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US lawmakers are set to embark on a rethink of the controversial 100 percent rule, which requires all US-bound cargo containers loaded onto ships to be scanned for nuclear materials before they leave their port of departure, Europolitics reported.
There is considerable pressure to amend or even scrap the rule because of the enormous costs that fully implementing it would entail and because of doubts over whether it really is an effective way to prevent a nuclear bomb being smuggled into the US, which is its core goal.
EU officials are tentatively confident that the discussion is moving in a positive direction but are remaining vigilant, keenly aware it will be difficult politically for the US Congress to formally repeal this statutory requirement, enacted in 2007 as part of the US' response to the 11 September 2001 attacks.
The rule has long been a thorn in the side of the EU, which has persistently warned it will cripple trade without enhancing security.
US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a US Senate hearing, in December 2009, that she intended to extend the implementation deadline from July 2012 to July 2014, which the 2007 law grants her the authority to do.
She said efforts to implement the rule in foreign ports had "encountered a number of serious challenges". Many ports would have to be completely redesigned to meet the requirement; no technology had been developed yet that enables suspicious anomalies to be automatically detected; and installing the equipment would cost US$8 million per lane, with 2,100 lanes potentially needed.
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent watchdog, recently published a report highlighting the failure by US Customs officials to reach the 100 percent target in any foreign port where it has tried to introduce the rule.
In larger ports, the scanning rate has not yet risen above five percent, the GAO found. While the US administration has said it would initially focus on ports deemed high-risk, the 2007 law covers all ports from which containers are shipped to the US.
The GAO urged the administration do an in-depth cost and feasibility analysis, suggesting this would help it make a case to Congress to amend the mandate. The European Commission is, meanwhile, planning to publish its own analysis on how much it would cost to introduce in Europe. The GAO noted that some foreign governments were threatening to introduce a reciprocal requirement on US ports should the US proceed with implementing it. (Cargo News)
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