Security Briefing - June 20 - June 26
The Latest Headlines:
- Florida Nets $19.7M for Port Security
- No Transport Plan Yet for Yucca Shipments
- S.C. Plutonium Shipments Underway, Perhaps
- U.S. to Place Inspectors in Rotterdam
- Reconsider Security Mandates, Airline Official Urges
- No Transport Plan Yet for Yucca Shipments
Florida Nets $19.7M for Port Security
Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday Florida lobbyist organizations won $19.7 million, or about 20%, of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s total federal funds for port security programs, the Sun-Sentinel reported.Port security is important to trucks that pick up and deliver cargo at U.S. ports, especially after recent concerns of international terrorist smuggling.
The funds will be used to improve fencing and video surveillance, provide better equipment to search incoming cargo and pay for automated access systems, the story said.
Ports in California, New York and New Jersey received the most aid after Florida. Transport Topics
No Transport Plan Yet for Yucca Shipments
The U.S. Department of Energy is at least a year away from providing any detail on how shipments of nuclear waste will get to the proposed Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.Among the details being discussed is whether trucks or trains will be used to haul the deadly cargo, AP said.
The Senate may soon remove the final hurdle to opening the facility that is just 90 miles from Las Vegas, AP reported. President Bush has lobbied for the Energy De-partment to open the site despite the objections of many Nevada state officials.
The government has spent nearly $7 billion studying the Yucca Mountain project, but only $200 million of that has gone into figuring out how to get wastes to the site from around the country, AP said. Transport Topics
S.C. Plutonium Shipments Underway, Perhaps
Moving under a veil of secrecy, more than six tons of weapons-grade plutonium will soon begin, or has already begun, its journey from Colorado to South Carolina, USA Today reported Tuesday.Security around the shipments is so tight that no one knows even whether trucks hauling the deadly material have left their former home in Rocky Flats, Colo. yet.
The trucks will travel no faster than 55 miles per hour, won’t travel in bad weather and will only stop at government approved facilities, the paper said.
The Department of Energy did say that the material would be shipped in metal and powdered form in fireproof containers, the paper reported.
Trucks will haul the material 1,500 miles from Colorado to the Savannah River Site in Jackson, S.C. over the next 18 months. Transport Topics
U.S. to Place Inspectors in Rotterdam
In its ever-widening effort to defend the United States from terrorist attack, the U.S. Customs Service met Tuesday with Dutch officials to sign an agreement putting U.S. inspectors in Rotterdam, the Wall Street Journal reported.Trucking has a strong interest in port security.
Part of the U.S. plan to combat terrorism is to place American inspectors at foreign ports to check cargo before it leaves for the United States.
In a speech at the Port of Elizabeth, N.J., President Bush said Monday that such initiatives will make the nation’s ports safer, the Journal reported.
Rotterdam is the No. 5 port in the world in terms of shipping goods to the United States, the Journal said. Similar inspection agreements are expected to be finalized with Belgium and France. Eventually, Customs wants to put U.S. inspectors at the top 20 ports shipping to the United States. Transport Topics
Reconsider Security Mandates, Airline Official Urges
Cargo and screening measures required by law at airports will cause major delays without improving security, Gordon Bethune, chairman and chief executive officer of Continental Airlines, said in New York Wednesday.Airport delays could disrupt service by trucks picking up and delivering cargo.
Bethune said luggage screening systems, required by law to be in place Dec. 31, 2002, have a 20 to 30% inaccuracy rate, alerting screeners that nearly one out of every five bags has a bomb.
The Transportation Security Administration be allowed to use its own judgment on the best methods to screen passenger and checked baggage, he said, and to create its own deadlines. Transport Topics
(Click here for full press release.)
