DHS redirects scanning to focus on ‘high-risk’ trade corridors; critics warn approach runs afoul of law


The Department of Homeland Security appears to be trying a new approach to container security, one that puts it at odds with a law requiring scanning of all incoming ocean containers.

“The requirement to have 100 percent scanning of containers overseas is not a realistic requirement,” Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff told Traffic World, a sister publication of Shipping Digest. “I think at some point as that deadline approaches, Congress is going to wind up taking a second look at what is realistic.”

Chertoff’s remarks, made after a press conference the day before the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, were in line with ideas he has previously expressed.

Speaking earlier in the month at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit think tank, Chertoff criticized the current requirement as a “20th century command and control approach.” Instead he advocated that regulators team up with businesses.

That approach would be “based on the recognition that most businesses are very keenly aware of their personal incentive to maintain security and to protect their own assets and employees,” he said. “What we have to do is help them do the job they have a natural incentive to carry out themselves.”

Despite the potential for conflict with the law and Congress, the DHS is putting Chertoff’s ideas into action.

In August, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced it would be canceling a test of 100 percent scanning at the Port of Singapore that was scheduled to begin in the second half of 2008. The port, which handled more than 27 million TEUs last year, was one of just six ports scheduled to participate in Phase 1 of the Secure Freight Initiative, the Department of Homeland Security’s feasibility test of 100 percent scanning.

“Instead, CBP and the Government of Singapore will work together to explore alternative approaches toward enhancing container and trade security through risk management and a total supply chain security approach,” Customs said in a statement.

Based on the results of earlier Secure Freight Initiative data, the agency said it would be taking a new approach to scanning “high-risk trade corridors.”

The concept is still being defined by DHS, which is making efforts to “refine a strategic approach,” a spokeswoman for Customs said.

In a report this summer, the DHS said it “will focus future scanning deployments on high-risk trade corridors, which represent the greatest threats to the United States.”

A spokeswoman for Customs said the agency would still “be responsive to the congressional legislation” and is making efforts to “refine a strategic approach.”

But on Capitol Hill, critics, especially Democrats who authored the scanning requirement, find that unacceptable.

“The unilateral decision to ignore 100 percent scanning runs afoul of the act and puts our ports at risk,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote to Chertoff in August.

“By what authority did you determine that you could ignore the congressionally mandated 100 percent cargo screening requirement in favor of a ‘high-risk trade corridor?’” Thompson asked.

A report issued earlier this month by the majority staff of the House committees on Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs also took issue with high-risk trade corridors, claiming that repeated requests for definitions have been ignored.

“This creates lack of clarity for our trading partners,” the report said. “Shippers may choose to avoid ports in high-risk trade corridors if they presume that the scanning will cause delays in movement of their cargo.”

A deviation away from 100 percent scanning could be good news for the business community, however.

Many shippers and others initially balked at the requirement calling for 100 percent of maritime cargo to be scanned at foreign ports before it arrived by 2012.

Opponents said the law, contained in broader legislation based on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, would affect roughly $500 billion in annual American commerce and could slow each TEU down by as much as 5.5 hours.

“We’ve always and constantly expressed great concern over 100 percent scanning and certainly we have not been alone in that,” said Peter Gatti, executive vice president of the National Industrial Transportation League.

And many supporters think it can be done in a way that complies with the law, which allows for an extension of the 2012 deadline for factors that include negative impact on trade capacity and flow of cargo.

“I’d leave it up to departmental lawyers to argue with Congress about what the law says,” said Chris Koch, president of the World Shipping Council. “There is wiggle room in the law.”