GovernmentExecutive.com

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is calling on the U.S. Customs Service to immediately step up its efforts to increase port safety, in light of an ABC News crew's recent success in smuggling uranium into New York Harbor for a news report.

"If al Qaeda wasn't sure that a nuclear device could get into the United States before last night, they are now," Schumer said.

Schumer called on the Senate to accept his amendment to the homeland security bill. It would make nuclear detection at ports simpler. And he urged Congress to pass the port security bill now in a staff-level conference.

The port security bill is bogged down over a user-fee proposal generated by the Senate. The House has branded it a "tax."

"We can have a bill in the next few days if the Senate rescinds the tax proposal," said a spokesman for House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla.

But the Senate is refusing to budge on the issue.

"We've tried to be as reasonable as we could," Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., said Thursday. "We've given them a chance to put in what they want."

ABC News reported Wednesday that a crew toting a suitcase containing 15 pounds of depleted uranium - which potentially could be used to manufacture a so-called dirty bomb - was able to travel around the world, including through New York Harbor.