MARAD’s new five-year strategic plan, reflecting the free market philosophy espoused by the Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters, explicitly offers revitalising "partnerships between MARAD and the Maritime Transportation System’s stakeholders” as one of five strategic goals. Specifically, in a section on nuts and bolts, the plan says that MARAD "must promote innovative financing mechanisms and investment in partnership with the private sector to improve and expand US maritime infrastructure". In a further section, the plan mandates MARAD to “create proposals to expand funding for vessel and facility construction partnerships and for port development projects".

The DHS, which now oversees the US Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection, butts up against infrastructure and trade flow issues on a daily basis. Its secretary, Michael Chertoff paused from a schedule of late Summer hurricane preparations to conduct a briefing on the subject of critical infrastructure. In his remarks, Mr Chertoff said: "We have failed time and again to devote the energy and the effort and the investment to make sure that these structures can be preserved… simply through the ordinary degradation of any physical structure that comes year-in and year-out.”

In discussing what he called a Partnership Model, he continued: “It's a recognition that if we unleash industry and our partners in the private sector, we're going to achieve more positive results than if we try to dictate to them the best way to achieve outcomes.” He also talked about the alignment of government and business benefits from DHS activities. While not explicitly endorsing 100% scanning of inbound containers, Mr Chertoff cited the example of dual benefits to government (security) coinciding with benefits to industry (cargo visibility in supply chains).