TSA will not meet air cargo screening deadline

By Tom Fontaine

PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW

The Transportation Security Administration will miss an Aug. 1 deadline Congress set to screen all cargo on passenger planes flying in and to the United States for explosives and other threats, an agency official says.

Pittsburgh International Airport officials, however, say all cargo shipped to and from the Findlay airport has been screened for two years.

"That doesn't come as any surprise," Art Kosatka, CEO of the aviation-security consulting firm Transecure Inc., said about TSA expecting to miss the looming deadline.

The 9/11 Commission Act that Congress passed three years ago required Homeland Security, which oversees TSA, to ensure the screening of cargo carried in the bellies of passenger planes by Aug. 1, 2010.

The act set goals working up to that point, including requiring screening of all cargo on narrow-body planes flying domestically by October 2008. Narrow-bodies carry a quarter of the more than 7 billion pounds of cargo shipped annually on U.S. airlines, including all airline cargo to and from Pittsburgh International. Wide-bodies carry the rest of the cargo, much of it on large, pre-packaged pallets or in sealed containers that take longer to screen because they must be disassembled so individual items can be inspected and then repackaged.

TSA says it won't come close to screening all cargo flown into the United States from foreign countries, and a high-ranking official with a government watchdog agency questions TSA's ability to screen all cargo transported within the country.

"It is questionable, based on reported screening rates, whether 100 percent of (domestic) cargo will be screened by August without impeding the flow of commerce," said Steve Lord, director of homeland security and justice issues for the Government Accountability Office. He said screening all large, pre-packaged shipments without creating delays will pose the biggest challenge.

Potential delays would "sort of defeat the purpose of shipping by air," Kosatka said.

Regarding cargo from foreign countries, Lord said: "Challenges exist, in part related to TSA's limited ability to regulate foreign entities."

TSA spokesman Jim Fotenos conceded all cargo coming from foreign countries won't be screened by the deadline, but said all cargo leaving U.S. airports for domestic or foreign destinations will be.

Currently, 62 percent of inbound foreign cargo is screened, Fotenos said. "We've made significant progress, and inbound air cargo is more secure now than it's ever been," he said.

Satish Jindel, president of the Sewickley-based SJ Consulting Group, agreed. "To go from 10 percent to more than 60 percent in three years, that is phenomenal," Jindel said.

Fotenos said the agency continues to work with aviation officials in almost 100 foreign countries to boost the screening percentage, but he couldn't say when all cargo might be screened.

To get there, he said, TSA certified more than 800 private facilities operated by shippers, manufacturers, third-party logistics companies and freight forwarders to prescreen cargo before it gets to airports, reducing potential delays.

"We have invested in the latest TSA-approved technology," said Karen Avestruz, director of cargo security with Worldwide Flight Services, which has a 47,000-square-foot facility at Pittsburgh International that was certified last year to prescreen air cargo for shippers. It has handled and screened cargo for airlines for years.

Kosatka expects complications. "You're certainly going to see a scramble as we approach the date," he said.