Editorial: Loophole still hasn’t been closed

Monday, Sept. 22, 2003 | 8:57 a.m.

Last week House and Senate negotiators agreed on a $29.4 billion spending plan for the Homeland Security Department, but they removed a House-sponsored proposal that would have required the screening of air cargo before it's loaded onto passenger jets. Opponents of the screening provision said that such a requirement wasn't realistic, because the capability for performing such screening isn't currently available. But Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., who sponsored the requirement, told The New York Times that Republican leaders in Congress were responsbile for the measure's failure. Markey suggested that the Republicans were doing the bidding of the air cargo industry, which opposed the requirement.

Failure to screen air cargo increases the risk that a commercial airliner will be the target of another attack. The price tag to implement the screening of air cargo admittedly won't be cheap -- it's estimated each screening machine would cost about $10 million -- but it's essential that it be done. Otherwise, U.S. travelers could be exposed to what happened in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, when 170 people lost their lives after Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb that had been loaded into its cargo hold.

Terrorists look for vulnerabilities in security, and the lack of cargo screening on passenger jets is an issue that anti-terrorism experts had been worried about before 9-11 and are even more concerned about now. The requirement for air cargo screening could have been passed this year if it hadn't been for the White House's opposition. The administration has committed more funding for anti-terrorism, but it still isn't providing the full support this effort needs. Until this is remedied, all air travelers are vulnerable.