[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 48 (Thursday, March 25, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S3551]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         IN SUPPORT OF THE COMPREHENSIVE BORDER PROTECTION ACT

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to support the 
Comprehensive Border Protection Act, a bill that addresses the urgent 
need for increased Customs inspectors and technology along the U.S.-
Canadian border.
  Every day, the U.S. Customs Service must meet the dual challenges of 
enforcing our trade laws and easing the flow of goods across our 
borders. Customs carries out this mission at 83 ports-of-entry along 
the U.S.-Canada border, the world's longest undefended border--some 
5,500 miles.
  The resources, however, that we have provided to the Customs Service 
to process traffic and trade across this border are woefully deficient. 
In a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee in September 1998, we 
learned that the current number of authorized Customs inspectors 
working on the northern border remains essentially the same as it was 
in 1980, despite the fact that the number of commercial entries they 
must process has increased sixfold since then, from 1 million to 6 
million per year. The increased workload reflects of course the 
tremendous growth in U.S.-Canada trade: two-way trade in 1988, the year 
before the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement entered into force, was 
$194 billion. In 1998, our two-way merchandise trade with Canada 
reached $331 billion, nearly $1 billion a day. Over one-quarter of our 
total imports from Canada enter the U.S. through three New York ports-
of-entry--Buffalo, Champlain, and Alexandria Bay.
  This bill aims to correct these problems by authorizing the 
additional people and technology necessary to handle the increase in 
trade and traffic between the United States and Canada. In particular, 
this bill authorizes 375 additional ``primary lane'' inspectors and 125 
new cargo inspectors for the northern border, as well as 40 special 
agents and 10 intelligence agents. The bill also authorizes $26.58 
million for equipment and technology for the northern border.
  The resources available to the Customs Service over the last decade 
have simply not kept pace with this enormous growth in workload. As 
trade continues to grow, the day will come when our ports simply will 
not be able to bear that load, unless we ensure that adequate staffing 
and equipment are in place.

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