Tougher Border Inspections Ordered : Crime: White House, Sen. Feinstein call for intensified examinations after reports that some cargo shipments are routinely exempted from drug checks.

The White House has ordered the U.S. Customs Service to intensify efforts to stop drugs from pouring across the border with Mexico, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Thursday called for an investigation of a controversial Customs program that allows most trucks to enter from Mexico uninspected.

It also was announced Thursday that Customs Commissioner George J. Weise has ordered a review of the so-called line release program that exempts low-risk cargo from inspection.

A spokesman for Lee Brown, director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, said the nation’s drug czar will travel to the border Feb. 25 to assess the impact of the program.

“Any activity which indicates a lack of interdiction is totally unacceptable,” Brown said in a statement.

In a telephone interview, Feinstein, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned whether “increased trade and reduced border control is worth increased narcotics shipments” into the country.

“My judgment is that it is not. The line release program needs to be re-evaluated,” Feinstein said. “I’m going to ask Atty. Gen. (Janet) Reno and Treasury Secretary (Robert E.) Rubin to do a full investigation and re-evaluation of the line release program and the priority currently being placed on the (seizure) of illicit narcotics.”

Brown and Feinstein were responding to a Times report this week that not a single pound of cocaine was seized at the three largest commercial ports of entry on the Mexican border in 1994, while the number of cargo shipments increased dramatically. According to Customs, the number of laden trucks entering from Mexico grew by 51% last year and the number of empty trucks increased by 38%.

A government source familiar with the White House’s drug strategy said Brown has ordered Customs to increase its drug interdiction efforts along the border.

“Customs has been asked to come up with a plan to increase its capabilities in working with cargo inspections, doing narcotics investigations, and using investigators and inspectors,” the source said.

A Sept. 13 report obtained by The Times showed that Brown’s office had expressed concern last year about Customs’ low inspection rate of cargo entering from Mexico and other countries.

The report said commercial cargo “offers drug traffickers a large volume and diversity” by which to smuggle drugs and addressed the “physical examination of suspicious vehicles.”

“According to Customs, 1% to 2% of the cargo containers . . . receive an inspection. The smugglers consider this small likelihood of being inspected a nuisance and just a normal cost of doing business,” the report said.

The report also quoted Customs as saying that “inspecting 20% of the containers would seriously affect the profits of drug traffickers.”

Since the late 1980s, Customs has employed the line release program along the Southwest border. Importers who pass extensive background checks for Customs violations and drug connections are allowed to bring cargo across without inspection.

Sources said various federal law enforcement agencies, including Customs, are reviewing inspection and interdiction programs “to come up with necessary steps to improve them.”

Meanwhile, Steve Duchesne, Customs spokesman in Washington, said: “The commissioner . . . will also be visiting San Diego and the entire Southwest border in the near future. In the past few days, we’ve had our staff from Washington in San Diego reviewing line release.”

Weise also released a written statement defending Customs’ interdiction efforts at the Southwest border.

“I have every confidence in our personnel on the border. Over the years, we have been hardening our defenses against drug trafficking through Mexico. We continue to do so,” said Weise’s statement.

Before calling for a re-evaluation of the line release program, Weise and other Customs officials said that random inspections had reduced the likelihood of smugglers using line release to bring drugs into the country.

However, Drug Enforcement Administration Director Thomas Constantine said Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the random inspections are ineffective. When asked by Feinstein if he recommended that Customs’ facilitation plan be reviewed, Constantine said: “Random general deterrence in interdiction has limited pay-back for the amount of money that you put into it.”