Pols debate port security

BY CAROL EISENBERG | Newsday Washington Bureau

September 13, 2006

WASHINGTON - An increasingly partisan showdown over a port security bill erupted before a Senate panel yesterday when New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg engaged in a dueling match with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff over whether all cargo coming from overseas ports should be scanned for nuclear devices.

"Do you believe that 100-percent inspection of cargo would be a worthwhile endeavor?" demanded Lautenberg, who with fellow Democrats Charles Schumer of New York and Robert Menendez of New Jersey is pushing to amend the bill to scan every container from 42 overseas ports within four years.

Chertoff demurred, saying that nearly 100 percent of cargo arriving in U.S. ports would go through radiation portal monitors in this country by the end of next year.

Wasn't scanning cargo in this country as opposed to overseas, before it arrives on our shores, "a little late ... if there's something in there that is designed to wreak havoc in our community?" Lautenberg persisted.

Against the backdrop of increasingly pointed partisan exchanges, the Senate port security bill, described days ago as a sure bet, appeared stuck in election-year wrangling.

"We have a bipartisan bill to start with," Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said at a Republican news conference yesterday. "These amendments are just coming out of the sewer right now. There's just too many of them. And they're just nothing but attempts to block us."

Congress made port security an election-year priority after a February fight over a buyout that put a United Arab Emirates company in control of six U.S. ports. The outcry led the company to sell the U.S. operations.

But with the expectation that the Senate bill would be passed this week, a laundry list of amendments was being proposed yesterday, including a sheaf of amendments by Democratic Leader Harry Reid to bolster security on mass transit, implement the remaining recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and change the direction of the war in Iraq.

"Let's see if they'll vote against this," said Reid (D-Nev.).

As currently written, the port security bill creates a pilot project to scan cargo for radioactive substances at three foreign ports. While Chertoff acknowledged to a Senate panel that overseas screening was desirable, it posed practical problems. "Not every port is physically constructed to be able to do that and not every country is willing to do that," he said.

The bill would also authorize $400 million in port security grants and create a "green lane" to expedite cargo from shippers who provide the government with detailed information.