Deal will keep Customs inspections in Brooklyn

   Customs and Border Protection has agreed to continue inspections at the Red Hook Container Terminal in Brooklyn through Jan. 8, 2017.
   Customs has recently consolidated its examinations in the Port of New York and New Jersey.
   Yesterday’s announcement means cargo will not have to be trucked to sites in New Jersey or on Staten Island to undergo examination, but will be looked at in Brooklyn. There were concerns that trucking cargo to and from distant examination sites would drive up the cost of moving cargo through Red Hook and create a security risk as unexamined boxes were trucked for for miles through New York.
   Keeping the inspection site open in New York had become a political issue and a press release announcing the decision contained comments from an array of elected officials, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles E. Schumer, and Congressmen Peter T. King, Michael Grimm, Nydia M. Velázquez, and Jerrold Nadler.
   Nadler said in the Port of New York and New Jersey’s Red Hook terminal is the “only container port on the east side of the Hudson River, which houses two-thirds of our region’s population, and it must be preserved.”
   There are four other CBP Examination sites in the port, one on Staten Island and three in New Jersey. – Chris Dupin