Congress nixes aircargo screening deadline

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Lawmakers approved the final version of the $29.4 billion funding bill for the new Department of Homeland Security Wednesday, but on a party-line vote Republicans rejected an amendment imposing a deadline for the screening of air cargo, which many see as a big hole in the nation's aviation security.

"I'm very disappointed," Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., told United Press International in an interview, and Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said the decision "left the backdoor in aviation security wide open."

Sabo's amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill would have required the department to produce a plan for screening all cargo carried on passenger planes by January 2004, and to have implemented it by the following January.

Instead, House and Senate lawmakers -- considering the bill in conference -- settled on language that directed the department to develop new technology for screening and move forward with its implementation "at the earliest date possible."

"In the meantime," said conference Co-chair Hal Rogers, R-Ky., "we'll just have to do the best with what we've got."

At present no air cargo is screened, although packages weighing more than 16 ounces are not shipped on passenger planes, unless they come from a "known shipper," a list of reputable companies maintained by the Transportation Security Administration.

Twenty-two percent of all air cargo is carried on passenger planes, according to Congress' investigative arm, the General Accounting Office.

Critics say that it is too easy for companies to get on the "known shipper" list, and that it is invidious to allow unscreened packages from other firms on cargo planes.

"Apparently they don't care if (the) pilots (of cargo planes) are killed," said one Democratic congressional staffer.

Homeland security experts say that -- with al-Qaida apparently still determined to strike U.S. aviation targets -- it is all too conceivable that terrorists might try to put a bomb aboard an airliner by shipping it.

Rogers defended the language in the bill, saying it was "as point blank and straightforward and simple" as it could possibly be.

But Sabo argued that the track record of the Department of Homeland Security showed that it "seems to need deadlines," and that without a timetable imposed there was a danger that the issue -- which he called "a major vulnerability" -- would end up "low on their priority list."

"At times I find (leadership) lacking" in the department, he said.

Rogers pointed out that there was $85 million for air cargo security in the bill -- $30 million to enhance the "known shipper" program and $55 million for research into new screening technology.

Sabo said that the debate -- and the language eventually agreed -- "sent a strong message to the department that Congress wants this dealt with dispatch and in an aggressive manner."