CBP Struggles for Funding to Fix Infrastructure Bottlenecks at Aging Land Ports of Entry

BALTIMORE -- Funding is limited for modernization of aging CBP facilities at land ports of entry that are having trouble keeping up with today’s increased trade volumes and security requirements, said CBP officials at the East Coast Trade Symposium on Nov. 4. With congressional appropriations in short supply, CBP’s reimbursement and donation pilots won’t be enough to raise the $5 billion necessary to bring CBP’s land ports up to standard.

Many current facilities date back to the 1960s, and are still designed to accommodate the multi-agency approach to border management in place until 2003, said Eugene Schied, assistant commissioner of CBP’s Office of Administration. With a single agency, CBP, now taking on most management of the ports, the outdated design impacts staffing, said Schied. The outdated ports also have problems supporting the technology now required for ports of entry, with some poles that “look like Christmas trees” with license plate readers, radiation scanners, ID card scanners attached, said Todd Owen, who heads CBP’s Office of Field Operations.

Funding to modernize the facilities has come in “fits and starts,” similar to how federal infrastructure funding has played out nationwide, said Schied. Though CBP issued its first awards from its Donation Acceptance Program in July, funding improvements at ports of entry in El Paso, Donna and Pharr, Texas (see 1507270021), the agency is “not going to donate out of this faster than Congress is going to appropriate out of this,” he said. Closing a gap of $5 billion is going to “take a number of different solutions,” he said.

The last time CBP got a “significant influx” of funding for land port infrastructure was with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which funded improvements in Nogales, said Schied. Since then, the Obama administration has ”put forward various proposals,” sometimes related to highway trust fund legislation, but “so far much of it hasn’t gone forward,” he said. Many facilities are owned by the General Services Administration, and should in theory be eligible for the “billions of dollars” in the Federal Buildings Fund, into which CBP pays rent. However, Congress has “for a couple of years” been using the fund to offset the federal debt, closing off use of the money by GSA.

As a result, CBP has been taking an eclectic approach to funding improvements, working with other government agencies, local governments, and using its donation program. A pedestrian crossing at Otay Mesa was recently funded by a private entity, and the customs plaza at the planned Gordie Howe Bridge in Detroit will be funded using toll revenue, said Schied. CBP also has recently reached agreement with the town of Lewiston, New York to modernize the Peace Bridge crossing, he said. “We’re finding where we have another entity that might have leverage to capital, some of these projects can move forward,” said Schied. Where it’s “just a big old GSA project,” especially those that don’t generate a revenue stream, “that’s tough.”