Pelosi says 100% inspection regime still a priority
Incoming House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference Thursday that Democrats, as part of their priority agenda to implement the recommendations of the Sept. 11 Commission, will push legislation to inspect 100 percent of ocean containers prior to arrival in U.S. ports.
The Republican-controlled House and Senate rejected amendments to the SAFE Port Act last session that would have required all containers to be inspected, but Democrats plan to press the issue now that they control Congress. Under the law, the Department of Homeland Security is implementing a pilot program at six foreign ports to X-ray image the contents of containers and scan them for radiation to prevent nuclear weapons from used to attack the United States.
'We'll go them one better on port security, where we have even tougher proposals to screen 100 percent of the containers long before they reach U.S. shores,' CNN quoted her as saying.
Her comments were in contrast to those of Richard Barth, DHS assistant secretary for policy development, who said at the Customs and Border Protection Trade Symposium on Friday that the high cost of scanning every container bound for the United States would eventually nullify arguments for a scan-all security approach.
'I think we'll come to a better relationship with Congress' and the call for 100-percent inspections 'will die down because it's not the political season,' he said.
Pelosi says 100% inspection regime still a priority
