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TSA clarifies position on 100% screening for inbound air cargo

November 7, 2008
World Trade\Interactive

The Transportation Security Administration recently clarified its position on 100 percent screening of cargo transported on passenger planes. The TSA is working to comply with a statutory requirement that it develop a system that will screen 50 percent of all such cargo by February 2009 and 100 percent by August 2010.

In an Oct. 30 letter to Rep. Ed Markey, chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection, TSA head Kip Hawley said the agency acknowledges that under the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act the screening system applies to all cargo transported on passenger aircraft, including planes inbound to the U.S. from another country. Markey and other committee members had alleged in a July 31 letter to Hawley that during a hearing before the committee a TSA official had said this system would only apply to shipments originating inside the U.S. The lawmakers’ letter said that position is “inconsistent with the plain language of the law and … contrary to congressional intent.”

However, Hawley said, the law also states that the cargo screening system must provide a level of security commensurate with the level of security for the screening of passenger checked baggage. Hawley pointed out that the security regimen for checked baggage originating in the U.S. differs markedly from the security regimen for flights originating in foreign countries, and that pursuant to the statutory language the security regimen for inbound cargo on passenger aircraft from a foreign country may therefore vary from the security regimen for cargo on passenger aircraft within or from the U.S. Congress gave the TSA the discretion to determine how the requisite level of air cargo security can be achieved, Hawley said, and the agency is working to do just that. For example, it recently concluded an agreement with the European Union under which the two sides will work toward the adoption of common security practices for air cargo carried on passenger aircraft. “It remains our intention,” he concluded, “to meet the February 2009 requirement, including international inbound, of screening 50 percent of air cargo carried on passenger aircraft.”