This is not about safety. It is about dispensing contracts to friends who hired the right lobbyists

The bill approves $400 million a year over five years for risk-based grants for training and exercises at ports. It requires the nation's 22 largest ports, which handle 98 percent of all cargo entering the country, to install radiation detectors by the end of next year.

Pilot programs would be established at three foreign ports to test technology for nonintrusive cargo inspections. Currently only one foreign port, Hong Kong, scans all U.S.-bound cargo for nuclear materials.

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The bill would authorize $3.4 billion over five years for ports security. The House vote was 409-2, with only Reps. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., opposing.

The bill was slow in reaching the House and Senate floors because lawmakers from both sides sought to attach their own favorite pieces of legislation to the ports measure because of the certainty it would reach the president's desk.

In the end, the only major add-on was legislation to restrict Internet gambling. Also attached was a measure, pushed by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., to help communities lacking telecommunications infrastructure install sirens and other emergency alert systems.

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The bill is H.R. 4954