Chuck Schumer: “I hope my colleagues will listen to this because maybe we can get this accepted without a vote. As many in the Chamber…”

“I hope my colleagues will listen to this because maybe we can get this accepted without a vote. As many in the Chamber know, as does certainly the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Stevens, to me one of the greatest holes, one of the greatest weaknesses we face as we try to defend our homeland is we are not doing enough to prevent the smuggling of a nuclear weapon into this country. Our greatest nightmare would be that some evil group of people get ahold of a nuclear weapon and put it in a container in a ship and send it to our shores. The devastation that would ensue would be enormous. Unfortunately, there is very little to prevent that from happening now. We are trying to tighten our general cargo system, but it is not enough in terms of preventing a nuclear weapon from coming into this country. I sought experts shortly after 9/11 and said, How do we prevent this from happening? They said, There is good news and bad news. The good news is nuclear devices are detectable because they emit something called gamma rays, which pass through everything. The bad news is the only practical detection devices right now are Geiger counters and the Geiger counter has to be held 2 or 3 feet from the object. You can't go on every container and put a Geiger counter near each crate. It will bring commerce to a standstill. But, they said, the cyclotrons at Brookhaven National Lab and Argonne, our national energy labs, detect radiation 60, 70, 80 feet away.…”