By Emelie Rutherford
The heads of a key Senate panel unveiled a bipartisan port-security bill this week that focuses on protecting small vessels, supply chains, and hazardous cargo.
Still, it remains to be seen if the Senate takes up the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2010 this legislative session. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) announced the legislation Monday.
The bill would extend the authorization through 2014 for the Port Security Grant Program, which is one of the largest federal homeland-security grant efforts. It also would extend to 2015 the requirement that all U.S.-bound cargo containers are scanned by nonintrusive imaging or radiation detection.
The legislation calls for creating protocols for receiving, handling, and transporting six commodities that the Coast Guard dubs Especially Hazardous Cargo that threaten public health.
The measure additionally would set education requirements for recreational operators of small vessels, and create an American Waterway Watch program to monitor suspicious activity on the water.
Rockefeller said the bill he co-sponsored would “put the necessary resources and safeguards in place to keep our transportation networks secure and prosperous.”
It is intended to build upon port-security measures created via the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 and Security and Accountability for Every Port Act of 2006.
The current session of Congress will end in late December, and FY ’10 will begin Oct. 1.