SENATORS SAY BUSH UNDERMINING PORT SECURITY EFFORTS

SENATORS SAY BUSH UNDERMINING PORT SECURITY EFFORTS    Three Democratic senators criticized the Bush administration Thursday for not providing enough federal funds to prevent weapons of mass destruction from being smuggled through U.S. ports and border crossings.
   In a joint statement, Sens. Ernest Hollings, S.C., Charles Schumer, N.Y., and Patty Murray, Wash., said the failure to fund homeland security priorities is particularly worrisome because of the heightened risk that North Korea could sell terrorists nuclear material from a recently reactivated reactor.
   'I have not seen from this administration the requisite commitment to secure our seaports in the future,' said Hollings, who introduced the first version of the Maritime Transportation Security Act that President Bush signed into law in November. 'If they don't make that commitment, we will be defenseless from a catastrophic attack.'
   The security bill mandates a systematic federal role for security at ports. Ports terminals, facilities and vessels must develop comprehensive security and incident response plans based on U.S. Coast Guard vulnerability assessments. The Coast Guard estimates that private-sector costs for compliance will be $4.4 billion, with annual costs of $500 million. But the government has only provided $350 million for port security grants during the last three fiscal years and the administration's 2004 budget provides only $200 million in private sector grants, the senators said.
   Murray faulted the administration for not implementing Operation Safe Commerce, a pilot program she championed, designed to test promising security technology for tracking U.S.-bound container shipments to their final destination. Congress appropriated $28 million last July for the initiative, but the Transportation Security Administration has not released any money for specific projects. The administration only proposed $2.5 million for the program in 2004.
   At a press conference on Capitol Hill, Murray said she was told her state will receive fewer border guards than last year, even though Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge recently said he would hire nearly 700 additional inspectors to protect the northern border.
   Other examples of inadequate funding for port and border security, according to the senators, include:
   * The administration only seeks a slight increase in funding for the Coast Guard and the Custom's Container Security Initiative, a cooperative program with foreign governments to allow U.S. personnel to inspect containers before they are loaded on a U.S.-bound ship.
   * The Transportation Security Administration's budget for maritime and land security is less than one-fifth of the entire TSA budget, despite the fact that 90 percent of international commerce is maritime.
   * Inadequate funding proposals for port security-related research and development.
   The Department of Homeland Affairs press office did not immediately return calls to respond to the criticism.
   Last year Hollings was unsuccessful in trying to provide guaranteed funds to pay for the mandates in the bill through a fee assessed on steamship lines, truckers, importers, exporters, passengers and other port users. Hollings hoped to generate $600 million from the fee on containers, oil barrels and other kinds of cargo. The fee would have been similar to one collected from airline passengers to pay for aviation security. The Republican-controlled House blocked the provision on the grounds that the user fee was a tax.