The battle over 100 percent scanning of U.S.-bound ocean containers is taking another sharp turn in a partisan skirmish over maritime security.
A bill to reauthorize the 2006 SAFE Port Act includes a provision that would suspend the July 2012 deadline for scanning all containers before they board a U.S.-bound vessel. Its sponsors, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., authors of the original SAFE Port Act, filed a similar reauthorization last year, but it died at the end of the congressional session.
A Republican-controlled House built on a Collins-Murray draft to create the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act that President Bush signed into law in December 2006. It provided for Customs and Border Protection to pilot-test the concept of scanning all containers. The agency carried out the tests, but found that what 100 percent scanning was possible at smaller ports, it would not be feasible at large ports.