Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this conference report.

The bill contains several critical homeland security improvements that have been mentioned before. I won't mention them because I want to concentrate on the 100 percent scanning that the gentleman from California opposed.

I have pushed for the 100 percent scanning for almost 5 years. The language in this bill is modeled on the language that I introduced 2 years ago, along with Mr. Oberstar, in the SOS, Sail Only if Scanned Act, which was then supported afterwards by Mr. Markey.

As we just heard, the Republicans have opposed this. The Republican leadership opposed it, and last year, it failed on practically party-line vote. This year, it passed on a practically party-line vote, and I thank Mr. Thompson and I thank our leadership for making sure that this was included in the conference report.

Twelve million containers a year come into our ports. Our risk-based inspection inspects 6 percent of them. That leaves 94 percent of the 12 million containers uninspected, any one of which could have a chemical or nuclear or radiological bomb inside it and we wouldn't know. We must inspect them, or electronically scan them to be precise, before they're put on a ship bound for the United States in the foreign port if we're going to be safe. We can do it.

  
Yes, this wasn't included in the 9/11 Commission report. This bill improves upon the 9/11 Commission report, and I commend the Democratic leadership of this House and of the Senate for doing that.

We are told it's impractical. It is not impractical. The technologies exist for doing it. There are three or four different technologies that exist for doing it. When we were told last year that the tamper-proof seals didn't exist, General Electric had a van across the street from the Rayburn House Office Building showing three different models of the tamper-proof seals that sold for $50, $100, and $150 at the same time.

This is eminently doable and it must be done. A few years ago, I debated Mr. Rogers who said we will inspect the high-risk containers. I said, wonderful, they'll put the bomb in the low-risk container. The fact is there is no such thing as the low-risk container. The most reliable shipper with the best record, all it takes is one driver on his way from the factory to the port to have lunch and someone replaces a television set with a nuclear bomb or vice versa in the container.

This is a great step forward. It will greatly enhance the safety of this country. I urge that we adopt this, and I thank the leadership of this House for their steadfastness in supporting this very essential measure.