The U.S. Homeland Security Department might redirect millions in port security funds to other efforts, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, April 3).

Operation Safe Commerce, approved by Congress almost a year ago, was intended to give $58 million to New York, Los Angeles and Seattle to track shipping containers.  Those cities are the largest of 361 U.S. seaports and take in 75 percent of cargo containers entering the country each year, according to the Associated Press.

James Loy, head of the Transportation Security Administration, said the program may be cut because of a “structural shortfall” that has resulted in “a billion-dollar hole.”

Last week, during a meeting of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) criticized Loy.

“If you are delaying the release of this money simply so that you can divert it to other causes, that is unacceptable,” Murray told Loy.  “I do not want to see any of that money diverted.  This is what Congress said it was to be spent for,” she added.

Murray also wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

“I have no intention of watching your agency divert funds that are critically needed to ensure the security of our trade lanes in order to make up for the administration’s irresponsible actions in this area,” she wrote (Matthew Daly, Associated Press/Newsday, May 19).

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