Date: 2003-06-24
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman. I wanted to pick up where the last two speakers spoke. and that is the question of port security and what we know or do not know about the 20 million containers that come across Americas borders every year. come by truck and train traffic. and the rest through ports. I have to say that I appreciate that the committee is doing a lot. The question is when will the committee be done doing its work. and when will the Nation say that it knows enough about the containers coming into its ports. I am not sure that we can inspect every port. but what is very clear is the amount of information that we have to have about these containers from the point of origin to the time that they embark for the United States is incomplete. Even the effort to go into the megaports. which I think is important since some 80 percent of the commerce is shipped through those ports. that does not tell us. that does not give us the kind of information about the containers even coming to the megaports. That is what has to be established. A system. a credible system has to be established so those individuals responsible for the security of this Nation and the movement of those containers across the borders of this Nation are able to make an assessment as to the security of this Nation posed by those individual containers. We are not going to be able to inspect every one of them because commerce is not going to allow us to do that. It would break down the system. But we can require a great deal more information about the contents of that container. the sealing of that container. the movement of that container. through electronic locks. through GPS systems. so we can start to trace that. Then we can make our decision upon risk. But by the time that container gets into the port of Hamburg or Hong Kong or Long Beach or Oakland. California. it is too late. If one of these container goes up with a dirty bomb. you will shut down the globalized container system in this world because we then will have to inspect every container. That is too late. That is far too late. The terrorist does not just have to strike. As we saw. terrorists now understand that beyond the initial act are the economic consequences. They now see what that means. But if they are going to come to the United States and they want to do our people harm. they put in a nuclear device. they put in a dirty bomb. inspecting it in the Port of New York. the Port of Long Beach or the Port of Oakland is far too late. It does not matter if it goes up on the ship once it comes through the Golden Gate. if it goes up on the port property. or it goes up on the railroad train. that is too late. Of those. we are inspecting 24 percent of the containers. At some point we have to establish a deadline so that people will know. as the gentleman from New York said. if they want to engage in commerce in the United States. an inspection system has to be in place going back to the point of origin to follow that container all of the way. We did this in the oil spill liability provisions after the Exxon Valdez. We said in 25 years if you want to continue to have access and ship petroleum products to the United States. you will do it in doublehulled ships. We should be saying to the shippers. to International commerce. by 2004 or 2005 if you want to continue to have access. you have to provide for this monitoring of cargo. for the transparency of the system and the monitoring of the ships. We have some 40.000 ships roaming around the world with containers on them. This is the kind of system that the American public is entitled to. and why so. As the gentleman from New York pointed out. many of the experts which have been briefing Congress since September 11. 2001. have been telling us we are more likely to have a dirty bomb come into this country by way of container than we will ever have the risk of it coming in by way of missile. That is the threat to the home front. That is the major threat. What we see here. while we are taking these incremental steps and I applaud many of them. we do not have a plan for deciding at what point this is going to be a secure system. We have to start putting deadlines on the transparency of this system. on the security of this system. and access to the American markets. That is how we are going to get unified system. The gentleman from New York is right. The Container Security Initiative. the Operation Safe Cd nmerce. the Customs Trade Partnersaip Against Terrorism are all impoitant initiatives. but they are taking too long. They are taking too long. What is the price of security? What is the price of the home front? What is the price of a secure port system and a secure transportation system? Those are the questions we have to start asking ourselves. not whether we have put in another $100 million or $200 million. is the system secure. Right now we cannot tell the American public that In the foreseeable future that our system is secure.