Jerry Nadler: “I agree that this is, generally, a good bill. The distinguished chairman talked about containers being searched in…”

“I agree that this is, generally, a good bill. The distinguished chairman talked about containers being searched in Newark and Los Angeles. He said the Container Security Initiative will target high-threat cargo before it reaches U.S. shores. Mr. Speaker, it only takes one weapon of mass destruction, in one container, to destroy an American city. This country will not be safe until every container is searched and sealed and certified by an American inspection team before it is put on a ship in a foreign port. This country will not be safe until no container can be put on that ship before it is searched and sealed by the American team in the foreign port, every container, not just the high-threat ones. The terrorists know we will inspect the high-threat containers; so they will put the bomb in the low-threat container. We cannot depend on the good guys, that we know who the good guys are who are, long-time shippers to us. How do we know that some terrorist is not an employee of a good-guy shipper? We must spend the 6 or 7 or $8 billion a year that it will take to put an American inspection team to search every container before it is sent to our shore and the additional money to electronically go around every ship 100 miles off our shore before it is allowed into American territory or waters to make sure that there is no plutonium or enriched uranium onboard that ship. We can do that scientifically. But until then we will not be safe.”