Battle rages over Baltimore port security
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After reviewing updates to spending guidelines recently sent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to grant recipients declaring that they are “not required to follow the standards identified in the Buy American Act,” Thompson sent a letter to DHS secretary Michael Chertoff complaining that the new guidance constituted a “blanket waiver” of something Congress had gone out of its way to ask for. “Our ports should only buy equipment and materials produced outside of the United States if such is unavailable within the United States or of the purchase of such material and equipment domestically would not be in our country’s best interest,” Thompson wrote. The congressman said in an interview that he doubted very much whether the department could show this to have been the case. A spokesman for Governor Martin O’Malley did not return a call seeking comment yesterday.
After reviewing Chertoff’s memo and Thompson’s letter, the Maryland Port Administration released a statement last night saying: “Congressman Thompson raises some valid points and we will be interested in Secretary Chertoff’s reply.” Jacques Gansler, who leads the University of Maryland’s Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise and who served as a senior Department of Defense procurement official during the Clinton administration, said he could think of few purchases that might pose a security risk, such as embedded software. Otherwise, he said the department’s effort was the right step. “When an American product will satisfy the need, then they clearly should buy that,” he said. “But if there’s a product that is better and cheaper, we need to get the best that’s available anywhere. In many areas, technology is now global … The majority of defense weapons systems have foreign parts in them. In many areas the United States is not on the leading edge, and we want to make sure we buy the best products for our security,” Gansler said.
Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), who chairs a congressional subcommittee dealing with port security issues, said he knows of many qualified U.S. companies that have been frustrated by an inability to break into the contracting arena with DHS and other federal agencies. “To see this happen, it’s quite alarming,” he said. “We’ll hopefully get together on this and come up with some solutions whereby American companies and workers can have an opportunity to be a part of these efforts.” Numerous senior union officials also condemned the department’s decision. “DHS can’t just decide which laws to follow and which laws to ignore,” said Edward Wytkind, president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO. “Disregarding Buy American requirements for port security grants will send more jobs overseas and could weaken security at the ports. … Taxpayer money shouldn’t be used in a Wal-mart model of shopping the globe for the cheapest goods.”
Helen Delich Bentley, the former U.S. congresswoman for whom the port of Baltimore is named, said she was not aware of any adverse effects on American ports from the requirement that they buy American goods. A port consultant and longtime critic of free-trade policies, Bentley said ports should use taxpayer dollars to strengthen the American economy. “They should not get any waivers, and No. 2, they should buy from American companies, and also anyone trying to kill that [provision] should be shot,” Bentley said. Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-Maryland), questioned the manner in which the change was made. “I am troubled that in these economic times, DHS would drop the provision without any explanation to Congress or to the public.”
