[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Page 13485]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            SURFACE TRANSPORTATION AND MARITIME SECURITY ACT

  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, yesterday I joined my colleagues Senators 
Nelson, Thune, and Fischer in introducing the Surface Transportation 
and Maritime Security Act. The security of our Nation's ports and rail 
and surface transportation systems is critical to the daily lives of 
Americans, as well as to the health of our national economy. I thank my 
colleagues for joining together on this important legislation and hope 
that it leads to improved safety for our country.
  This legislation comes months after the tragic attack on the Brussels 
metro and airport which killed 35 and injured over 300, and it comes 
just days after explosives were detonated in New Jersey and New York, 
threatening the lives of thousands. The sad reality is that attacks 
like these occur, and we must do more to protect our citizens.
  The fact is mass transit and rail systems are challenging to secure. 
Meeting this challenge requires us to have a strategy in place that 
recognizes the evolving threats to surface networks and puts sufficient 
resources in place to match those risks. Currently, less than 2 percent 
of the Transportation Security Administration's, TSA, budget and staff 
are dedicated to protecting surface transportation networks. While the 
Federal role has been to support and oversee State and local efforts to 
secure transit and other surface networks, we need to ask ourselves 
whether we are doing enough to protect passengers.
  The Surface Transportation and Maritime Security Act requires the TSA 
Administrator to implement risk-based security plans for surface 
transportation in order to ensure resources are being driven to the 
most high-risk places. The bill directs TSA to conduct careful analysis 
to consider risks and provide mitigation strategies using information 
from global terrorist attacks. Additionally, I thank my colleagues for 
working with me to include language to the bill that will authorize 
more bomb-sniffing canines to be utilized to deter threats in our 
railroad networks and surface transportation. The bill also helps 
improve the screening of maritime workers and includes further measures 
to reform and improve port security. The bill includes several other 
important provisions that will yield new data to help inform future 
security needs. The bill is a product of compromise with my colleagues, 
and we will also need to work with our appropriator colleagues to 
ensure TSA has the resources to take these important security measures.
  Again I thank my esteemed colleagues for partnering together on this 
legislation.

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