Lawmakers briefed on test run of cargo-handling tools

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is reviewing applications for a pilot program that will help cargo handlers implement technologies to protect sea containers from terrorist threats, several port security experts told lawmakers recently.

Transportation officials have said they expect to allocate about $28 million in grants later this year for Operation Safe Commerce (OSC), a government and industry partnership that identifies cargo "supply chain" vulnerabilities along particular trade routes.

"Operation Safe Commerce is ... dedicated to finding methods and technologies to protect commercial shipments from threats of terrorist attack, illegal immigration and other contraband while minimizing the economic impact upon the vital transportation system," Asa Hutchinson, the Homeland Security Department's undersecretary for border and transportation security, said during a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing last week.

The program aims to develop effective methods for "verifying, securing, monitoring and sharing information" about cargo as it travels from foreign ports to the United States, Richard Larrabee, director of port commerce for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee earlier this month. "Private companies have volunteered to join with representatives from key federal, state and local agencies to construct prototypes of secure international supply chains."

TSA's current OSC projects focus on the ports of New York and New Jersey, Los Angeles and Long Beach in California, and Seattle and Tacoma in Washington, which handle about 70 percent of the nation's cargo movement, according to Hutchinson.

But OSC actually was launched about a year ago in northern New England, with grant money from the Defense Department. The Operation Safe Commerce-Northeast (OSC-NE) project included officials from Vermont and New Hampshire, as well as from the Customs Service, Coast Guard, and U.S. attorney's office, according to Peter Hall, the U.S. attorney for Vermont.

"To date, the OSC-NE project is the only one of its kind that has provided a study of an existing supply chain and certain technical tests," Hall told the Governmental Affairs Committee. That study, conducted last June, used global positioning systems and other technologies to monitor a shipment from a port in Slovakia to a plant in New Hampshire.

"An important lesson learned ... is that a comprehensive answer cannot be provided by technology alone," he said.

Hall said OSC initiatives complement the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism project, which gives certain importers a "fast lane" into the United States if they follow certain security guidelines, and the Container Security Initiative, which enables customs agents stationed in foreign ports to use surveillance equipment to screen U.S.-bound cargo containers.

But Hall said effective cargo security "from point of origin to point of destination" requires participation from more entities than those who currently participate in those two programs.

"Container-handling standards and technological solutions must ultimately affect manufacturers, shippers, freight handlers, terminal operations, shipping lines, warehouse operators and the like, as well as government regulatory agencies," he said.