NEW YORK CITY — Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge (search) unveiled on Thursday a new $300 million port safety plan to protect the United States from possible dangers arriving on the more than 8,000 ships that enter the country each year.
Ridge said the plan will add "layers and layers" of extra intelligence and security and more inspectors at departure points overseas. Three Muslim countries — Turkey, Malaysia and Dubai — are among a handful of nations with the 20 largest ports outside the United States that have agreed to the Container Security Initiative Program.
Ridge said "100 percent" of high-risk ships will be screened and boarded before they ever reach U.S. shores.
"It's far safer today than it was yesterday" said Ridge, who along with New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey, visited an Elizabeth, N.J., port and watched U.S. Customs (search) agents operate devices used to screen potentially hazardous containers.
The Department of Homeland Security (search) is handing out $170 million to 199 state and local government and private companies under the Port Security Grant Program. The new program will fund new patrol boats in harbors, upgraded surveillance equipment at bridges and roads and new command centers.
Fourteen ports will also receive $75 million from the Office for Domestic Preparedness to pay for training, planning, information sharing and equipment purchases. Just more than $9 million of that money will go solely to the Los Angeles-Long Beach and New York-New Jersey ports.
In another program called Operation Safe Commerce, the Homeland Security Department will hand out $58 million for a project among local, state and federal officials and private businesses to analyze how to protect cargo containers from being tampered with while sitting in overseas ports.
The announcement — long awaited by critics who say that now that America's airport security has been upgraded, terrorists are looking at alternative entry points — comes as a House spending subpanel approves $30.4 billion for DHS. It was the first time an appropriations bill has been considered for the new department.
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