27 May 2005

C-TPAT, CSI need improvement: Bonner

The following article is excerpted from the 26 May 2005 edition of “The Journal of Commerce”.

Lawmakers and witnesses agreed that Customs and Border Protection's efforts to promote international supply-chain security were imperfect, but disagreed on the severity of security gaps … at a hearing before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., chairman of the subcommittee, called the hearing to release results of a two-year study of the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism and the Container Security Initiative by the Government Accountability Office.

The congressional watchdog agency found that a C-TPAT importer can benefit from fewer security inspections for its cargo. But it also found that only 11 percent of traders approved for the program had been vetted by Customs, increasing the likelihood that terrorists could use the importer's supply chain to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction into the U.S….

Commissioner Robert C. Bonner … agree[d] that C-TPAT and CSI needed continual improvement.

"These initiatives are working, and America is safer because of them," Bonner said. With changes in C-TPAT that Customs announced two months ago, Customs has been less generous with reduced inspections for C-TPAT importers that have been certified, but not validated.

Bonner also noted that while some 4,500 shippers, carriers and intermediaries have been C-TPAT-certified, Customs had rejected some 1,000 security plans. He also said that C-TPAT participants that do not follow through with their security commitments will be dropped from the program.

Richard Stana, GAO director of homeland security and justice, said that the C-TPAT validation process was flawed, that Customs' security reviews lacked rigor or adequate methodology.

GAO also found that CSI was not working perfectly in all locations, and that at ports participating in CSI … only 17.5 percent of containers deemed "high-risk" by the United States were inspected, far short of the program's stated goal of 100 percent.

While CSI is working well at some ports, in others, the host country has failed to follow through with a container inspection after it has been targeted by U.S. Customs inspectors. Stana said Customs also lacked thorough record-keeping to verify that suspect containers were scanned or inspected.

Stephen E. Flynn, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that Customs should use bonded third-party inspectors to validate security in foreign locations. The Coast Guard, for example, uses classification societies to ensure that ships meet international safety standards.

Stewart Verdery, former official with the Department of Homeland Security, now a consultant, said that the time may have come to formalize some portions of C-TPAT as government regulation….