Congress Agrees on Overseas Cargo Scanning

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers yesterday reached an agreement on legislative language to require all cargo containers to be scanned for radiation abroad before being loaded on U.S-bound ships (see GSN, July 18).

In the House version of a security bill implementing a number of the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendations, legislators called for cargo to be scanned at all overseas ports within five years.

The Senate legislation called for 100-percent radiation scanning abroad but did not set a timeline.

Lawmakers in a House-Senate conference committee yesterday agreed on an amendment that sets a five-year deadline for complete screening at foreign ports but would also give the homeland security secretary broad powers to make exceptions.

Advocates of the measure have said such steps are necessary to prevent terrorists from using a cargo container to convey a radiological or nuclear weapon to the United States, while opponents say the requirement is impractical and could damage the flow of trade.

Under the agreed language the secretary could grant two-year extensions for specific ports indefinitely for a variety of reasons including the determination that implementing such a scanning system would “significantly impact trade.”

The deadline could also be extended if the available technology “does not have a sufficiently low false-alarm rate.”  Sufficiently low is not defined.

While the bill is intended to promote counterterrorism recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission — including strengthening airline security and moving to risk-based security grant allocations — 100 percent radiation scanning abroad was not among the suggestions made by that panel.

Domestically, a $1.2 billion plan to deploy next-generation radiation scanners that advocates say would reduce false alarms has been plagued by doubts about the efficacy of the new technology (see related GSN story, today).

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