Date: 2006-05-04
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Madam Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman. with all due respect. I rise in opposition to this amendment. Ms. Sanchez and I have worked together on this bill. We have reached accommodations on a number of different issues. We support the idea of the CTPAT program. I certainly support her efforts to try and strengthen the CTPAT program. I certainly have supported and incorporated in my bill the recommendation on her part that we allow for thirdparty validators so that we can get the manpower necessary to do the validations that are necessary in this program. However. I do oppose her amendment because I think it would cut down on the participation in this program. One must understand that the CTPAT program. CustomsTrade Partnership Against Terrorism program. is one that leverages industry cooperation to increase the security of the global supply chain. It has three tiers: tierl being the lowest. tier 3 being the highest. The gentlewoman suggests -that any benefits that are recognized under tier 1 to someone who has begun to participate in the program is unnecessary and somehow undercuts the credibility of the program. I would suggest that that is not true. - The conditions for obtaining the CTPAT tier 1 status include that prior to an importer being certified. the importer must complete a comprehensive selfassessment of their current security practices. gauged against the clearly defined and published minimum security criteria. If the security selfassessment completed by the importer reveals any security deficiencies and requires a corrective action plan. admission to the program and no benefits whatsoever are obtained unless those deficiencies are addressed to the satisfaction of the Department. Third. with the security selfassessmenf completed. and initially identified deficiencies addressed. the Department again reviews for sufficiency with the minimum security criteria and also vets the importer through the law enforcement and trade databases. as well as through the El Paso Intelligence Center. EPIC. for linkage to DEA and other law enforcement databases. If the importers security profile demonstrates that the company is meeting the criteria. has positively passed vetting. and has a successful importing record. only then will the importer be certified as tier 1 and given a limited ATS score reduction. In response to the concerns raised by the gentlewoman from California. we have incorporated into this bill penalties if. in fact. it is shown that they did not participate in the process completely and honestly. and. in fact. if they have had any misleading or false information in their application. they are mandatorily barred from participation in the program for 5 years. The reason why they get a small benefit in terms of the rating by beginning in the program with their application before they are fully certified is to give encouragement to get them into the program to begin with. It is more than just saying they are handing in a piece of paper. It is. in fact. a document that requires a good deal of work on their part. and we want to encourage participation in this program rather than discourage it. CTPAT is one of the layers. not the only one. but one of the layers that we have of security in our multilayered approach. and so I would urge people to reject this amendment. Madam Chairman. I reserve the balance of my time.