WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee, urged Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to institute 100% inspection of all cargo on passenger planes and inspection of container ship cargo before it sets sail for U.S. ports.  On the heels of the foiled London passenger airliner bombing plot, experts have continued to cite un-inspected cargo on passenger planes and container ships as a top terrorist threat to our country, yet the Bush Administration continues to leave these loopholes wide open.  Rep. Markey, who has repeatedly called for 100% screening of cargo on passenger planes and has introduced similar legislation, sent a letter today to Sec. Chertoff recommending immediate cargo security measures be implemented for passenger planes and container ships.  Markey recommended that no cargo that cannot be inspected using existing explosive detection methods should be allowed onto passenger planes and that all container ships are inspected before leaving foreign ports for the United States.

“The 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is only a few weeks away.  We have the technology.  We know the risks.  Today I’m urging the Bush Administration to take the steps needed to protect Americans from two potential cargo catastrophes.  Secretary Chertoff should plug the remaining cargo security loopholes so that terrorists can’t smuggle their explosives and nuclear weapons into this country, to stop relying on inadequate paperwork checks instead of sound security practices, and to stop catering to the interests of industry – and to start to take real steps to protect Americans,” Markey said.

Most of the 6 billion of pounds of cargo carried on passenger planes every year is loaded onboard without being scanned for liquid, plastic, or conventional explosives.  This cargo it is sent by commercial shippers to their customers – no one on the plane owns the cargo.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report states that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) determined that up to 60 percent of the cargo transported by passenger air carriers is made up of break bulk items. In other words, cargo in sizes that can be screened using standard Explosive Detection System (EDS) machines currently used to screen checked baggage. 

And only about 1% of maritime cargo is scanned for radiation before it leaves the foreign port. For the other 99%, the Bush Administration relies on paperwork checks.

Only yesterday, a study was made public that RAND conducted for the Department of Homeland Security in 2004 that analyzed the possibility of a nuclear weapon detonation in a cargo container at the Port of LA/Long Beach.  They chose that scenario because analysts consider it to be feasible. This is what the report on this scenario, which was released yesterday, concluded would be the outcome JUST in the first 72 hours after the detonation:

·        Sixty thousand people might die instantly from the blast itself or quickly thereafter from radiation poisoning.
·        One-hundred-fifty thousand more might be exposed to hazardous levels of radioactive water and sediment from the port, requiring emergency medical treatment.
·        The blast and subsequent fires might completely destroy the entire infrastructure and all ships in the Port of Long Beach and the adjoining Port of Los Angeles.
·        Six million people might try to evacuate the Los Angeles region.
·        Two to three million people might need relocation because fallout will have contaminated a 500-km2 area.
·        Gasoline supplies might run critically short across the entire region because of the loss of Long Beach’s refineries—responsible for one-third of the gas west of the Rockies.

“Even with this RAND report in hand since 2004, the Bush Administration has focused its efforts on scanning for radiation AFTER CARGO CONTAINERS ALREADY HAVE ARRIVED IN OUR PORTS.  At that point, if there’s a bomb inside, it’s too late,” Markey continued.

Markey concluded, “Our policy for cargo on passenger planes should be: if it isn’t scanned, it should be banned!”

 
Below is Rep. Markey’s letter to Sec. Chertoff:

August 16, 2006

The Honorable Michael Chertoff
Secretary
Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC  20528

Dear Secretary Chertoff:

The British government’s disruption last week of a terrorist plot to utilize liquid-based explosives to blow up airliners in flight from the United Kingdom to the United States is an urgent reminder of dangerous security loopholes that remain open to exploitation by terrorists determined to attack our country.  I am particularly concerned about two glaring security weaknesses that could result in massive casualties and economic damage if exploited by terrorists:

    1.    The failure to require all air cargo carried on passenger planes to be scanned for explosives before being loaded onboard; and
    2.     The absence of a mandate to scan all U.S.-bound maritime cargo for explosives and nuclear material at the port of origin, not the  port of destination, and to seal these containers in foreign ports so that they cannot be tampered with en route to our country. 

I am writing to urge the Department of Homeland Security to take two important steps to prevent the potential catastrophes inherent in a successful cargo-based attack by al Qaeda or another terrorist group:

    1.  Issue an order immediately that requires air cargo shippers to enable the use of existing scanning technology by delivering their packages to the airport in “break-bulk” form (i.e., leaving them unpalletized such that they can fit through the machines used to scan checked luggage) if they want those packages to travel on a passenger plane – otherwise, the shippers may send them by an all-cargo plane; and

    2.  Issue an order immediately that requires maritime cargo shippers to ensure that all containers are scanned and sealed in the port of origin so that cargo containers that are as large as a house do not end up in the heart of our port cities before anyone attempts to scan them to determine whether or not they contain weapons of mass destruction.

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report “Aviation Security:  Federal Action Needed to Strengthen Domestic Air Cargo Security”, the Federal Aviation Administration has determined that up to 60 percent of the cargo transported by passenger air carriers is made up of break bulk items. The GAO report notes that this break bulk cargo can be screened using the standard Explosive Detection System (EDS) machines currently utilized to screen checked passenger baggage.  Specifically, GAO reported that TSA officials “stated that preliminary data suggest that EDS technology is well suited to inspect break bulk cargo under a range of environmental and climactic conditions.”[1]

In my view, just as passengers are required to present themselves at security checkpoints in a manner suitable for scanning – i.e., without liquids in their carry-on luggage, with their shoes off, with their laptops opened – shippers likewise should be required to present their goods in a manner that can be effectively scanned using current technology.  If passengers are forced to make adaptations to accommodate the available technology, so should shippers.  Although some limitations currently exist, we should immediately require that all cargo being placed on passenger planes should arrive at the airport in a form that is able to be physically screened using EDS machines currently used for checked bags.  If boxes are too large or shippers choose not to package cargo in such a way as to fit in the EDS machines, then that cargo should be sent via an all-cargo carrier.  The current double standard is as unfair as it is dangerous.

Moreover, the U.S. is dangerously vulnerable to a nuclear attack triggered by an improvised nuclear device shipped in one of the 11 million cargo containers that arrive at our ports every year.  Alarmingly, only about 1% of all such containers are currently scanned for radiation prior to leaving foreign ports. I offered an amendment to the Safe Ports Act to require that 100% of maritime cargo be scanned using both radiation and density detection technology prior to being loaded onto ships headed for the United States. Unfortunately, my amendment was defeated largely along party lines. 

As you know, the technology to conduct such scans not only exists, but was used as part of a demonstration project to scan all containers leaving the busy port of Hong Kong without impeding commerce. After you visited the port earlier this year, you said at a press conference that “I do think it's wise to use the kind of technology I saw in Hong Kong” to scan maritime cargo.  Although it has been almost 5 months since your visit, the Department has yet to announce any requirement to use this sort of technology to ensure that cargo headed for the U.S. does not contain nuclear materials that could be used to hide or construct an improvised nuclear device or other weapon of mass destruction.   I urge you to immediately order a timetable to mandate this scanning requirement so that within the year, no container arrives in an American port before it has been scanned and sealed.

I appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.  

         Sincerely,

         Edward Markey