WASHINGTON — The House Homeland Security Committee defeated a proposal from Democrats on Wednesday that would have required inspection of all U.S.-bound shipping containers, a victory for retailers and importers who lobbied against it.
On a near-party-line vote, with one Republican, Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, breaking ranks, the panel defeated by 18 to 16 the container scanning plan of Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.).
Port and cargo security has become a key issue with the collapse of a deal backed by the Bush administration that would have given a firm owned by the government of Dubai control of terminal operations at six key U.S. ports. Lawmakers have introduced about a dozen port-related bills this year and Democrats have seized on the controversy.
Retailers and wholesalers that imported $89.2 billion in apparel and textiles to the U.S. last year are concerned about the potential for Congressional intervention in global commerce.
Markey’s amendment, which would have required large foreign ports to inspect all U.S.-bound cargo within three years of enactment and smaller foreign ports to comply in five years, triggered heated debate.
Government officials said it was unrealistic and impractical.
Jonathan Gold, vice president of global supply chain policy at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, whose members include Wal-Mart, Target, Sears and Kmart, said RILA was preparing for another battle based on the expectation that Democrats will try again to attach a similar amendment to a port security bill when it comes up for a vote in the full House, possibly as early as next week.
“We are the ones doing this on a daily basis,” Gold said. “We know what works and what doesn’t. We are not against technology, but we want to make sure that whatever technology is put in place actually works and does the job.”
Gold raised the question, as did lawmakers, of whether foreign countries would require reciprocity — that all outbound U.S. containers be scanned before leaving — and stressed such a mandate would hurt U.S. businesses.
“You can’t mandate that foreign terminal operations scan all containers,” he said. “Who would do the inspections? You can’t have U.S. Customs folks based in every port.”
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RILA worked closely in a coalition of business groups, including the American Apparel & Footwear Association, U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles & Apparel and the National Retail Federation, to campaign against the measure. The coalition sent a letter to every member of Congress on the eve of the vote stating the proposed requirements were “unrealistic and could potentially decrease security by forcing containers to sit for extended periods of time, which would then put them at greater risk…but also harms those legitimate businesses who are not able to get their products to the store shelves or inputs to production to the manufacturing facilities.”
Supporters of Markey’s amendment said Customs inspects only 5 percent of all U.S.-bound containers.
“Today, House Republicans turned their backs on the lessons at the heart of the 9/11 tragedy,” Markey said in a statement. “They struck down an amendment which would close a dangerous loophole that remains in our port security.”
The committee sent the SAFE Ports Act to the House for a full vote. If enacted by the House, the law would for the first time establish multiyear funding for security, instead of annual allocations, funding $4 billion for port security over five years.