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Call for more port screening

BY GLENN THRUSH | Newsday Washington Bureau

March 31, 2006

WASHINGTON - Sen. Charles Schumer, fresh from his weeklong tour of China, is demanding that the United States immediately implement a cargo screening system used in Hong Kong that allows inspection of all containers passing through the port.

Since 2004, the Hong Kong Container Terminal Operators Association has screened 100 percent of containers using two huge American-built scanners. Trucks carrying containers drive through the machines, which screen for radiological material or high-density metals that could be used to shield a nuclear or "dirty" bomb.

Because of manpower and equipment shortages, U.S. officials scan only about 5 percent of all containers nationwide and 30 percent of cargo entering Port Newark, the destination of most shipping coming through New York Harbor.

"Hong Kong is more advanced than any American port I've seen and we should be ashamed they inspect every container and we don't," said Schumer (D-N.Y.), who testified before a Senate committee on his trip yesterday.