[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 41 (Tuesday, April 4, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H1422]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             PORT SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, members of the public might be surprised to 
learn that we are defending United States ports against the threat of 
nuclear weapons for the most part with a faith-based honor system.
  Here is how it works: there is something called the C-TPAT program. 
Now, foreign interests, so far 10,000, have indicated interest, file 
paperwork with the Department of Homeland Security. Now the Department 
of Homeland Security is a little understaffed. We have to have tax cuts 
for the rich people. So they do not have enough people to process these 
things. But once you file that form with them, you are considered to 
not be a threat because you filled out the paperwork. So far 5,800 have 
filed. About a third of them have been visited once. One site visit and 
then you are certified for 3 years. One site visit.
  So all you do is you get all the terrorists with the AK-47s and the 
kafias to get off the property for a day and you say, look, good place, 
security plan, legitimate business, you get the stamp of approval. Now 
you are no longer considered a high risk in terms of what you might put 
in a container. What you then have to do is when you want to ship a 
container to the United States, you have to send the shipping invoice a 
day in advance before it is put on the ship. So what you do is you say 
this container contains 200 birdbaths, because, of course, you would 
not say 199 birdbaths and one small tactical nuclear weapon. You would 
not do that. But we do not check those containers until they get to the 
United States of America, and then we check a very small percentage of 
them here using high technology.
  Now, today we have the Assistant Secretary, Mr. Jackson, in, who told 
us what their future plans are. Now, remember we have this threat. 
Things are coming to the United States of America. We do not really 
know what they are, on this honor system. We have not inspected those 
facilities. Even if they had been inspected, they were only inspected 
one day every three years. They have set a goal here, and he said that 
their goal is 100 percent inspection of all containers as they depart a 
U.S. port headed into our country.
  First I thought that was a misprint. I thought his staff screwed up 
his testimony here. No, he meant it. He is saying we know that these 
containers, when they come to the United States, might have a nuclear 
bomb inside; so their goal is that they will check all those containers 
with our technology within a very few years before they leave the port 
to an interior city. He did not really respond when I asked if that 
meant our ports have become sacrifice zones.
  They are so uncertain of the faith-based honor system, the C-TPAT 
system, and what is going on overseas that they want to put in place 
technology at taxpayer expense, technology to check 100 percent of 
those containers for nuclear weapons before they go from U.S. ports to 
inland U.S. cities.
  When I asked him if maybe we might extend that perimeter overseas and 
require that all containers be inspected overseas for nuclear weapons, 
he was saying that would be very difficult, but he actually admitted it 
might be possible given the technology recently modeled in Hong Kong.
  But the Republican majority on the committee said no way, we are not 
going to allow the inspection of those containers overseas. It would 
slow down those Chinese goods flooding into the United States of 
America and other things manufactured overseas. It would hurt commerce. 
There would be trucks lined up for miles back into mainland China with 
goods on them waiting to come to Wal-Mart here.
  This is fairly extraordinary to me. The Republican majority and the 
Republican administration are admitting that there are potential 
threats in these containers. They have put in place a faith-based honor 
system, but they are working hard to see that we will check those 
containers after they have arrived at an American port before they go 
to another American city. Those of us who live a little bit inland will 
be thankful for that, but I really do not agree with the philosophy 
that turns our ports into sacrifice zones.
  No. We need to check 100 percent of these containers for threats 
meaningfully with high technology equipment overseas before they come 
to the United States of America.

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