NCBFAA criticizes Senate air cargo security bill

NCBFAA criticizes Senate air cargo security bill A group of senators, led by Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, introduced legislation late Tuesday that would require screening of all cargo on passenger planes within three years.
   The bill also seeks to improve passenger-screening processes.
   In a letter to Inouye, National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America President Mary Jo Muoio criticized attempts to implement 100 percent X-ray imaging of cargo on passenger planes. H.R. 1, passed by the House, also includes a requirement for imaging all cargo on commercial airlines.
   Muoio advocated a risk-based approach to screening air cargo, with elements that closely resemble the Customs-Trade Partnership Program managed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for maritime shipments.
      The NCBFAA recommended:
   * Support for the Transportation Security Administration’s concept of identifying trusted shippers.
   * Organizing training for airlines, freight forwarders and shippers to identify suspicious shipments or activity.
   * Create profiles of shippers and transportation providers that can be linked in real-time to intelligence data to identify high-risk shipments.
   * Perform inspections of high-risk shipments prior to loading on an aircraft.
   “We ask the committee to dismiss those proposals which create arbitrary timelines and demand unavailable resources without any reasonable assurance of success. The 100 percent screening solution is an oxymoron — it is the wrong way to secure the homeland and creates a false sense of confidence in our ability to succeed,” Muoio wrote.
      Co-sponsors of the bill included ranking member Ted Stevens, R-Alaska; Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.; Trent Lott, R-Miss.; and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.