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75–061 PDF 2001

PORT SECURITY: PROTECTING FLORIDA’S PORTS

FROM THE THREAT OF DRUG TRAFFICKING

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

OCTOBER 31, 2000

Serial No. 106–278

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman

BOB BARR, Georgia

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

DOUG OSE, California

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

SHARON PINKERTON, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

CHARLEY DIAZ, Congressional Fellow

RYAN MCKEE, Clerk

SARAH DESPRES, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on October 31, 2000 .......................................................................... 1

Statement of:

McDonough, James R., Director, Florida Office of Drug Control; Paul

DeMariano, Port Director, Port Everglades, FL; Charles Towsley, Seaport Director, Dante B. Fascell Port of Miami-Dade, FL; Robert McNamara, Director of Field Operations, U.S. Customs Service; and Arthur

Coffey, president, International Longshoremen’s Association .................. 14

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

DeMariano, Paul, Port Director, Port Everglades, FL, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 31

McDonough, James R., Director, Florida Office of Drug Control, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 17

McNamara, Robert, Director of Field Operations, U.S. Customs Service,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 40

Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida, prepared statement of .................................................................... 5

Towsley, Charles, Seaport Director, Dante B. Fascell Port of MiamiDade, FL, prepared statement of ................................................................. 35

(1)

PORT SECURITY: PROTECTING FLORIDA’S

PORTS FROM THE THREAT OF DRUG TRAFFICKING

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY,

AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Port Everglades, FL.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in the

Chambers, Administration Building, 1850 Eller Drive, Port Everglades, FL, Hon. John L. Mica (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representative Mica.

Also present: Representative Shaw.

Staff present: Sharon Pinkerton, staff director and chief counsel;

Charley Diaz, congressional fellow; Ryan McKee, clerk; and Sarah

Despres, minority counsel.

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I’d like to call this hearing of the

Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources Subcommittee to order.

I’m pleased this morning to be in Port Everglades and Broward

County. I also welcome our colleague from the Ways and Means

Committee, Mr. Shaw. Actually, this is your area, and we’re so

pleased to be here and thank you for being here today, too. I know

we’ve had trouble getting out of Washington, also, a disruptive

schedule. But I did want to proceed with a hearing this morning.

We’ve delayed holding this because of some of our requests from

Members, but again, thank you for hosting us today here in your

city.

I’m kind of glad we don’t have too many Members here, most of

them stuck in Washington, because this isn’t exactly a Chamber of

Commerce Fort Lauderdale day.

Mr. SHAW. We do better.

Mr. MICA. The sun isn’t shining this morning, but I’m sure it will

be back.

I’m pleased to be here. We’re here on a very serious issue, and

that’s port security, protecting Florida’s ports from the threat of

drug trafficking. The order of business today will be I’ll first open

with a statement. I’ll yield then to Mr. Shaw, if he has a statement. And with agreement from the minority, without objection,

we’re going to leave the record open for an additional week, for 3

weeks, for members to submit statements to the official record, beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:48 Oct 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75061.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cause we do have people who have been held in Washington on this

occasion. So without objection, so ordered, the record will be open

for a period of 3 weeks.

Also, I notify the witnesses today that questions will also be submitted to you from the subcommittee and also committee members

who are not with us. So we would like you to respond. And those,

without objection, will also be made part of the record of this hearing.

As chairman of the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice,

Drug Policy, and Human Resources, I’ve had the opportunity to

travel across this country examining the problem of illegal—our illegal drug epidemic. Today we’ll take a closer look at the growing

crisis here at home—namely, the smuggling of illegal narcotics

through Florida seaports. This congressional field hearing will

focus specifically on criminal activity in and around the ports of

Port Everglade and Miami, FL. These two ports account for a large

percentage of the vast quantities of drugs being smuggled into the

United States each year.

Two years ago, with the start of the 106th Congress, I took over

this subcommittee from my good friend, Dennis Hastert, who is

now the Speaker of the House. The very first place that I visited

as chairman and held a field hearing was in my own district in

central Florida near Orlando, to examine the growing heroin epidemic in central Florida. Today, as we approach the close, and we

hope it’s the close, of the 106th Congress, we’re back in Florida,

and this time in south Florida, to examine the threat posed by cocaine and other drugs.

U.S. seaports handle 95 percent of our Nation’s trade. As a major

U.S. import/export trade destination, with some of the largest cargo

and passenger ports in the world, Florida is a natural conduit for

the free flow of goods, both legally and illegally. We know from history that Florida, with its 1,350 miles of largely uninhabited coastline, has been a haven for smugglers. In the modern era, with its

close proximity to drug-producing countries like Colombia, Florida

is once again the target of illegal smuggling. However, this time it’s

with a product of illegal narcotics.

Florida accounted for 65 percent of the total cocaine seizures in

the United States in 1998. That represents 150 to 200 metric tons

of cocaine. And we may even hear testimony today that says that’s

even larger.

Over the past 2 years, as subcommittee chairman, I’ve conducted

dozens of more than 40 hearings on the topics of illegal narcotics.

Many of those were field hearings like this, because south Florida

isn’t the sole haven of the problem. During the past year, I’ve presided over field hearings in Honolulu. While it’s a nice location, I

might say I flew in there on an evening, Mr. Shaw, a Saturday

evening, spent the day in a State prison and drug treatment programs and conducted the hearing, and I flew back to Washington.

I did that hearing at the request of our ranking member, Mrs.

Mink, who also has some of the same problems at her port facilities.

We also conducted hearings in Sacramento, San Diego, other

large port areas, New Orleans, Louisiana. Additionally, Dallas, central Florida and even in the heart of America, in Sioux City, IA.

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So we have covered our Nation trying to look at the specific aspects

of the problems.

Today we come to Port Everglades because south Florida continues to be plagued by illegal narcotics, much of them arriving

through this port facility and through our coastline. Just last week,

the U.S. Customs seized nearly $11 million worth of cocaine and

marijuana on the Miami River. In May, Customs officials seized

$6.7 million worth of cocaine aboard a container ship docked here

at Port Everglades. In April, Federal agents arrested six dock

workers in Port Everglades for illegally smuggling thousands of

pounds of cocaine and marijuana.

Concerned with the growing security risk that we face, the Governor of the State commissioned a study to assess Florida’s seaport

security. This study, which was just released last month, made specific recommendations on how to improve seaport securities across

the State of Florida and also specifically here in south Florida. We

look forward to hearing from Jim McDonough, who is from our Office of State Drug Control Policy and Florida’s drug czar, about the

study’s findings, recommendations, and hopefully, implementation.

Illegal drug smuggling is a topic that matters to everyday Americans. These days you’d be hard-pressed to find an individual or

family whose life has not been affected by illegal narcotics in some

way. Drug abuse kills directly—the last statics we had were

16,926, exceeding for the first time in our records the number of

homicides. So drug-related deaths now exceed homicides nationally.

According to Barry McCaffrey, our national drug czar, and he took

into account all the direct and indirect, it now totals an astonishing

52,000 Americans die per year, equal to any national security or

war threat we’ve ever faced. The scope of illegal drugs trade is al- most incomprehensible, with an estimated $400 billion a year, an

equivalent of 8 percent of the world’s total international trade. And

the estimated cost to U.S. society—this statement they prepared for me says $100 billion. And it can be as high as a quarter of a

trillion if we include everything.

But not all is lost. We continue to make slow but steady progress

despite the current administration’s inattention, mismanagement,

and I believe at the beginning of this administration, a lack of focused policy. We now have 31 federally designated High Intensity

Drug Trafficking Areas [HIDTAs]. The HIDTA here in south Florida was, of course, one of the original High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area designations. These entities represent a Federal effort to

enhance cooperation, information, and information-sharing among

Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials. However, as

we’ll hear later today, more must be done with regard to HIDTA’s

role in seaport security.

The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign is now in its

third year and hopefully is having some impact—beginning to have

an impact on our kids’ attitudes about illegal drugs. Our subcommittee has oversight responsibility for the Office of National

Drug Control Policy. And we are, in fact, a congressional watchdog

over the HIDTA program in this anti-drug media campaign I spoke

of.

In July, the House of Representatives passed a $1.3 billion Colombia aid package that we hope will get to the supply of cocaine

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and heroin that we’re seeing coming in through this area. Again,

the subcommittee has actively and aggressively sought to ensure

that this administration is true to its word and gets promised aid

and assistance to Colombia, which, again, is a source of so much

of the hard drugs that we see coming through here.

The illegal drug trade is clearly global. So this year I hosted,

along with the Speaker and Mr. Gelman and others, an international drug control summit in Washington, which brought together representatives of the various donor countries. As a matter

of fact, we’re going to meet in Bolivia for the first time I believe

in February with some of the producing countries and leaders in

South America. So we continue to work with those countries, also

with the United Nation’s Office of Drug Control Policy. Pino

Arlacchi is doing an outstanding job to combat the problem of curtailing drugs at their source.

Illegal drug smuggling is a problem that concerns all of us and

one which will require a great deal of work on the part of many

good people if we’re to overcome that problem. And that’s why

we’re here today.

I want to thank in advance our witnesses for being with us today

and providing the subcommittee with their testimony. I appreciate

that these witnesses are willing to come forward and shed light on

problems and resources and the constraints that they face to effectively combat drug smuggling in Florida’s seaports. I want south

Florida to know that I, along with many of my colleagues, are committed to this fight, people like my good colleague Clay Shaw, who

has joined us today. And I thank him for joining the subcommittee.

We want to hear from these local and State and Federal officials

about how we can do our job better, provide the resources and tools

and, if necessary, legislation to make positive changes and take appropriate actions.

With those comments, I’m pleased to yield at this time to the

gentleman from this district, the gentleman from Florida, Mr.

Shaw.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John L. Mica follows:]

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Mr. SHAW. John, thank you very much for holding this hearing

here. I do know that our time is very stressful at this time trying

to finish up our business in Washington. And looking at the news,

it looks like it might even flow over till after the election. Of

course, our objective was to get out about 2 or 3 weeks ago. We’ve

missed that opportunity. So this session seems to be going on and

on.

We are indeed blessed here in the 22nd Congressional District

with three wonderful seaports—the port of Palm Beach, Port Everglades, which I’m tremendously proud of, as well as the port of

Miami. When you think of the tremendous volume of trade that

goes on in these three ports, particularly Port Everglades and the

port of Miami, you know that it is also seen as ports of opportunity,

because of our geographical location. This hasn’t only been in the

question of drugs.

Just a few yards from where we’re seated here, Mr. Chairman,

there is a waterway that is appropriately named Whiskey Creek.

It got its name during Prohibition. I think anyone here could figure

out exactly why it was named Whiskey Creek during Prohibition.

That, of course, was because of the smuggling that went on.

I guess it’s been about almost 2 years ago that we started looking

at—particularly here at Port Everglades we were looking and we

found some astounding information. One, we started looking at the

criminal background of so many of the people who were on the

front line on the docks, working the docks. We saw that they were

parking their vehicles almost right alongside the ships they were

unloading. We found that an extraordinary number of these dockworkers had vans. So you start putting these things together and

you begin to understand what is going on here.

Here in Port Everglades, the way the port is designed—I once

heard that the best way to decide where to put the sidewalks

around the school is that you let the school open without the sidewalk and see what the traffic pattern is and then put the sidewalk

where the children would walk. I think that’s the way the roadway

was put here in Port Everglades; wherever the dirt roads led, that’s

where the paved roads were. As a result, we have a tremendously

convenient port, but a port that has very, very bad security as far

as ingress and egress.

We’re working on it. We’re doing something about it. The

Broward County Commission is concerned about it. We’ve gotten

some graphs that will put in some gates and do some things of altering the roads themselves within the port. Also, the County Commission with our Port Commissioner, Mr. DeMariano, who has actually done, I think, an outstanding job here in Port Everglades,

we’re doing and making a lot of progress with regard to port security. But we keep working on it. And we know we can continue to

do better.

I think that we’ve closed down a lot and done away with a lot

of the problems we had, but I think there’s still some problems out

there. That should be the focus of this hearing, for which I’m very

appreciative that you’re taking your time to come down and hold

this hearing.

I look forward to the witnesses, most of whom I’m personally acquainted with and have worked with in the past. It’s an outstandVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:48 Oct 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75061.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing panel of witnesses, and I look forward to their testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank the gentleman, and again, I appreciate your

working with our subcommittee to make certain that we have the

resources and the attention to the problem here in south Florida

and also across the country.

At this time, I’d like to introduce our panel today. We have a witness list that consists of the following individuals: First, we’re

pleased that Jim McDonough, who is the Director of the Florida

Drug Control Policy Office, which is part of the executive office of

the Governor for the State of Florida, is with us. We have Paul

DeMariano, who is the Port Director of Port Everglades here. We

have Chuck Towsley, who is the Port Director of the Miami port.

We have Bob McNamara, who is Field Operations Director for

south Florida, the U.S. Customs Office. We have Art Coffey, who

is vice president for Florida’s International Longshoremen’s Association [ILA]. I’d like to welcome the individuals who are on our

panel today.

First of all, this is an investigation and oversight subcommittee

of Congress. We’re part of the Government Reform Committee. In

that regard, we do swear in all of our witnesses, which I’ll do in

just a moment.

Also, if you have any lengthy statements or documentation that

you’d like to be made an official part of this record, if you’d submit

them through the chair, and upon unanimous request, they will be

made part of the official record, again, of these proceedings.

We are not going to run the clock this morning, since we have

the one panel and we don’t have other Members right now to ask

questions. As I said, you will have some submitted to you for the

record. We will ask your cooperation in responding to those.

At this time, if you’ll please stand to be sworn.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. Witnesses answered in the affirmative. We’ll let the

record reflect that.

Mr. SHAW. Mr. Chairman, before the testimony begins, if I could

just add one comment.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Shaw, you’re recognized.

Mr. SHAW. And that is recognize that both these Directors, Mr.

Towsley as well as Paul DeMariano, have been very aggressive in

putting in security, x-ray equipment, state-of-the-art equipment.

We worked very hard in Congress to get these moneys appropriated. And I think that both these gentlemen certainly deserve

much credit for the good work that they’ve done in order to increase security at Port of Miami, as well as at Port Everglades.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Shaw.

At this time, I’m pleased to recognize as our first witness, Mr.

Jim McDonough, who, again, is the Director of Florida’s Office of

Drug Control Policy. Welcome, sir, and you’re recognized.

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STATEMENTS OF JAMES R. McDONOUGH, DIRECTOR, FLORIDA

OFFICE OF DRUG CONTROL; PAUL DeMARIANO, PORT DIRECTOR, PORT EVERGLADES, FL; CHARLES TOWSLEY, SEAPORT DIRECTOR, DANTE B. FASCELL PORT OF MIAMI-DADE,

FL; ROBERT McNAMARA, DIRECTOR OF FIELD OPERATIONS,

U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE; AND ARTHUR COFFEY, PRESIDENT,

INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN’S ASSOCIATION

Mr. MCDONOUGH. Good morning. Thank you very much for the

honor of appearing before the subcommittee.

Mr. MICA. Are we picking him up adequately?

Mr. MCDONOUGH. Hear me all right?

Mr. MICA. That’s better. Thank you.

Mr. MCDONOUGH. Mr. Chair, if I could, I would like to submit

my statement for the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, your entire prepared statement will

be made part of the record.

Please proceed.

Mr. MCDONOUGH. Thank you, sir. I would like to give a short

statement just to overview the state of our efforts to counter drug

problems here in the State of Florida. Let me say at the outset how

much I appreciate the support that has come from you personally,

as well as you, Mr. Shaw, from the subcommittee as a whole in

supporting us.

As you know, we do have a problem here in Florida. We have a

problem on the demand side. We have a problem on the supply

side. And we have, with your leadership and assistance, taken

steps to counter both. I’m happy to say we’ve seen some dramatic

progress on the demand side. We’ll continue to work that. We’re a

long way from bringing it down to the level that we want to bring

it down to, but we have seen some progress. And I can go into that,

if you’d like.

On the supply side, we have also taken a number of steps, one

of which is our efforts at the seaports. Of course, I will focus for

the most part on the seaports. There are some parallel things that

we’re doing that should reenforce virtually every effort that we

take here.

Our goal in Florida, simply put, is to bring down the supply of

drugs coming into our State and moving then some for local consumption, some for transport elsewhere, down by one-third. To do

that we had to establish a base line of where we were. So some

time ago in late summer, early fall of 1999, we undertook, with the

cooperation of Federal agencies, to establish a base line on the

amount of supplies coming in, a macro view of where they were

coming.

Simultaneously, the Florida legislature in the spring of 1999 directed that my office would undertake a study specifically of the

seaports. We executed the beginning of that study to contract for

that study in December 1999. Therefore, occurring at the same

time along two lines merging was an intelligence assessment of

where we were and a specific study of access through our ports.

On the intelligence front first, we concluded through interagency

assessment that we could, in fact, affix the amount of drugs coming

into Florida as between 150 to 200 metric tons of cocaine every

year, as mentioned in your statement, sir. We also did our best to

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affix amounts for other drugs. Heroin, we affixed at three metric

tons. We were unable to come up with an accurate assessment on

the marijuana coming in or the club drugs and other drugs, but cocaine certainly was stark at 150 to 200 metric tons.

At that time, we assessed that what is intercepted on the way

to our borders and at our borders something like 50 percent roughly of the take throughout the entire Nation. And I have taken a

close look. I tend to stay up with the intelligence estimates, which

most recently were putting the targeting for the United States for

cocaine as 512 tons, of which we are picking off about 112 at the

borders. Bottom line on that one, Florida is taking an appreciable

share of the amount of cocaine entering into the country.

As we looked further, as we merged this with the security studies and took a look at our own information sources, local sources

from law enforcement, State, and Federal, two things fell out of

that. No. 1, that the majority of the drugs that I’ve mentioned were

coming into our seaports, not all of them, but perhaps as high as

70 percent or more were coming in from seaports. That we were

being fairly successful in picking off some of that, but certainly not

to the levels that would deter the smugglers from bringing it in

here. It varies year by year. Sometimes we’re able to seize as much

as 25, 30 tons, sometimes less. It goes up and down.

What did fall out of both the seaport assessment and intelligence

study is that we did not have good systemic approaches to interdicting those drugs once they entered into our sovereign waters

and certainly as they went beyond that to the transportation nets.

Having recognized that problem and seeing how the study was

going, we worked very closely with the Florida Ports Council with

those elements of the council that deal with the security at the

ports and certainly with the gentlemen at this table as we have

tried to affix the extent of the problem we can do about it. I will

go further into that issue bringing me out on questions.

Let me just tell you that we recognize clearly that we have a

problem and we determined just as clearly that we would do something about this as a State and as a partnership with local leadership matching out the ports and law enforcement to do something

something about it. We also looked to the Federal Government’s

support on this.

In the summer of this year, the Governor of this State, Jeb Bush,

and myself went to meet with General McCaffrey to engage his assistance on partnering at our ports to better secure them. As you

well know, at the same time we were taking our study down here,

a commission at the Federal level was taking a look across the Nation at our ports. We published our findings in a report this September of this year.

Although, the two reports were done separately, in September,

the Grand Commission Report, as it’s referred to, came out and the

findings were very close in terms of access control was something

that needed to be addressed. We needed to take a look at who was

working at the ports. We need to take a look at the things that either allow fast movement of illegal drugs or would deter fast movement of illegal drugs, things such as where you park your vehicle,

what sort of processing the cargo goes through as it moves out, access roads, identification checks and so on.

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The partnership that we appealed for we hope will be honored.

I’m very encouraged by signs that I’ve seen. In essence, it amounts

to an intelligence effort that better identifies with a great deal of

accuracy where the drugs are coming in or where they’re likely to

come in, the inspections systems that deal with the humans in the

net, the incorporation of the intelligence picture and the technology

available on the ports to better screen that which is coming in and

then reinforcement through the entire transportation net. This

boils down to things like what can the Feds do for us. It gets into

some of the non-intrusive inspection technology coming in here.

U.S. Customs has been very helpful there. We’re anticipating over the next 5 years some $30 million worth of equipment there.

It also has to deal with the intelligence efforts, the HIDTA efforts

that you mentioned a short while ago. One of the things we had

specifically asked for in partnership is the formation of a third

HIDTA in Florida in the Jacksonville area, which we do feel is a

vulnerable port, then an interconnection of those HIDTA’s. We

would then have three in Florida with the Jacksonville area, the

Orlando area and the Miami area.

In connection with those three with Puerto Rico, which marks an

entry into the domestic sovereign boundaries of the United States,

so that when they were transshipped further from Puerto Rico into

the United States or into our ports, we would have a very clear intelligence picture of what’s coming in. We are looking forward to

progress on all of those.

In the meantime, Florida has moved forward. With the findings

on the study, we plan, in fact, to implement a set of minimum

standards. We have costed it out to the State of Florida at approximately $28 to $29 million that we will spend in the next 24

months. That will be again in partnership with the ports.

And we have put in place throughout the State other law enforcement agencies and efforts that will not only interdict the drugs

at the port, but those that do get through that we’ll have other

chances to catch the drugs as they move in Florida and further to

catch the moneys as it moves back out, ie., we are following, in

fact, the leadership that you have shown us on this and the strategy that you have helped to develop at the national level to better

cut the drug supply. If we do all that, our anticipation is over the

next 5 years we can, in fact, reach our goal of cutting the supply

of drugs in Florida by 33 percent.

On that note, I’d like to close.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McDonough follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you. And we’ll withhold questions until we’ve

heard from all of the witnesses.

I’ll recognize next Paul DeMariano, Port Director of Port Everglades.

I’m lucky I can say anything today. I think we’re all getting a

little weary from flying back and forth from Washington and meeting late into the night.

Thank you. You’re recognized.

Mr. DEMARIANO. No problem at all, Congressman. I’ve been

through a lot of that with my name.

Congressman Mica and Congressman Shaw, thank you for contacting us and inviting our testimony at this important hearing on

port security as a function of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources.

I would also like to submit my prepared remarks, but I will make

an introductory remark, if I may.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, your entire statement will be made

part of the record.

Please proceed.

Mr. DEMARIANO. Thank you.

Not long ago, I attended a fly in at the invitation of Congressman

Shaw, including 2 days of very interesting meetings in Washington

hosted by the Congressman, which included input and interviews

with various key legislative leaders. At one session, both Senator

Graham and Congressman Shaw spoke at length and with great

sincerity to all of us about the high priority that has been given

to drug interdiction and a greater emphasis on illegal traffic in contraband, as well as the need for much sharper security within the

operating seaports of Florida.

Most, if not all, professional Port Directors which I know, including my friend and colleague Chuck Towsley, who’s with us here

today, as well as all Florida Port Directors, without question, have

embraced and are dedicated to the concept that we must acknowledge the popularity of Florida as a gateway, as I think you said,

Congressman, not just for legitimate cargo and crews unfortunately, but for the movement of drugs which we all know has a severely damaging effect on every aspect of American life.

The Florida Seaport Transportation and Economic Development

[FSTED] Council has impaneled a security committee, which is

chaired by our director of public safety here at Port Everglades,

Mr. Jeff Brown, to address the issues of seaport crime. The efforts

of the Florida Ports Council and the FSTED Security Committee

are supporting the mission of Jim McDonough. We have, of course,

heard from Jim. And we continue to hear from our Governor Bush.

And we are well aware of your congressional emphasis on port security.

I can tell you that at Port Everglades, we are singularly dedicated to the development of this booming seaport within our very,

very vibrant Florida economy and we intend to go about this work

with port security right on the front burner. We intend to partner

with Jim McDonough in the weeks and months ahead, in fact, to

pursue opportunities within the Transportation Outreach Program

being offered by the Florida Department of Transportation as a

specific means of providing security improvements throughout the

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State. I trust that what Jim has said and my comments on this,

you will be convinced that we are absolutely deadly serious about

the matter of security.

At Port Everglades, in order to provide effective security to

counter drug smuggling and criminal issues generally associated

with seaports, we’ve developed a number of mechanisms to ensure

the best security practices are utilized. We believe that providing

a crime-free work environment to our clients is of the utmost importance. Our commitment to this belief is evidenced in the testimony that I’ve prepared.

With that, I’ll conclude, Congressman. We do have prepared remarks, and I’ll be glad to take questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. DeMariano follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you.

I’ll recognize Chuck Towsley, Port Director for the Miami port.

Mr. TOWSLEY. Good morning, Congressman Mica, Congressman

Shaw. It’s a pleasure to be here and address you today as to this

most important matter before us.

As you know, I am director of the Dante B. Fascell Port of

Miami-Dade. The port of Miami is the largest container port in

Florida and in the top 10 in the United States. And certainly, as

a result, we have security issues that you are tasked with finding

solutions or helping us find solutions. We are here to help you do

that.

We have more than 40 shipping lines calling on 132 countries

and 362 ports around the world. Of these, 26 carriers serve 33

countries and 101 ports in Latin America and the Caribbean alone.

So you can appreciate the magnitude in volumes and issues that

flow through the Port as relates to security.

In 1999, the volume of cargo moving through the Port was almost 7 million tons. It is estimated the port of Miami’s impact on our community is $8.7 billion and some 45,000 jobs. As you can see,

we are a major player in the maritime industry.

Thus, the administration at the Dante B. Fascell Port of MiamiDade continues working to enhance our security operations. In

1998, administrators of the port of Miami identified areas that

could be tightened. As a result of those efforts, we’ve led to several

improvements through amendments to the Port’s security legislation, which is county ordinance Chapter 28A of the Miami-Dade

Code.

These amendments require that the Miami-Dade police department, on behalf of the seaport, conduct criminal background checks

on all persons working in the secure areas of the seaport before

they receive seaport identification badges. If they have had a felony

within 10 years, they do not qualify for an ID.

These amendments to Chapter 28A allow the port of Miami to

work at a local level to make the port a catalyst in the port security

field. Increased port security practices make traveling for the

cruise passengers a safer experience and helps ensure that cargo

reaches its destination safely while assisting and reducing smuggling.

Drug and smuggling interdiction has and will continue to receive

the highest priority at the port of Miami. The port of Miami continues to be proactive in addressing all issues pertaining to security.

In addition to working at the local level to tighten security, the

Port is also working closely with State of Florida officials to identify funding for other security enhancements such as high mast

lighting, additional fencing, camera surveillance, inspection equipment and others. These enhancements that we have now are estimated to be an additional $8 million required to increase our security.

While the port of Miami is making an investment in equipment,

we’re also investing in our security personnel. Each security officer

has an additional orientation at the Port by our senior training coordinator and from law enforcement agencies involved in port operations. The training includes cruise and cargo procedures, tariff,

safety operations, and how to report to HazMat and terrorism

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threats. I think it’s important to note that the port of Miami

spends some $4 million in our operating budget currently related

to security, which represents more than 5 percent of our annual operating revenues.

The port is cooperating with the security study with Mr.

McDonough on the reports of the deep-water ports to ensure that

each has a security master plan. We are also active members of the

newly formed Port Security Committee comprised of U.S. Customs

and U.S. Coast Guard and the Immigration and Naturalization

Service. The port of Miami’s security staff works hand-in-hand with

these agencies to identify and address security issues at all levels.

Enhanced security measures initially implemented at the port of

Miami will include a state-of-the-art electronic gate system. We are

in the process, as Congressman Shaw mentioned, of installing four

gamma ray inspection units, which are scheduled to be under way,

completed within a short period of time. We’re in the construction

and design of those units, currently awaiting their delivery.

Our new gate system is linked to our new ID badge system. Everyone who works in the secured areas of the Port that has gone

through the background check gets an ID. Within the ID is a

microchip that allows us to then scan proximity scanner and all

that individual’s information is then available to the people at the

gate to see if there’s been cancellation of their ID; if there’s an alert

put on to follow them or any other pertinent information, including

who their authorized to haul for with respect to the truck drivers.

We’re also going to be cross-referencing our permitting system

with our ID system. That is so a trucking company that comes in,

we have the stats and that the driver’s all cross-referenced so that

we can be sure that there is no security violations being attempted

through false IDs.

As mentioned, the port, with our Stolen Automobile Recovery

System gamma ray technology machines, we’ve designated to detect contraband vehicles and equipment inside containers illegally

moving into the port. As you know, quite often, the vehicles and

this other equipment moving out of the port also carries the money

that then goes back into the drug trade. We think it’s very important not just the specifics on the interdiction on the drugs, but also

on the money-laundering aspect also.

Finally, the port has a sophisticated system of surveillance cameras and plans are being developed to substantially enhance the

port’s security capabilities in this regard.

The port of Miami has continued to work collectively with the

U.S. Customs and U.S. Coast Guard, Immigration and Naturalization, U.S.D.A., Florida Department of Law Enforcement, MiamiDade police and the other law enforcement agencies in our effort.

I would like to say personally my policy at the port of Miami is a

zero-tolerance policy for any criminal activity. And I can assure you

that we will take the necessary actions whenever they are brought

to my attention through the authorities.

We have been working with Mr. McDonough in his efforts at the

State level for his important work and we look forward to the implementation of his and your recommendations. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Towsley follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony.

And we’ll now turn to Bob McNamara, who is Director of Field

Operations for south Florida for the U.S. Customs Service. You’re

recognized, sir.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit my statement for the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, your entire statement will be made

part of the record.

Please proceed, and can you pull the mic up a little bit closer.

Thanks.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Mr. Chairman, Representative Shaw, thank you

for this opportunity to testify on criminal activity at the seaports

in south Florida.

My name is Robert McNamara. I am the Director of field operations for south Florida. In my capacity as Director, I am responsible for oversight of the inspection and control of international

passengers, conveyances and cargo arriving and departing through

the seaports and airports in south Florida. I have oversight responsibility for Miami, Port Everglades, West Palm Beach, Fort Pierce,

and Key West.

Before I begin, let me express U.S. Customs’ gratitude to Congressman Mica for holding this hearing and for Representative

Clay Shaw’s leadership in this area. In addition, I know Congressman Shaw partnered with Senator Bob Graham in his support and

participation on the Presidential Commission on Crime and Security in U.S. Seaports and the success of its year-long study, in

which U.S. Customs played a large role.

Mr. Chairman, there is a great deal to be concerned about at our

Nation’s major seaports, including security lapses that jeopardize

our fight against drug smuggling, exposure to internal conspiracies,

trade fraud, cargo theft, stolen vehicles, and other serious crimes.

The good news is that there is a partnership between the Federal

and private sectors at many of our major seaports. In addition, coordination among law enforcement agencies is strong. Clearly, the

basis for cooperation exists to improve conditions in our seaport environment. Our challenge now is to focus cooperation and provide

the proper resources to make it effective.

Booming activity at our Nation’s seaports is yet another welcome

sign to our prosperous times, but it also presents unique challenges

to our agencies. We must process all of that added commerce with

an eye toward protecting America from crime.

Florida, with over 1,350 miles of coastline, 14 major seaports,

and 8 major international airports, is a major gateway for legitimate international cargo, passengers, and conveyances and offers

a complex environment in which to deal with the threat of crime.

Balancing the facilitation of legitimate commerce with interdicting

contraband and arresting those responsible for smuggling through

Florida’s ports is a considerable challenge.

The fact is every ship, every additional container, presents added

opportunities for drug smugglers. For example, the 12 seaports in

the United States that the Federal commission surveyed accounted

for 69 percent of all cocaine by weight seized from cargo shipments

and vessels, over half of all marijuana, and 12 percent of all heroin.

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Clearly, there is a serious threat out there, and we must do a better job of addressing that threat.

Drug smuggling is a prevalent crime in the port of Miami and

Port Everglades. By pounds of cocaine seized from 1996 through

1998, the port of Miami ranked No. 1 and Port Everglades ranked

No. 2 in the Nation. During those years, 63,662 pounds of cocaine

were seized at the port of Miami and 30,283 pounds at Port Everglades. Most of this cocaine was detected concealed in containerized

cargo shipments and commercial vessels, including vessels on the

Miami River.

However, our seizure statistics vary from year to year. For example, in fiscal year 1999, 27,126 pounds of cocaine were seized in

Miami and Port Everglades compared to 15,410 pounds in fiscal

year 2000. For marijuana seizures, it is the opposite. In fiscal year

1999, for the port of Miami and Port Everglades, Customs seized

10,798 pounds compared to 34,041 pounds for the two ports in fiscal year 2000.

Two weeks ago, Customs found 1,235 pounds of cocaine and

3,283 pounds of marijuana concealed within cargo containers,

which had arrived at Port Everglades. Also, within the last 2

weeks, Customs seized 375 pounds of cocaine and 5.5 pounds of

heroin in cargo containers arriving at the Miami seaport.

Many of the narcotic seizures at our ports indicate the involvement of internal conspirators. Two significant internal conspiracy

examiner investigations recently conducted by Customs and DEA

at Port Everglades subsequently resulted in arrest of 45 individuals, including 35 dockworkers and contract security personnel, on

drug smuggling and related offenses.

Customs applauds the port of Miami’s positive steps toward securing its seaport. A significant weakness, however, is that dockworkers are permitted to park their personally owned vehicles at

dockside or near vessels that are lading or unlading. As internal

conspirators frequently use their personally owned vehicles to remove drug shipments from the port, this weakness is a serious

challenge to the integrity of the security system.

On the other hand, Port Everglades requires dockworkers to park

their personally owned vehicles in a segregated, fenced area, away

from the docks.

Customs has also taken a proactive lead in implementing two

pilot programs in the port of Miami and Port Everglades. The first

project is an interdisciplinary tactical team of special agents and

Customs inspectors designed to enhance the Customs presence at

the port of Miami and Port Everglades. This uniformed tactical

team conducts patrols in marked units, providing a highly visible

and unpredictable Federal law enforcement presence. This unit

also provides immediate response to criminal and civil violations of

Federal laws occurring in the ports 24 hours per day.

The second project is a crime data collection project at the port

of Miami and Port Everglades. This project is designed to improve

intelligence gathering and analysis of criminal entities and activities and to share that intelligence with other interested Federal

and State and local agencies.

While the intelligence initiative is still in the collection stage, the

tactical team has already produced results. The tactical team has

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made two drug seizures on the Miami River. The first seizure involved 165 pounds of cocaine. The second seizure involved 119

pounds of cocaine concealed in a cook’s cabin of a cargo vessel on

the Miami River.

Other positive initiatives should include actions that will directly

impact Customs’ ability in targeting contraband, such as enhancing

the quality of manifest information, the shipper’s documentation

we use to select high-risk goods. We need to explore options that

would standardize manifest information and require its advance

delivery to Customs in electronic form.

We must also develop and implement Customs new automated

system for processing goods, the Automated Commercial Environment [ACE]. ACE, as the members know, represents one of Customs’ most critical infrastructure needs. Among its many features

is an enhanced ability to use information for selecting suspect

cargo for examination.

Of course, the best targeting plans can be laid to waste by internal conspiracies. That’s why we need to implement better controls

at seaport facilities. In order to achieve this, we need to strengthen

physical security, tighten controls on the movement of goods and

limit who has access to sensitive areas.

Customs can also stand to benefit from acquiring better technology. We must devise common systems for sharing information

about the movement of vessels, passengers and goods through our

seaports. There should be a coordinated effort by the principal Federal agencies involved in national security to achieve this goal.

Finally, I would highlight the need for additional training to implement these changes. There is a direct link between training and

operational success. The fact remains that despite the gains technology and improved information offer us, we must have technically proficient personnel to contend with our spiraling workload

and security issues and added manpower to implement these

changes.

Mr. Chairman, this is by no means an exhaustive list. It forms

an effective start in addressing the problems we face at our major

seaports.

I hope that with the help of this subcommittee, we can take the

next important step and confront the critical resource challenges

we face in strengthening seaport security.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McNamara follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. McNamara.

I’ll now recognize Mr. Art Coffey, who is the vice president of the

International Longshoremen’s Association. Welcome, sir, and you’re

recognized.

Mr. Coffey, if you’ll proceed. Thank you.

Mr. COFFEY. Yes, Chairman Mica and Mr. Shaw, thank you very

much. We’re happy to be here today.

Just as a brief statement, hopefully it’ll be part of the record. I

have a written statement that I have——

Mr. MICA. Without objection, your entire statement will be made

part of the record.

Please proceed.

Mr. COFFEY. The ILA is in full agreement with the objectives of

the Interagency Commission on Crime and Security in U.S. Seaports ‘‘the Commission’’ to deter and counter the threats of terrorism, smuggling, and other criminal activities in the maritime environment in and around the Nation’s seaports and to provide a reasonable and necessary security needed to safeguard passengers and

cargo transporting our ports.

In sum, the ILA has been and remains committed to the objectives of the commission and to the concerns expressed by member

of this committee and to cooperating with government agencies to

achieve the desired ends. However, it is with regard to the means

and methods of achieving these objectives that we must except,

more particularly with respect to the treatment of shore-side handlers in these ports.

The ILA members, no less than working men and women in

every other sector of our country’s commerce and economy, are

solid, patriotic, hard-working mainstays of their families. The

members of this union have very special attachments to their local

communities and to their country, which are second to none. They

are not a bit less concerned than fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters

of families of their counterparts in inland industries and occupations to the effects of drugs and terrorism acts that imperil their

and their loved ones’ lives and well-being. To even suggest that

they, as a work force, would be any more trustworthy and cooperative is demeaning.

Thus, the members of the committee may be aware that the ILA

already has in place a program to assure a drug-and-alcohol-free

workplace for its members, which is conscientiously administered

and enforced. The ILA strongly recommends a committee system to

strike a balance between preventing criminal activity and eliminating from the ports those individuals who have paid their debt to

society.

The rank-and-file longshoreman has every motive to keep drugs

away from his children and guns from those who can threaten his

family and quality of life as any other American working person.

The ILA will continue to respond to the calls to cooperate with

the government agencies at all levels to make our seaports not only

crime-free but crime integrity free as well. All that we ask is that

the means and methods to accomplish these objectives be reasonable, rational, realistic and evenhanded, so that those whom it represents will not labor under undeserved onuses or handicap for no

48

better reason than the places of their employment happen to be

along the country’s coastlines.

Respectfully, Art Coffey.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. I thank each of the witnesses this morning for being part of this hearing.

I’ll start with some questions. We have a couple of problems

here. First of all, we’ve got the problem of making certain that

those that are working at the ports and administering the ports

have proper credentials and clean records, first of all, to handle the

work and administration of those ports. Then we have a government responsibility to make sure that we’ve got both proper equipment, resources, personnel to deal with any of the problems we

have with illegal narcotics or commerce coming through those facilities.

Let me first focus on the question of sort of cleaning up the work

force. Mr. Coffey just testified that longshoremen are committed to

having the highest standards and employment credentials. Some

time ago there was a report that a significant portion of some of

the dockworkers and those actually handling the cargo had criminal background records. Maybe we can start here in Fort Lauderdale and tell me what your current situation is with background

checks on those actually dealing with the cargo at both Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

Mr. DeMariano.

Mr. DEMARIANO. I think we should draw some attention to the

fact that not all dockworkers are longshoremen belonging to the

ILA. Many dockworkers, of course, belong to other labor unions or

are unaffiliated.

Mr. MICA. Are you doing checks on all of these folks that have

access?

Mr. DEMARIANO. Yes, sir, anyone that has access to our waterfront, regardless if it’s union affiliation or non-affiliation.

Mr. MICA. What’s the record? I mean, you’re finding that would

clean up some of the problems that were identified previously?

Mr. DEMARIANO. Yes. I think that there is ample evidence, and

particularly we’ve heard about it this morning, that there is indeed

a network and an entrapment so to speak we’re catching of a number of people who have explicitly difficult or felonious backgrounds.

Those people are not permitted access to the waterfront, nor to

cargo proximity. As I said earlier, they are not all longshoremen.

I speak of the generic member of the ILA.

Mr. MICA. You have in place then adequate checks on these people and ways to make certain that they’re not accessing either the

cargo or the port facility?

Mr. DEMARIANO. Yes, sir, indeed we do.

Mr. MICA. What about Miami?

Mr. TOWSLEY. With respect to the Dante B. Fascell Port of

Miami-Dade, as I had mentioned in my testimony, we were, I believe, the first port in Florida to initiate the requirement of the

criminal background check. We have that system in place. And I

do believe it is acting as a deterent from individuals that know

they wouldn’t qualify.

Mr. MICA. That is both active longshoremen and others who——

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Mr. TOWSLEY. Yes, absolutely, including our own employees who

have access to the waterfront area are required by that ordinance

to go through the full process which includes a criminal background check.

Mr. MICA. Do you have any percentage of people who have problem backgrounds that are working now? Before I thought we heard

some 30 percent or plus had backgrounds with either felonies or

some criminal record.

Mr. TOWSLEY. The way our ordinance works, when it came in 2

years ago, effectively was that if an individual had been working

at the port, criminal background check went 5 years. If they had

a felony conviction within the 5-years, they didn’t qualify, even if

they were working at the Port at the time. New employees, it goes

back 10 years. So there is a provision under our ordinance that allows for an appeal before a committee. And the committee will review the extenuating circumstances that may be—— Mr. MICA. You’re telling me you have sort of a zero now, folks

that are working, that you’re checking either through longshoremen or at the Port that now have some type of problems with their

background?

Mr. TOWSLEY. There are individuals who have had problems in

their background who are—— Mr. MICA. Who are still there?

Mr. TOWSLEY [continuing]. Who are still there, that’s correct.

Mr. MICA. And you’re also—— Mr. DEMARIANO. I think that’s an accurate statement. While we

are taking a somewhat harder line on the appeal process, we are

attempting to make it very, very matter of fact that any difficulty

with background checks will deny waterfront access.

Mr. MICA. I’m told that at the Miami-Dade Port, the appeal process is not handled in the same manner; there’s less of a standard,

lesser standard for appealing and staying.

Mr. TOWSLEY. Mr. Chair, two things: One is the statistics that

were given by Customs earlier were stated that it also includes the

Miami River. There is no one here who represents the Miami River

Commission. But I would like to state that when you talk about the

port of Miami, when you include the river, the river does not and

we do not control jurisdictional issues over working at——

Mr. MICA. So there are no controls in the Miami River?

Mr. SHAW. None.

Mr. TOWSLEY. Not as far as I’m aware for security ID, background checks.

Mr. MICA. That’s one of the areas where we’re finding more and

more problems?

Mr. TOWSLEY. That’s correct.

Mr. MICA. Did you have something you wanted to add briefly?

Mr. TOWSLEY. I was just going to say that there is a difference

between the appeals process. We have an independent committee

that is made up of representatives of law enforcement, court

adminstration and the union that do hear the individuals. To me,

I don’t know if it’s a lesser standard. I think it may be viewed as

a more fair standard.

As I understand it—I can’t speak for Port Everglades’ process— but the appeals that they do have only relates to procedurally if evVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:48 Oct 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75061.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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erything has been done in accordance to procedure and they do still

have an issue, then the permit is denied. There’s a philosophical

difference in allowing someone to have due process with respect to

appeal.

Mr. MICA. Well, one of the recommendations of the State review

that was released last month recommended minimum standards— security standards; is that correct, Mr. McDonough?

Mr. MCDONOUGH. Yes, Mr. Chairman, it is.

Mr. MICA. Have any of those been adopted statewide?

Mr. MCDONOUGH. We are going to adopt them. We are now going

through a planning process so that each port can put into effect

this plan which I will look at to approve or disapprove.

Mr. MICA. One of the elements appears to be some difference in

again looking at the employment criteria and standards for people

who are employed in and around directly at the ports. Is this something that should be a consideration? It’s a general recommendation that we have minimum statewide security standards.

What do you think?

Mr. MCDONOUGH. We have a number of strong views on that.

The bottom line is yes, we need to have standards. We need to

have background checks.

I’d like to take you very briefly through the system.

Mr. MICA. Do you think the State—now the legislature has taken

some action. Is this something the legislature should handle or

should we look at it federally as far as some type of legislation?

Mr. MCDONOUGH. I think all of the above. We are only able to

do background checks as pertains to convictions in this State. The

way in which we do that, we will run a check up to the Florida

Department of Law Enforcement, which will then give feedback to

those that have asked and will tell you whether or not there’s been

a conviction for whatever cause in this State. It doesn’t extend to

the Federal system.

Now the outcome of that, we have indications that at the port of

Miami upwards of 17 percent of the current members of the longshoremen’s union indeed have a felonious conviction on their

record. Now that, however, just reflects those that have such a conviction on State records.

Mr. MICA. That’s longshoremen, 17 percent of longshoremen. It

doesn’t include the other workers in the peripheral area. Then we

take out the Miami River operations. It doesn’t appear that there’s

anything in place there. This report also says that there are 14

ports I believe and 2 of them have some things in place, most of

them have basically nothing or very little.

Mr. MCDONOUGH. That’s correct. At the time of the study, although at this time, there are various plans falling into place

where others will now do the same thing. A standard we wish to

go to is that every port will indeed have a background check. We

also in our study and in our plan have taken into account the nonport areas which are historically vulnerable to smuggling. The

Miami River is one. We need to develop systems to control access

to those ports, check manifest, limit birthing time, etc., so that we

can bring down smuggling there.

Mr. MICA. Mr. McNamara, you said one of the problems is dealing with internal conspiracies. Let me first hear your opinion about

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what’s going on. Wev’e heard the two port directors. We’ve heard

Mr. Coffey. We heard a little bit from the drug czar. Tell me what

you see from the Customs enforcement standpoint both about who’s

working there, have they cleaned up the act, and then where the

gaps are and how we need to approach this whole problem.

Mr. MCNAMARA. As my statement indicated, Mr. Chairman, I

think there are steps that are being taken both at Port Everglades

and Miami to improve the security. However, the access is still

there. The control is not effected. We’ve seen a drastic increase in

percentage of internal conspiracies versus what we consider—— Mr. MICA. Did you say a drastic increase?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Internal conspiracies in Miami, for instance.

Mr. MICA. What about Fort Lauderdale?

Mr. MCNAMARA. We’ve actually seen it go down, the number.

Mr. MICA. And the increase in Miami, is that related to the sheer

volume? Miami has a much greater volume, doesn’t it?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Yes, it does. The issue with us in Customs is

that we cannot be there 7 by 24. We cannot be there all the time.

There is not a presence on the seaport. So if the container ships

arrive in the middle of the night and off-load, people on the dock,

whether they are longshoremen or people that work on the dock

that have access to that container, can rip it off.

Mr. MICA. One of the things Mr. Shaw and I hear when we get

back is that we’ve added so many personnel that south Florida is

going to sink from Customs officials and others down here.

You’re telling me you still we don’t have adequate personnel to

deal with this situation on a need basis?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Yes, sir. Because of the limited number of personnel, we cannot cover it round the clock, we cannot look at the

shipments as the ships arrive.

Mr. MICA. Have you submitted or can you submit to the subcommittee what manpower you think it would take. The other

thing too is also enforcement, going after these folks. Are you working with the DEA, FBI, whoever and FDLE, the other enforcement

agencies local and State say for sting operations or coordinated efforts with the NIDTA? I mean, if you go in and, so to speak, clean

house a few times, you certainly will get their attention.

Has that taken place? What’s the problem? Don’t we have the

people to even do that?

Mr. MCNAMARA. The investigation that took place here in Port

Everglades was a joint—it was led by Customs but with DEA and

resulted over the last couple years in 45 arrests. Thirty-five of the

people that were arrested were dock and ILA members that worked

at the docks and had access to the docks. We’re working with the

other agencies.

We get information from both DEA and the Coast Guard. We

now have the Florida Department of Law Enforcement working

with us on the Miami River. They’ve augmented our staff of agents

down there so they can participate in what’s going on, on the

Miami River.

Mr. MICA. Is the Miami appeal process for people working there

with the shady background, is this also a problem in cleaning

house from your standpoint? Be candid with us.

Mr. MCNAMARA. I will, sir.

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Mr. MICA. I know you have to go back and work with these people but.

Mr. MCNAMARA. The issue to Customs is that if we arrest people

while they’re under appeal, they’re still working. The issue is if

you’re doing the check, do they have a right to come back to work

or are you going to let them to continue to have access to the secured areas?

Our concern is not that they are continuing to work somewhere

on the port, it is that they’re having access to the containers on the

ports where we want to keep them out of. We want to control

where we have to do our work. If they are going to be allowed back

in there all hours of the night, even after we know that they’re convicted felons or they have records, then that defeats the whole purpose of doing the check.

Mr. MICA. There are 35 people you said that were arrested. Are

some of these folks still working?

Mr. MCNAMARA. I don’t believe so. No.

Mr. MICA. They’re all out of service?

Mr. MCNAMARA. In jail.

Mr. MICA. To deal with this problem, Congress also appropriated,

Mr. Shaw helped, on this issue of getting you not only the personnel but also the equipment, surveillance equipment, detection

equipment. I thought we had on order ion scanners, the whole

range of equipment to deal with the cargo and passengers, the

massive amount that you have to pass through the ports.

What’s the status of that?

Mr. MCNAMARA. In 1999 Congress appropriated approximately

$34 million for what we considered non-intrusive inspection technology. There is a 5-year plan. That was based off a 5-year plan

that we submitted. A number of pieces of this equipment were on

the drawing table and they have been tested. Some of them have

been tested right here down in Miami. As a result of that testing,

either they went back for additional enhancement or improvement

or the additional x rays were ordered. That money was for the

whole southern tier, for the southwest border across the Gulf here

to Florida and Puerto Rico. So we’ve spent over half of that money

so far. And we are purchasing additional equipment. Miami is

scheduled to get a $7 million piece of equipment in January.

What our concern is with this equipment, a lot of it is new. It’s

innovative. We want to make sure it works. We don’t want to go

out and spend the money and put it out there if it doesn’t meet our

needs.

What happens with it is some of it is low density where when

you’re doing a container, what happens, you don’t see the whole

container or if it contains certain type of merchandise. And the conspirators know this that after awhile we use and find it. The next

time they bring in a shipment what they’ll do is they’ll hide it behind something or secrete it in something that we cannot x ray easily. What x rays basically do is either show us something that is

in the container or give us an anomaly that causes us to do a full

examination.

They are on order. There is a schedule for deployment over the

next couple of years that started in 1999 when we got the money.

53

I would say that probably more than half of that money has been

spent to date.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Shaw and I are most interested in some of that

equipment coming into south Florida and particular other ports in

Florida. One of the reasons we appropriated it is we wanted you

to have the technical equipment to detect this stuff, not only stuff

coming. We understand that it will also detect stolen cars and

other goods, even money going out.

If you could supply the subcommittee too with—and maybe the

Commissioner could do that—with a list of what’s obligated.

You don’t know what’s obligated specifically?

Mr. MCNAMARA. I don’t have that with me today.

Mr. MICA. If you could do that for the record, I’d like that to be

part of the record. We want to keep an eye on that, because it’s

nice for us to appropriate that, but not to have the equipment delivered is something else. We need to look at what hasn’t been delivered. If there’s any problems and also if we have any research

technical problems that need to be addressed, we want to see that

gets attention.

Has Commissioner Kelly met with officials or anyone from Department of Justice or DEA folks in sort of a summit on the

Graham Commission report, now the State report, that you know

of to address some of the recommendations?

Mr. MCNAMARA. I know that he has had briefings with the Attorney General and, you know, the Department of Justice, as well as

other areas of government. And I know—I believe he testified on

October 4th on the Hill. But I do not know what further recommendations came out of that.

Mr. MICA. Mr. McDonough, I like to have these hearings, but I

like to see something productive come out of them. I would think

that maybe you could help us take a lead and see if we couldn’t

get ONDCP, our DEA folks, Customs, everybody who is involved in

this, maybe the south Florida HIDTA people—if these recommendations sit on a shelf, it’s sort of useless and a shame.

Maybe we can from the Federal level—and I know there are some

specific recommendations in here, increasing a National Guard recommendations at the seaport. But if we could get all of the folks

together maybe sometime in November or December and see what

we can pick off.

There are some specific recommendations, Clay, for Congress in

here and the congressional delegation. Again, it’s nice to have these

hearings, but if nothing comes of them, we’re all sort of spinning

our wheels.

I’d like to see if you can’t help convene that, Jim.

Mr. MCDONOUGH. Sir, if I may.

Mr. MICA. Yes. Would you?

Mr. MCDONOUGH. I’d be happy to and I will. We have put some

plans in motion. I can give you a very brief rendition.

Mr. MICA. Go right ahead.

Mr. MCDONOUGH. I’m meeting with General McCaffrey in Orlando on November 29th, I think it is. I’ve been in correspondence

with his office and with him as well in the intervening months

since, first of all the meeting between Governor Bush, he and I, in

the White House and subsequently the publication of our plan. I

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cannot speak for him. I don’t know how it will work its way out.

But I actually am optimistic that he will review the studies, both

this study and the Graham Commission study, and then will, if he

has not already, be meeting with the chief of Customs, with the administration of DEA, the leadership of the FBI.

What I’m anticipating is a favorable response that will put in

place, in fact, an information and intelligence effort, as well as a

number of systems to include an enhancement of the NII, the NonIntrusive Inspection package, which will include as part of it not

just the equipment but the training of the handlers, the maintenance system to keep them in operation to include the repair parts,

and perhaps an adjustment to the fielding plan.

But I will take as further guidance your direction to me, sir, and

encourage them. Of course, I am a State agency and I have to——

Mr. MICA. Right. We’ll be glad too work with you in our subcommittee. We’ll be glad to call the Federal folks together, but I

think it would be good to have something concrete come from these

recommendations.

Finally, Mr. McNamara, some of the equipment, etc., that has

been installed, I have reports that we still have problems with the

subversion of the technical equipment. Can you describe what’s

going on, surveillance equipment and so forth?

Mr. MCNAMARA. A couple of times we’ve had incidents where the

cameras, for instance, that we’ve installed have been knocked down

or blocked. So that if we have a camera on a pole to watch the

area, the stacking of the containers is put right in front of cameras

so the camera is useless. You cannot see anything.

We’ve had accidents where cameras were knocked down or where

our x-ray system was put out of commission for a short period of

time because of another accident. There are things like that that

have happened on the port. The equipment is sometimes out there

in the elements. If it’s outside the building where we normally do

the cargo examination, it’s subject to the mishaps that happen on

the seaport.

Mr. MICA. Purposeful mishaps sometimes.

Mr. Shaw.

Mr. SHAW. Mr. McNamara, who mans these scanners? Who is

looking at the TV screen to see if these containers are piled up in

such a way that it obscures the visibility of another container?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Customs inspectors.

Mr. SHAW. If vision is obscured, wouldn’t that be an automatic

warning to the inspector that something is going on? I mean, this

problem has been there ever since I’ve been working with it. These

guys will pile the stuff up. You can’t see them, and somebody

makes a grab.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, one time they were

watching and they saw this car go in behind it. They couldn’t see

what was going on behind the container. So they responded. They

went out there and they checked it. It happened to be an elderly

couple that got on the port by mistake where they weren’t supposed to be. They were looking for a cruise ship. So they guided

them back out.

55

That’s the kind of thing that would happen. We monitor the

screen. And if they see something or we think that there’s something maybe going on, we respond.

Mr. SHAW. Are we still seeing the situation where the cargo will

come in and they could be open. They’re under seal. They’re opened

and, of course, there’s a new seal inside with the tools and everything together with the contraband. The contraband is grabbed and

the thing is resealed.

Are we still seeing that going on?

Mr. MCNAMARA. To the extent that it used to happen, I don’t

think it’s happening as much, but yes, there is tampering with the

containers. The removal of the whole container door, taking the

contraband, putting the container door back together.

Mr. SHAW. That takes awhile, doesn’t it?

Mr. MCNAMARA. They’re very quick at it. It’s just pins on the

outside of the door that you can pop out and pull out. They do have

duplicate seals, multiple seals that go on there.

Mr. SHAW. Is it a huge problem with the pins being pulled out

and doors being pulled off? If it is, we can certainly require that

some alteration of these containers be made so that wouldn’t be

done so readily without some destruction to the pin anyway.

Mr. MCNAMARA. I wouldn’t say that it’s a major problem. It’s just

one of the ways that they’re able to gain access and make it look

like nobody was there. There are various things that they do with

the container that we have to learn—catch them and then learn

that this is something to look out for, whether it’s the seal, whether

it’s the pins, whether it’s the locking mechanism, different things

like that that we have to become familiar with. Then we train our

inspectors constantly, updating that information so that they know

what to look for when they’re out looking at the containers before

they even open it.

Mr. SHAW. I believe it was you that testified with regard to back

in 1998 where the port of Miami was No. 1 and Port Everglades

was No. 2 with regard to internal conspiracies.

Do you have an update up on that?

Mr. MCNAMARA. In 1999, we were one and two again. In 2000,

we were three and four.

Mr. SHAW. But three and four, I assume Miami was three and

Port Everglades was four; is that correct?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Yes.

Mr. SHAW. That tells me something else, because you also said

that it’s getting worse in Miami.

Mr. MCNAMARA. See what happens is that this is based on the

number of narcotics that was seized. What happens is that when

we do our job real well, they ship to some other place. In this particular case, the No. 1 and No. 2 was Puerto Rico and Tampa.

That’s because of large loads that were found in those locations.

Mr. SHAW. When Customs first brought the problem to me with

regard to the criminal background of so many of the dockworkers

and I brought it to the attention of Miami-Dade’s County Commission, they did move very quickly. Mr. Towsley is absolutely right

that they were the first, I think, in the country. Then we brought

it up to Port Everglades. The County Commission up here passed

it. It took them a little while to do it, but they got it done.

56

Of course, you’re talking about this whole thing, you don’t really

solve the problem, you just probably move it. Recognizing that, I

went up and told the folks up at the port of Palm Beach to watch

out. It was coming their way. I imagine that’s probably happened.

What is the port of Palm Beach doing? I don’t know if you’re prepared to even answer that question.

Mr. MCNAMARA. In terms of some seizures, we’ve had some up

there. We recently had—Fort Pierce actually, we had a small boat.

We haven’t seen a lot of small boats bringing it in. We found a

2,000-pound load a couple of months ago coming into Fort Pierce.

It is our concern that the movement up, just like some of the

Haitian vessels moved up to Port Everglades, we’re concerned

what’s going to move up to West Palm. The cruise ship is another

issue. And West Palm hasn’t gotten any staff increases over the

last couple of years. So the chairman asked me about staffing.

That’s one of the concerns we have. If we do a real job and staff

up Miami, it pushes it to the next port that could push it to next

port. Then you go to a port like Fort Pierce, basically I have five

or six inspectors up there, which just cannot cover it.

Mr. SHAW. Part of the problem I know is a budgetary problem

and one of the problems that is connected with that is the tariff

goes into the general fund rather than staying with the Customs.

We’ve had that problem with trying to get a larger Customs presence at the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport, as

well as other things. I think perhaps next year, we should start to

look at that and work with that somewhat.

Now, Mr. Towsley has testified that they’re getting hit with also

the Miami River. If we were to pull the Miami River statistics out

of the port of Miami, how would that affect their standing?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Miami would have dropped down drastically,

OK, the port of Miami as opposed to—We include the Miami River

as part of Miami Seaport. It’s covered by the same people. It’s the

same Port Authority. In the fiscal year 2000, cocaine, for example,

8,211 pounds, of which 7,115 pounds was on the River.

Mr. SHAW. So the port of Miami, I guess, would really drop off?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Yeah.

Mr. SHAW. That’s an important statistic because I want to know

what’s working. Obviously, we don’t have the surveillance on the

Miami River that we have——

Do you have any suggestions as to how we could attack that

problem on the River?

Mr. MCNAMARA. It’s going to have to be multi-agency with the

private sector, because every time we’re on the River and we’re

doing something, you have the Miami Commission that is concerned about the business on the River and try and facilitate the

business and the businesses that are on there and the shipping

companies with our problem of enforcement. The type of trade and

the location from where that trade comes from lends itself to smuggling, conspiracy. And it’s a difficult problem, a very difficult problem to try to address.

Obviously, intelligence, obviously people to gather that intelligence. Our Customs agents working on the River, they’re assigned

a group to work the River to try to pinpoint where some of this

57

may be happening, to help us out with the targeting of the vessels,

where they’re hiding these vessels.

Again, they go down to Haiti, for instance. They sit down there

for a long period of time. What ends up happening is they secrete

it down in the bowels of the vessel down below the sea level, under

cement floors. Trying to get at it is what the problem is.

Mr. SHAW. A ship coming into the port—coming into the Miami

River, they’re supposed to check in at some point with Customs.

Are they doing that? Are they not doing that? What happens

when a ship comes in and reports that it’s going up the Miami

River, what do you do and how long does it take you to do it?

Mr. MCNAMARA. We make a determination on whether we want

to examine; how we want to examine; what we want to put there;

do we have intelligence on that ship that would want us to put

dogs on it; run a dog across it.

What happens is that, again, they know our staffing. They know

how many people we have there. Not too long ago, a couple months

ago my person that runs the oversight of the Miami River for me

in terms of inspection—contraband inspection told me that about

10 ships came in all at the same time. Once you have that many

ships coming in to come up the River, it’s very hard to do them all.

Mr. SHAW. At what point do they radio you, after they dock or

when they’re still out at sea?

Mr. MCNAMARA. They normally tell us that they arrived. The

agent normally comes in and says I have a ship arriving. That

could be right before it comes in or after it docks they let us know,

they’ll advise us that the ship is there for clearance.

Mr. SHAW. So they could have already cleaned it out before they

even call you?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Could.

Mr. SHAW. Aren’t you given some type of intelligence as to what’s

coming in, either by the Coast Guard or other means? Maybe that’s

the problem. We ought to make sure so that they don’t have an

hour to unload before you know they’re there.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Sir, the intelligence usually is on something on

a given ship or something that they have information.

Mr. SHAW. Not on the arrival?

Mr. MCNAMARA. No. That happens. If the ship is coming in and

the Coast Guard knows that this particular ship might be loaded

with something, they’ll give us that information through our

agents.

Mr. SHAW. Is the Coast Guard aware of the ships that are coming in? Do they have some way of monitoring what’s coming in and

particularly what’s headed up the Miami River? It seems that’s

where the big problem is. Obviously, statistically that’s exactly

where the problem is.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Sir, I don’t know if they know of every ship coming in.

Mr. SHAW. The statistics we have on Port Everglades, does that

include the Dania Cutoff Canal or other ports of entry?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAW. What problems do we have at the other ports of entry

in Broward County?

58

Mr. MCNAMARA. The only one I’m familiar with, we have some

airport, some internal carriers at the airport, as well as the cruise

ships, as well as the cargo. I’m not aware of any problem—— Mr. SHAW. The port at the La Dania Canal, that’s not a problem?

You don’t see any problems?

Mr. MCNAMARA. I haven’t gotten anything that tells me that is

a problem.

Mr. SHAW. Could I make a suggestion from a statistical standpoint that you might want to put a subcategory for the port of

Miami so that they can be rewarded rather than embarrassed by

these statistics. Because it does sound like they’re doing a pretty

good job down there. And we continue to work to get the latest

technology installed. I think I’ve seen all of it at one time or another. It’s really quite amazing.

I’d like to just turn our attention just a moment to—well, before

I do that, let me get back to Paul DeMariano.

Where are we as far as increasing the security, the ingress and

egress from the outside along the roadways? I know I’ve brought

home a lot of money and appropriated for some improvements, but

I really haven’t seen it coming out of the ground.

Mr. DEMARIANO. We’ve commissioned that work, Congressman

Shaw, in a firm having been selected, Bermello-Ajamil Associates,

who are specifically charged with the roadway control points and

physical constraints within our road system. As you correctly pointed out, like Boston, which is a city full of cow pastures converted

into streets, this port has such a history.

We do have a number of shortcuts, as you know, to get from the

airport, for example, to the 17th Street Causeway. This will all be

the subject of pretty intense, in fact, five physical checkpoints

which are going to be done and confirmed in terms of design for

construction within 9 months. That work is underway. I would say

the first 20 percent of that work has been completed.

Mr. SHAW. I would guess that this is being done with cooperation

of Customs, as well as the Sheriff’s Office?

Mr. DEMARIANO. Yes, sir, it is, that is for certain. And indeed,

the Sheriff’s Office is taking a more active role with us on police

activity per se within the seaport. We will very shortly recommend

a larger jurisdiction for the Sheriff and BSO here at the Port with

the sense in mind, the philosophy that professional police departments should be providing more hands-on professional police activity, rather than us attempting to grow expertise in that area. We

will commission that contract through the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

Mr. SHAW. Very good. I’d like to go back, if I could, just a moment to Puerto Rico. Obviously, they’re part of our country and

once someone breaches security there, they’re in.

What is happening over there, Mr. McNamara?

Mr. MCNAMARA. I am not familiar with Puerto Rico in the last

couple of years. I used to have oversight back in 1995 over Puerto

Rico. I could find out and submit that to the record, if you would

like.

Basically, I can tell you that dropping the air drops, what was

happening back in 1995 was the dropping of narcotics off the shore

of Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic. Then they were then

transiting here to the United States from Puerto Rico.

59

What’s exactly happening right now I am not familiar with, I’m

not responsible for.

Mr. SHAW. Does either the port of Miami or Port Everglades have

heavy volume of shipping coming from Puerto Rico?

Mr. DEMARIANO. We have a limited volume as compared to Jacksonville, which is a very, very heavy gateway to Puerto Rico. We

do have a degree of Puerto Rican cargo and a dedicated service

which calls here at our mid-port area. I have no reason to think

that is receiving any more or less scrutiny than our other port

areas.

Mr. TOWSLEY. We have a similar situation in Miami. We do see

most of the Puerto Rican cargo coming in through Jacksonville.

Mr. SHAW. Mr. Coffey, I want to get a little bit of a clarification

of your testimony. As a longshoreman, do they support background

checks as they’re presently being done or do you all still have objections to that?

Mr. COFFEY. No, we don’t have any objections to that.

Mr. SHAW. I wanted to clarify that, because in listening to your

testimony, that was a little bit of a gray area.

Mr. COFFEY. What the longshoremen—really it’s happened, I

suppose, over the years of just getting painted with a broad brush

and Miami as the Miami River and so on and so forth. In my 30

years in Miami and Fort Lauderdale on the docks, I’ve seen an

awful lot in the growing ports in both ports. Some of the other

ports are mature ports and they’re diminishing in size. The ILA

itself nationally is 14,000 strong. It used to be over 100,000 at one

time. There’s quite a bit of a difference. I’m so glad listening to Mr.

McNamara, there is a no ILA Palm Beach, Fort Pierce or the

Miami River so they can paint that brush again.

One of the things we have discussed quite a bit—We’re part of

committees from time to time on the port with Customs and with

the local police and the Port Director’s office—is that because of the

Miami River something would have to be done. There seems to be

a project going on to dredge this river to make it deeper so that

there will be more traffic there.

The only thing that we really realize is that the things that probably are—and again, it’s a guess on my part. I don’t have any information other than what I can suspect and take as a prudent man

to look at—is that what a man takes off in his pocket off the pier

if there’s any type of drugs in that is really not corrupting our Nation. What goes off in containers is probably the thing that’s doing

it because there’s that much more that can be done.

A few years back the shipping industry had changed the way

they ship cargo. Where you had all sorts of different bills of lading

in order to get a shipper’s cost, now they have one. So nobody really knows who touched the cargo. And they have what they call

inter-modalism where there is a price from say Taiwan to Hialeah.

That’s the one cost. And those containers come into the port and

then they leave the port and they’re off the port.

Prior to that time, we used to strip and stuff the containers on

the port ourselves. I know that at that time we had Customs’

agents in all the sheds that we had on Dodge Island and in Port

Everglades. And I guess through attrition, manpower losses, they

had to centralize. And those people are not in those port areas any

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longer. Basically, what we’ve looked at is watched containerized

cargo make it more efficient for the shipping industry, but it probably has given an awful lot of difficulty to this country and to Customs as far as moving these things.

As far as the Miami River is concerned, my only suggestion, if

anything, is that the containerized cargo just shouldn’t be allowed

on the River. I don’t see Delta Airlines going to North Perry Airport. I don’t see American Airlines going to these other airports.

They have them centralized. I’m sure that would be more of a restrictive job if they were on all of these little places. If American

Airlines took that little plane that they have, the Eagle, and said

we’re going to do the Eagle service out of North Perry, that would

be a problem, I think.

My only suggestion to this whole matter is that if it’s in containers and we believe it’s in containers, and we have technology for

it and we can do something about it, we put the containers in one

spot where, according to the stats, it’s less vulnerable in the port

of Miami than the Miami River. I don’t know why anybody would

want to dredge the River and continue to increase the tonnage. It

does a million-and-a-half tons a year right now.

Mr. SHAW. The dredging of the river is an environmental project

also. There’s some stuff down there that’s pretty bad.

Mr. McNamara, what do you think of that suggestion?

Mr. MCNAMARA. In terms of shutting down the Miami River?

Mr. SHAW. No, no, no. I’m talking about requiring that the container ships all go into a designated port.

Mr. MCNAMARA. The containers, to this point, are not our problem. It’s the boats themselves.

Mr. SHAW. You were saying that they were actually in the infrastructure?

Mr. MCNAMARA. In the infrastructure of the boats. A lot of these

boats come in and park for weeks. I don’t know that they would

be allowed to do that at Dodge Island or——

Mr. SHAW. They’d have to pay a lot more.

Mr. MCNAMARA. There’s commerce along the River, shipyards or

container yards that operate along the River that accommodate

these particular boats and their cargo.

Mr. SHAW. Mr. Towsley, do you have any suggestion on that?

Mr. TOWSLEY. I agree with Mr. McNamara’s comment that part

of the problem with the River is the types of vessels. However, the

containers, we certainly would welcome the additional traffic, but

I’m not so sure that the type of vessel we could not—don’t have the

space or the luxury to be able to have the vessels sit there for

weeks for loading and unloading, the system that they use at the

River. It is a niche market that we don’t adequately service.

Mr. SHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. McNamara, can you tell me what kind of traffic pattern

we’re seeing, where the drugs coming from, as far as country of origin or transit coming into south Florida, what are you seeing lately?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Basically, the Colombian cocaine and heroin are

coming through the Caribbean corridor. The ones that come to

61

south Florida through Haiti would be one of the main points of

transshipments. Marijuana is coming from Jamaica.

Mr. MICA. Directly?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Directly.

Mr. MICA. Haiti is still the big transshipment point?

Mr. MCNAMARA. Yes.

Mr. MICA. Through the Dominican Republic and over to Puerto

Rico and then up?

Mr. MCNAMARA. The other areas, obviously any country, whether

it be Venezuela, Ecuador that the ships call on, received the Colombian cocaine and boarded on those vessels that’s headed for south

Florida. We see it coming out of those countries, also.

Mr. MICA. Venezuela, you’re seeing an increase?

Mr. MCNAMARA. I don’t know if it’s an increase. I’m just saying

that there have been incidences where ships that called on these

other ports within these countries. Where it got loaded on, where

the container got loaded on, when we look into that after we investigate it, we try to find out whether that was something that the

cocaine got loaded on in Ecuador or Venezuela or whether it was

transhipped from Colombia—got loaded in Colombia and the ship

just stopped there.

Mr. MICA. One of the recommendations of the report was that

Customs change the manner in which it calculates staffing because

Puerto Rico is considered, I guess, a domestic shipment point.

Did you want to respond to that? Is that something that we need

to look at because, again, it’s not counted in the equation for staffing.

Mr. MCNAMARA. In terms of working out how many people you

should get and Commissioner Kelly has contracted out and developed what we call a resource allocation model that is currently tied

up in OMB and Treasury. But that model is supposed to take into

account various types of work load to determine where resources,

if we get any resources, are to be distributed to.

So the question comes down to what are we going to be doing

with the domestic cargo, because it is domestic at that point, from

Puerto Rico? If there was a reason to believe that it should be reexamined because there might be drugs and they were put on subsequent to examination in Puerto Rico, we will do that. The issue, of

course, in the trade is that it’s already been examined in Puerto

Rico. It’s domestic. You shouldn’t be examining it.

Our counsel feels that it is still coming from international waters

and therefore, it might be subject to some sort of narcotics onboard

or put onboard and therefore, we do have a right to examine that

particular cargo.

So the question comes down to what is it that we are going to

be wanting to do with this cargo. Quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, we

have so much work right now that, again, it’s a resource issue as

to how much we can look at. For instance, right now in Miami,

we’re looking at about 25 percent of empty containers, mainly because of the fact that we know that empty containers are used as

a source of concealing narcotics and there’s no cargo in that container. It’s just a container.

Mr. MICA. I also want to ask our staff if they can come and look

at the equipment. I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to do that. I want

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to see what’s in place, the big order that we put in, Mr. Shaw. We

need to do a little check and see what is in place and if there are

problems with this equipment, we’ve got to get that on line.

In 1993/94 up to 1995, the Coast Guard’s budgets were pretty

dramatically slashed and it was a big impact particularly on Florida. Mr. Shaw and I have worked to try to get the Coast Guard

back up to speed, so to speak, and back in this activity since

they’re so essentially, not only for the safety of the waterways, but

also sort of our first line of defense.

Mr. McNamara, what’s your opinion of the resources? You have

to do this non-prejudicially. As far as Customs’ resources, tell me

if your observations of Coast Guard getting back up to snuff is adequate.

Mr. MCNAMARA. I truly am not familiar with the issue.

Mr. MICA. The two port directors?

Mr. DEMARIANO. I will offer this comment, Congressman. We’re

generally aware that under the Federal assessment of seaport

problem, which was alluded to by Jim McDonough, there will be a

heightened responsibility offered to the U.S. Coast Guard. It’s my

sense in talking to the captain of the port, who I’m sure will speak

for himself, there has not been a corresponding assist to him in capability, manning or funding. And obviously, we have all in our careers known that the Coast Guard has had a high degree of national security—port security responsibilities. Here we’re talking I

take it more about contraband——

Mr. MICA. Right.

Mr. DEMARIANO [continuing]. Pilferage, drug smuggling. I think

clearly that represents a new area and one that’s going to require

great resources.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Towsley.

Mr. TOWSLEY. As we increase our security at the ports and as we

develop and improve our security master plans, the role for Coast

Guard, in terms of review of those plans and working with us, is

going to increase their workloads. I, likewise, don’t believe that

their manpower and their budget have correspondingly increased.

I certainly don’t have firsthand knowledge to suggest that.

Mr. MICA. What is their presence here that you feel is still inadequate—resources inadequate to deal with the problem?

Mr. TOWSLEY. I really can’t address that specifically. I know certainly that the issues that we have had at the port since I’ve been

there in terms of emergencies and so on, the Coast Guard has always been there and provided a tremendous level of service to us.

Mr. MICA. Clay, one of the things that we observed when we

went down to Puerto Rico, the Coast Guard and some of the others,

the bump up that they got—we got a significant supplemental was

in place and then deflated afterward. So they started on sort of

ramping up. It’s all sort of fallen apart, again, which is a problem.

Puerto Rico, in particular, has a lot of it coming in through—

transiting through there and ends up here.

Mr. SHAW. If I can take a crack at answering your question, as

a non-sworn witness, I can say that in the 20 years that I’ve been

in Congress, I do not think that we’ve adequately funded the Coast

Guard in any one of those years. It’s not under the Department of

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Defense. It’s under the Department of Transportation. They do not

get the attention that the others armed services get.

I think that should be something that the next Congress should

really take a close look at, because of the dual mission of the Coast

Guard, being one of defense in time of need and being one of law

enforcement on a full-time basis that makes it a wonderful service

that we need really to look at. In increasing the funding for the

Coast Guard, we could certainly recognize their reserve military capabilities.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. One last question to Mr. McDonough. We

seemed to identify today one of the gaps, which is the Miami River.

Is there any strategy from your standpoint to deal with the

Miami River on a specific basis, given the fact that you have to

work with all the local, State and Federal agencies?

Mr. MCDONOUGH. Yes, sir, there is. Many of them are mentioned. So I’ll just tick off the generic list of things that need to be

done.

First of all, we need a better intelligence system so we can anticipate what is coming in.

Mr. MICA. Let me interrupt you, because you said the legislature

is giving $28 million additional dollars. Is that at the port area?

Mr. MCDONOUGH. What I said was the seaport study called for

physical structures that would total $28 million.

Mr. MICA. Is that into the Miami River?

Mr. MCDONOUGH. No, sir. It’s for the 14 ports. Separately, however, we are planning to work on the Miami River.

Mr. MICA. But there’s not anything specific as far as finances—

finance program to deal with that?

Mr. MCDONOUGH. There is, in fact. What we have done is we reinforced the Federal agents at the Miami River with Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents and local law enforcement,

but the State has paid for the more manpower from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Mr. MICA. Maybe to abbreviate this, could you provide the subcommittee with a one-pager and give us an outline of what the

State is doing locally and if there are any Federal elements that

need to be included, something that needs to be a component,

whatever it may be——

Mr. MCDONOUGH. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA [continuing]. That we can provide so that we sort of

put the pieces to the puzzle together.

Mr. MCDONOUGH. I shall.

Mr. MICA. I think that will be helpful in dealing with that area

and also timely as we start this next cycle.

One of the other issues I think that was raised in here was

money laundering. I’m not sure if anyone wants to talk about that.

Mr. McNamara. Illicit money laundering. Maybe you know something about this, Mr. McDonough.

Mr. MCDONOUGH. Sir, I’ll address that.

Mr. MICA. If you would, go ahead.

Mr. MCDONOUGH. I have been directed by the Governor of this

State and by the legislature of this State to incorporate a number

of steps to intercept the money on the way out. We, of course,

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worked through a variety of law enforcement agencies, to begin

with the Federal assistance, but also State and local.

Recently, the legislature has recommended 36 specific steps to do

our best to intercept the money. We’re doing that. For example,

this morning I was met at the airport by a local law enforcement

agent and she, in fact, works the money laundering. I asked her

how they were doing here in Fort Lauderdale. She reported that

they recently picked up $8 million. That’s a pretty good take in a

short period of time.

The Miami HIDTA works with it extensively. They have an office

called Impact. The last time I checked, they had 17 Florida agencies involved with them, and they take in a significant amount.

We have changed reporting procedures from banks within our

State so that when you hit specific limits, the transaction is reported, etc. We do not have a good base for how much money is

laundered either electronically or physically through State. We

have to guess at that. My only guess it’s in the order of billions.

I would put it in the low single digit billions, but beyond that, I’m

not really sure.

I do believe that we’re only taking, at the moment, a minor percentage of the money. By minor percentage I would say less than

5 percent. I don’t think that’s enough to impact.

I do believe on the interdiction front, on the seizure of the drugs

themselves, talking specifically of cocaine, I think we may be pushing up now beyond 15 percent maybe 20 percent. That’s a significant take.

My own measure, if we begin to hit seizures of drugs at 30 percent or so, it drives the traffickers elsewhere or deters them completely. If we begin to hit the money at the rate of 10 percent or

so, I think it will really break it back. So far we are not there.

Mr. MICA. Mr. McNamara.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Mr. Chairman, with regard to the money going

out as a result of the proceeds of drug interdiction, first of all, we

have inspectors that as part of the our outbound program are looking to uncover, find money. We have done that. I’m seeing, if I have

the exact number of how much money, total outbound currency reporting south Florida CMC, this is just for south Florida, the entire

CMC, in 1998 was $9 million. In 1999 it was $9,184,000 and in

2000 year to date in June was $9.6. We’re getting some of the

money going out, by no means all of it.

On the same token, our agents are investigating and participating in these HIDTA groups, as Mr. McDonough that talked about,

that are looking at doing the intelligence and analysis of the organizations that are laundering money. So it’s a two-prong approach,

trying to catch what’s going out in cash and people that are taking

it out. Sometimes they’re taking it out in their luggage. Sometimes

it’s in shipments. And also trying to unearth the smuggling organizations and how they’re transferring that money.

Mr. SHAW. Are there reporting requirements on electronic transfers?

Mr. MCDONOUGH. There are.

Mr. McNAMARA. Same thing, $10,000.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Towsley.

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Mr. TOWSLEY. Mr. Chairman, we’ve heard testimony this morning I think from all the agencies in terms of resources and needs

and improvements that we need. I have a question. Is there some

way that some of the dollars that are being laundered that are

being captured at the ports could be dedicated to come back to the

seaports and our enforcement agencies?

Mr. SHAW. Good try.

Mr. MICA. We’re trying to work on a percentage basis, too.

Mr. SHAW. No, no, no.

Mr. MICA. It hasn’t worked out too well.

Mr. SHAW. There are laws that do a certain amount of that. I

don’t know what law. Of course, it would go back to local law enforcement for the money it seized. You are supposed to get a certain portion of it.

Mr. MICA. But not the ports.

Mr. MCNAMARA. But the seaports could, if they provided information that lent itself to the seizure of drug smuggling or drug information or money, that they could share in some of that.

Mr. SHAW. Mr. Towsley, make a deal with the gentleman to your

left.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Can I clarify?

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Mr. MCNAMARA. Mr. Shaw, you asked me about La Dania. There

was one seizure. It was a Haitian vessel that went up there. I

guess it got kicked off the river. A wooden vessel that had 300

pounds of coke during 2000.

Mr. MICA. Any further questions, Mr. Shaw?

Mr. SHAW. No. I just want to thank all these witnesses for their

time and being with us, their candidness and bringing us up to

date on what’s going on.

One real quick question. Does Tampa do any background checks

and things of this nature? Why did they jump up above the other

ports?

Mr. MCNAMARA. I don’t know, but I could find out for you.

Mr. SHAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for coming

down here, Mr. Chairman. I very much appreciate it.

Mr. MICA. I expected us to be well into the congressional recess

at this point. I thank you for being with us today. I’ve got to scoot

back to Washington. I thank each of the witnesses for their help

and the State of Florida. I didn’t mention, the Governor, Jeb Bush,

I’ve never seen anyone more committed to an issue than our Governor. I’d thank you, Mr. McDonough, to convey our appreciation.

He hasn’t let up on this for a second.

I’d like to thank the two south Florida port directors for their cooperation; Customs, for your assistance; and also, the International

Longshoremen representative. I know that just by working with us

and also ensuring that we have the very highest standards of

everybody’s boat here, particularly at our ports, and we appreciate

your cooperation.

There being no further business to come before the subcommittee

this afternoon, this hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:38 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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