Posted on 03/29/2006 6:52:43 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - New legislative proposals responding to the scandal over a Dubai-owned company's attempted takeover of major operations at some major U.S. ports, which touched off a political firestorm, are getting attention in Congress on Thursday.
Measures coming before committees in the House and Senate aim to strengthen U.S. cargo security and port safety, and to bring the federal panel that approved the DP World ports deal under tighter oversight by Congress.
The multiagency panel, called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, would be required to investigate any proposed transaction that involved a foreign government or "critical infrastructure" of the country.
The president would be allowed to suspend or block a transaction if it is deemed to threaten or impair national security, under the bill expected to be approved by the Senate Banking Committee. And the panel would have to notify congressional committees and the House and Senate leadership of proposed deals and its investigations of them.
In the House, a Homeland Security subcommittee planned to vote on the measure addressing cargo security at home and abroad and safety at U.S. ports.
Reps. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., and Jane Harman, D-Calif., sponsored the measure in early March as Congress was in a bipartisan uproar over now-abandoned plans by United Arab Emirates-based DP World to manage terminals at a half-dozen U.S. ports: New Jersey, New York, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.
Nearly identical to a measure pending in the Senate, the House bill would require the Homeland Security Department to lay out a timeline — and meet its targets — for putting radiation portal monitors at U.S. seaports that don't have them. It also would require the agency to establish standard operating procedures for examining containers.
To prevent threats from reaching U.S. soil, the bill would require the Homeland Security Department to assess the security implications associated with foreign ports that want to participate in a U.S. program designed to allow the agency to examine high-risk cargo overseas.
The legislation concerning the foreign investment review panel, which currently has 12 members from various federal departments and agencies and is led by the treasury secretary, also formally designates that official as its chairman and adds the defense secretary as its vice chairman.
The director of national intelligence also would be added as a formal member. Intelligence assessments requested by the panel now are handled through his office.
Several industry groups, including Wall Street investment houses, banks and insurers, have lobbied against the bill, contending it could result in harmful barriers to foreign investment in the United States.
"We are very concerned ... about proposals that would give Congress unprecedented new power to interfere with or overturn decisions" by the review panel, top executives of several major financial-services companies said in a letter this week to Sen. Richard Shelby (news, bio, voting record), R-Ala., chairman of the Banking Committee.
The measure "would likely transform what is now a fact-based security review into a process that could easily become highly politicized," they wrote. "Legislation that would have a chilling effect on foreign investment in this country would very likely elicit similar measures by our trading partners, thereby magnifying negative consequences for American businesses and the U.S. economy."
The companies included Allstate Insurance Co., American Express Co., American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., Fidelity Investments, Merrill Lynch & Co., MetLife Inc. and Wachovia Corp.
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Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti contributed to this report from Washington.
Our duly elected officials know what is best for all of us.
(Why is my nose growing?)
If they want to take care of the immigration problem they will need to allocate $100 billion a year to that and hire a million immigration agents. Maybe $200 billion since overhead will eat up half the budget. Maybe $400 billion since they will have to hire some managers, build some headquarters and field offices and buy some Asian pickup trucks to run around in. That's each year until the problem is taken care of, whenever that might happen.
Scandal??? Whether the deal upset you or not (I was for it) it certainly wasn't a scandal. The 'attempted takeover' phrase is misleading too. Heck, it was a business deal.
They must think people are exceptionally stupid.
Concerning ports, port terminals and what comprises a operation, most are.
"Ports Scandal" ?
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