EC Welcomes Delay of 100% Container Scanning Rule But Continues to Seek Repeal
The effective date of a U.S. law requiring 100% shipping container scanning has been quietly pushed back from July 1, 2012 to 2014, to the great relief of the EU, we've learned. The “Implementing recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007,” which requires every U.S.-bound maritime container to be scanned and reviewed by U.S. customs officers before it's loaded aboard a ship, has proved a political irritant between the EU and U.S., said Lilian Bertin, head of sector, U.S. and Canada, in the European Commission Taxation and Customs Union Directorate's international coordination unit, in an interview Thursday. The EU favors a risk management-based approach, he said. Europe has been lobbying for repeal for five years, he said, but the issue is caught up in a split between the Obama Administration and Congress.
The law is impossible to implement, Bertin said. The EU laid out its concerns in a February 2010 staff working paper that's still valid, he said. The document says the EU “shares the concerns of the United States about the security of the supply chain and is strongly committed to implementing measures enhancing security in line with agreed international standards,” but the 2007 law “may become a new trade barrier.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) didn't comment.
A 2008 EC preliminary impact assessment of 100-percent scanning, sent to the CBP and included in a Department of Homeland Security report to Congress, said putting the system in place in European ports would be too expensive and wouldn't boost global security, the working paper said. Moreover, it would eat up resources allocated to EU security interests, and disrupt trade and transport within the EU and worldwide, it said. The EC backed up its assessment with studies on the expected impact on EU customs, maritime transport and trade that confirmed that the law would bring serious harm, it said.
Among other problems, the scanning technology isn't ready for prime time, Bertin told us. The EU also doubts the security benefits of 100-percent scanning, he said. The process takes time, would force the EU to reorganize procedures and regulations in its ports, and wouldn't necessarily be able to detect threats such as bombs in containers, he said.
Another key problem the paper mentioned is that scarce European financial and human resources would have to be diverted from European security objectives to satisfy U.S. requirements; that authorities might focus excessively on meeting those requirements, leading to a false sense of security; and that the EU would be forced to obey a U.S. law with no reciprocal commitment. “Even on the hypothetical assumption that 100% scanning was positive for US security, it would be extremely difficult to argue the case for European security,” it said.
Beyond that, the philosophy of 100-percent scanning disagrees with the EU's risk-management approach, Bertin said. Europe prefers a policy focused on developing a package of tools to deal with the wide variety of security risks and to address supply chain security from a national standpoint but also as a global and complex challenge,the paper said. That approach should be based on the principle that all exports and imports undergo “comprehensive and effective multi-layered risk management processes” that use a range of methods and technologies commensurate to the risks associated with specific consignments, the paper said. No consignment should go unchecked, it said.
A January 2012 document setting out the U.S. national strategy for global supply chain security appears to signal that the Obama Administration’s thinking is in line with the EU's, Bertin said. The strategy paper calls for the use of risk management principles to identify, assess and prioritize defense efforts.
(See ITT's Online Archives 11090917 for summary of a GAO report saying DHS still has no plan for full implementation of the 100% scanning mandate.)