House Panel Explores Modernizing TSA   05/21 06:19

   

   NEW YORK (AP) -- A House committee on Wednesday expressed bipartisan support 
for ensuring Transportation Security Administration officers get paid during 
future government shutdowns and are equipped with the latest technology, 
discussing the agency's future as the Trump administration lobbies to make 
airport screening a job for private contractors.

   Members of the House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing on ways 
to modernize the TSA nearly 25 years after it was created in the wake of the 
Sept. 11 attacks. But the morale of TSA officers who went without pay during 
three funding lapses since Oct. 1, and whom the administration wants to replace 
at small U.S. airports, overshadowed the talk about better machines and 
reliable funding.

   "Between the 2025 and 2026 shutdowns, transportation security officers 
endured a total of 119 days impacted by shutdown conditions," Republican Andrew 
Garbarino of New York, the committee's chairman, said in his opening remarks. 
"That means TSA officers spent roughly 40% of this fiscal year reporting to 
work without a paycheck while continuing to carry out one of the most important 
security missions in the federal government."

   Several other committee members noted that Congress has failed to pass any 
of the pending bills seeking to guarantee continued pay for TSA workers. Rep. 
Lou Correa, a California Democrat, said if TSA workers don't get paid during 
shutdowns, neither should lawmakers.

   Correa also took aim at President Donald Trump's proposed budget, which in 
addition to spending $477.3 million to have private companies take over airport 
screening at about 250 smaller airports would cut more than 4,500 TSA positions 
to save $529.3 million in compensation and benefits. The TSA this week also 
authorized contractors in its airport staffing program to acquire and maintain 
screening equipment, which previously was strictly a government function.

   "Technology alone can't replace the experienced people who make the security 
checkpoints work as they have for the past 25 years," Correa said. "It's about 
pushing an antigovernment privatization ideology."

   About 20 U.S. airports already staff their checkpoints through the Screening 
Partnership Program. Currently airports choose whether or not to opt in. Under 
Trump's proposed budget, smaller airports would be required to participate.

   The TSA has proposed letting private screeners handle security at airports 
with scheduled flights of passenger planes with 10-30 seats and ones that 
accomodate charter flights and private planes without fixed schedules. Examples 
include Oxnard Airport in California, Ocala International Airport in Florida, 
Alabama's Tuscaloosa International Airport and Gary-Chicago International 
Airport in Indiana, according to a spreadsheet maintained by the Federal 
Aviation Administration.

   The witnesses at the hearing included Christopher Sununu, president and CEO 
of the airline trade group Airlines for America; Dallas Fort Worth 
International Airport CEO Chris McLaughlin; American Federation of Government 
Employees President Everett Kelley, whose union represents TSA workers. All 
three said they thoughts airports should get to decide whether to employ 
private screeners.

   "Ensuring SPP remains an option for airports and does not become a mandatory 
program is paramount to the U.S. aviation industry," Sununu said.

   Kelley took a strong stand against the plans in Trump's budget.

   "I'm totally against the privatization of any airport," he said. "You don't 
contract out the CIA, do you?"

   After several more Democrats on the committee said they thought that handing 
off airport security to businesses would leave U.S. airspace more vulnerable, 
Garbarino interjected to point out that "the very conservative cities of San 
Francisco, Seattle and Atlanta" all use private screeners at their airports, 
"so yeah, maybe it's not a Republican thing."

   Garbarino and Rep. Tim Kennedy, a New York Democrat, championed legislation 
he and three other committee members introduced earlier this month that would 
double, from $250 million to $500 million, the amount of money the TSA 
administrator is required to set aside to reimburse airports for capital costs 
associated with security. The bill also would establish an annual TSA fund of 
$250 million for airport screening technology.

   Revenue for both would come from a $5.60 fee that airline customers pay for 
each one-way trip they take on U.S. flights. The 9/11 Passenger Security Fee 
has existed since 2002, but Congress decided in 2013 that a certain amount had 
to be used each year to reduce the federal deficit. Since then, an estimated 
$15 billion went to the U.S. Treasury for that purpose, according to the bill's 
co-sponsors,.

   "Americans and Congress expected this fee to directly fund our aviation 
security system, but that is not the case. Nearly half the fee's revenue goes 
to something else," Garbarino said. "Congress must restore the passenger 
security fee to its original intent, to fund the next generation of screening 
technology that protects our people in the skies."

   Trump's fiscal 2027 budget proposal would end the practice of diverting 
passenger fees and fund the TSA partly with the $1.68 billion that was expected 
to go to deficit-reduction.