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In my district, the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles handle approximately 44 percent of all of the goods delivered to American shores, yet they are in constant need of revenue for facilities, improvements and upgrades to roads and bridges and rails.

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.

Ports are the gaping hole in America's homeland security.

This Congress has promised all manner of border security and port security to the tune of billions of dollars... yet we have - to date - funded our promises for port security at only $900 million. That's quite a distance between what we say and what we actually do.

In South Texas, we understand how vital port security is and we fear the day a weapon of mass destruction could be brought into a U.S. port in a container and cause hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Last year, customs officials screened only five percent of the 11 million cargo containers entering the United States. That rate is both unacceptable and dangerous to our national and economic interests.

I think it is important also to recognize that our Customs border protection officers who secure our borders and conduct inspections of people in vehicles and cargo are also facing staffing shortages.

We have enough to worry about with what's happening in our nation to worry about what's happening in California. Keep your feet grounded in your own backyard and together we're going to build communities that work.

All those trucks and barges that carry our goods to port are vital connections to the only force which can balance our trade deficit: export. We must keep doing what we do best if we are going to get America out of the red.