Ex-ship lobbyist top McCain aide

WASHINGTON – Playing a dual role as shipping lobbyist and member of a federal advisory panel, John McCain’s campaign policy coordinator helped shape a controversial homeland security initiative that has taken the government more than five years to develop.

The proposed program called “10+2” points out a key problem in the age of terrorism: How much can the government expect U.S. importers to pay to help ensure the country’s safety?

A former chief of staff to McCain, Christopher Koch in 2000 set up the World Shipping Council to lobby on behalf of some 40 foreign-based and U.S. ocean carriers. The companies transport half a trillion dollars worth of U.S. exports and imports annually. The group has spent $1.7 million seeking to influence the federal government on a range of maritime issues.

In May, Koch de-registered as a lobbyist, took a leave of absence from the shipping council and joined McCain’s campaign. He plans to return to the council after the election.

In keeping with what McCain says is a strict policy to free his campaign from lobbyist influence, Koch has recused himself from dealing with the topics on which he has lobbied. He said in an e-mail that if a specific issue regarding regulation of the liner shipping industry were to arise as a presidential campaign issue, he would not participate in any campaign policy decisions about it.

The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection wants to know the chain of custody from point of origin to destination of containerized cargo so the government can spot high-risk shipments in foreign ports before the containers are loaded on ships headed for the United States.

In regulatory filings, congressional testimony and speeches, Koch and the World Shipping Council argued that the additional requirement would be severely disruptive to international trade, logistically impossible to carry out and contrary to federal law. Koch said the only accurate source for such information is U.S. importers, adding that they are reluctant for commercial reasons to share the data with others in the private sector.

Customs officials issued a final rule in December 2003. A week and half before the requirement was to go into effect, CBP officials delayed it, saying the government wanted to review a petition from the World Shipping Council and three other groups of freight forwarders, retailers and industrial importers.

Four and a half years later, no final rule is in place and the government is still not getting the information it says it needs.

The proposed program, 10+2, would shift most of the regulatory burden to importers, where Koch and others in the shipping industry say it should have been all along. It is “absolutely the thing to do,” Koch told a trade symposium late last year. The program’s name is derived from the fact that importers must provide 10 information elements and the ocean carriers two, in addition to the data the ocean carriers already provide.

Don O’Hare, vice president of the shipping council, calls the abandoned 2003 rule “unworkable. The government continues to correctly believe that it will benefit from additional information about the shipments, but it recognized that the original rule suffered from practical problems.”

O’Hare said 10+2 fixes those problems and will enhance CBP’s cargo screening capabilities.

“We know that many importers are opposed to 10+2 for a variety of reasons. Hopefully, they will come to understand the merits of the proposal,” he said.