A good deal of the news coverage and editorial commentary about a recent report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general that was critical of DHS’s port security grant program is, unfortunately, promoting just that: a persistent, persuasive and unrealistic myth.

“The Department of Homeland Security is supposed to protect the nation’s ports against terrorist attacks,” thundered the Los Angeles Times, in an editorial whose argument found echo on both coasts and many points in-between. “So far, it has excelled instead at securing pork.”

At issue is the fact that while the nation’s largest and busiest ports—such as Los Angeles/Long Beach and New York/New Jersey—received grants, so too did those of St. Croix, in the Virgin Islands, and Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts.

In the words of the Los Angeles Times, the latter “do not exactly make up the trade backbone of the American economy.”

That may be true, to a degree, but it is also misleading—for several reasons.

In fact, since the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, all America’s seaports, and many of its inland water facilities, too, have had to upgrade their security—by law.

For example, while passenger traffic on the Vineyard may not be as bustling as that on the ferries of Staten Island or Washington State, the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, which went into effect last year, is specific: However, all facilities that receive vessels that carry more than 150 passengers must comply with MTSA regulations.

At the same time, during the height of the tourist season, the U.S. Virgin Islands becomes one of the world’s biggest cruise ship ports, with St.Thomas alone playing host to seven or eight cruise ships a week, carrying as many as 10,000 passengers.

Others point to security upgrades at an Everett, Mass., facility as being another example of how, to use the phrase employed by several newspapers, port security has been converted into “pork” security.

A funny line, perhaps, until you realize that Everett is home to one of the country’s most important liquefied natural gas facilities—and one that is near a major metropolitan area.

The point being lost here is that the small ports are neither risk-free, or are necessarily insignificant in the national landscape. (Discovery of a weapon of mass destruction being smuggled in through a small port could wreak the same devastating paralysis on U.S. economic activity as one brought in under the nose of Lady Liberty.)

Those who would use the same type of argument when discussing the security needs of big and small ports as they do in the debate over funding highest-risk cities and states versus others are, well, frankly missing the boat.

While we believe the bigger, more visible mega-ports are likely higher priority targets, we can’t overlook the smaller ports because they represent links in our chain of defense that should neither be weakened nor broken.

A more telling point, it seems to us, is one also pointed out by many other publications--that some of the projects funded by DHS were given money (some $67 million) even though the department’s own evaluators said they failed to meet required security criteria.

That’s a lot of money in anyone’s book—more than 10 percent of the port security funds given out so far—as officials at ports big and small will tell you.

But DHS says it is already in the process of tightening up both the requirements and the process by which future grant-making will be made. 

In the meantime, the myth that only the larger ports need funding obscures a far more pressing reality—that the federal money available for port security remains woefully inadequate to do the job.

Port security means U.S. economic security—an inescapable equation any way you slice it.

A good deal of the news coverage and editorial commentary about a recent report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general that was critical of DHS’s port security grant program is, unfortunately, promoting just that: a persistent, persuasive and unrealistic myth.

“The Department of Homeland Security is supposed to protect the nation’s ports against terrorist attacks,” thundered the Los Angeles Times, in an editorial whose argument found echo on both coasts and many points in-between. “So far, it has excelled instead at securing pork.”

At issue is the fact that while the nation’s largest and busiest ports—such as Los Angeles/Long Beach and New York/New Jersey—received grants, so too did those of St. Croix, in the Virgin Islands, and Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts.

In the words of the Los Angeles Times, the latter “do not exactly make up the trade backbone of the American economy.”

That may be true, to a degree, but it is also misleading—for several reasons.

In fact, since the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, all America’s seaports, and many of its inland water facilities, too, have had to upgrade their security—by law.

For example, while passenger traffic on the Vineyard may not be as bustling as that on the ferries of Staten Island or Washington State, the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, which went into effect last year, is specific: However, all facilities that receive vessels that carry more than 150 passengers must comply with MTSA regulations.

At the same time, during the height of the tourist season, the U.S. Virgin Islands becomes one of the world’s biggest cruise ship ports, with St.Thomas alone playing host to seven or eight cruise ships a week, carrying as many as 10,000 passengers.

Others point to security upgrades at an Everett, Mass., facility as being another example of how, to use the phrase employed by several newspapers, port security has been converted into “pork” security.

A funny line, perhaps, until you realize that Everett is home to one of the country’s most important liquefied natural gas facilities—and one that is near a major metropolitan area.

The point being lost here is that the small ports are neither risk-free, or are necessarily insignificant in the national landscape. (Discovery of a weapon of mass destruction being smuggled in through a small port could wreak the same devastating paralysis on U.S. economic activity as one brought in under the nose of Lady Liberty.)

Those who would use the same type of argument when discussing the security needs of big and small ports as they do in the debate over funding highest-risk cities and states versus others are, well, frankly missing the boat.

While we believe the bigger, more visible mega-ports are likely higher priority targets, we can’t overlook the smaller ports because they represent links in our chain of defense that should neither be weakened nor broken.

A more telling point, it seems to us, is one also pointed out by many other publications--that some of the projects funded by DHS were given money (some $67 million) even though the department’s own evaluators said they failed to meet required security criteria.

That’s a lot of money in anyone’s book—more than 10 percent of the port security funds given out so far—as officials at ports big and small will tell you.

But DHS says it is already in the process of tightening up both the requirements and the process by which future grant-making will be made. 

In the meantime, the myth that only the larger ports need funding obscures a far more pressing reality—that the federal money available for port security remains woefully inadequate to do the job.

Port security means U.S. economic security—an inescapable equation any way you slice it.