Mr. Chairman, I rise in very tepid support of this bill. It is a very nice bill. It has some nice provisions. None of it matters very much if we do not at least electronically scan every container before it is put on a ship bound for the United States. All it would take is one atomic bomb, one radiological bomb, to make 9/11 look like a fire cracker, to kill hundreds of thousands of people, to cost hundreds of billions of dollars, to bring commerce to a total halt for weeks or months while every ship, every container is not scanned, but searched, inspected by hand before they are allowed to proceed into this country, because that is what will happen if there is, God forbid, a disaster in this country.
We have no protection against that now. Even with this bill, we depend on risk-based analysis, on paper as Mr. Markey said, to defend us. What the motion to recommit does is to say that no container can be put on a ship bound for the United States until it is scanned for radiation and for density, until the result of that scan is transmitted electronically in real-time to American inspectors in the United States, and until a tamper-proof seal that will tell us whether that container has been tampered with after it is scanned is put on that container.
We are told this is not feasible. Mr. King says the technology does not exist. But it is done in Hong Kong today. It is done in Hong Kong today. The two biggest terminals in Hong Kong have this. Of course, nobody bothers reading the scans because the Department of Homeland Security cannot be bothered. They are on a hard drive in Hong Kong.
It is relatively cheap, $6.50 per container, 10 seconds per container, no delay. But the DHS has no urgency. Mr. Gingrey, a Republican of Georgia at the Rules Committee, said that he had a company in his district that makes those tamper-proof seals that can talk to the global positioning satellite; but he cannot get DHS to talk to them, they are not interested.
The motion to recommit we are told is irresponsible and partisan. It is, in fact, word for word identical as the amendment that was agreed to by the chairman of the Transportation Committee and adopted unanimously by a bipartisan vote in the Transportation Committee. But suddenly when it comes to the floor, it is a partisan amendment.
The Republicans on the Transportation Committee understood the necessity for protecting our homeland.
The Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee apparently do not, nor does the Republican leadership, because they will not agree to this obvious thing to do that everyone, bipartisan, on the Transportation Committee agreed to do.
Mr. Chairman, the main risk comes from the so-called low-risk containers, not the high-risk containers. Wal-Mart ships a shipment of sneakers from a factory in Indonesia. And on the truck on the way to the port, the truck driver goes to lunch. And while he is at lunch, someone takes out a package of sneakers and puts in an atomic bomb. The bill of lading is fine. It is a reliable company. It is low-risk, and there is an atomic bomb on that container, and no one sees it because that container is not scanned.
Maybe it is scanned under this bill in Boston or in Los Angeles. It is too late to look at it in Los Angeles if there is an atomic bomb on board.
Mr. Chairman, this motion to recommit, which I hope Members will vote for on the merits, not vote party line against it because it is a procedural motion or some such nonsense, makes this a worthy bill, and makes this a bill that will really protect Americans.
Without the motion to recommit, despite what Mr. King says, this bill does a number of things that are nice, but does nothing really to protect the United States.