Lawmakers push changes in port review
WASHINGTON – The United States must overhaul the way it reviews foreign acquisitions of companies involving U.S. ports, two key GOP lawmakers said Sunday, calling the Bush administration’s handling of the Dubai deal flawed.
The chief executive of Dubai Ports World, meanwhile, insisted his Dubai firm posed no security risk to the United States and said that he expected the proposed $6.8 billion purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. will be completed.
“All the authorities are comfortable with the security measures that we take,” CEO Mohammed Sharaf said. “As far as we are concerned, the deal is going to go through, and the British government has approved it.”
“There are big consequences for the British market if it doesn’t go through because investors are waiting for the money,” he said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”
The Bush administration, through a secretive board headed by the Treasury Department, initially approved DP World’s purchase of the London company, which would let the company take over significant operations at several major U.S. ports.
In the wake of a bipartisan backlash, the administration agreed last month to a 45-day investigation of potential security risks. Under that review, the U.S. government could block the portion of the deal involving the takeover of U.S. port operations even if the British deal is completed.
Lawmakers plan to continue pressing their concerns, starting today when Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., make a fresh push for their legislation that’s aimed at improving the security of unchecked cargo containers that enter U.S. ports.
Hearings on the port deal also likely will continue this month.
On Sunday, lawmakers said reform of the review process was needed.
The problem is “the committee that conducts the review is weighed toward the Treasury Department,” said Collins, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
“I think we need to scrap the committee, start again, constitute it within the Department of Homeland Security,” said Collins, adding that the panel should include a member of the intelligence committee.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he wants to scuttle the Dubai deal and then require foreign governments to divest from critical U.S. installations unless they pass a review by the departments of defense and homeland security.
“I trust President Bush, but I think he needs to get more information,” said Hunter, calling Dubai a dangerous place. “I think they looked at it at a superficial level, and they didn’t get those intelligence briefs.”
Collins and Hunter, who appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” said they were introducing bills to revamp the review process to ensure bad actors don’t take control of major U.S. operations.