It's Do-It-Yourself Security

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In some instances, White House officials have gone straight to Capitol Hill to squelch regulatory efforts. In June 2003 Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, introduced an amendment to mandate 100% inspection of airplane cargo. While airline passengers walk through metal detectors and have all their bags screened, the 6 billion pounds of cargo traveling beneath them each year is subject only to spot inspections by the feds. The government leaves it up to air carriers and the companies that forward freight to the carriers to screen their regular cargo customers.

The House passed Markey's amendment by a 278-146 vote, but the airline industry, which makes about $17 billion annually from cargo on passenger planes, claimed that the technology for 100% inspection wasn't available and that even if it did exist, costs would be prohibitive. Senior officials at the DHS agreed, and that fall they persuaded House-Senate conferees to strip Markey's amendment from the appropriations bill. "The Bush Administration bends over backwards for industry while turning its back on needed homeland-security safeguards," Markey complains. "It's commerce over common sense." But Russ Knocke, a DHS spokesman, argues that such public-private partnerships maximize security without "shutting down the systems and industries we depend upon."

Still, nearly five years after 9/11, it's becoming apparent even to some members of the Administration that private industry can't be relied on to protect the nation's infrastructure on its own. "Expecting a trade association to tell a business it needs to spend more money on security isn't sufficient," says Sal DePasquale, a Georgia chemical-security expert, who helped draft the industry's current voluntary plan. Congress is looking at making chemical-plant security mandatory, and DHS officials say they're ready to order beefed-up security for chemical facilities as well. But that process could take years, and who knows what will happen when new regulations are finally ready for Administration approval. Especially since the DHS's new general counsel is none other than Philip Perry.