assessment capabilities. Currently, there is no
data that is required to be filed into ATS by the U.S. importer or the
foreign exporter that can be used in the pre-vessel loading security
screening process. This occurs, even though these parties possess
shipment data that government officials believe would have security
risk assessment relevance that is not available in the carriers'
manifest filings, and notwithstanding the fact that the law requires
the cargo security screening and evaluation system to be conducted
``prior to loading in a foreign port''. Today, cargo entry data is
required to be filed with CBP by the importer, but is not required to
be filed until after the cargo shipment is in the United States, often
at its inland destination--too late to be used for security screening
purposes.
In September 2004, the COAC Maritime Transportation Security Act
Advisory Subcommittee submitted to DHS a recommendation that importers
should provide CBP with the following data elements before vessel
loading:
1. Better cargo description (carriers' manifest data is not
always specific or precise)
2. Party that is selling the goods to the importer
3. Party that is purchasing the goods
4. Point of origin of the goods
5. Country from which the goods are exported
6. Ultimate consignee
7. Exporter representative
8. Name of broker (would seem relevant for security check.),
and
9. Origin of container shipment--the name and address of the
business where the container was stuffed, which is often not
available from an ocean carrier's bill of lading.
An ocean carrier's bill of lading by itself is not sufficient for
cargo security screening. Risk assessment is being conducted on the
basis of commercial documents that may not inform DHS of where the
goods are actually coming from, who is buying the goods, who is selling
the goods, or the name and address of the party that stuffed the
container. It would seem logical that the earlier filing of these
shipment data elements would improve CBP's cargo security screening
capabilities.
The government needs to decide what additional advance cargo
shipment information it needs to better perform pre-vessel loading
cargo screening. It may include the data elements recommended above, or
it may include additional desired data elements beyond that list. While
this is not a simple task, it is important that progress be made on
deciding what additional data should be obtained for this purpose, and
it is important that the cargo interests, and not just carriers, be
required to provide the relevant data in time to do the advance
security screening before vessel loading in the foreign port.
The need to enhance the data used in the ATS has been recognized by
DHS, by the Government Accountability Office, by CBP, by importers, and
by carriers. It is important to note that MTSA has already established
that the maritime cargo security screening system is governed by the
``24 Hour Rule'' strategy of ``establishing standards and procedures
for screening and evaluating cargo prior to loading in a foreign port
for shipment to the United States.'' (46 U.S.C. 70116(b)(1)). Further,
Section 343 of the Trade Act of 2002 already specifically authorizes
and instructs DHS to establish mandatory advanced electronic
information for cargo security screening, including the quite correct
directive that ``the requirement to provide particular information
shall be imposed on the party most likely to have direct knowledge of
that information''.
What is needed is for DHS to develop and propose new regulations
identifying and requiring the next generation of data for the ATS.
While a new statute should not be necessary to achieve this, we support
Section 6's effort to require such action, but only if its language is
clarified that the additional cargo data is to be obtained prior to
vessel loading, not ``prior to importation''. It is essential that this
bill be consistent with the established before vessel loading security
screening strategy of MTSA, as well as Section 343 of the Trade Act.
Section 7. Uniform Data for Government-Wide Usage We support this
provision, and note that Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions
of dollars on the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) system, which
will hopefully meet this section's goals.
Section 8. Verification for Individuals With Access to Secure Areas
of Seaports We fully support the Committee's efforts to expedite
implementation of the MTSA requirements to establish a Transport Worker
Identification Card (TWIC) program, although another statutory
directive to DHS to implement the existing MTSA directive seems
unnecessary. As to Section 8's ``interim'' initiative to have DHS
compare transport workers with unescorted access to secure seaport
facilities against terrorist watch lists, we are fully supportive in
concept, but unclear how this process would actually work. We would
welcome the opportunity to work with the Committee staff to better
understand this.
Section 10. Container Security Standards and Verification
Procedures Section 10 would require DHS to establish seal verification
requirements within 180 days of enactment. This is an issue that is
already addressed by MTSA (46 U.S.C. 70116). DHS and industry
representatives have been working on it for some time. The challenges
are several. First, it has become clear that without electronic seals
and a global RFID e-seal reading infrastructure at ports around the
world, such a requirement is not practical. Carriers themselves cannot
verify seals before vessel loading; they will depend on foreign
terminal operators at ports around the world to undertake such a task.
It is for that reason that the Council and its member lines have been
working hard to develop an international e-seal standard at the
International Standards Organization. For many reasons, such a standard
remains elusive. It is clear that implementation of such technology
will take significantly more time. Second, an e-seal system and
infrastructure would be very expensive, and security experts
increasingly question whether such seals provide sufficient security
benefits to justify the costs, particularly if more advanced, effective
technology can be developed. Third, seal verification anomalies would
be frequent, and both CBP and the industry have concerns that
addressing the many thousands of expected anomalies, which are likely
to have little national security implications, could be a difficult
burden on the agency and commerce. Rather than adding another statutory
layer on top of MTSA, we recommend the Committee obtain a full briefing
on these issues from CBP and the industry. The information and issues
involved are also relevant to Section 15 of the bill and its call for
further research, development, testing and evaluation of technologies.
Section 11. Radiation Detection and Radiation Safety The Council
supports this section, and would also observe that the DHS strategy on
this issue should consider, not only the deployment of such radiation
detection equipment at U.S. ports of entry, but how the ``ICIS
concept'', with its possible deployment of such equipment overseas by
marine terminal operating companies, may fit into the government's
strategy. This topic is discussed in greater detail in the next section
of our testimony.
Section 13. C-TPAT Like Section 12's treatment of CSI , it is
appropriate to create a statutory foundation for this CBP program. We
have several comments on this section. First, the Committee should
carefully consider how far back in a supply chain it intends to hold a
C-TPAT importer accountable. The bill's definition of ``point of
origin'', going back to the point where goods are assembled into the
``smallest exterior packaging unit'', may be feasible for some
importers that order directly from a foreign manufacturer, but would
probably be impossible for importers of many commodities and traded
goods, and could be impossible for large importers that use many
suppliers.
Second, we note that in proscribing the Tier Three program for C-
TPAT importers, the bill would encourage ``container security devices''
(CSDs). We believe CSDs are not yet appropriate for inclusion in the
program for the following reasons: (1) Neither the bill, DHS or the
trade have developed clear definitions of what the requirements for
such devices should be. Depending on who you talk to, it might include
seals, electronic seals, the CSDs that were recently tested by CBP in
its pilot tests, or ``Advanced CSDs'' being tested by Science and
Technology within DHS. Do they have to have sensors that detect
intrusion into the container via one door, via either door, through the
walls? Do they have to detect conditions other than intrusion? (2) The
possible technologies vary from using RFID (although there is not
agreement on what radio frequency should be used for RFID) to wireless/
satellite devices. (3) To be effective and deployed on a commercial
basis, RFID CSDs would require a global reading infrastructure to be
built at ports around the world. That infrastructure does not presently
exist. (4) There is no agreement on who would operate and control the
CSD reading infrastructure or the information generated if RFID
technology is used. (5) There is no agreement on how a marine terminal
would know that a container arriving into it was supposed to have a CSD
on it to be read. (6) There is no protocol in place for how to address
anomaly readings or alerts that would be generated from CSDs. (7) There
is no international standard for CSDs, and an internationally usable
and accepted standard would be essential. The Council has been working
diligently for several years at the International Standards
Organization on the effort to establish a standard for electronic
seals, and we have not yet succeeded. The process for establishing such
a standard for CSDs has not even begun. (8) Many CSDs being discussed
have the ability for persons to change or write new information into
them after the container is closed. The security questions arising from
the ability to write new information into such devices have not been
resolved. (9) Acceptable error rates have not been satisfactorily
established.
CSDs have a potentially important role for future container
security enhancement, but they are not yet ready for inclusion as an
element of the Tier Three importer concept.
IV. Comments on H.R. 4899, the ``Sail Only if Scanned Act of 2006''
While this hearing is on H.R.4954, H.R. 4899 was offered as an
amendment to this bill in Subcommittee and defeated. Because it appears
possible that H.R. 4899 will be offered again as an amendment to H.R.
4954, and because it was defeated by only an 8-6 vote, some comments on
this bill are offered for the Committee's consideration.
We respectfully submit that H.R. 4899 is poorly drafted and raises
many unanswered questions. Even more importantly, if it were actually
enacted into law and implemented, it would have a devastating impact on
American commerce and the American economy. Some comments and questions
on this bill follow.
First, the stated intent of this bill is to require every container
of cargo to be scanned before being loaded onto a vessel bound for the
U.S., and further that, if the container has not been scanned in the
foreign port of loading in accordance with the terms of bill, it cannot
be loaded aboard a vessel bound for the U.S. (ergo, the ``Sail Only if
Scanned Act'') This would be impossible to implement, at least in the
time frame and under the terms of this bill, because the equipment,
systems, operating protocols, and necessary international agreements
are not in place. If H.R. 4899 were enacted into law and enforced, it
would bring America's containerized foreign trade to a halt.
Second, the bill requires that each container be ``scanned'' with
equipment that meets certain standards, but it does not make it clear
what ``scan'' means. Does it mean radiation scanning, or does it also
mean gamma ray or X-ray non-intrusive inspection image scanning (NII)?
Obviously, it is important to be clear about what is being required.
These are two different technologies and processes.
Third, the bill requires that each container be scanned and that a
copy of the scan be provided to the Secretary, but it does not say who
is to do the scanning. We believe the bill's authors should clarify
whether the bill is proposing that the scan be done by the marine
terminal operator that is loading the vessel, or whether the scanning
must be performed by foreign governmental authorities at the particular
port of loading. As the bill provides no funding for the implementation
of this overseas container scanning requirement, we presume that the
authors intend the cost of equipment acquisition and system operation
will be borne by whomever they identify as the parties who are expected
to perform the scanning task. Clarity on this point is very important.
Fourth, the bill states containers must be scanned before they are
loaded onto vessels bound for the U.S., and a copies of the scans must
be sent to DHS, but it fails to say when the scans must be sent to DHS,
how they would be sent, or what DHS is expected to do with them when it
receives them and within what time frame. A scan that is not analyzed
or acted on is without value.
Fifth, the bill would require DHS to establish scanning equipment
technology standards, and then require that every major foreign
government or marine terminal operator in the world adopt that
standard, buy, install and operate that equipment, and apply it to all
of their exports to the U.S. within 12 months.
Sixth, we don't yet have a technology standard for RFID electronic
seals, yet the bill proposes changing the emerging e-seal technology
from RFID to satellite technology.
Seventh, if the bill became law, it would almost certainly invite
other countries to establish reciprocal requirements for U.S. exports,
so that U.S. goods could not be exported, unless the U.S. government or
U.S terminal operators had scanned the container before vessel loading
in a U.S. port, used technology that met a foreign government's
standards, and sent the scan to the foreign government. The bill's
proponents may wish to consider how would they would feel if the
Chinese or Japanese or British governments said there can be no U.S.
exports to their country unless the U.S. installs and operates
container inspection equipment, which meets Chinese or Japanese or
British government technology standards, and sends the scan images to
their government.
Finally, we have tried to consider the cost of this requirement,
but it is difficult to assess the cost of complying when it is not
clear if the ``scan'' is intended to require radiation scanning or both
radiation scanning and NII imaging analysis, and when the necessary
equipment and systems simply are not in place to perform the task.
Someday in the future, if the ``ICIS concept'' is validated and
implemented, there may be systems in place to provide advance, pre-
vessel loading screening for a large percentage of American
containerized commerce, but it would be very difficult to ever reach
100%. At present the systems simply are not in place to do this. To
estimate costs, one might consider that the average cost of an NII
container inspection in a U.S. port seems to range from $100 to $125
per container, with a 1-3 day delay in releasing the cargo. The more
containers inspected, the higher the congestion, terminal, personnel,
and operating costs. A linear projection of $125 per container to 11
million import containers would exceed $1.3 billion, but that
projection would not even begin to consider the ``chaos'' costs that
would ensue in port facilities trying to perform such a task, nor would
it consider the costs of the likely application of this requirement to
U.S. export containers, nor would it consider the enormous costs of the
delayed delivery or non-delivery of commerce. Suffice it to say that
compliance and consequential costs of the bill would be staggering.
Container inspection technologies, including non-intrusive
inspection (NII) equipment and radiation screening equipment, clearly
have an essential and growing role in increasing both the efficiency of
inspecting containerized cargo shipments and the number of containers
that can be inspected. Container inspection technology, particularly
NII equipment, is of substantial interest because, unlike so many other
technologies, it helps address the container security question of
paramount importance, namely: ``What's in the box?''
The Committee's limitation on the length of testimony does not
allow a fuller description of these issues in this forum, but the
Committee is invited to review the Council's March 30th testimony
before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for a fuller
discussion of these important issues, including a discussion of the
Hong Kong pilot project called the Integrated Container Inspection
System or ``ICIS concept''.\4\
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\4\ That testimony is available on the WSC website at
www.worldshipping.org
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We thank the Committee for the opportunity to present these views.
Chairman King. Mr. Koch, thank you for the conciseness of
your testimony.
I will just remind the other witnesses that the full
statements will be inserted and made part of the record.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Jonathan Gold. Mr. Gold?
STATEMENT OF JONATHAN GOLD, VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN
POLICY, RETAIL INDUSTRY LEADERS ASSOCIATION
Mr. Gold. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
testify today on this important issue. We, as members, share
this committee's goal of making the movement of cargo to the
supply chain as safe and as secure as possible. As some of the
largest users of the system, we have an enormous stake in
supply chain security and are committed to helping the
government further enhance security throughout the system.
While a great deal has been accomplished to improve supply
chain security since the tragic events of September 11, the
government and private sector stakeholders must continue to
work together to improve security.
We strongly believe that the U.S. can achieve the dual
objectives of enhanced security and facilitation of legitimate
global commerce. We urge Congress to avoid measures that have a
very limited effect on enhancing security while actually
impeding the flow of legitimate commerce in creating a false
sense of security.
Supply chain security is a global issue that cannot be
addressed unilaterally. The most effective supply chain
security measures are those that push our borders out,
assessing vulnerabilities and identifying threats to cargo
shipments before they reach U.S. ports. Effective supply chain
security requires a multilayered, unified approach that must be
international in scope.
Let me move on to some comments on the bill itself. RILA
strongly supports the development of a strategic plan for
supply chain security. We believe that the initial version as
planned already exists under the National Strategy of Maritime
Security. Further efforts should improve this plan; in
particular, the Maritime Incident Response Plan.
RILA commends the committee for supporting confident
planning and restoration of trade in the event of a maritime
security incident.
The United States is in dire need of a well-coordinated
response plan to ensure that commerce continues to move
throughout the supply chain should an incident occur.
In addition, Congress and the administration need to ensure
that the various agencies involved in Homeland Security do not
duplicate ongoing efforts.
While security concerns may require that certain details
need to be kept within the government's sphere, RILA believes
that a central communication point or channel must be
established so that communications can be streamlined.
One need to only look at the experience of Hurricane
Katrina to understand the need to have a well-coordinated
response.
CBP receives detailed information about every container
coming into the U.S. prior to that container being loaded at a
foreign port to differentiate the true needle in the hay stack
to the overwhelming percentage of cargo containers that present
no security risk. Setting arbitrary and mandatory percentages
of cargo that must be physically inspected would do nothing to
enhance security and would actually undermine it.
Better identification of high-risk cargo represents the
best use of government resources that should be the goal of
this and any legislation addressing cargo security.
RILA is committed to improving container screening by
identifying additional cargo data that can help with the
identification of high-risk cargo.
In keeping with increasing security at U.S. ports, RILA
also endorses the prompt implementation of the Transportation
Workers Identification Credential.
Security must be built into the global supply chain from
origin to delivery, leveraging the best of current and emerging
technologies. Put simply, there is no technological silver
bullet for supply chain security. We must be wary of adopting
technological solutions that merely create a false sense of
security. Too much is at stake to put our trust behind cosmetic
feel-good security measures.
It is important that promising technologies be developed by
dedicating adequate funds for research and development.
Congress should outline policies and goals and allow industry
to work with DHS to find the smartest and most effective way to
meet those goals rather than being forced in deploying unproven
gadgets.
RILA supports efforts to ensure that we have a zero-
tolerance policy for nuclear and radiological materials
entering our country.
While it is preferable to have the screening done overseas,
we will need to have a robust detection regime at our domestic
ports as well.
In addition to the deployment of the radiation portal
monitors at U.S. ports, RILA also encourages DHS and CBP to
consider other models to help conduct container screening
overseas. One such model which has received a great deal of
attention is the ICIS system, which is currently being tested
at two terminals in Hong Kong.
While we, along with CBP, believe that this model fits with
the multilayered approach, a number of issues must be resolved
before such a system is implemented on a global scale.
The key to C-TPAT's success is--acknowledgement that there
is no one-size-fits-all approach to supply chain security. What
works for one industry, such as retail, may not be well-suited
for another industry such as chemical.
RILA opposes any proposal that will limit the ability of
government and industry to respond to and adapt quickly to
innovations and other changes related to the security dynamics
of their specific link in the supply chain.
We are also concerned that the public-private partnership
concept at the heart of C-TPAT's effectiveness would by
compromised by the introduction of required third-party
validators.
C-TPAT works because it provides incentives to participants
to engage in active compliance with government security
objectives.
While the focus on today's hearing is on the SAFE Port Act,
I would be remiss in not commenting about the Sail Only if
Screened Act of 2006, which was offered as an amendment during
last week's markup.
RILA supports 100 percent screening of high-risk
containers, but a policy requirement of 100 percent scanning of
all U.S.-bound containers is neither effective as a deterrent
nor feasible operationally.
Rather than enhancing security sending an arbitrary number
of scanning or inspections of the containers will create much
of the same harm to the nations and world economy that a
terrorist incident would cause.
While the bill calls for scanning of all containers for
radiation and density, again, as Chris has pointed out, these
terms are very vague. There are also many questions about who
will be conducting the scanning, when the scanning would occur,
to whom the scanned images will be sent, and what would be done
with the images once they are received.
The bill also includes requirements for a container seal
that can detect and track whether a container has been tampered
with after loading. We fully believe the technology to
accomplish this goal is still being tested and should not be
mandated at this point in time.
I thank the committee for the opportunity to testify today
and welcome any questions.
[The statement of Mr. Gold follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jonathan Gold
Good morning. Chairman King, Ranking member Thompson and other
distinguished members of the committee. My name is Jonathan Gold and on
behalf of the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), I thank you
for the opportunity to testify at this important hearing regarding the
Security and Accountability For Every (SAFE) Port Act.
By way of background, the Retail Industry Leaders Association
(RILA) is a trade association of the largest and fastest growing
companies in the retail industry. Its member companies include more
than 400 retailers, product manufacturers, and service suppliers, which
together account for more than $1.4 trillion in annual sales. RILA
members operate more than 100,000 stores, manufacturing facilities and
distribution centers, have facilities in all 50 states, and provide
millions of jobs domestically and worldwide.
I also serve as a member of the Department of Homeland Security's
Advisory Committee on the Commercial Operations of Customs and Border
Protection (COAC). Prior to serving on the COAC I participated in
several of the subcommittees as a technical advisor, including the
subcommittee working on implementation of the 24-Hour rule,
implementation of the Maritime Transportation Security Act and the
Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) subcommittee,
which helped to update the importer criteria last year.
RILA members share this Committee's, and indeed all Americans,
common goal of making the global supply chain and the movement of cargo
through the global supply chain as safe and secure as possible. As the
largest users in the global maritime supply chain, we have an enormous
stake in cargo security and are committed to helping the government
further enhance security throughout the system. While a great deal has
been accomplished to improve supply chain security since the tragic
events of September 11, 2001, the government and private sector
stakeholders must continue to work together to improve security. RILA
commends the members of this Committee for striving to identify and
address the vulnerabilities in our maritime supply chain system.
We strongly believe that security legislation, regulations, and
public-private partnerships can achieve the dual objectives of
enhancing security while continuing to facilitate legitimate global
commerce. We urge Congress to avoid measures that have a very limited
effect on enhancing security while actually impeding the flow of
legitimate commerce and creating a false sense of security. A primary
goal of those who would disrupt the supply chain is to damage the U.S.
economy by any means possible. If commerce is disrupted in a way that
damages the ability of Americans to hold well-paying jobs, provide for
their families, and generate economic growth that helps the entire
world, either through an attack or ill-conceived regulation of our
international trading system, then the terrorists will have achieved
one of their key goals.
Supply chain security is a global issue that cannot be addressed
unilaterally. The most effective supply chain security measures are
those that push our borders out, assessing vulnerabilities and
identifying threats to cargo shipments before they reach U.S. ports.
Effective cargo security requires a multi-layered, unified approach
that must be international in scope. While recent policy debates have
focused on who owns assets in the supply chain system, nobody should
dispute that it is better to detect or disarm weapons or contraband
thousands of miles from our shores than after their arrival in the U.S.
RILA and its members have played a critical leadership role in
shaping supply chain security efforts. From requiring new security
language in contracts with their business partners to testing new
technologies and ways to identify container tampering, private sector
stakeholders have been the innovators in securing their supply chains
to protect their employees, customers and businesses. In considering
the SAFE Ports Act, we urge Congress to continue to allow the private
sector, working closely with the Department of Homeland Security and
other government and non-government interests, to test and deploy the
systems and technologies that prove most effective. No one has a
greater interest in security than the private sector companies who
depend on a secure and efficient supply chain for the safety of their
employees and customers and efficient operations of their businesses.
As members of the Committee are aware, a number of regulations and
initiatives have already been undertaken to protect the U.S. from a
terrorist attack affecting the supply chain. RILA members have
supported a number of these initiatives, such as the Customs-Trade
Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), the Container Security
Initiative (CSI), the 24-Hour Rule, the Bioterrorism Act, the Maritime
Transportation Security Act (MTSA) and the International Ship and Port
Facility Security Code (ISPS). Targeting different aspects of supply
chain security, these regulations and initiatives together represent a
strong foundation upon which the SAFE Ports Act and other initiatives
must build to enhance our nation's maritime supply chain security.
On March 9, RILA wrote a letter to every member of Congress
suggesting some key areas where both Congress and the Department should
focus on to improve cargo security. These include:
Improve the Automated Targeting System to ensure
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has the right information
to determine whether or not a container poses a risk.
Ensure CBP has sufficient resources to conduct C-TPAT
validations.
Work with CBP to improve CSI to conduct more cargo
screening abroad, with a special emphasis on the quality of
screening for nuclear and radiological material.
Ensure that all aspects of MTSA are implemented,
including the Transportation Worker Identification Credential
(TWIC).
Further develop business continuation and restoration
of trade plans.
In most respects, the SAFE Ports Act is well aligned with these
recommendations. For purposes if this written testimony, I would like
to discuss some of the key sections of the bill and share RILA's
perspective:
Section 4--Strategic Plan
RILA strongly supports the development of a strategic plan for
cargo security. We believe that an initial version of this plan already
exists under the National Strategy on Maritime Security. Further
efforts should seek to improve this plan and its eight supporting
plans, in particular the Maritime Incident Response Plan.
Section 5 Protocols for the Resumption of Trade
RILA members commend the Committee for including consideration of
mechanisms to provide for continuity planning and restoration of trade
in the event of a maritime security incident. The United States is in
dire need of a well-coordinated response plan among all levels of
government to ensure that commerce continues to move throughout the
supply chain should an incident occur. In addition, Congress and the
Administration need to ensure that the various agencies involved in
homeland security do not duplicate ongoing efforts. In short, the
government, the business community and key stakeholders throughout the
international trading system must be on the same page and know there is
a plan in place to respond to an incident of national significance
occurring as a result of terrorism or national disaster.
For example, if an incident were to occur in the Port of Los
Angeles, that port, as well as the Port of Long Beach, might have to be
shut down during the incident investigation and response. What would
happen to other ports on the West Coast? Would Seattle/Tacoma remain
open? Would incoming cargo be able to be diverted to other ports? While
individual ports have worked on contingency plans for their own
facilities, have there been discussions among ports geographically
located near each other as to how they would work together? Will all
maritime vessels be required to stop where they are or will vessels at
non-incident ports be allowed to continue to move?
It is not clear to the business community at this time as to who
will be making these critical decisions. The trade community needs this
vital information to plan appropriately. While security concerns may
require that certain details need to be kept within the government
sphere, RILA believes that a central communication point or channel
must be established so that communications can be streamlined. DHS has
begun to work on this issue with the release of the Maritime Incident
Response Plan, but more work needs to be done. One needs only to look
at the experience of Hurricane Katrina to understand the need to have a
well-coordinated response that ensures commerce will continue to flow
through our nations' ports in the wake of an incident.
Likewise, each country has an interest in ensuring that the global
supply chain is kept safe. A major terrorist incident in the U.S. will
not impact just one port or one city or even one country. The impact
will be felt around the globe. Careful planning and cooperation among
governments is important, and government's active collaboration with
the private sector is extremely critical. Supply chain security is
simply too complicated for the public sector to act effectively without
partnering with private industry.
Section 6--Enhanced High-Risk Targeting Capabilities
CBP receives detailed information about every single container
coming into the U.S. prior to that container being loaded at a foreign
port, and has developed elaborate mechanisms to utilize intelligence
and other risk factors to differentiate the true ``needle in the
haystack'' from the overwhelming percentage of cargo containers that
present no security risk. Again, setting arbitrary and mandatory
percentages of cargo that must be physically inspected will do nothing
to enhance security and would be contrary to the mission of the
effective risk management system DHS already has in place.
Better identification of high-risk cargo represents the best use of
government resources and should be the goal of this and any legislation
addressing cargo container security. RILA is committed to improving
cargo container screening by identifying additional cargo data that can
help with the identification of high-risk cargo. DHS should work with
cargo owners and others who own supply chain information to determine
what data elements are needed for security risk assessment, who has the
information, when the information can be submitted, how it will be used
and, most importantly, how it will be protected.
Section 8--Verification of Individuals with Access to Secure Areas
of Seaports
In keeping with increasing security at U.S. ports, RILA also
endorses prompt implementation of the Transportation Workers
Identification Credential (TWIC), a standardized ID containing
biometric information that vets the identity and background of the
cardholder. All individuals with access to cargo and secure areas of
our nation's ports would carry the TWIC, and its potential for use
extends to workers throughout our nation's critical infrastructure
systems. We believe that verification of individuals with access to
secure areas of critical infrastructure and identification of
individuals with prior criminal records or indications of connections
with terrorist elements are crucial steps toward strengthening
security.
Section 10--Container Security Standards and Verification
Security must be built into the global supply chain from origin to
delivery, leveraging the best of current and emerging technologies. Yet
the recent GAO report also underscores the need to keep in mind that
technology is only one part of the overall solution. Put simply, there
is no technological ``silver bullet'' for supply chain security. We
must be wary of adopting technological solutions that merely create a
false sense of security. Too much is at stake to put our trust behind
cosmetic, ``feel good'' security measures.
RILA encourages appropriate testing of all proposed technology
solutions to determine which have the greatest reliability before being
adopted by the government and industry. It is important that promising
technologies be developed by dedicating adequate funds for research and
development. At the same time, rushing unproven and/or faulty
technology into supply chain security without thorough implementation
testing solely for the sake of doing something about security will
undermine progress made to date, contribute to a false sense of
security and in the end, prove both costly and ineffective. The fact
that a certain physical device or screening process may work well in a
lab or at a particular port does not mean that it can or should be
expanded to other real-world applications. Congress should outline
policies and goals and let DHS find the smartest and most effective way
to meet those goals rather than being forced into deploying unproven
``gadgets.'' Before any technology can be mandated, DHS must ensure the
technology's functionality and application as well as work with the
trade community to determine the most effective methods to deploy them
in order to achieve maximum results.
Section 11--Nuclear and Radiological Detection Systems
As DHS works to improve its supply chain security capabilities,
RILA supports efforts to ensure that we have a ``zero tolerance''
policy for nuclear and radiological material entering our country.
While it is preferable to have that screening done overseas as occurs
at CSI ports covering the great majority of cargo bound for the U.S.,
so long as we allow smaller ports to ship to the U.S., we will need a
robust detection regime at our domestic ports as well. Thus it should
be the highest priority for CBP and DHS to ensure that those ports
participating in the Container Security Initiative have the most
effective technology available to detect radiation and that domestic
ports achieve universal nuclear and radiological detection capability.
Recent Government Accountability Office reports have identified
weaknesses in both aspects of the nuclear and radiological detection
regime, and RILA supports the work of the Domestic Nuclear Detection
Office to build this most critical layer of our defenses.
In addition to the deployment of the Radiation Portal Monitors at
U.S. ports, RILA also encourages DHS and CBP to consider other models
to help conduct container screening overseas. One such model, which has
received a great deal of attention, is the Integrated Container
Inspection System (ICIS), which is currently being tested at two
terminals in Hong Kong. While we, along with CBP, believe that this
model fits with the multi-layered approach, there are still many
questions and operational issues that need to be discussed and resolved
before such a system is implemented on a global scale. We strongly urge
DHS and CBP to continue to work with the private sector on ICIS and
other models to successfully address the operational issues.
Section 13--Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism
One cornerstone of the public-private, collaborative approach to
supply chain security supported by RILA is the C-TPAT program, which
reflects CBP's recognition that it can best provide security through
close cooperation with the very businesses whose ability to recognize
potential vulnerabilities in the supply chain is matched only by their
desire to ensure that the system as a whole--and each component part--
is as robust and secure as possible. The key to C-TPAT's success is the
program's acknowledgement that there is no ``one size fits all''
approach to supply chain security, for individual C-TPAT member's
supply chain functions, needs and vulnerabilities are not the same.
What works for one industry, such as retail, may not be well suited for
another industry, such as chemical.
While there has been some consideration given to placing C-TPAT
under a strict regulatory regime, RILA members strongly believe that
regulating this program will limit the very flexibility that is one of
the program's greatest assets, and in turn harm the ability of
government and industry to respond and adapt quickly to innovations and
other changes related to the security dynamics of their specific link
in the supply chain. Requiring changes to C-TPAT to go through a full
regulatory rule-making process would be much slower and less nimble for
CBP to turn current intelligence or perceived weaknesses into new
security requirements.
In addition, the public-private partnership concept at the heart of
C-TPAT's effectiveness would be compromised by the introduction of
required ``third party validators'' acting as middlemen between
government and the business community, adding a potentially cumbersome
extra layer of communication to a direct, two-party dialogue. With a
third party attempting to interpret and relay information from business
to government, the potential for diminishing and delaying the quality
of information exchanged is clear.
C-TPAT works because it provides incentives to participants to
engage in active compliance with government security objectives by, for
example, providing ATS scoring benefits to companies that meet the
basic requirements of the program. RILA believes that continuing
effective operation of the program depends on its ability to offer such
baseline incentives for participation.
In addition, while we agree with the tiered approach as outlined by
the bill and which CBP is currently using, we have concerns with
Congress specifying what criteria companies must meet to achieve Tier
Three status, especially the inclusion of language on container
security devices. We do not believe Congress should mandate such
devices as they are still being tested and are not yet at 100% overall
reliability and still have many operations questions that need to be
answered.
``Sail Only if Scanned Act of 2006'' Comments
While the focus of this hearing is on the SAFE Ports Act, I would
be remiss in not making some comments about the ``Sail Only if Scanned
Act of 2006,'' which was offered as an amendment during last week's
markup.
RILA supports 100% screening of high risk containers, but a policy
requiring 100% scanning of all U.S. bound containers is neither
effective as a deterrent nor feasible operationally as a security
enhancement measure. Rather than enhancing security, setting an
arbitrary number of scanning or inspections of containers would result
in commerce grinding to a halt, in effect creating much of the same
harm to the nations and the world's economy that a terrorist incident
would cause.
The legislation as drafted is very vague and confusing. While the
bill calls for ``scanning'' of all containers for radiation and
density, this term is not specifically defined. Is this a scan for
radiological material? Is it a scan using a non-intrusive X-ray? These
are two very different technologies that have different requirements
and have different impacts on the movement of legitimate cargo.
There are also many questions about who would be conducting the
scanning when the scanning would occur, to whom the scanned images
would be sent and what would be done with the images. There is also a
question whether the U.S. can mandate such a requirement on foreign
terminal operators and foreign governments, which is why CBP has
negotiated cooperative agreements, such as the Container Security
Initiative, with foreign countries to allow screening on their soil. In
addition, if we ask our foreign trading partners to put such a
requirement in place, we must be prepared to do the same here in the
U.S. as calls for reciprocity will surely be made.
In addition, the bill includes requirements for a container seal
that can detect and track whether a container has been tampered with
after loading. As discussed above, technology to accomplish this goal
is still being tested in the harsh real-world environment in which
international cargo must exist.
Conclusion
I would like to thank the House Committee on Homeland Security for
the opportunity to testify today. RILA applauds the initiative of the
Committee to further enhance supply chain security and congratulates
Chairman King, Chairman Lungren, Ranking Members Thompson and Sanchez
and Congresswoman Harman and their staffs for focusing attention on
these key issues. RILA strongly believes that government, industry and
other stakeholders need to maintain an ongoing, robust dialogue on how
best to strengthen port and supply chain security, rather than allowing
the debate to intensify and recede as dictated by external factors.
RILA and its members stand ready to continue to work with both
Congress and the Administration on improving the security of U.S. ports
and the global supply chain. I look forward to taking your questions.
Chairman King. Thank you, Mr. Gold.
Mr. Ervin?
STATEMENT OF CLARK KENT ERVIN, PRIVATE CITIZEN, FORMER
INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Ervin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. If time
permits, I will talk about the other parts of my prepared
remarks where I talk about the vulnerabilities and C-TPAT, the
fact that we have too little radiation detection equipment, and
the vulnerabilities in the equipment that we have, and then my
comments about the bill itself. But I would like to confine
myself largely to comments about the distinction between
inspection and screening, because I think it is tremendously
important.
There are two key statements here. One is that 100 percent
of cargo is screened, and the other is that 100 percent of all
high-risk cargo is inspected. Seems to me that the first
statement is not only wrong, it is also misleading. And the
second statement is wrong. Let me explain.
I wonder why the term ``screening'' is used at all, because
as a number of members suggested, the average person infers,
when he or she hears the term ``screen,'' that that means
inspected. We know that that is not the case, but the average
American does not. Not only is it misleading, it is also
erroneous as was pointed out by one of the members, a recent
GAO report. It was just last year. I think it was in the fall
of last year. The meeting was only a few months ago.
Our own congressional investigators said that 35 percent of
cargo is not screened, not targeted, not profiled, whatever
word you want to use, not assessed to determine whether it is
high risk or low risk. So that means that the universe, the
cargo that is being evaluated by CBP, is only two-thirds of the
cargo that comes into our country. One-third of cargo that
comes into our country we know nothing about. For all we know,
some of that cargo could well be high risk, and the
probabilities are that some of it is.
With regard to the two-thirds that is assessed, a GAO
report from just last week on top of--I am sorry, it was a
report of the Senate Governmental Homeland Security Committee--
in addition to GAO reports and inspector general reports, which
I presided over when I was the inspector general, have all
pointed out flaws in the system upon which the targeting
process is based, the ATS system. Because it is flawed, we
don't know for sure whether we are making adequate assessments
of whether a cargo container is high risk or low risk.
With regard to that that we do determine for whatever
reason is high risk, the report of the Senate committee just
last week pointed out, as we have discussed here, that 17.5
percent of the time, almost a fifth of the time, foreign
inspectors in this CSI program refused to inspect cargo that we
deemed to be high risk.
Now, Secretary Jackson said, well, there is a difference
between referrals and requests, and indeed there is. But the
Senate report did not say, we have asked those countries to
make a determination. They made that determination. That
determination satisfied us.
Instead, what the report says is, we requested that an
inspection be done, and the inspection was not done. Indeed, in
France, about 60 percent of the time, according to this report,
when we asked that an inspection be done, the inspection was
not done.
My question is: Why do we have a program like this where
foreign countries are asked to inspect things and they are not,
in fact, inspected? The whole theory behind it is that the
borders should be pushed out, as indeed they should be, because
it might well be too late when a cargo container comes into the
United States.
Furthermore, we are told that we should worry about that
because in those instances where foreign countries refuse to
inspect cargo that we deem to be high risk and that we say
should be inspected, it is inspected here. A GAO report from
last year said that at least 7 percent of the time that high-
risk cargo is not inspected here in the United States as well.
So these are hugely important issues. What needs to happen
is the Hong Kong system that we have been talking about here
today needs to be implemented in the United States. I have not
heard a single detail about exactly what practical limitations
there are that prevent the implementation of that system here
in the United States.
As was pointed out, exactly the same argument was made
before 9/11 about the impracticalities and about the impacts
economically of 100 percent of inspection of passenger baggage,
and yet, of course, we do that today.
And furthermore, the secretary has said that the goal is to
have 100 percent of inspections of cargo once it arrives in the
United States and before it is dispersed to the rest of the
country. It is unclear to me why there is a disconnect between
the goal there and the goal with regard to cargo that comes
into the country. Failing that, though, we at least need to
have a better ATS targeting system so, in fact, we do target or
screen 100 percent of cargo and so that, in fact, the 100
percent of cargo that we deem to be high risk based upon a
better ATS system is, in fact, inspected. Neither of those
things happens now today. At a minimum, they should, in my
judgment.
Thank you very much.
[The statement of Mr. Ervin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Clark Kent Ervin
Thank you, Chairman King, and Ranking Member Thompson, for inviting
me to testify this afternoon on a bill, H.R. 4954 (the ``Safe Port
Act''), designed to enhance maritime and cargo security. This could not
be a more timely and important topic. If there is any good news to
emerge from the recently scuttled proposed sale of terminal operations
at six American seaports to a Dubai-owned company other than the fact
that the deal was scuttled, it is that it has highlighted just how
vulnerable our ports already are to terrorist penetration.
Thanks to the debate over the Dubai deal, more Americans have come
to learn that only about 6% of the 27,000 or so containers that enter
our seaports each day are inspected to determine whether they contain
weapons of mass destruction or other deadly cargo, including terrorists
themselves. The Department of Homeland Security has consistently
claimed that we should not be troubled by this low percentage because
the Customs and Border Protection's ``targeting'' efforts are so
precise that we can be assured that the 94% of cargo that is not
inspected is low-risk. However, studies by the DHS Office of Inspector
General, the Government Accountability Office, and, just last week by
the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations have all found the ``ATS'' (for,
``Automated Targeting System'') used by Customs to distinguish between
high and low-risk shipments to be flawed.
The other program that Customs cites to comfort those who rightly
believe that a 6% inspection rate is far too low is the ``Container
Security Initiative,'' or ``CSI.'' The theory behind CSI is
unassailable--if a container with a weapon of mass destruction inside
is not inspected until it arrives at an American seaport, it might be
too late. So, through CSI, Customs ``pushes the border out,'' by
obtaining the agreement of foreign ports to inspect containers bound
for the U.S. before the ships that carry them set sail.
The problem, though, is that foreign inspectors often refuse to
inspect containers that we Americans deem to be high-risk. Less than a
fifth of the containers that we believe should be inspected abroad--
17.5% to be precise--are in fact inspected by foreign ports. Ports in
France, for example, refuse to inspect about 60% of cargo we deem to be
high-risk. Furthermore, because, as noted above, the ATS targeting
systems is flawed, chances are we should be requesting more inspections
than the 13% worldwide that we are requesting.
Another program that Customs disingenuously touts as a cargo
security measure is the CTPAT or Customs Trade Partnership Against
Terrorist program. Companies in the global maritime supply chain can
reduce the chances of their cargo's being inspected by simply
submitting paperwork to Customs claiming that they have rigorous
security measures in place, provided they have no history of shipping
deadly cargo. The problem is that the benefit of a decreased chance of
inspection is extended before Customs investigators get around to
verifying that the security measures the companies claim to have in
place are in fact in place. According to the same Senate subcommittee
referenced above, less than a third (27%) of the companies in the
program are validated beforehand.
Finally, when cargo containers are inspected, there is no assurance
that any weapons of mass destruction within them will be found because
there is too little radiation detection equipment deployed here at home
and abroad at CSI ports, and the equipment that there is does not work
all that well.
According to a New York Times account of the work of the referenced
Senate subcommittee, only about 700 of the planned for 3,000 radiation
portal monitors have been installed here in this country. At the
average deployment rate last year of 22 per month, full deployment will
not occur until 2009 at the earliest. Furthermore, radiation portal
monitors are imperfect at best. They can detect radiation and pinpoint
its location within a container, but they cannot distinguish between
deadly radiation and the innocuous kind that naturally occurs in, say,
kitty litter, bananas, and ceramics.
In short, then, our maritime sector is dangerously insecure. All
experts agree that the likeliest way for terrorists to smuggle a weapon
of mass destruction into the country would be in a cargo container
bound for a U.S. port. Needless to say, a terror attack using a weapon
of mass destruction could exceed the impact of 9/11 by several factors
of magnitude. So, there is not a moment to waste in enhancing cargo and
maritime security.
As for HR 4954, overall, I believe that it is a step in the right
direction. But, in my judgment, certain provisions should be
strengthened. For example, with regard to ATS, the Secretary of
Homeland Security should be required to reduce the time period allowed
by law for revisions to the cargo manifest, not just invited to
consider doing so. The fact that the manifest can now be revised for up
to 60 days after the ship arrives in the United States makes a mockery
of the manifest as a targeting tool. Further, the manifest can now be
written in such a vague fashion that it can likewise be rendered
meaningless. Greater specificity must be required.
As for the deployment of radiation detection equipment, I believe
that more than a plan from the Secretary should be required at this
point, nearly five years after 9/11 and more than three years since the
creation of the department. The money to do so must be appropriated, of
course, but I would require the Secretary to deploy an adequate supply
of radiation detection equipment to every American seaport and every
foreign port from which cargo bound for the United States sets sail
within a time certain, but no later than one year from enactment. We
showed, in the aftermath of 9/11 that we can move at warp speed when we
have the requisite sense of urgency; though, thankfully five years have
passed since the last attack, there should be no less of a sense of
urgency today.
And, it's not just a matter of deploying equipment. The equipment
needs to work. The department's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office
should move with dispatch to develop radiation detection technologies
that can detect radiation, pinpoint the location of it, distinguish
between harmless and harmful kinds of radiation, and be in compliance
with the demands of the American National Standards Institute (which
none of the radiation detection equipment presently used is).
As for CSI, countries should be discontinued from the program if
they consistently refuse to inspect containers that we deem to be high-
risk. As for CTPAT, it should become a ``trust but verify'' program. As
presently constituted, the bill keeps it at a ``verify but trust''
program, by allowing companies to operate under the program for up to
one year without validation. Only those companies whose security
programs have been validated as rigorous should be given the benefit of
a reduced chance of inspection, and the security assessment should be
updated annually. This will require significantly more resources,
needless to say, but homeland security cannot be done on the cheap.
Thank you, again, for inviting me, and I look forward to your
questions.
Chairman King. Thank you Mr. Ervin.
Ms. Rooney?
STATEMENT OF BETHANN ROONEY, MANAGER OF PORT SECURITY, PORT
AUTHORITY OF NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY
Ms. Rooney. Chairman King, thank you very much for the
opportunity to testify this afternoon on the importance of port
and cargo security. In the interest of making some
recommendations on how to improve the bill, which we fully
support, I would like to focus on six key areas: cargo
security, credentialing, the importance of data, response and
recovery, research and development, and finally, funding.
As has been said many times today, our goal should be to
increase our level of confidence that we know exactly what is
in each and every container before it has loaded on a ship to
the United States.
In the Port of New York and New Jersey alone, we receive
7,600 containers a day. It is not possible to physically
inspect each one of those containers here on U.S. shores, but
rather, we need to continue to push the borders out.
We strongly support your proposal to establish minimum and
mandatory cargo security standards. Voluntary cargo security
measures such as those established under C-TPAT are helpful but
not sufficient by themselves in order to protect our homeland.
Rather, all containers destined to the United States should be
subject to a new and higher security standard. Then and only
then should importers that choose to go above and beyond the
minimum standards reap tiered benefits such as those currently
available through C-TPAT.
Radiation detection, which has also been talked about quite
a bit this afternoon, is another line of defense. But doing
that after the cargo has arrived on our shores should be our
last line of defense, not our first line of defense.
We therefore support the development of a strategy for the
deployment of radiation detection equipment at all U.S. ports
of entry as well as in foreign ports.
But there is more to it than just picking the right sensors
and establishing inspection protocol. Sensor alarming,
networking, communications and response protocols should all be
included in the mandated DMDO strategy.
Additionally, we must not stop at radiation detection but
also address nonintrusive inspection technology and practices
for the interdiction of other WMDs such as chemical and
biological agents.
With regards to credentialing, we share the concerns of the
World Shipping Council and RILA with regards to the Section 8
that calls for a check of all workers against the terrorist
watch list.
Our concern is that imposing a new mandate on the
Department of Homeland Security would shift their focus from
implementing the TWIC program to another initiative, and since
we seemed to have gained momentum in the last couple of weeks
with TWIC, let's encourage them to keep going on that.
Accurate and reliable data--accurate, reliable, and timely
shipment data is critical, not only for prevention activities
such as targeting and inspection, but also for law enforcement
and emergency response. Once the cargo leaves the U.S. port
terminal--be it by road, rail or inland barge--the state and
local law enforcement and emergency response agencies currently
have zero visibility into the contents of those millions of
containers that criss-cross our country every year.
Whether for commercial vehicle inspections on our highways
and critical bridges or tunnels, or during a road or rail
accident, this same information can prove beneficial to police
and emergency response personnel in order to mitigate the
damage and protect life and property.
We, therefore, support the idea or encourage the committee
to consider expanding the secure freight initiative, as the
secretary has talked about earlier.
We support the development of joint operation centers in
key U.S. ports and facilities in order to facilitate
operational control and information sharing. However, we would
also recommend two changes here as well.
First, since the Maritime Ministry does not operate in a
vacuum but rather is largely dependent on surface
transportation and requires the involvement of multiple levels
of government and public safety agencies, we believe that these
operations center should not be limited to maritime and cargo
security alone but be brought in to embrace more integrated,
multi-disciplined regional approach spanning the broader range
of homeland security functions.
Secondly, personnel resources are already stretched too
thin. With technology, people no longer need to be sitting in
the same room in order to achieve a common objective. We,
therefore, we request the committee to consider virtual
connectivity as envisioned in the port authority's on regional
information joint awareness network as an alternate to a
physical command center.
We also need a coherent federal vision on a national
Homeland Security architecture. Absent such a vision and a set
of guiding standards, we run the significant risk of local,
state and federal operations centers that need to work together
in an emergency not being compatible with one another in
technology, operational methods or both.
The SAFE Port Act creates a prioritization for
reestablishing the flow of commerce in the aftermath of an
incident. That is just not practical. In addition to the
practical limitations, we discourage legislating a
prioritization since, in a large port, a port's ability to
reestablish the flow of commerce will be incident dependent and
will be dictated by ongoing response or clean-up activities,
current threat information, and the availability of critical
transportation infrastructure and resources such as pilot's
tugs, rail cars, barges, labor and so forth.
Local port officials must have maximum flexibility to
respond to their specific circumstances according to the
dictates of the immediate situation. In New York and New
Jersey, we have developed the port recovery plan, which makes
life safety and public healthy, such as home heating oil in the
winter, a priority.
Thereafter, vessels will move on a first-in first-out
basis, depending on the availability of infrastructure and
resources.
We have also established a recovery advisory board to
counsel the captain of port and unified command on a priorities
requirement and limitations for an effective and efficient
recovery.
With regards to research and development, it is absolutely
critical that we coordinate all cargo security projects in a
single office, and we support the creation of a director-of-
cargo-security policy within the policy directorate.
We would, however, also encourage the development of a
joint program office and a cargo security working group that
would include private-sector participation.
Finally, with regards to port security funding, so far,
grants have predominantly been allocated to individual projects
within offense line of marine terminal or of a particular
vessel. We would encourage that future grants be focused on
comprehensive port needs as opposed to individual facility
security needs.
Our testimony provides further detail on each of these
initiatives, and we would be happy to answer questions from the
committee.
[The statement of Ms. Rooney follows:]
Prepared Statement of Bethann Rooney
Chairman King, members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify on ways to improve maritime and port security
and the proposed SAFE Port Act. I am Bethann Rooney and I am the
Manager of Port Security at The Port Authority of New York & New
Jersey.
The tragic events of September 11th have focused our collective
attention on the need to protect our borders at major international
gateways like the Port of New York and New Jersey and small ports
alike. The Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 is landmark
legislation that has positively impacted our homeland security.
However, as we all know, more remains to be done. We commend
Representatives Lungren and Harman and this Committee for introducing
the SAFE Port Act and a layered approach to enhancing maritime
security, particularly with regard to supply chains.
This afternoon I would like to briefly discuss seven key points:
(1) the vital nature of our ports; (2) cargo security; (3)
credentialing; (4) the importance of data; (5) response and recovery;
(6) research and development; and finally, (7) funding.
THE VITAL NATURE OF PORTS
Ninety-five percent of the international goods that come into the
country come in through our nation's 361 ports; twelve percent of that
volume is handled in the Port of New York and New Jersey alone, the
third largest port in the country. The Port generates 232,900 jobs and
$12.6 billion in wages throughout the region. Additionally, the Port
contributes $2.1 billion to state and local tax revenues and $24.4
billion to the US Gross National Product. Cargo that is handled in the
Port is valued at over $132 billion and serves 80 million people, or
thirty five percent of the entire US population. In 2005, the port
handled over 5,300 ship calls, 4.792 million twenty-foot equivalent
units (TEU's), or 2.8 million containers, which is approximately 7,600
containers each day, 722,411 autos and 85 million tons of general
cargo. Today, international trade accounts for 30 percent of the US
economy. Considering all this, it is easy to see how a terrorist
incident in our nation's ports would have a devastating effect on our
country and its economy.
CARGO SECURITY
Standards and Procedures
America's consumer-driven market depends upon a very efficient
logistics chain, of which the nation's ports are just a single link. US
ports provide the platform to transfer imported goods from ships to our
national transportation system--primarily trucks and trains--that
ultimately deliver those products to local retail outlets or raw goods
to manufacturing plants. Historically, that goods movement system has
had one overall objective: to move cargo as quickly, reliably and
cheaply as possible from point to point. Today, a new imperative--
national security--is injecting itself into that system. As such, we
know that ports themselves are not the lone point of vulnerability.
Rather, the potential for terrorist activity stretches from the cargo's
overseas point of origin or place of manufacture to where the cargo is
stuffed into a container to any point along the cargo's route to its
ultimate destination.
Our goal should be to increase our level of confidence that we know
exactly what is in each container before it is loaded on a ship
destined for a US port. It is not possible to physically examine the
contents of each of the 7,600 containers that arrive each day in the
Port of New York and New Jersey alone without seriously impacting the
efficiency of the logistics chain. Proposals for 100% physical
inspection of every container entering the country are well
intentioned--and wholly impractical. Such a requirement would not
simply slow commerce down; it would bring it to a halt. The key is to
find a way of separating high-risk cargoes from the vast majority of
legitimate containers and then dealing with the exceptions. This
approach requires a systematic understanding of the logistics chain
that now moves that container from any place in the world to the
distribution system in our country.
A typical container movement includes 14 different nodes, involves
30 organizations, and generates as many as 30-40 different documents
with over 200 data elements. This is a complex process in which the
physical movement of a container is only one major dimension of the
system. There are three other important components that must also be
understood: the flow of money, the flow of information and data for
that shipment, and, finally, the transfer of accountability, all of
which must occur seamlessly in order for the cargo to be delivered to
its final destination.
Today, there are no mandatory security standards when loading a
container at the manufacturer or when it is consolidated in a
warehouse, often well inland of a seaport. There are no security
standards for the seals that are put on containers. Cargo is
transferred from one mode of conveyance to another and there are
neither standards for how that is done nor accountability for the
integrity of the container as it changes hands.
We believe that efforts must be taken to verify the contents of
containers before they are even loaded on a ship destined for a US
port. The process must include certification that the container is free
of false compartments, was packed in a secure environment and sealed so
that its contents cannot be tampered with, that there be an ability to
verify along the route that neither the container nor cargo has been
tampered with, that it is transported under the control of responsible
parties, and that the integrity of the information and information
systems associated with the movement of the cargo has not been
compromised.
We strongly support your proposal to establish minimum and
mandatory cargo security standards. Voluntary cargo security measures
such as those established under the Customs-Trade Partnership Against
Terrorism (C-TPAT) program are helpful but are not sufficient by
themselves in order to protect our homeland. Rather, all containers
destined to the United States should be subject to a new and higher
security standard. Then and only then, should importers that choose to
go above and beyond the minimum standards reap tiered benefits such as
those currently available through C-TPAT participation. The incentives
to go above and beyond the minimum standards would be commensurate with
the level of investment in and effectiveness of security measures and
should also generate a number of security and commercial benefits
including a reduction in cargo loss, fewer Customs exams, an adjustment
to insurance premiums and bonding requirements and greater cargo
visibility to support just-in-time inventory pressures.
Weapons of Mass Destruction--Radiation Detection
Radiation detection is yet another line of defense but radiation
detection in the United States after cargo has arrived on our shores,
should be our last line of defense, not our first. We support the
development of a strategy for the deployment of radiation detection
equipment at all US ports of entry. However, in addition to deploying
radiation detection equipment at US ports, similar capabilities must be
available at Container Security Initiative (CSI) and other foreign
ports as well.
The Port Authority has been working with the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) since 2003 on a Counter Measures Test Bed (CMTB) program
to test and evaluate the performance of commercially available and
advanced radiation detection equipment in real world situations. Our
efforts have focused on the development of better standard operating
procedures and an assessment of the impact on the flow of commerce. We
have learned through the CMTB that it is not just about sensors and
inspection procedures but also sensor alarming, networking,
communications and response protocols all of which should also be
included in the mandated Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO)
strategy. Additionally, this legislation should not be limited to
radiation inspection/detection but must also address non-intrusive
inspection and sensor / trace detection practices, procedures and
technology for the interdiction of other Weapons of Mass Destruction,
especially chemical and biological agents in a shipping container.
Testing a container and its cargo for chemical or biological
contamination presents different technological challenges than for a
passenger passing through an airport security checkpoint. We must
urgently pursue a solution that is easy to administer by our supply
chain workforce, is fast, accurate and reliable, and is affordable.
CREDENTIALING
In 2002, Congress mandated that all transportation system workers
who are permitted ``unescorted access'' to restricted areas carry a
Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or TWIC. TWIC is a
tamper resistant identification card with biometric capabilities that
can be issued only after a successful criminal history background
check. TWIC provides the operators of critical infrastructure with the
ability to positively identify an individual seeking to gain access to
a secure area. We fully support the need for positive access control at
port facilities and the creation of a national identification program.
We have concerns about Section 8 of the SAFE Port Act which
requires States to submit biographical information on all people
requiring access to secure areas for comparison to the terrorist watch
list. This new requirement could divert the Department's much needed
attention from the creation of TWIC and, as currently drafted, it fails
to provide port authorities and terminal operators with a methodology
(i.e. a database and identification cards) to verify that an individual
has indeed been checked against the watch list. The provisions of
Section 8, could, if not altered to address the flow of container
traffic, create major delays at our ports and terminals, thus affecting
productivity and the economy. We urge the Committee to continue to work
with the Department of Homeland Security to quickly implement the TWIC
program nationwide and are encouraged by recent development including
the release of a Request for Proposals (RFP) and indication that the
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) can be expected in a matter of
weeks. Let's keep this new momentum going and not start on something
new.
IMPORTANCE OF DATA
Improvements to the Automated Targeting System
As mentioned earlier, there are close to 200 data elements
associated with a shipment from origin to destination. This data is
critical not only for prevention activities such as targeting and
inspection, but also for law enforcement and emergency response. We
need to provide Customs and Border Protection (CBP) more complete and
accurate data earlier in the chain of custody for targeting and
inspection purposes. We also must be able to provide this data, or a
subset thereof to other federal state and local law enforcement and
emergency response agencies.
The primary information that CBP uses in its Automated Targeting
System (ATS) is the carrier's bill of lading or manifest which is
provided to CBP 24 hours before a ship is loaded in a foreign port. The
carrier's manifest data has limitations and should be supplemented with
additional commercial data from the US importer or foreign exporter
before the vessel is loaded in order to strengthen the risk assessment
process. Today, the more comprehensive cargo entry data is not required
to be filed until after that cargo has already arrived in the US, often
at its final destination well inland of our ports--too late to be used
for screening and inspection purposes.
The Port Authority was a member of a Customs Commercial Operators
Advisory Committee (COAC) sub committee last year which recommended
that importers provide CBP with advance entry data before vessel
loading. While we understand that DHS and CBP are still considering
this important change, it has gotten little traction. We support your
provision to improve the Automated Targeting System and believe that
this can be accepted by the industry in relatively short order since
COAC, an industry wide advisory group, has already evaluated it and
provided specific recommendations. CBP must be provided with both the
financial and personnel resources for this to be effective; therefore,
the Committee should authorize sufficient funding for this critical
program.
Uniform Data for Government-Wide Usage
In addition to making import and export data available to other
federal agencies, we encourage the Committee to also include state and
local law enforcement and emergency response agencies as well. While
this data is useful to federal agencies for screening and inspection
purposes, once the cargo leaves the US port terminal, be it by road,
rail or inland barge, the state and local law enforcement and emergency
response agencies currently have zero visibility into the contents of
those millions of containers. Whether for commercial vehicle
inspections on our highways and critical bridge and tunnel crossings
such as the Port Authority's own George Washington Bridge and Lincoln
Tunnel or during a road or rail accident, this same information can
prove beneficial to police and emergency response personnel in order to
mitigate damage and protect life and property.
RESPONSE AND RECOVERY
While much of the focus since 9/11 has rightfully been on
preventing another terrorist attack; we must develop comprehensive
programs to address response and recovery as well.
Joint Operations Centers
One of the principal outcomes of the work of the 9/11 Commission
was the determination that information sharing and collaboration at all
levels of government were less than adequate. As such, we support the
development of joint operations centers in key US ports to facilitate
operational coordination, information sharing, incident management and
effective response. However, we do not support the implementation of
regional or port-wide Joint Operations Centers exclusively for maritime
and cargo security as currently outlined in the SAFE Port Act. The
maritime industry does not operate in a vacuum but rather is largely
dependent on surface transportation (road and rail) and requires the
involvement of multiple levels of government and public safety
agencies. Each of these agencies have information networks and
operations centers of their own that must be staffed and supported
which are expensive to maintain in both personnel and infrastructure. A
new port Joint Operations Center would require personnel from agencies
already stretched to the limit. Theerefore, any new Joint Operations
Center created through this legislation should not be limited to
maritime and cargo security alone but be a single focal point and
provide for the integration of all Homeland Security related functions
among local, state and Federal agencies in a given region. It must also
not just be a single center but a coordinating node in a regional and
national information sharing and collaboration network linked to other
operations centers.
Over the last several years, hundreds of millions of dollars in
Federal Homeland Security funding has been spent to develop and
implement disparate information sharing networks and joint operations
centers at the local, state and federal levels without the benefit of a
coherent federal vision on a national homeland security architecture.
Absent such a vision and a set of guiding standards, we run the
significant risk of local, state and federal operations centers that
need to work together in an emergency not being compatible with one
another in technology, operational methods or both.
There are three promising efforts now underway that we recommend
the committee consider in its deliberations over the Joint Operations
Center provision of the SAFE Port Act. The first is the National
Command Capability Working Group, a Joint DHS/DoD program to set
direction for a national information sharing and collaboration network.
The second is a program called Joint CONUS Communications Support
Enterprise (or JCCSE), a joint project of US Northern Command and the
National Guard Bureau. The third effort is the Regional Information
Joint Awareness Network or RIJAN. RIJAN is a DHS funded, DoD managed
and Port Authority led multi-agency project to build an information
sharing and collaboration network among key operations centers in the
New York and New Jersey port region. Regional partners include the
States of New York and New Jersey and the City of New York. DHS
sponsorship is via the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO). Our
DoD program manager and developer is the US Army's Communication
Electronics Development and Engineering Command from Fort Monmouth New
Jersey.
The Joint Operations Center provision is a very important part of
the SAFE Port legislation. However we encourage the sponsors and this
committee to seriously consider modifying this provision to broaden its
scope and embrace a more integrated, multidiscipline, regional approach
spanning a broader range of Homeland Security functions and interests
within port regions. Doing so will help simplify overall Homeland
Security networking and information sharing by avoiding duplication, it
will be more efficient in terms of staff and infrastructure, and it
will go a long way to enabling a DHS vision for a unified approach a
national information sharing and collaboration architecture. Prior to
nationwide implementation, we strongly recommend that the SAFE Port Act
support the funding and development of at least two comprehensive port
region Joint Operations Center demonstration projects. The Port
Authority, with a prototype regional communications network already
established stands ready to partner in such a Joint Operations Center
test bed program.
Recovery and Economic Impact
A large-scale terrorist attack at a Port such as ours would not
only cause local death and destruction, but could paralyze maritime
commerce and economies nationally and globally. In advance of such an
event, we must have plans in place to ensure an efficient and effective
response in order to avoid critical delays in recovery and business
resumptions. Agencies in the Port of New York and New Jersey know
better than anywhere else in the country how to respond to suspected
terrorist activities and catastrophic events. What is not entirely
clear is how private sector resources could be leveraged to strengthen
the response, what the economic impact of a protracted port closure
would be, and how the private sector would be kept informed to
facilitate critical business decisions as an event unfolds. We must
collaborate today on developing plans and procedures to ensure a timely
and effective recovery from an incident at our Ports and to keep the
private sector informed, many of whom are not physically located in the
region, as an incident develops and response and recovery takes place.
Through the Area Maritime Security Committee, the Port of New York
and New Jersey has developed a draft port recovery plan. We have also
established a Recovery Advisory Board to counsel the Captain of the
Port and Unified Command on the priorities, requirements and
limitations for an effective and efficient recovery. A crucial element
however, before we can finalize our port recovery plan is the release
of the Maritime Infrastructure Recovery Plan or MIRP by the Department
of Homeland Security, one of eight supporting plans of the National
Strategy for Maritime Security.
The SAFE Port Act creates a prioritization for reestablishing the
flow of commerce in the aftermath of an incident. We discourage
legislating a prioritization since in large part, a ports ability to
re-establish the flow of commerce will be incident dependent and be
dictated by on-going response or clean up activities, current threat
information and the availability of transportation infrastructure and
resources (pilots, tugs, rail cars, barges, labor, cranes, tankage,
container storage, etc.). Local port officials must have maximum
flexibility to respond to their specific circumstances according to the
dictates of the immediate situation. The recovery plan for New York and
New Jersey makes life safety and public health, such as home heating
oil in the winter, a priority; thereafter, vessels will move on a first
in first out basis depending on the availability of infrastructure and
resources.
It is not practical to give priority to vessels that have a
security plan approved by the Coast Guard, are entering the US directly
from a CSI port, are operated by validated C-TPAT participants, or are
carrying Green Lane designated cargo. While a vessel may have sailed
directly from a CSI port, it likely would have called at three or more
ports on that voyage, some or all of which may not be CSI ports and
therefore the cargo may not have been physically verified before
loading. Also, a ship could have upwards of one thousand containers on
board that are expected to be offloaded in a particular port, only a
fraction of which might be Green Lane designated cargo. Once loaded on
a ship, there is no way to segregate or prioritize Green Lane from non
Green Lane cargo.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
It is absolutely critical to coordinate all cargo security research
and development efforts through a single office and we support the
creation of a Director of Cargo Security Policy. [KRT1]Today, cargo
security projects are being managed by various agencies within DHS as
well as DOT, DOD and DOE. There are also a number of private sector
cargo security initiatives that should be monitored by the same central
office. From our vantage point, there is little coordination and
collaboration among all these initiatives. As a result, we may be
expending scarce research resources in duplicative efforts or pursuing
technologies or devices in one program that have already been shown to
be ineffectual in others. We risk reinventing the wheel in developing
solutions already encountered and solved in other efforts. Erecting
administrative barriers between these programs impedes the free
exchange of information that could otherwise promote efficiency and
effectiveness in improving security.
A positive example can be found in Operation Safe Commerce, a
government-industry initiative to study maritime supply chain security.
Along with our sister ports in Seattle-Tacoma and Los Angeles-Long
Beach, we have participated from the beginning in evaluating various
approaches to improving supply chain security into our ports. The
sharing of information and experiences between the ports has been a key
element in achieving maximum return on our investment in time, money,
and results. It has ensured we do not duplicate efforts being evaluated
in the other ports. At the same time, we recognize there are challenges
common to all of us regardless of the solutions being studied. The
experience of others has enabled us to quickly resolve certain issues
while offering our own experience in other areas to our sister ports
for their benefit. Further promoting the concept that the experiences
of a few can benefit the many is the presence of an Executive Steering
Committee to monitor the progress of the study participant and involve
those government departments and agencies with a stake in this
important effort. Outside Operation Safe Commerce, however, we have
virtually no insight to other initiatives with similar objectives such
as the Smart Box and Advanced Container Security Device programs.
There is an old saying that ignorance is bliss. In the current
context, however, ignorance is an obstacle. Improving our national
security is not a competition between government contestants seeking to
conceal information in order to gain an advantage over other
contestants. Rather, those of us involved in these efforts should be
players on the same team working for the common good. In addition to
the creation of a Director of Cargo Security Policy, we would encourage
the development of a Joint Program Office and a cargo security working
group that includes private sector participation.
FUNDING
Port Security Grant Program
Clearly there is an on going debate over whether port security is a
federal government or private sector responsibility. While that debate
continues, the Port Authority and private terminal operators throughout
the country have willingly taken significant steps to protect our
seaports from the new terrorism threat, because the consequences of not
doing so are grave. Since September 11th, ports such as ours have
instituted heightened security measures and spent significant amounts
of money to increase security, both with capital improvements and
additional security and law enforcement personnel. However, for every
dollar that is spent on security, there are ten fewer dollars that can
be spent on the capital infrastructure that is required to accommodate
the increasing volume of cargo that our ports are expected to handle.
In an attempt to provide you with a sense of the scope of the
challenge we face, I offer two possible indicators of local port needs.
Since June 2002, when the first round of Port Security Grants was
made available, terminals in the Port of New York and New Jersey have
applied for over $200 million in Federal assistance. Of the $707
million that has been appropriated for port security grants across the
country, a total of $53.7 million, which is just 7.5 percent of the
total, has been awarded to entities in our Port. The Port Authority
itself has submitted requests totaling $42 million, but has been
awarded only $10.5 million, including $2.3 million for technology
demonstration projects which the Port Authority sponsored on behalf of
the federal government, or just 25% of the identified need.
In the Coast Guard rulemaking, it was estimated that the cost for
port facilities throughout the country to implement the Maritime
Transportation Security Act (MTSA) over the next decade would be $5.4
billion. Given the required cost share for federal grants of twenty--
five percent, by the Coast Guard's own estimate, it would require $400
million a year in federal assistance in order for ports and terminals
to adhere to the MTSA. Despite this, only $175 million was allocated
nationwide for port security in FY 2006. That is significantly more
than was requested in the President's budget, but still far short of
the need that America's ports have identified.
While these grants help defray the cost of some physical security
measures, such as access control, intrusion detection, fencing,
lighting, identification systems, CCTV and gates, there has also been a
significant increase in the operational costs associated with maritime
security as well. It is estimated that the annual operations and
maintenance costs associated with the new security systems is on the
order of magnitude of fifteen to twenty percent of the purchase price.
Additionally, ports and terminals have spent significant sums of money
on personnel related costs, including the hiring of new security
officers, overtime, upgrading security forces to use more professional
services, and for providing extra training. The Port Authority's port
security operating costs have doubled since 9/11. This does not include
the extra police that are required at all Port Authority facilities
every time the threat level increases, which amounts to approximately
$500,000 per week.
The vast majority of the $707 M in port security grants has been
allocated to critical security projects for individual terminals and
vessels. Since all US port terminals and vessels are now compliant with
the Maritime Transportation Security Act, we must shift our attention
from ``my'' security needs to ``our'' security needs. We therefore
support the provision to make grants available to address
vulnerabilities identified in the Area Maritime Security Plans (AMSP).
Further clarification however is needed to define who and what kinds of
entities can apply for grants on behalf of the port area or region as
well as well as understanding the parameters around our federal
partners such as the Coast Guard receiving benefits from projects
funded through these grants.
CONCLUSION
Addressing the issue of port and maritime security is an enormous
challenge given the complexity of the international transportation
network. Devising a system that enhances our national security while
allowing the continued free flow of legitimate cargo through our ports
will not be solved with a single answer, a single piece of legislation,
or by a single nation. It will require a comprehensive approach with
coordination across state lines and among agencies at all levels of
government as well as the cooperation of the private and public sectors
and the international community. Importantly, it will require
additional resources for the agencies charged with this awesome
responsibility and for the public and private ports and terminals where
the nation's international commerce takes place.
I hope my comments today have provided with you some helpful
insight into this complex matter. We at the Port Authority of New York
& New Jersey are prepared to offer any additional assistance that you
may require. Thank you.
Chairman King. Thank you very much to each of you for your
testimony. I have a series of questions.
I have some of Mr. Ervin. I will start with you.
In your prepared testimony, you talk about the radiation
portal monitors, and it appears there might be an inconsistency
in your testimony, but I will let you clarify it. Well, you say
that they are imperfect at best, then you urge rapid
deployments of these radiation portal monitors. I guess my
question would be: If the technology is not as good as you feel
it should be, why should we rush to deploy them?
Mr. Ervin. I think what I said, Mr. Chairman, or at least
what I meant to say is that on the one hand, we are not getting
these radiation portal monitors into our ports as quickly as we
should. We are way behind schedule, as GAO has acknowledged,
but even if we were to do that, the technology is limited at
best. As I say, radiation portal monitors are good in that they
can identify radiation, and, unlike these personal radiation
detectors which can merely detect radiation, RPMs can actually
pinpoint the location of the radiation inside the container.
They can isolate, but they cannot distinguish between the
deadly kind of radiation and the harmless kind. Only radiation
isotope identifier devices can do that.
And I have heard no talk about the deployment of those on a
wide-scale basis in the department. And that said, even that
last device, RIIDs, all four of these systems--a personal
radiation devices, the RPMs, the RIIDS, and there is one other
device as well that is very much like the first one--none of
these meets the standards of the American National Standards
Institute.
There was a memo that went out last year from the
applicable office in the Department of Homeland Security that
said that. So we need this next generation of equipment. We
need it desperately. And it seems to me that if a sufficient
amount of money were designated for this purpose, then we could
redouble our efforts to develop it and to deploy it just as
quickly as possible.
Chairman King. There were several points where your
testimony diverged from Mr. Jackson, certainly on the 17.5
percent. Let me just ask you, let's assume that everything you
are saying is true. Is it possible--and what Mr. Jackson is
saying is true. Are we talking about a difference in
philosophy? Are we talking about a lack of ability?
And I don't mean this in an argumentative way. Why do you
think there is this difference of opinion between you and Mr.
Jackson? Is it a philosophical difference? Is it something that
can be addressed? Is it just they are not getting the job done?
Mr. Ervin. Well, I think it is frankly, that they are not
getting the job done. I don't think it is the philosophical
difference. And by the way, sir, these are not my statements.
Everything that I have said is based on, either, as I say, on
inspector general report, a report of the GAO, or a report--
Chairman King. I am assuming, for the purpose of the
hearing, everything you are saying is true. I am just asking
why you believe that is true then.
Mr. Ervin. Well, I don't know other than that my sense is
the department wants to suggest, frankly, that we are better
off than we are. I mean, to continue to say that we are
screening 100 percent of the cargo suggests, as I say, to the
average person that we are inspecting 100 percent of the cargo.
In fact, we are not. And we are not even doing what we claim to
do. Screening simply means, as I say, assessed. We are not
doing a hundred percent of that. Thirty-five percent of the
time, we have no assessment whatsoever of this cargo.
So I think the very beginning thing that the department
needs to do is to acknowledge what is true and what is not. We
need to acknowledge that we don't know anything about a third
of the cargo that comes into the country. We need to
acknowledge that with regard to the two-thirds that we are
assessing, 20 percent of it is not being inspected abroad at
these CSI ports even though we are requesting the foreign
governments to do that. And it seems to me that we should get
rid of the CSI program if there is this kind of noncompliance
rate.
Certainly, in a country like France, which is supposed to
be an ally of the United States, if 60 percent of the time our
intelligence analysts tell us that there is something dangerous
in the cargo, and France, notwithstanding that, refuses to
inspect it, at a minimum, it seems to me, France should be
dropped from the CSI program.
And furthermore, as I say, the good news is supposed to be
that in those instances where foreign countries don't inspect
cargo, it is supposed to be inspected here when it gets here,
never mind that the whole point of CSI is to do it beforehand,
because it might be too late when it gets to this country. At
least 7 percent of the time it is not inspected here in the
United States as well.
With regard to C-TPAT, which we haven't even talked about
yet, it seems to me that that program likewise should be done
away with. If we are giving these benefits before we are
validating that the companies are actually--that they actually
have in place the security programs they claim to have in
place, it is a huge potential for Trojan wars.
Chairman King. If Mr. Pascrell will indulge me, I would
like to ask each of the other three panelists if they would
comment on those observations. And I am not doing this simply
to provoke a debate. I would be interested in your comments on
this. I really would be interested in your comments on it.
Mr. Koch. Mr. Chairman, I don't know where Mr. Ervin's 35
percent comes from. I am sure there is a basis for it. Our
carriers carry containers into the U.S., file with the U.S.
government 24 hours before vessel loading all the data they
have on every container that is shipped to the U.S. So as far
as I know, in terms of containerized shipments moving in on
vessels, it is 100 percent of screening.
It is important to distinguish between screening and
inspection, and we do suffer from terminology problems even in
this hearing today at times on this particular issue. We do
fully agree that better data would be appropriate to acquire so
that screening process is a better process. And as we have
stated in our testimony and over the last several years and
continue to advocate that.
As to the question about cooperation in foreign ports, I
would simply observe there is an easy solution if we are not
getting cooperation from a foreign customs authority. And that
is, U.S.Customs can just tell the carrier not to load the box.
There is no ocean carrier that would not be very happy to abide
by a request from Customs not to load a container on one of its
ships coming to the U.S. if the U.S. government thinks that
there is a security risk significant enough to warrant a do-
not-load vessel. So there is a self-help mechanism that CBP has
here, and anytime it would like to use it, and our carrier
members would absolutely implement that, until whatever the
issue it was that generated that request could be resolved in
conjunction with the foreign government.
Ms. Rooney. Mr. Chairman, I think--I am also not familiar
with that 35 percent number that Mr. Ervin refers to, but I
would suspect that also it is the non-containerized cargo which
points to an issue in and of itself. Our programs post-9/11
have been container centric. They have been focused on the
containerized trade and there has been little in terms of focus
on roll-on roll-off cargo and other bulk-type commodities.
So whatever that 35 percent number comes from, if that is,
indeed, non-containerized cargo, then we need to move from
containerized programs and start beginning to focus on non-
containerized cargos as well, because they pose a risk.
Chairman King. Mr. Gold?
Mr. Gold. I don't think I have much more to add. I think
both Chris and Beth both addressed the question very
appropriately. I think, you know, we need to continue to work
on improving the CSI program, make sure that container
screenings and inspections are done when they are requested by
Customs and Border Protection, and again, focus on making sure
that we do have the right information to do the targeting in
advance of the containers being loaded.
Chairman King. Mr. Ervin, you can comment, and Mr.
Pascrell.
Mr. Ervin. Thank you very much, sir. This is containerized
cargo we are talking about. It is non-containerized cargo. And
I am surprised at my colleagues on the panel have not heard of
this report upon which my statement is based. It is a GAO
report from just last year. So I would urge them to read it,
because it says what I claim it says.
Chairman King. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Pascrell.
Mr. Pascrell. I was just handed, Mr. Chairman, the report
that I think Mr. Ervin is referring to, which came out last
year in April of 2005, which is you are using your statistics
from the GAO report. I will enter it into the record.
Mr. Ervin. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Pascrell. I would say that we have a little problem
here. I think we need to pass this legislation right away, but
if there is a conscious effort to confuse the Congress and
establish a false sense of security, it wouldn't take too much
to confuse us, but if that is--Congress must use its oversight
power, it would seem to me.
Now I would like your opinion, Mr. Ervin, of what Mr. Gold
said in his testimony. Mr. Gold said that the Retail Industry
Leaders Association supports 100 percent screening of high-risk
containers, of high-risk containers. But a policy requiring 100
percent scanning of all U.S.-bound containers is neither
effective as a deterrent nor feasible operationally as a
security enhancement measure. Would you give me your opinion of
that?
Mr. Ervin. Absolutely, sir. First of all, if that is in
fact what Mr. Gold said, to claim that it is sufficient to have
100 percent screening of only high-risk cargo, is less than the
department now touts. Department claims that there is 100
percent screening of all cargo.
Mr. Pascrell. Which is not true.
Mr. Ervin. Which is not true, but at least they claim that
there is 100 percent screening of all cargo. Mr. Gold is saying
he supports or the organization supports a 100 percent
screening of only high-risk cargo that they lower the threshold
when they are already low, an erroneous threshold, that the
department has set for itself. That is the first point.
Secondly, with regard to 100 percent screening is neither
effective nor a deterrent, well, I don't know how I can respond
to that, because if there really is 100 percent inspection of
cargo, it seems to me, that is the only way to inspect it--to
either physically open it up or to do it in a nonintrusive way,
that is the only way to determine what the contents are.
Mr. Pascrell. Well, we--
Mr. Ervin. So it would be awfully effective if we were to
do this.
Mr. Pascrell. If we inspected every container, we would
send commerce out into the oceans. You understand that. But
let's not kid ourselves into thinking that we are doing what we
are saying what we are doing, and I think the GAO report in
April of last year was very clear about that.
You know what this reminds me? There is an argument going
on in the Congress, if I may, Mr. Chairman. There is an
argument going on in the Congress now about screening or
examining the eyes of poor children in this country, going
through examination. And some folks are satisfied with
screening. We know that so many young kids fall through the
cracks when that happens. Unless you give a person an
examination, an eye examination, you are never going to be able
to detect nor prescribe a remedy. This reminds me so much of
that. I know it is apples and oranges, but just--it came to my
mind.
This is serious. Not only is this a surrender to the
language, there is something more important here than just
screening and scanning and inspecting and examining. We know
that game. There is something more hideous here to me, because
not only do you establish your false sense of security, we are
not doing what we are saying we are doing.
Mr. Ervin. That is the point I am making. And just to
finish, the whole business about it not being feasible
operationally, we have pointed out that it is happening in Hong
Kong, which is the busiest port in the world. It, according to
the experts, can be done in a very, very cost-effective
fashion. And further, the department says it has a fiscal--
doing 100 percent inspections within 2 or 3 years here in the
United States with regard to cargo that comes into the United
States before it goes out elsewhere in the country. At a
minimum, it seems to me, the department should set the same
goal and same timetable with regard to cargo that comes into
the United States.
Mr. Pascrell. Mr. Chairman, I think your legislation is
very important, but something, if I may, if you will allow me
license. More important than legislation, believe it or not,
there is something more important than legislation, and that is
that I think that there has been a universal attempt to
precipitate a conclusion in us in the Congress on the committee
that things are much more advanced than they really are.
I didn't get, did you, from the Homeland Security either
today or in the past, a sense of urgency about this. And I
believe, Mr. Chairman, we have talked about this in the past,
the shipment of nuclear weapons, nuclear materials--you have
spoken to that too--the shipment of nuclear materials is a
very, very dangerous business. We can't afford to be half right
nor accept empty conclusions from a department that at times
vacillates between dysfunction and God knows what. We should
all be on the same page.
This is not a party fight here at all. This is, ``we want
to do the best that we can.'' And I am telling you, I am
examining all of you, and I know you are all trying to do the
best in your own areas regardless of where you are. And I am
familiar with the Port of Authority in New Jersey and the great
job that you folks do. But I think we need to pay very much
attention.
You work for Aspen now, right?
Mr. Ervin. Yes.
Mr. Pascrell. What title did you have in Homeland Security?
Inspector general?
Mr. Ervin. I was the--
Mr. Pascrell. What did you have to do in that--what does
that mean, that title? That is another nice title but what does
it mean?
Mr. Ervin. The inspector general is in charge of conducting
inspections, audits and criminal investigations to make sure
the departments are running as effectively, officially and
economically as possible.
Mr. Pascrell. Were you in the department when this was
provided by the GAO which I enter into the record again, Mr.
Chairman?
Mr. Ervin. No, sir, I was not. I left in December of 2004,
but I am intimately familiar with that report, and I commend it
to everyone.
Mr. Pascrell. Okay, we are going to get this around to make
sure every member has it, because I think it is important, not
because of what you say or what I say, but these folks, I
think, provide an objective review.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman King. The gentlemen from California?
Mr. Lungren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just might say our
friend from New Jersey is too humble, because I doubt that even
the administration could try and get anything past you.
Mr. Koch, it appeared to me that you wanted to say
something just a moment ago, and even though it is out of my
time, I would love to hear what you have to say.
Mr. Koch. I would like to clarify a comment that was just
made about the Hong Kong ICIS project, which is nobody should
be under the impression that it is inspecting anything. It is
not an operational system. It was a pilot program that is
showing technology exists to do a radiation scan and a gamma
ray scan on a box. Nobody is doing anything with those images.
What it is showing is that a technology does exist that can
have application in the future and can be a very valuable tool,
and it is a very attractive idea, but to say that Hong Kong is
inspecting a hundred percent of boxes is simply an incorrect
statement.
And there are a lot of difficult issues that have to be
addressed when you try to roll this out into an operating
strategy. The first is: What does a scan mean? Are we talking
just radiation? Are we talking gamma ray of boxes? They are two
different technologies.
And, for example, in the Sail Only If Scanned bill, that
bill doesn't define what it is that it is talking about. Is it
talking about radiation scanning, or is it talking about doing
gamma ray images, or is it talking about doing both?
The second issue: Who is to do the scanning? We just had a
debate in the Congress that basically said, Dubai World Ports
is no longer a trustworthy entity. Is Hutchison Whampoa and
Dubai Ports going to be asked to do this scanning, or are we
asking foreign governments to do this scanning abroad? That is
a very important question. It would have to be addressed if the
Sail Only If Scanned bill is to be something that is passed.
And then the real hard issues come. When you have this
image that the technology will produce or images?okay, the
questions are: What do you do with this? How is it transmitted
to the U.S. government, and what do they do with it? When you
go through an airport and they scan your luggage, it is a
couple cubic feet of space.
When you scan a 40-foot container that has 2,700 cubic feet
of space in it, it takes a trained eye 4 to 6 minutes to look
at one of those scans with the shipping documents to make an
assessment of what it is they are looking at. If the
understanding is that a hundred percent of the boxes are going
to take this technology, process it, have Customs analyze every
one of those issues before vessel loading, we are going to
stack up foreign ports quite a ways, which is why we come back
to risk assessment.
We continue to believe that risk assessment is an important
piece of this, and the tools available to CBP have to improve
so we have more confidence that we are inspecting the boxes
that are appropriate to inspect, but we don't think every load
of Heineken coming into the U.S. needs to go through an
inspection.
Mr. Lungren. It used to go through inspection when it
wasn't in containers.
Mr. Koch. Used to get--
Mr. Lungren. If you recall what?I grew up in a port city,
and I used to hear the expression, ``10 percent is ours.'' I
think you know what I am talking about.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Ervin, I am intrigued by your comments but somewhat
confused by your comments. Our bill is an attempt to try and
build on the foundation we believe has been established by the
administration to do it the better, more intensely and to bring
it up to more maturity more quickly. But I am trying to find
out if you believe that there is anything that has improved the
security in our ports over the last number of years.
Mr. Ervin. Well, Congressman, certain things have been
done, certain. I mean, there are more personal radiation
detection devices than there were before 9/11. There are more
radiation portal monitors than there were before 9/11.
Mr. Lungren. But you have told us that they are imperfect
at best. They cannot distinguish between deadly radiation,
innocuous kind that naturally occurs in kitty litter, bananas,
and ceramics.
Mr. Ervin. And that is right.
Mr. Lungren. Well, but my question is, if that is the case,
what good does it do for us to have more of them out there so
that we have more false positives?
Mr. Ervin. Well, sir, it is improvement in the sense that
we have more stuff than we had in the past, but we don't have
nearly what we need to have in order to be as safe as we should
be. So I mean to say it would be inaccurate to say we have done
nothing since 9/11. If the question is: Have we done nothing
since 9/11, the answer to that is no. But that is not the
issue. The issue is: Are we as safe as we can be, and are we
safe as we claim to be?
Mr. Lungren. But I am still trying to get this from your
testimony. You have criticized the effort, because we are too
slow in putting radiation portal monitors in and yet you have
said that they don't do much good. That would be like saying
that we should have more X-rays out there and have more chest
X-rays, everyone, though they are so vague they are going to
have a lot of false positives. I just?
Mr. Ervin. May I just answer--
Mr. Lungren. Wait a second. Mr. Jackson's approach was that
because we have--we are on the eve of having better technology,
he has to balance, in terms of a world in which we don't have
unlimited funds, between how you go forward with putting those
portals that we do have now in place versus expanding to have
them there much faster even though it might be a better
judgment to have those funds go to the new technology that is
in the offing if, in fact, it is in the offing.
Mr. Ervin. Well, sir--
Mr. Lungren. Is that a responsible position or is it
totally irresponsible?
Mr. Ervin. Well, I don't see where the inconsistency is in
the testimony, frankly, Congressman. What I say on the one hand
is, we claim to have radiation portal monitors in place and we
do, but we are not deploying them as fast as we claim to deploy
them. At the rate that we are going, it will take 3 more years
to deploy them with the goal that we have. But even if we were
to that that, I say furthermore, radiation portal monitors are
imperfect at best.
That is not inconsistent. It is just to say, we are not
doing as fast enough what we claim to be. One of the best
solutions we have right now and it as a solution is not very
good. That is not inconsistent, it seems to me.
Mr. Lungren. Can I ask you about the C-TPAT?
Mr. Ervin. Please.
Mr. Lungren. You call the Customs Service disingenuous and
touting it as a cargo security measure. Is that because the
concept is flawed, or is it because one part of it allows for
some point scoring to take place if people just sign up and
send in their plans before they get the verification of that?
Mr. Ervin. That is the concept, sir. The concept is that a
company simply signs paperwork claiming that they have rigorous
security measures in place. And simply because the paperwork is
submitted, the benefit of reduced inspection is provided before
any independent validation is done to ensure that the company
does, in fact, have a program in place. That is disingenuous to
claim--
Mr. Lungren. So your criticism is of the first part of
program, not where they go to validation, because according to
their figures as of the end of last year, they had completed 25
percent validations and they had 41 percent of the C-TPAT
participants validations in progress--
Mr. Ervin. I think the figures--
Mr. Lungren. --go up to 66 percent.
Mr. Ervin. Yes. I think the figures, sir, is 27 percent.
They have validated only 27 percent of the companies in the
program. It is a simple point and the point is this. In the age
of terror, should it be sufficient for a company simply to be
able to say that, ``We have a rigorous security measure in
place,'' for that company to obtain the benefit of a reduced
likelihood of inspection? And my answer to that is no. And it
seems to me there could be no argument about that.
Mr. Lungren. You would support third-party verification?
Mr. Ervin. Absolutely.
Mr. Lungren. Good.
Mr. Ervin. And furthermore, I would not have the program at
all if the validation can take place before the benefit is
provided. I would have validation beforehand. Rather than a
trust-by-verify program, it is a verify-by-trust program. And
in the age of terror, we cannot afford that, it seems to me.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you.
Chairman King. Gentleman from North Carolina?
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me thank each of you for being here today. I appreciate
your comments, and I am going to try to ask concise questions
and hope you can do the same with answers since the time is
limited.
And Mr. Koch and Mr. Gold, these questions are for you
first, please.
Thus far, most of our conversation has been focused on the
megaports that we did in western commerce. Would you say that
this detention has served to improve security conditions at
these ports?
Mr. Koch. At the large ports, sir.
Mr. Etheridge. Yes.
Mr. Gold. I would agree.
Mr. Etheridge. You agree? What about smaller ports such as
those in central South America as well as Africa?
Mr. Koch. I believe the poorer countries are slower in
getting up to speed. Certainly, some of the Caribbean ports are
poor ports. And I know there is a concerted effort to try to do
capacity building in those places. The Coast Guard's
international port security program is visiting ports in the
Caribbean and in Africa to try to assess how they are doing.
And I think they are trying but they are slower.
Mr. Gold. I would agree. We were doing business with some
of those ports. We are also looking at how do we help push
those ports along working with the carriers and with the
governments, especially the foreign governments, making sure
that they do bring their security policies up to par with what
has been put in place under the ISPS code.
Mr. Etheridge. Given that answer, in your estimation, which
areas are the most concern due to local corruption and lack of
government support?
Mr. Koch. I don't have a specific answer for that,
Congressman. I mean, there is--in some parts of the world
corruption is endemic, including the customs authorities, but I
don't have a specific answer as to which countries that would
be.
Mr. Etheridge. But you deal with it, do you not? Doesn't
your association deal with it?
Mr. Koch. Well, yes, there are interactions with those that
our members have, yes.
Mr. Etheridge. Mr. Gold?
Mr. Gold. I don't know that I can answer that specifically.
Didn't have direct contacts with them so I couldn't answer
that.
Mr. Etheridge. It seems to me that if we are talking about
port security, we are talking about port security. And those
growing areas where a lot of commerce is coming through and it
has been redirected, it would seem to me for security issues
for the United States--because that is what we are talking
about--seems like that is an area of tremendous vulnerability.
Would you not agree?
Mr. Koch. It is certainly a potential vulnerability there,
and it ought to be something that the government is including
in their targeting system so that when goods are originating
from a higher risk part of the world, they get a higher score
from the Automated Targeting System.
Mr. Etheridge. Ms. Rooney, let me ask you one very quick--
we talked about the scanners and all the other stuff. And it is
my understanding your port is now in the process of using some
of these for detection coming in. Could you briefly give us
some thoughts on that?
Ms. Rooney. Yes, sir. We have actually two different sets
of radiation detection being used in the Port of New York and
New Jersey now. First, we have the customs deployed radiation
portal monitors that are now at all of our truck exit gates so
all of cargo in New York, New Jersey is being scanned for
radiation accept for that. That is going out by rail.
Mr. Etheridge. Coming in or going out?
Ms. Rooney. Coming into the commerce of the United States.
So all of our import cargo that is going out through our
terminals into the U.S. We are not scanning our export cargo at
all at this point. So that accounts for about 88 percent of all
the cargo in the Port of New York. And New Jersey is scanned
for radiation.
The second project that we have going on is through the
Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology
directorate with a countermeasure test bed. And reference was
made earlier to radiation detection equipment that is capable
of doing the spectrographic analysis initially as opposed to
waiting for a handheld isotope identifier.
We are testing that second and third generation equipment
at our New York container terminals in Howland Hook.
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you.
Mr. Ervin, given the questions I have just raised to Mr.
Gold regarding foreign ports, given your experience in last
duty assignment, which foreign ports do you think DHS should
focus on in terms of security?
Mr. Ervin. Well, I basically agree with what Mr. Koch said,
that one of the factors, one of the key factors that should be
considered in assigning risk levels to cargo coming in is the
history that we have with the country as to whether that
country has ties to terrorism, whether corruption tends to be a
factor in those countries.
Of course, any cargo that originates, frankly, from ports
in the Middle East or South Asia, because that tends to be the
center of radical Islam, which is our principal foe nowadays,
should be cargo about which we are especially vigilant at a
minimum.
As you are suggesting, cargo that emanates from countries
that have nothing to do with radical terrorism but that
nevertheless originate from countries that historically have
had an undue, or if not undue then a rather high incidence of
corruption likewise should be scrutinized.
And to be fair, I think that those are among the criteria
in ATS today.
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman King. I have one question, if anybody else has
some additional questions. In the bill, we talk about funding
being--an increase in funding coming from dedicated customs
fees. I have no particular position one way or the other as to
where the money should come from, but assuming there was a
problem in the Congress with the customs, how would you feel if
a dollar amount was put per container? What would the reaction
be in the industry? What impact would it have?
I have heard the number of $20 per container. I have no
idea whether it is 15, 20, 25, 40. Just take a number. If it is
$20 per container were assessed, what impact would that have on
commerce?
Mr. Koch. Thank you, Chairman King. I think before we talk
about what user fees should be put into place, the trade issury
puts billions of dollars into the maritime industry, whether it
is customs duties or other user fees that are being used. I
think before we can discuss a $20 user fee or any type of user
fee, we need to look at the system that is in place and what
exactly is this going to cost. We can't just generally say,
well, a $20 user fee out there and that will cover it, because
we don't know what the exact costs are going to be.
I have been to Hong Kong. I have seen the ICIS system. In
talking to people who were running the ICIS system, they said
$6 to scan those containers.
We have heard Commander Flynn say 20 and as high as 50. I
think before we can talk about any kind of user fee, we really
need to evaluate the system that is in place and determine what
the actual cost is and whether or not we are already putting
money into those systems.
Mr. Chairman, I think there is not a lot of trust in trust
funds, and for example, on dredging where there is already a
fee being collected going into a dedicated trust fund, that
money isn't all used on dredging. It is used for other federal
purposes. So there is some concern that we not get caught up in
that.
If the ICIS project is implemented, those charges will be
implemented by the foreign terminal operating company to
recover the cost of their capital investment in that equipment.
So that would be a private sector fee that would be assessed on
the cargo to collect that. It wouldn't have to come through a
government.
But the final way to answer our question, I think, is that
the industry, when the issue is raised about an additional
container fee is always curious about, ``for what?'' And part
of the problem here has been to really nail down clearly what
is it the money would be spent on.
So, for example, where there is some even disagreement
within the industry on an expanded port security grant program.
There are many people who really wonder, ``Okay, what is that
money being used for?'' Terminal operators, carriers, shippers
are all incurring a lot of costs today to comply with the new
security reg, so if more money is needed, clarity really should
be provided. What is that money going to go for, and is it
really something that the federal government should be paying
for by virtue of a few recovery mechanisms?
Chairman King. Mr. Ervin, Ms. Rooney?
Mr. Ervin. Mr. Chairman, I would be inclined to defer to
the industry colleagues as to what the impact would be on the
industry. That said, whatever the figure is, and my sense is,
based on everything I have read and heard, that the $20 figure
is likeliest to be the one that would be sufficient here.
And by the way, the ``it'' that we are talking about is a
fee to finance the cost of screening 100 percent of cargo of
radiation. I don't think there is any question about what the
fee would be used for. I think there is no question?
Chairman King. Screening or inspecting?
Mr. Ervin. That kind of points out the issue, doesn't it? I
mean inspecting. I mean inspecting. But I think the point is
well taken that trust funds in the past have been misused. I
would ensure in this instance if we were to go to such a system
that the funds would be dedicated to this purpose. So that is
what I would say about that.
Chairman King. Beth?
Ms. Rooney. I echo Mr. Koch's comments that we would really
need to know what that fee would be going for and what
additional benefits or services are we going to get for it. But
more important than that, the Maritime Ministry already pays
billions and billions of dollars' worth of fees to the federal
government some of which go into trust funds and comes back to
the Maritime Ministry, most of which does not come back to the
Maritime Ministry. So I think we should look at first the fees
of the Maritime Ministry is already paying to the federal
government and allocating some of those to port security before
we start collecting new fees, sir.
Chairman King. Mr. Pascrell?
Mr. Pascrell. Mr. Chairman, your question, I think, your
questioning focuses the committee's attention on what is the
federal government's responsibility. We had a debate about this
when we talked about the airline industry, if you remember. And
I know they are different industries. The Maritime Ministry is
very different. But just exactly what is the government's role
and responsibility--
Chairman King. Would the gentlemen yield for just a moment?
Mr. Pascrell. Yes.
Chairman King. I am going to have to leave. I have a
meeting with some--
Mr. Pascrell. I will be done in--
Chairman King. No, no. Actually, Chairman Lungren is going
to take over.
I just want to thank the witnesses for their testimony.
There is a meeting that I have to go to. Thank you very much.
Your testimony has been especially illuminating, and I
particularly have gotten a lot out of the back and forth. I
think it has educated all of us.
And usually, it is just Mr. Pascrell who engages in these
types of debates. To have a panel doing it even adds to
the?thank you all very much.
Mr. Pascrell. We would have had a humdinger if we had five
panelists, combine the panels, Mr. Chairman. You get dialogue,
you know. It is not bad in a democracy if we try it out once in
a while.
Getting back to my point, this is a supply chain, and in
that supply chain, there are a lot of second parties. Becomes
very complex here. You are talking about exporters, freight
forwarders, whatever they are called, customs brokers, inland
transportation providers, port operators, and ocean carriers.
It is a pretty complex situation. We are not just talking
about--I am interested in--
Mr. Gold, let me ask you this question, just a curious
question, you know. Once in awhile I get to thinking. What is
coming out of China? I am interested, because I have a sense of
urgency. You should tell me today maybe I shouldn't think of
things this way, but we all take it seriously what we are doing
if we don't take ourselves seriously, but we know what our
responsibilities are. What is coming out of China? All of these
containers that go all over to the second shift and then third
shift and they are moved from this vessel to another vessel. Do
the Chinese inspect everything that comes out of the
manufacturing, the industry which provides much of the retail
on our shelves in the United States of America? Do they check
each of those boxes before they get into a container?
Mr. Gold. Congressman, I do know that as the boxes travel
through China, the different Customs administrative authorities
within China do look at the containers as they are moving
through the country. I couldn't tell you what the actual amount
is or what they do with it, but I think we want to focus on
everywhere in looking at the supply chain security from the
factory all the way through to the store floor.
Mr. Pascrell. The only reason why I ask that is so much
comes out of China that winds up on our ports, and, you know, I
would hate to think that when we are looking at the GAO report
and when we are trying to zero in on what are the percentages
within reason, we know what error is, that a greater proportion
of that which is not inspected are scanned or screened may come
from China. I would be concerned about that, wouldn't you, Mr.
Gold?
Mr. Gold. Yes, but I think, you know, we?first of all, I
want to comment on a comment you made earlier with regards to
our statement. We fully support the department's policy right
now 100 percent screening of all the manifests information that
they receive and following up on that of 100 percent screening
of the high-risk containers that are determined by the
Automated Targeting System.
And again, we do need to bolster that system, looking at
additional information. And again, that gets back to the
original part of this looking at the supply chain as a whole,
whether it is China, Africa or elsewhere. We need to focus on
everything that we do abroad.
Mr. Pascrell. So what you are saying is simply we should
increase or improve the state of the art in screening knowing
quite well that we can't inspect?
Mr. Gold. Yes. I think we need to focus both on the
automated targeting system.
Mr. Pascrell. You think that is satisfactory? You think
that is acceptable to the American people? Is it acceptable to
you.
Mr. Gold. I think we need to do as much as we can with the
resources we have available right now.
Mr. Pascrell. The resources that we have available. We are
obviously not even spending enough money in terms of
inspectors, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, we are not putting
into this. We are not making this a priority. And again, I
don't sense urgency. Maybe you do. Do you sense urgency on our
part?
Mr. Gold. I think there is an urgency on our part as the
industry. We are trying to do as much as we possibly can. We
don't want anything more or less in the container than what we
have ordered from the factory. That is why our members are
doing as much as they can with their vendors abroad and all
their business partners.
Mr. Pascrell. And you think we are doing enough, the
federal government?
Mr. Gold. As we have outlined in our testimony, we think
more needs to be done, whether it is the Automated Targeting
System, whether it is with C-TPAT, whether it is with business
continuity planning. We definitely think more needs to be done.
Mr. Pascrell. If I might just include this. When you are
talking about--Mr. Gold, when you are talking about more has to
be done, that is a very nice statement, very lovely statement.
I use it, you use it. When you are talking about more has to be
done to prevent nuclear weapons from coming into this country,
it puts them in a different perspective, doesn't it?
Mr. Gold. I would agree. That is why again, we need to
focus on improving the systems we have in place and continue to
focus on technologies in the future.
Mr. Pascrell. And we had a report which is a year old. And
if we go through this report and look through the
recommendations, brief recommendations, what do you think we
conclude in the year that we had this report as to where we
stand right now?
Mr. Gold. I know that both Assistant Commissioner Ahern and
Deputy Secretary Jackson have addressed what has been done in
the year since our report has been concluded. I think Assistant
Commissioner Ahern addressed last week with clarifying from the
numbers, and Assistant Secretary Jackson addressed it this
afternoon.
Mr. Pascrell. Then I conclude from what you say I shouldn't
feel so much a sense of urgency.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Lungren. [Presiding.] I thank the gentlemen.
I am just going to ask a couple of questions. One is, I am
no advocate for France, but France was suggested as being an
ally, and in court, we would say that may?we may be assuming
facts not in evidence.
But the suggestion with France or some other countries have
not cooperated with us on the CSI program, France being France,
what if they turned around and said, ``We will cooperate with
you as long as you do the same thing in your ports''? What
would the impact be on us if we were required to do the same
thing in our ports that we are asking them to do? Ask each of
you to give a shot on that.
Mr. Koch. Congressman, I think that is an excellent
question, and sometimes we lose sight of the fact that
reciprocity is something we need to think about. As Bethann
testified to, for example, on radiation scanning, we do
radiation scanning on what is coming into the country. We don't
do anything on what is going out of the country. If we had to
do the same thing going out of the country, we wouldn't be
prepared to do it anymore than most of the rest of the world is
prepared to immediately do it.
So if you impose conditions on trade that are going to be
so onerous that our trading partners can't comply, they will,
in fact, reciprocate and put mirror-image-type restrictions up.
We need to take steps that improve security that makes sense.
We need to be working with our trading partners. But we have to
be able to do what we expect others to do as well. And in many
cases, we aren't there.
So, for example, on the question of the Chinese inspecting
the products they are sending out of their country to the U.S.,
our government doesn't inspect the 7 million containers of
cargo we export out either. So there is this question here.
Trade is a very voluminous thing right now in this nation. We
are going to be importing roughly 12 million containers of
cargo this year. We are going to be exporting probably about 8
million containers of loaded cargo this year. That is over a
billion and a half dollars' worth of goods each day going
through out ports. So we have a constant balance of trying to
make sure that we don't cripple trade at the same time we come
up with more intelligence security regimes.
Mr. Lungren. Anybody else? Mr. Ervin?
Mr. Ervin. I would like to. Sir, certainly, other
countries, it seems to me, have the right to demand that we do
the very same thing that we are demanding of them. If France
were to turn around and insist that they have the right to make
sure that any cargo from the United States bound for France
likewise be inspected and wanted to have the right to install
French inspectors here to make sure that that gets done, I
would be entirely for it. It seems to me that is the logical
implication of what we are asking other countries to do.
If we don't do that, what we are essentially saying then is
that CSI is humerical. It is essentially saying that, ``Well,
you, foreign country, have to really participate in this
program only if you choose to. And if you choose not to
participate in the program, you will continue in it in a
nominal way.'' It has absolutely no integrity whatsoever.
Mr. Lungren. What did we have before CSI?
Mr. Ervin. We had nothing, but what I am saying is, with
CSI, we are not having anything. If countries don't have to
inspect cargo that we tell them should it be inspected because
we believe it to be high risk?
Mr. Lungren. I just asked the panel this question in order
as you are sitting there. Are we appreciably more secure with
respect to our ports? And I am talking about what comes in to
our ports. We could also talk about the port security itself,
access to it. I am just talking about what comes in to the
ports given the fact that the whole impetus of this bill is, we
are not where we need to be, and we need to do a lot more.
But have we had any appreciable gains in port security from
the standpoint of cargo coming into the United States since 9/
11?
Ms. Rooney?
Ms. Rooney. In my opinion, we are appreciably better than
we were and more secure than we were on 9/11. At the risk of
giving Congressman Pascrell some ammunition, there is more that
needs to be done, sir. But it is all about creating a system of
systems and a series of layered approaches. It has been said
before that there is no single silver bullet. Not one of these
programs is answer in and of itself. We can strength the
existing programs that we have and develop additional programs,
many of which are if your bill.
I personally think that if your bill goes forward with some
of the changes that we have recommended in our testimony, we
will be considerably more secure than we are today.
Mr. Lungren. Mr. Koch?
Mr. Koch. I would agree. We have made significant progress
and there is still more to do.
Mr. Lungren. Mr. Gold?
Mr. Gold. I completely agree with both Chris and Bethann's
statements.
Mr. Lungren. Mr. Ervin?
Mr. Ervin. We have made some progress, Mr. Lungren, but we
haven't nearly the progress that we should, and I guess the
main point of my testimony is we haven't made the progress that
we claim to have made. The programs upon which port maritime
security are based actually do less than they claim to do for
the safety and security of the American people.
Mr. Lungren. Do you think this bill wouldn't make a
difference?
Mr. Ervin. Yes, sir.
Mr. Lungren. No, but I mean a significant difference.
Mr. Ervin. I think it would make a difference, and I
suggested some further improvements in the bill. So I am a
supporter of this bill.
Mr. Lungren. I thank all of our witnesses for your valuable
testimony--you help us a great deal--and the members for their
questions.
The members of the committee may have some additional
questions for you, and I will ask that you respond in writing
if we get those to you. The hearing record will be held open
for 10 days.
We again thank the members of the committee and our
witnesses.
And, without objection, the committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]