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Port IDs System Still Adrift: The Federal Plan, Given Added Urgency By the UAE Deal, is Years Late

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 February 2006, 03:02 CST

By Jennifer Lin, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Feb. 28--The concept was a simple, logical starting point for securing the nation's ports: a national identity card for workers on the waterfront.

Each card would hold a person's fingerprint or iris image. And everyone from longshoremen to truckers making deliveries would be vetted against a terrorist watch list.

"It was almost like magic, everything we wanted," said Joseph Balzano, executive director of the South Jersey Port Corp.

Then the Homeland Security Department took over the project.

More than four years after 9/11, the maritime industry is still waiting for the federal government to deliver on its promise of an identity card for port workers.

The Homeland Security Department's Transportation Security Administration has spent $70 million on developing a card, including $24 million on a prototype project that cost twice what was planned.

Two years behind schedule, the TSA does not have a vendor for rolling out the card nationally, and it estimates that a system won't be in place across the country until the spring of 2007 -- or maybe the summer.

Anger is rising in the maritime trade.

Congress, which in 2002 mandated an identity card for maritime workers, is impatient, too. The Government Accountability Office, responding to complaints from lawmakers, is launching a second audit of the stalled program.

"I can unequivocally say there is a huge sense of frustration, and that's not just the Delaware River ports. It's throughout the United States," said Lisa Himber, vice president of the Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay, an industry group.

The status of the card -- officially called a transportation worker identification credential -- has taken on more urgency since an Arab company's investment in a U.S. port operator.

Many lawmakers were outraged when the Bush administration allowed a state-run company from the United Arab Emirates to invest in a company managing facilities at six U.S. ports, including a terminal in Philadelphia. President Bush said the deal would not compromise homeland security.

U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, a South Jersey Republican who heads a subcommittee overseeing the Coast Guard and maritime transportation, said the Transportation Security Administration had been "woefully delinquent" in delivering the nationwide card.

"There's no acceptable reason for allowing this to be delayed for this amount of time," he said.

Himber said turnover in the TSA and the Homeland Security Department had plagued the project.

"There's been a revolving door," she said. "Every time a new person comes in, you have to rebrief them."

The TSA will spend the next year establishing rules for issuing credentials, spokesman Darrin Kayser said.

"It has gone slower than we had hoped, but we want to make sure we're doing it right," he said.

The nation's 360 seaports are seen as vulnerable to terrorists and difficult to secure.

The Coast Guard is the top cop on the beat, with the task of securing waterways and knowing about every commercial vessel going in and out. Coast Guard officers have the authority to board ships viewed as security risks -- such as tankers carrying oil or hazardous materials -- and escort them into port.

A sister agency in the Homeland Security Department -- Customs and Border Protection -- inspects container cargo once a ship is unloaded.

The third partner in port security are operators of terminals, including companies such as Sunoco and the managers of public terminals such as the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia.

The big concern for operators is knowing who is entering their terminals, which is where the transportation worker identification credential would help. Because a card would contain biometric information like a fingerprint, an infiltrator could not use someone's card to gain access to a secure facility such as a chemical terminal.

"I could be assured that people entering my facility have had either a criminal background check or been vetted against a terrorist checklist," said William Boles, head of security for the Port of Wilmington.

The pilot program issued credentials to 4,000 people in six states, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. But the government's financial support for that pilot project is winding down, which will leave port operators in a bind.

The Wilmington port, for instance, processed about 1,600 people, including employees, tenants and customers. The port has had a TSA agent on site to enroll participants, process cards, and initiate background checks. But that support and assistance will end in 30 to 60 days.

Until the national program kicks in, the Wilmington port will need to figure out what to do with new workers or suppliers who need cards.

"We could do our own credential, but it wouldn't work elsewhere," Boles said, "and we would not be able to do the same type of background check."

At the port in Camden, the TSA originally had several people to enroll participants, then one agent, then no one. At one point, too, all the data on applicants were accidentally deleted, said Jay Jones, assistant to the port's director.

Frustrated and disappointed, the Camden port has installed its own ID system.

"It started out with a bang, then fizzled out," said Balzano, the South Jersey port director. "It started going downhill and downhill, and now it's just disappeared."

ONLINE EXTRA

From the ports deal to

the latest on abortion, see national political analyst Dick Polman's new blog

at http://go.philly.com/polman

Contact staff writer Jennifer Lin at 215-854-5659 or jlin@phillynews.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

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