Watson Coleman: “First, before I begin talking about my amendment, I wish to thank the Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, Senator…”

“First, before I begin talking about my amendment, I wish to thank the Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, Senator Collins, and her cosponsor for the work they have done on port security. The Senator from Washington has been a champion. Although she is not on our committee, she has spent as much time sitting in on these hearings as many committee members. It has been a magnificent display of bipartisanship and a magnificent display of the best in the U.S. Senate. Looking at the issues today, we have serious challenges, and I believe the bill before us does a magnificent job of addressing some of the greatest vulnerabilities our Nation faces. We have vulnerabilities, and our subcommittee did its own work in looking at some of these areas. For about 3 years, we have looked at these issues of trying to bolster America's port security and supply chain security. During the course of that, we identified numerous weaknesses. The subcommittee found at one point in time that only a de minimis number of high-risk containers were actually inspected. It was a very serious problem. The subcommittee found that an overwhelming proportion of C-TPAT companies that Chairman Collins talked about enjoy the benefits without having been inspected, without having the certifications you need to make sure that if you are going to give people the benefit of operating this program, they do it the right way.…”