Official: U.S. can’t meet goal to screen cargo

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told lawmakers Wednesday that the agency cannot meet its 2012 deadline for screening all cargo coming into the U.S. for radiological and nuclear materials.

At her first hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee, Napolitano said total screening would require agreements with numerous countries, a position similar to one taken by the Bush administration.

A law passed by Congress in 2007 requires the Homeland Security Department to screen all cargo headed for the United States by 2012. About 11.5 million containers come into the U.S. each year.

Napolitano fielded questions about nearly every aspect of the massive department that she took over Jan. 21. So far, she has made no major policy announcements, but she has ordered reviews on policies and programs from immigration enforcement to hurricane recovery and border security.

Napolitano told lawmakers that drug-related violence in Mexico has escalated so much that it has become one of her top priorities.

“Mexico right now has issues of violence that are a different degree and level than we’ve ever seen before,” she said.

Napolitano said that helping Mexico requires more than Homeland Security assets and that she’s working with other U.S. agencies to find ways to end the weapons trafficking from the U.S. into Mexico and to support the Mexican government.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced a roundup of more than 700 suspects as part of in a wide-ranging crackdown on Mexican drug cartels operating inside the United States.

Napolitano promised lawmakers to improve hurricane recovery operations in the Gulf Coast, which is still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. She said the Federal Emergency Management Agency will assign a new team of senior staff members to review the response as the department looks at ways to “unclog” recovery efforts and “close some of the chapters” on the storms.