"Lawmakers Urge More Cargo Screening on Airlines"

Friday, August 22, 2003

Lawmakers Urge More Cargo Screening on Airlines 
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
Fox News

 
WASHINGTON - Almost two years since the deadly Sept. 11, 2001, terror
attacks, airlines are still not inspecting all the cargo shipped on
passenger planes, and two lawmakers are demanding to know why.
 
"While TSA employees are required to examine the booties on a baby's feet,
no one is inspecting the boxes destined for the belly of a Boeing," said
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. "Is there any question where a bomb is likely to
be placed?" 

Markey and Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., successfully co-sponsored an
amendment in June to the $29.4 billion Homeland Security Department budget
for fiscal year 2004 that demands the Transportation Security Administration
map out a plan for full inspections of all cargo on passenger planes.

The amendment forces Congress to divert federal funds away from any TSA
cargo security plan that does not incorporate full screening of air cargo by
the end of 2003. The 2004 fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

During debate of the measure, Shays voiced bewilderment that current
inspections don't already require cargo screening.

"The bottom line is, as long as cargo and baggage screening is incomplete,
there are gaps in aviation security that are unacceptable," he said.

Homeland Security Department officials accuse the congressmen of gross
misrepresentation. They say TSA has forced tough measures on the airlines
for air cargo shipments on passenger planes, but the technology to screen
large freight shipments isn't available yet.

"We've been working on it every day since Sept. 11. As with other
technology, they want science and ingenuity to move faster than it can,"
said TSA spokesman Brian Turmail. "There is no way to viably screen air
cargo today. Do we just sit on our hands? Of course not."

Turmail said all cargo moved on passenger planes - about 22 percent of all
cargo delivered through the air - must be shipped by companies that have
more than one year's history with the airline. Shippers participating in the
"known shipper" program are "rigorously audited," Turmail said, adding that
cargo over a certain weight is prohibited on passenger flights.

Meanwhile, canines are used to inspect the mail and other packages, a
measure that is growing, he said.

Cargo that does not fit the criteria for passenger planes goes on all-cargo
flights, which have less stringent standards, but are also forced to comply
with TSA regulations, many of which aren't disclosed because of security,
officials said. Cargo carriers have agreed to implement their own "known
shipper" programs as well, and the bigger shipping companies have
incorporated elaborate systems for tracking packages.

"We are tremendously secure," said Kristin Kraus, spokeswoman for shipping
giant FedEx Corporation, "Forever, security has been paramount to us.

"We know where a package is at all times, who dropped it off, who signed for
it, we collect a tremendous amount of data. We are constantly adding new
technology," Kraus said.

But while FedEx transports 5.3 million packages a day, it doesn't account
for all cargo shipped, and without a full screening of the packages before
take-off, gaping holes remain in the system, said Markey spokesman Israel
Klein.

"There is technology that is deployed already that would do that job," he
said, "but not in the way they are thinking about."

Klein said government officials and industry leaders have bucked
alternatives like using some machines for screening larger cargo, as well as
more thorough canine and human inspections, because they fear they will slow
down the system and lose money.

Shipping experts agree, and say industry lobbyists have lined up against the
amendment that passed the House 278-146.

"The industry is somewhere between virulently and violently opposed to this
because of a deep fear that it would profoundly slow down the shipping of
goods by air, adding enormous time, inefficiently adding cost to a system
that - at least the industry believes - would reduce security rather than
improve it," said Paul Page, editor of Cargo World, an industry magazine.

Steve Alterman, a spokesman for the Cargo Airline Association, said forcing
such measures on passenger airlines right now will probably mean the end of
their shipment programs. "We think it would be bad business for the cargo
and passenger planes not to be secure - but we do not think the Markey
amendment is the answer."

Alterman said the industry would support any technology that looks at all
cargo without inhibiting its flow. "But that technology does not exist," he
said.

While the arguments are familiar, they don't wash with Markey.

"Those are the same arguments put to us that all baggage could not be
screened, that it would render all of the airlines unable to fly, shut down
commerce," said Klein. "It didn't happen that way at all."

The Homeland Security Department budget heads into House-Senate conference
when Congress reconvenes in September. A similar version of the amendment
did not go before the Senate, and congressional sources said this week that
its prospects for remaining in the final bill are "uncertain."

In the Senate, Sens. Dianne Feinstein (search), D-Calif., and Kay Bailey
Hutchison, R-Texas, have introduced their own air cargo security bill, which
takes a milder approach to establishing inspection requirements on the
airlines. It's still sitting in committee.

Klein said a softer touch is not the answer right now, considering that the
threat level against U.S. interests remains high.

"[Terrorists] would just have to ship something and it would be guaranteed
not to be screened or inspected," he said. "Once this was put to a vote,
House members were put in a difficult position not to vote for it - it's a
no-brainer."


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