A U.S. lawmaker yesterday asked President George W. Bush to reaffirm a congressional requirement that all U.S.-bound shipping containers be scanned for radioactive materials by 2012 (see GSN, Oct. 21).
Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass.) sent the letter after hearing Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff criticize the standards and say that his department would not meet the deadline.
"It's called Risk Management 101," Chertoff said earlier this month, as reported by USA Today. "I'm not terribly concerned someone's going to build a nuclear bomb in England" and smuggle it into the United States. "But I might be more concerned about South Asia."
In his letter, Markey wrote, "Secretary Chertoff's comments suggest a determination to end the department's efforts to implement the 100 percent scanning mandate in favor of an alternate risk-based approach, rather than extend the deadline for meeting the statutory requirement while still working to fulfill it."
Markey asked to Bush to clarify the administration policy (Markey release I, Oct. 30).
"When nuclear terrorism remains a viable threat, we should be doing everything possible to combat it. Of course it takes time to fully implement this mandate -- that's why we set a five-year deadline," Markey said in a press release. "In fact, the law is flexible and allows the department to extend the deadline under certain conditions" (Markey release II, Oct. 30).