Bills direct screening for all-cargo planes

Bills direct screening for all-cargo planes    Bills to expand the requirement for 100 percent screening of cargo on passenger aircraft to freighters were introduced in the House and Senate on Tuesday.
   Rep. Edward Markey, who authored the amendment in the 9/11 Recommendations Act that mandated the security measure for passenger aircraft that went into full implementation on Aug. 1, followed through on an earlier promise to direct similar scrutiny to cargo on freighter aircraft. To help meet the mandate, the Transportation Security Administration set up a program to allow certified shippers, forwarders and independent firms to screen cargo upstream from the airport to relieve airlines from the entire task and prevent delays.
   In the Senate, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania proposed an identical bill.
   'Al Qaeda continues to put aviation at the top of its terrorist target list, and our nation must close the cargo loophole that continues to put lives and our economy at risk,' the Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement. 'While we now require screening of 100 percent of air cargo transported on passenger planes, the thwarted Yemen bombing plot demonstrates that al Qaeda is turning its attention to less protected all-cargo aircraft. Accordingly, we must respond through strengthened security measures.'
   Markey's Air Cargo Security Act calls for the Department of Homeland Security to screen half of cargo on all-cargo planes within 18 months and all shipments within three years. DHS would also be required to establish a system for regular inspection of facilities used to handle cargo transported on freighters to ensure that appropriate security controls, systems and protocols are observed. And it would be tasked with entering into arrangements with foreign governments to ensure that inspections of facilities used to export air cargo to the United States are regularly inspected.
   The TSA is already in talks with many nations to try and get them to follow cargo security standards in place in the United States and allow the agency to make sure that the standards are properly implemented.
   The Independent Pilots Association, which represents 2,600 pilots at UPS, and the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations endorsed the proposed legislation. One of the two parcel bombs from Yemen discovered by international authorities in late October was found on a UPS plane at East Midlands Airport. Law enforcement authorities now suspect the bombs were timed to go off as the planes flew over the U.S. mainland rather than at the Chicago address listed on the package.
   'Not only does this jeopardize the lives of the pilots flying the transport-category aircraft, but also those persons on the ground under the flight path. By acting now to shore up gaping holes in the screening process, we reduce the likelihood of terrorist organizations being successful in their efforts to bring down an all-cargo aircraft over a major U.S. city,' IPA President Bob Thrush said in Markey's news release. ' Eric Kulisch