In Transit

Ten months after Sept. 11, Washington is letting the transportation sector protect itself.

This scenario drove Flynn to put on hold his day job as a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations to spearhead a project to secure containers before it is too late. Dubbed Operation Safe Commerce, the project tracks containers from the moment they are packed until they arrive at their final destinations, a trip made by truck, train and container ship. A prototype followed a shipment of light bulbs from Slovakia to Hamburg, Germany, and on to Hillsborough, N.H. The project is trying to find out how and where containers are vulnerable to tampering and to test new technologies to protect them. Flynn wants to expand the effort to containers entering the three biggest U.S. ports-New York-New Jersey, Los Angeles-Long Beach, and Seattle-Tacoma-where a host of shippers, insurance companies, certification firms, and truckers have volunteered to test more complicated shipping routes.

Flynn is revered among those who are paid to worry about port security. His January article in Foreign Affairs , "America the Vulnerable," remains perhaps the best assessment of the security risk posed by containers. But that didn't keep him from getting caught in a bureaucratic tug of war over which agency should have the lead role on port and container security. While federal officials deny any infighting, turf battles held up port security legislation in the House and complicated Flynn's efforts to launch Operation Safe Commerce. The Customs Service, which rolled out its own container security initiatives in January, balked for months at endorsing Flynn's project. "One of the biggest challenges has been providing a sense to many of these local and private players that there is serious federal interest in arriving at a sound solution," he says. "People can see there are clear turf battles being fought between Customs, the Coast Guard, the Maritime Administration, and whatever role the new Transportation Security Administration will have, and that has made it difficult to make the case for [Operation Safe Commerce] when each agency is jockeying for position."

Friction over container security was inevitable. Fourteen agencies have a role in port security, but not one counted it as its top mission before Sept. 11. Before the terrorist attacks, the Coast Guard spent between 1 percent and 2 percent of its resources on port protection. Customs has the lead for container inspection-except for containers carrying hazardous materials, which fall to the Coast Guard under the 1990 Oil Pollution Act. But Customs has no responsibility for containers once they leave port. Because containers travel by ship, trains and truck, they cause jurisdictional problems at the Transportation Department, which houses the Coast Guard and separate agencies devoted to each mode of transport. No single Transportation agency has had responsibility for containers.

In theory, these turf issues should be resolved by the Transportation Security Administration, which was chartered by last year's Aviation and Transportation Security Act to protect all modes of transportation. But the new agency has spent almost all of its energy trying to meet the aviation security deadlines in the bill. Richard Bennis, TSA's director for maritime and land security, wasn't named until March 21. More than two months later, he had a staff of just 11 people. Placing Customs, the Coast Guard, and the TSA under the same roof, as President Bush's proposed Department of Homeland Security would do, might help clarify federal responsibilities, although final details remain to be worked out.

As Washington has struggled to sort out who should do what, an unlikely coalition of industry groups, federal officials in the field and their state and local counterparts, and modal administrations within Transportation has stepped into the breach to protect the nation's shipping, rail and highway corridors. Motivated by necessity, a desire to shape anticipated federal regulations, and in some cases profit, they are creating a security system that, when finished, will look nothing like what we see at airports. And Uncle Sam is just fine with that.

Much of this system should endure no matter what the final shape of the Homeland Security Department. For example, following Sept. 11, the immediate job of securing the nation's transportation infrastructure fell to the Transportation Department's five modal administrations. Safety inspectors checked for security breaches on trucks and trains, contractors performed vulnerability studies of transit centers, and the agencies beefed up training programs. The modal administrations continued this work after Bennis took over maritime and land security at TSA, in some cases running programs that were beyond the reach of the understaffed new agency.

The White House believes that moving TSA to the Homeland Security Department will help these agencies get back to their core missions. The president's proposal for the new department says "the incorporation of TSA into the new department will allow the Department of Transportation to remain focused on its core mandate of ensuring that the nation has a robust and efficient transportation infrastructure." But the modal administrations aren't planning to quit the security business. They have field staff that can perform security inspections, long-standing partnerships with industry, and seem to enjoy being the eyes and ears of TSA. "At the Federal Transit Administration we have not been bashful about pursuing an aggressive [security] program," says Jennifer Dorn, the agency's administrator, who anticipates continuing this program if TSA moves. Bennis agrees. "Instead of being immediate family we would be cousins. But we'll still have the same mission, so the sense I've gotten from everybody in the department is [the relationship] is not going to change," he says.

BY SEA

Operation Safe Commerce, now a TSA program, was born at a meeting of a dozen or so New England police chiefs and their Canadian counterparts. Every few months, for the past 18 years, a group of U.S. and Canadian law enforcement officials has gathered in border towns to discuss cases over coffee and donuts. The chiefs heard Flynn speak in August and invited him to one of their meetings after Sept. 11 to discuss cross-border security. They were intrigued by his idea that security and trade efficiency could go hand-in-hand, especially after the post-Sept. 11 border crackdown that stung state economies throughout the Northeast.

The idea of following a container was hatched at that meeting and refined during follow-up conversations among Flynn; Raymond Gagnon, the U.S. marshal for New Hampshire; and Peter Hall, U.S. district attorney for Vermont. Gagnon took the idea to New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, who connected them with the state economic development office. By November, the office had found the perfect company for the no-frills demonstration test Flynn and Co. had in mind: light bulb manufacturer Osram Sylvania, which regularly ships between factories in Hillsborough, N.H., and Nove Zamky, Slovakia.

What remained was hashing out the specifics of the test, a task that went to engineers with the Volpe Transportation Center, the Transportation Department's in-house research lab in Cambridge, Mass. Their challenge was to make a start at filling the canyon-sized gaps in the government's current knowledge of shipping containers. While Customs gets data on shipments 96 hours before they are supposed to reach the U.S. border, no one knows what happens to containers en route, when they can pass through as many as 28 points before reaching their final destination. During this time they have little more than a cardboard seal to indicate tampering, although experienced Customs inspectors can ferret out all manner of smuggling tricks. Still, Customs only inspects 2 percent of all containers, and the chief tool involved in deciding which 2 percent to look at is the cargo manifest, which often reads: "general merchandise."

The Volpe engineers proposed mapping out all the points where people would interact with the container-in the loading area in Slovakia, on a truck to the port, etc.-and putting a global positioning satellite tracking device in the container to keep tabs on it en route. The result is a detailed picture of vulnerabilities that could be addressed through technology and new shipping standards. At the Port of New York-New Jersey, officials hope to study four to five more complicated shipping routes over the next few months, yielding enough information to craft container security standards that could be made binding by the International Maritime Organization. Noel Cunningham, chief of police at the Port of Los Angeles, thinks up to a quarter of all containers coming into his port could be part of Operation Safe Commerce in three years.

Private firms will take Volpe's place in the larger tests, a must for any permanent container security system since no federal agency has the resources to supervise even a fraction of commercial shipping traffic. For companies, participating in the tests is a way to build a reputation as a safe, secure carrier and to have a hand in crafting the regulations they eventually will have to live under. Ditto for ports.

"I think you'll find part of the reason the people in the ports are attracted to hosting Operation Safe Commerce pilots is they sense this provides them the opportunity to have a voice in a process that they don't see themselves being invited into inside the Beltway" says Flynn. Aside from a handful of Washington-savvy ports such as New York-New Jersey's Port Authority, most of the nation's 362 ports have been isolated from the array of working groups that federal agencies set up to deal with the container security problem. No ports were members of the Transportation Department's Container Working Group, which issued a classified report to the White House Office of Homeland Security in February. But this isn't necessarily Uncle Sam's fault, according to Beth Rooney, security director at the New York-New Jersey Port Authority.

"It's a problem of the ports not coming to the Beltway," she says, noting that the major West Coast ports traditionally have been no-shows at meetings of the Cargo Handling Cooperative Project (CHCP), a committee studying technology for electronic container seals. The port authority is close enough to the action to help combine some of the initiatives. In March, Karen Tobia, the port authority's chief technology officer and vice chair of CHCP, told Flynn about the electronic seal study, and the initiative was linked with Operation Safe Commerce in May. "When CHCP suggests what [technology] we should use for seals, then we'll give them the supply chain to test on," says Rooney.

Rooney would be the first to say that ports need much more federal help to secure their facilities. The August 2000 report of the federal Interagency Commission on Crime and Security at U.S. Seaports makes ports sound like the Wild West: Some allow firearms to be carried freely throughout their facilities, while others lack perimeter fences around cargo-loading areas. Since most ports have narrow profit margins, they are strapped to pay for needed improvements. In Florida, a law enacted in 2000 requires the state's 14 ports to draw up security plans and meet basic security standards. For the Port of Tampa, which is just a few miles from MacDill Air Force Base, the cost of full compliance would be $22 million for more fences, better lighting and more security personnel. The port clears just $6 million in revenue each year. The Port Authority of New York-New Jersey estimates it could spend $60 million in security upgrades.

Federal assistance has been insignificant to date. In mid-April, TSA announced it would award $93.3 million in security grants to ports; when applications closed a month later, the agency had received applications for more than $680 million. The Senate version of the port security bill would provide an additional $390 million in grants over five years, while the House bill earmarks $225 million over three years. The bills were in conference in late June.

Ports are holding off investing in biometrics and new identification cards until TSA issues its credential policy for transportation workers. They are putting off major infrastructure investments until the Coast Guard conducts vulnerability studies of their facilities. Since 1999, the Coast Guard has graded security at five U.S. ports using an exhaustive methodology developed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Continuing to use this approach would take too long given the immediate need for assessments, according to Lt. Scott Anderson, a contracting expert in the Coast Guard's Port Security Directorate. These earlier assessments also were classified, meaning authorities at the five ports-Baltimore, Honolulu, Guam, Charleston, S.C., and Savannah, Ga.-could not see them. Under the Coast Guard's new program, defense contractor TRW will perform studies at 55 key ports over three years and the reports will be shared with ports. "One of the goals of the port vulnerability assessment program is to make it so we can split it apart very easily into classified and nonclassified [sections]," says Anderson.

In the meantime, some ports have launched their own studies. "I didn't want to wait around," says Andrew McGovern, president of the Harbor Safety Committee at the Port of New York-New Jersey and a captain with the Sandy Hook Pilots Association. The committee is writing up a plan that spells out how shipping terminals, ferry operators, and other port tenants should respond to various maritime security conditions. McGovern has had no trouble convincing tenants to take part in the project, particularly since TRW is not scheduled to study the port until next year. "My hope is when they eventually get around to doing us, they will take out what we've done and maybe they will tweak a few things . . . but I don't think anyone in the port community wants to wait a year or two to get something finalized for New York," says McGovern, who adds that the committee's plan could serve as a model for other ports and even for TRW.

In Boston, Coast Guard Captain of the Port Brian Salerno has sent 10 Coasties to the Caribbean to inspect terminals in Trinidad, where liquid natural gas tankers are loaded, and then ride them back to Boston. Since inspectors are already on board, the tankers can skip a lengthy boarding inspection when they arrive at the harbor. It's all part of a Coast Guard project to bolster security of the highly volatile shipments and to better police vessels coming into Boston's port.

Salerno is refining how the Coast Guard uses boarding teams and is trying to educate recreational boaters to stay away from ships under escort. Like most Coast Guard captains of the port, he is doing it with rudimentary technology. Four Coast Guard stations, including New York-New Jersey, are equipped with vessel traffic systems that allow personnel to track commercial ships by radar the way air traffic controllers monitor planes. For everyone else, there is the radio. "If a ship is out there that hasn't signed in [by radio], the only way we'll know it is there is to physically spot it," says Salerno.

In Boston and other ports, the Coast Guard is relying on reservists to staff many of the new port security missions. Salerno has 12 reservists to supplement 45 active duty personnel, enough staff to let him lend inspectors to Customs at times to help screen containers. The situation is similar at the Coast Guard station at New York's Battery Park, where reservists have picked up many day-to-day port security duties. Since boarding ships is such a critical part of Coast Guard activity there, officials have created a new position-port security duty officer-to decide which ships to board. All five port security officers now in place at Battery Park are reservists, but officials would like to fill the jobs with active-duty personnel to ease strain on the reservists.

BY LAND

TSA is designing a system to screen all checked bags on airplanes, and Operation Safe Commerce is working on end-to-end security for containers, but the ideal level of security for public transit is less clear. Because transit systems have numerous entry points and are often linked to bus and rail networks, completely preventing terrorist attacks on public transportation systems is an unrealistic goal, said FTA's Dorn at a Dec. 13 hearing of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. "Given the inherently open nature of our transit system, it is more important to concentrate on mitigation than prevention, frankly," she said. "You can't put a scanner at every subway stop."

But security at transit stations can be improved-after Sept. 11, Dorn commissioned consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton to perform vulnerability studies of the nation's biggest 32 transit systems, and FTA plans to hand out several $50,000 grants for security training to systems this summer. But some transit experts also believe Sept. 11 should challenge long-standing assumptions about the federal government's role in transit.

One is Richard White, general manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. While the government historically has helped subsidize new transit infrastructure, White wants Uncle Sam to finance a security-driven expansion: a series of new connections among the lines on the Metro subway system. Under Metro's hub-and-spoke design, five lines sprout into different parts of Washington and its suburbs-but as any D.C. commuter knows, there are only a few major stations where the lines converge and passengers can transfer. In fact, disabling even one of two key transfer stations-Rosslyn in Virginia or L'Enfant Plaza in Washington-would create an enormous demand for buses between stations so passengers could transfer-buses that Metro does not have, according to White. "If we have limitations in using either of those two portals we have significant operational challenges," he says. Officials have drawn up several alternatives for building new links between the lines, which could cost anywhere from $200 million to $300 million, depending on the scenario. "We are trying to evaluate and sound out if there is any receptivity to these more intensive capital investments," he says. When asked if Congress and the administration should make larger security investments in transit, Dorn demurs. "That's ultimately up to the administration and Congress to decide," she says.

Washington-area federal employees may have a thought or two on the matter. About half the civil servants in the nation's capital use Metro to get to work-it also was a primary means of evacuation on Sept. 11-so if the system is compromised in any way, it jeopardizes the ability of agencies to function. Metro has asked Congress for $1 million to develop procedures for contaminating a station after the release of chemical weapons. "There are no real core standards for what you do to decontaminate a [station] and ensure it is safe to go back into the system," says White. A $39.1 million supplemental appropriation will allow Metro to install chemical sensors at 13 underground stations by the end of the fiscal year. The sensors are being tested in other subway systems as well, although officials have not identified which ones.

In addition to technology, training is critical in preparing for emergencies. The chief responsibility of train operators and station managers is to diagnose the incident, call for help and decide whether service should be shut down. Dorn has asked the National Transit Institute at New Jersey's Rutgers University to design a general security training course for transit systems, while the Washington-based American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the main industry group for transit, has held four conferences across the country. APTA also is a forum through which Metro and other leading systems can share their security policies with other systems.

As with ports, many transit systems lack funding to make security improvements. Michael Townes, the director of transit in Hampton Roads, Va., was pleased with the vulnerability assessment from the Federal Transit Administration but is quick to admit his system cannot afford to implement many of its recommendations. "The concern is where do we find the resources to run our agency and do the things in the report as well," he says.

Perhaps no transit system is in worse financial straits than Amtrak, which announced it would go out of service in July if Congress did not provide it with an emergency loan. Amtrak's financial meltdown has had a clear effect on security as well. Last fall, Amtrak put its police officers on trains throughout the northeast corridor in a security effort that was appreciated by riders, according to Amtrak Chief of Police Ernest Frazier. But the corporation quickly ran out of money to pay the officers, most of whom were on overtime. "[The program] is ongoing, however we are unable to sustain it in any really meaningful way because of a lack of funding," says Frazier.

Frazier asked the Senate for $515 million in security funding shortly after Sept. 11, but little has come of it. All told, the corporation has spent $16.5 million on security since Sept. 11, but it has received only $5 million in grants. "Security funding is happening in other places but so far it's not happening for us in any substantial way," says Frazier.

Other transportation modes also are poised to beef up security if they can get federal money. Commercial bus carriers, including Greyhound, intend to screen all passengers if a bill sponsored by Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., becomes law. Greyhound would use contractors to screen passengers for weapons with handheld wands at the company's roughly 200 staffed terminals. Checked luggage would not be screened.

The trucking industry and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) have joined forces to offer a series of anti-terror training courses to drivers and the shippers of hazardous materials. Drivers in Maryland and Ohio already have taken FMCSA-sponsored courses that teach them how to recognize suspicious travelers on the road and to secure their trucks, even though some veteran drivers say they have been doing this for years. The Trucking Security Working Group, a consortium of trucking companies, has also set up a hot line that drivers can call to report suspicious behavior. If a call has merit, the industry operator will pass it along to law enforcement.

SECURITY MANAGER

TSA's Bennis thinks the world of these industry-run initiatives. They are the foundation of the security system he is building, and he believes they eventually will make land and maritime corridors as secure as airports. Unencumbered by the deadline pressure legislators created for aviation security efforts, Bennis can gradually assemble a system that is acceptable to everyone involved. "Before we put a regulation on the street we're going to build consensus among industry stakeholders, modal administrators and the TSA so we know that what we built together is what we want to put on the street," he says.

Bennis set up his organization so that collaboration was necessary. When his hiring drive is over, he will have deputies who handle security for passengers, cargo, infrastructure and emergency response/risk assessment. This intermodal design was a first for Transportation, which is infamous for power struggles among its modes. The design reinforces another Bennis point: Passenger and cargo security should be consistent across the modes so none is more vulnerable than the others. For passenger screening, this may be easier said than done. In late March, on his first day on the job, Bennis delivered a speech in which he floated the idea of screening passengers in other modes, including rail and bus. While the press reported that passenger screening proposals were in the works and could be released as soon as July, Bennis says he was misunderstood. The only mode where TSA may require screening in the near term is cruise ships, where most of the industry already is screening passengers, according to Bennis.

But he believes other modes and carriers, including Amtrak, eventually will start screening passengers and baggage. "I think ultimately you are going to see some level of baggage screening [on Amtrak]," he says. "Right now it's very easy to just show up at the train station and get your ticket and board. Well, perhaps there's a means we can come up with that will make it effortless to move people through."

Amtrak police chief Frazier agrees, but makes clear that the rail service could never adopt an aviation-style screening system. "I think there is some gate control that may work, but we are just not going to be able to set up a checkpoint kind of system," he says. The only mode where passenger screening seems to be off the table is public transit, where Dorn repeatedly has ruled out screening.

Bennis is committed to keeping his organization small and lean, but he has kicked around the idea of creating transportation marshals for modes besides aviation. He won't even rule out the possibility of hiring baggage screeners at rail and bus stations.

For the time being, Bennis is content to work with industry and sponsor promising initiatives developed in the field, such as Operation Safe Commerce. It's an approach that may strike some as soft on industry, but Bennis believes it ultimately will produce a more secure transportation system. "I guess there is a risk potentially that you'll get a watered down result," says Flynn. "But it's not the industry participation that's the problem, it's the will of the government to push for higher standards and to hold industry to account."