WASHINGTON—A key provision of the “Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act,” regarding ocean container inspections is an “indecipherable riddle,” says Christopher Koch President & CEO World Shipping Council. In testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism in Washington earlier this week, he expressed the concerns shared by U.S. West Coast shippers.

“Many foreign governments are obviously and justifiably concerned about the implications and meaning of this new U.S. law,” said Koch. “We expect that they will continue to inform the U.S. government of their concerns, including their view that this statutory provision expects foreign governments to undertake measures for their exports that the U.S. government has no intention to undertake for its exports.

Pacific Coast Council president, Maggie Smith, echoed this sentiment and noted that her constituents in the freight forwarding community are “continuing to track the issue with great interest.”

“We’ll be making another trip to Capitol Hill early next year to see what we can do about addressing this legislation,” she said. “Our association has long supported the ongoing efforts made by DHS (Department of Homeland Security), but not when it becomes overly intrusive.”

Indeed, the PCC invited U.S. Customs Commissioner Ralph Basham, to speak at their annual “Western Cargo Conference” (WESCCON) last month in Boulder, Colorado, in an effort to gain a better understanding of the issue. Bonner acknowledged that a variety of security initiatives—including C-TPAT—are already being widely adopted and that his agency wants to work more closely with the trade community to achieve the twin goals of security and facilitation.

Koch’s words to the policy makers were far more cautionary, however.

“If the Congress intends to pursue any kind of meaningful dialogue or progress on determining what would need to be addressed in order to pursue this statute’s stated vision of 100 percent container screening at foreign ports, then we respectfully submit that it should begin to consider and address a number of critical questions,” he said.

These include: how is scanning defined?; who will be in charge?; and how will it be enforced?

“The law fails to address whether or when the data from the scanning equipment is transmitted to the U.S. government and at whose cost,” he added.  There are many complexities and costs involved in addressing these issues.”