Industry Leaders Provide to Congress Recommendations to Secure Air Cargo

Mullen said that once ACAS moves past the pilot, penalties should be imposed only in cases of gross negligence or willful circumvention of rules, not for timeliness or accuracy of information, adding that overall compliance levels should be a key factor in any penalty scheme developed. Further, the existing data required for ACAS is sufficient to identify risky shipments, he said in testimony. “Mandating additional transport data such as master airway bill routings or flight numbers, full automated manifest system information, harmonized tariff system (HTS) numbers or any other commercial data as part of the advanced security filing not only fails to significantly improve targeting, but would also challenge the operational feasibility to provide data in a timely manner,” Mullen said. Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., recently indicated he intends to consider House-approved legislation that would require DHS within 180 days of enactment to fully implement ACAS (see 1707250030 and 1707210033).

Future advance cargo data initiatives should specify the last point of departure before entering the U.S. as the deadline for submitting information, as “any other deadline” would be too complex, in part because shipment routing often isn’t known at origin, he said. Shipment-specific data can sufficiently determine potential threats, and shipper-based approaches often aren’t feasible, partly because of the timeliness of information and because shipments are already singled out for screening prior to shipper determinations, Mullen said. ACAS should stay limited to security risk assessment, and steer clear of entering the regulatory risk assessment realm, he said. Interdicting intellectual property rights-infringing goods and illegal drugs, and other trade functions should be a separate CBP responsibility for when cargo arrives in the U.S., Mullen said. “Any attempt to expand the ACAS scope to achieve the simultaneous completion of both security and regulatory risk assessments pre-departure would undermine achieving the primary goal of protecting the supply chain against terrorist attacks.”

Subcommittee Chairman John Katko, R-N.Y., said ACAS has been a pilot program “for way too long.” DHS started the ACAS pilot in December 2010 after a tip from Saudi intelligence led U.S. officials to uncover plastic explosives aboard two cargo flights from Yemen bound for the U.S. two months earlier. Congressional Research Service aviation policy specialist Bart Elias in written testimony added that ACAS progress has been “relatively slow,” despite “favorable views of the concept and active industry participation.” He noted that the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, the federal committee established by Congress to advise the TSA administrator on aviation security issues, in 2016 expressed concern the TSA hadn’t dedicated adequate staffing and resources to the project.

Cargo Airline Association President Stephen Alterman during the hearing said that once ACAS progresses past its pilot phase, the Transportation Security Administration’s former air cargo office, which had once staffed “scores of people,” should be revived in TSA’s Office of Security Policy and Industry Engagement. “I’m not sure it needs forty people, but I sure as heck think that what we really need within TSA is a shifting of priorities,” he said. “I really think that we need an Office of Air Cargo Policy that brings together all the disparate people within TSA that work on air cargo so we don’t wind up with different policies and different interpretations of the same policy. That reorganization type of operation would do a tremendous amount to increase the air cargo security.” More work needs to be done to ensure that interagency relationships can produce the intelligence needed to identify suspicious packages, Alterman said, adding that sharing intelligence across government is more important than regulation. “TSA can’t tell us what they don’t know,” he said.

Katko in his opening statement said it is “absolutely paramount” to “do all we can” to protect air cargo, noting that 35 percent of the value of internationally traded goods is carried by air, and that world air cargo traffic is predicted to grow by 4.2 percent per year. “The emergence of ‘e-commerce’ sites like Amazon and eBay has caused a seismic shift in not only how Americans buy goods but also their expectations about how quickly they will receive them,” subcommittee ranking member Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., said in her opening statement. She added that air passenger security considerations shouldn’t come at the expense of focusing on air cargo security. “We need the manufacturers, shippers, freight forwarders, and everyone else involved in the supply chain to engage with Congress and DHS to explain how security decisions are impacting their businesses and what else can be done to address potential vulnerabilities,” Katko said.

Other measures for bomb explosion prevention could involve lightweight bomb-resistant bags that can absorb the energy of an explosion, as well as canines. TSA is evaluating options to utilize third-party canine teams, but “it is premature to say whether this approach may provide a viable means to address cargo screening needs,” Elias said. On the other hand, bomb-resistant bags have been successfully tested in the United Kingdom, he said. The “promising” technology could address the weight concerns surrounding hardened cargo container technology tested and certified in the U.S. more than a decade ago, Elias said.