LOCATION:
2167 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
WITNESSES: SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION NORM MINETA; ALEXIS
STEFANI, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AUDITING, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION;
AND JAMES LOY, DEPUTY UNDERSECRETARY, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
BODY: REP. MICA: (Sounds gavel.) Good morning. I'd like to call this hearing
of the House Aviation Subcommittee to order. Today our hearing
will focus on the important issue of aviation security. And the order of
business today will be opening statements by members. Now, I've asked -- and
we've tried to reach an agreement with the minority. I think we have an
agreement to try to limit our opening statements to 10 minutes a side. And I
will try to share my time with my colleagues, and Mr. Lipinski, our ranking
member, will share his time with his colleagues. Then -- in that fashion, we can
hear from witnesses, which is so important today. And then members can use their
time to make statement or questions so we can get through the first part of our
hearing. The first part will be open to the public, and then for security
considerations, we will break, probably about lunch time. They'll need an hour
to sweep the hearing room, and then we will have a closed portion to deal with
some of the classified or security issues that are so important to our work.
So that is the order of the day. And I will start with my
opening statement and then yield to our ranking member to distribute his time,
and then finish time on our side.
With that, I have
some opening comments. Members of the subcommittee, my colleagues, we know that
today's hearing comes at a very critical juncture in our national effort to
reform America's system of transportation and aviation security. With the
departure just in the last few days of Transportation Security Chief John Magaw,
this hearing is even more significant than when it was originally called. While
Mr. Magaw was given a monumental, if not impossible, assignment, we all know
that in fact some of the critical elements of developing a seamless
transportation security system have not been coming together.
I know that both Secretary Mineta and Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson
have done their absolute very best to help launch this vital new agency, and
also to comply with the security mandates that were imposed by law last
November.
And I thank them for their tireless efforts
in that regard.
While the administrator of the
Transportation Security Administration will change, we must realistically
reassess both the effectiveness, the cost and the factual ability to meet
arbitrary future deadlines we've imposed. During our intense debate, I pleaded
to have the federal government take over the passenger-screening function from
the airlines and asked that we have federal standards, federal supervision,
federal oversight, testing and background checks without building a federal
bureaucracy.
As predicted -- unfortunately, as
predicted the Transportation Security Administration has been consumed with
constructing an army of more than 30,000 federal workers, and those are just
screening workers. And right now, if we look at it, we have only three airports
that are totally federalized and some 2,475 persons hired. While I know the
Transportation Security Administration has been working feverishly towards
meeting Congress's passenger-screening mandate, we must ask ourselves honestly,
what happens on November 19th if this mandated bureaucracy is not put in place?
And once again, I ask my members, are we building a federal bureaucracy at great
costs in the name of security?
Congress is now faced
with sticker shock. Appropriators have delayed, unfortunately, emergency funds
to the point of endangering our own mandates. Even worse, we've learned that
huge sums of supplemental dollars have been tied by -- have tied the hands of
our Transportation Security Administration that's -- that is required to
complete this important work.
Our second looming
aviation security crisis is the requirement to screen all checked baggage by
December 31st. The pending homeland security legislation that has been developed
the last few days may put this requirement off for a year. At best, it may be
impossible to produce even half of the EDS machines that may be required. Even
for the explosive detection system machines that we are able to manufacture and
produce, we haven't fully considered the challenge of installing the equipment
or who's going to pay for it, or even which airports or where in the airports
we'll place the SUV-sized machines.
Because we'll not
meet the checked baggage screening mandate -- and again, there have been a
number of factors that have delayed this installation and meeting this mandate
-- does it make sense to deploy questionably effective and manually intensive
trace detection equipment? We've got to ask ourself that question. Should
Congress authorize and fund a second airport army of another 20,000 or more
employees for hand searches with these trace detection devices? Unfortunately,
the math for this massive bureaucracy is now estimated by the inspector general
to add up to some 67,000 federal employees.
Congressional appropriators are balking now a multi-billion- dollar
equipment post projections. Unfortunately, they're also diverting some of the
funds they're appropriating, and they've placed a limit of 45,000 federal
employees on the system. Even a second grade student will tell you tell you that
the math on this project does not work.
So today we
must address this pending aviation security crisis. Airports want answers,
airlines need answers, and we owe the American traveling public answers, and we
owe the taxpayers answers. We cannot allow the prospect of three- and four-hour
passenger waits for security checks at the end of this year. We cannot further
damage our aviation industry, and we all know that we have a number of major air
carriers on the brink of bankruptcy.
We cannot again,
as after the TWA-800 crash, buy loads of expensive equipment that will collect
dust in a warehouse somewhere. We must take time, look at this situation and
develop a common-sense, risk- based backup plan if we're to avoid chaos and
wasteful expenditures.
So we have an important
responsibility today to deploy the most effective aviation and transportation
security system that we can devise and that is possible. We don't have any other
choice.
I look forward again and welcome Admiral Loy,
who will assume the position of undersecretary for Transportation for security,
a very difficult task and assignment. I look forward to continuing my work with
Secretary Mineta and Michael Jackson, the deputy secretary, and all members of
Congress working together as we address these important challenges before us.
With those comments, I'm pleased to yield now to our
ranking member, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski.
REP. WILLIAM LIPINSKI (D-IL): I thank the chairman.
And first of all, I want to welcome all the witnesses. And the way
we're going to handle it on the Democratic side today is I'm going to yield to
Mr. Oberstar whatever time he may consume, and then any other member on the
Democratic side that wants to give an opening statement, we'll recognize them.
But if you give an opening statement, you've got to go to the end of the line on
being able to ask questions. So if you don't give an opening statement, you'll
be recognized in the order you are now sitting. That means that Mr. DeFazio
would be first, then Ms. Norton, Mr. Costello, right on down the line there.
Mr. Oberstar, yield to you whatever time you may
consume.
REP. JAMES OBERSTAR (D-MN): I thank the
gentleman. It's an unusual procedure in order to conserve time and get to the
main event here.
It's good to see Secretary Mineta back
in a room with which he's very familiar. We spent 20 years of our lives
together. Deputy Secretary Jackson, good to have you here. Admiral Loy, it's
very unusual to see you in a different, non-uniform. That blue suits you much
better. I just can't imagine you in this odd combination of brown and tan.
Handsome time and all, but -- we salute you for your years of service and hope
that you can expedite the process of getting us to a more secure aviation sector
and other transportation sectors.
This hearing, Mr.
Chairman, is rather fortuitous, planned last week and one we've been trying to
bring together for several weeks. But on the eve of the consideration of the
Department of Homeland Security and in the aftermath of actions by the select
committee crafting this Homeland Security Department, adding a provision that
has no place in a Department of Homeland Security, and that is to provide, after
great debate, a one-year extension of the deadline to install explosive
detection systems.
The first attempt was to repeal the
deadline. That was defeated. Then they came back and overturned the defeat, and
then there was a compromise offered, and Mr. Frost on our side, in an attempt to
save some semblance of rational public policy, offered a one-year extension that
was passed. That is an outrage.
Last fall, when we
debated this bill in this committee and on the floor, I said, one, I wanted to
have the fee listed on tickets as the homeland security fee so that passengers
would always remember what drove us to this (needed ?) fee for security. Because
the public's mind will be distracted easily, and in six months, we'll begin to
watch the slow unraveling of the Security Act. It happened in the aftermath of
PanAm 103. And it's happening again in the aftermath of September 11.
This is outrageous, to do it in this bill. Bring it up on
the floor, and let's have an open debate over whether you really want security
or not. And don't tell us that it can't be done because there isn't enough money
or because we can't meet the deadline; we can't produce enough equipment.
Secretary Mineta has said many times, "We'll meet that deadline." Deputy
Secretary Jackson has said many times, "We'll meet that deadline." I can't think
of two people who've worked harder. I don't think there are any more hours in a
week that you could put in, either one of you, to work conscientiously and
diligently and intensively in mobilizing all the personnel that you have to meet
those deadlines of this legislation.
That bill didn't
pass in the dark of night by accident. It was passed with everyone's eyes wide
open, with the Republican side criticizing the Senate-passed bill saying it
didn't have deadlines, so they put them in their bill. And then we took it out
of conference and we brought it to the floor, and it passed 410 to nine. That
was no accident.
The accident was September 11. And the
accidents started long before that, failure to implement fully the Security Act
of 1990, and the undoing and the unraveling by delaying criminal background
checks, refusing passenger -- positive passenger-bag match. All those key
provisions that were laboriously thought through, carefully crafted into
legislative language, an act that -- supported and then resisted by the airlines
and by airports and the same crowd is now coming before the Congress and the
American people saying, "We can't do it. We can't meet this deadline, so give us
more time."
And let's, by the way, announce to the
terrorists, "You got all the time in the world you need to break through."
And then there's the remarkable argument that I heard from
-- the majority leader say: Well, there's better technology coming down the
road. Well, we heard that too, in this committee room, in the 1980s, over
traffic collision avoidance systems. Near midairs were rising, doubling, in
fact, in beginning of 1985 -- of 1985, 1986. I chaired the Investigations-
Oversight Subcommittee at the time. We needed new technology. There was
technology available -- hadn't been used by the airlines, resisted -- "Too
costly. We don't need it. There are other ways to deal with this problem." Said,
"We're going to have a crash."
The secretary was then
chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee. We conferred many times
about this matter. If we don't act now, we both agreed, there's going to be a
fatality. And the industry kept saying and the FAA kept saying, "Oh, wait.
Better technology's just around the pike, around the corner" -- traffic
collision avoidance system II or III, where you can have information to move
both laterally and vertically. And they resisted and waited. And then came
Cerritos, California, and people died.
And then this
Congress enacted legislation to require installation on all commercial aircraft
traffic collision avoidance systems. It was a bill authored by your colleague
from California at the time, Ron Packard, who was on this committee and who's
now retired. We moved his bill. We got it enacted into law, so that we wouldn't
let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Now tell me
with a straight face that there is new technology that's going to do
explosive-detection system screening faster, more reliably, and that you can
deploy it in the -- by the end of this year. Baloney! It doesn't exist. It
hasn't been certified. And if you can't get this equipment, EDS and L-3,
deployed, then how are you going to get the other stuff deployed? In a year?
I've been here long enough to see this, with fatal results.
We resolved that we'd make aviation security tougher than ever,
inescapable, no room for bureaucratic delays. And now the Congress is doing the
job that the bureaucracy usually does: providing the delay.
And then a final outrage is that the Pan Am 103 commission saw the
problem. The problem is intelligence, gathering intelligence overseas --
gathering, evaluating, disseminating it; sharing it; entering into the mind of
the terrorist. Quote: "The commission recommends greater emphasis within the
intelligence community on developing a specific unit whose principal function
will be long-term strategic thinking and planning on terrorism. The objective is
to be better able to anticipate future terrorist strategies and tactics, rather
than simply react to incidents as they occur."
That
unit was never established, and because we didn't have that, we didn't have the
information on where these terrorists are, what their plans are, how they're
acting, and how we can counteract.
I find little solace
in the Department of Homeland Security, especially the way it's being contrived,
and particularly with this outrageous attempt to undo the law that we just
enacted last fall. I think that we should hear from the secretary and the deputy
secretary and the new undersecretary how they plan to meet that deadline.
We provided ample alternative in the law in the event that
you can't deploy EDS in all airports. Use that authority. Get with the game.
Don't buy into this delay that will simply result in more delay in the future.
Why do think this Congress stays in session until midnight, 2:00 a.m., 3:00
a.m.? Because humans operate against a deadline. There is a deadline for a
purpose -- so that pressure will stay on the living so that we can avoid having
the dead.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. MICA: I thank the gentleman for his comments.
Mr. Duncan.
REP. JOHN DUNCAN (R-TN): Thank
you, Mr. Chairman, and I'll be very brief. Let me thank you for calling this
very important hearing, and thank the witnesses for being here.
I want to say, first of all, that Secretary Mineta was really an
outstanding chairman of this subcommittee and the full committee, always fair to
those of us at that time in the minority side. I've heard no complaints
whatsoever, in fact, nothing but good things about his work as secretary as
Transportation. I've heard good things about Admiral Loy. I know it was a
difficult thing to take the actions in regard to Secretary Magaw. I can tell
you, though, I did not hear those same good things about him. I heard several
comments from other members about the $418,000 to decorate the offices. My
friend, Chairman Rogers, said that Secretary Magaw had hired 140 of his old
cronies from the Secret Service, most of them at salaries of $150,000 a year,
plus full pensions. I don't know how accurate those figures are. And I've heard
many members comment about going from 28,000, roughly, screeners to what
Chairman Mica mentioned, 67,000 employees at the TSA. I know I heard one -- I
think the first request, 72,000. And I go out to eat most nights with Chairman
Rogers and Chairman Callahan. Chairman Callahan was fusing the other day about
counting 26 screeners at the Mobile Airport. And I've heard similar comments
from many, many members.
Now, I can tell you, one of my
big disappointments in the homeland security legislation is the transfer of the
Transportation Security Administration from the Department of Transportation,
because I think that it should stay with Secretary Mineta, with his expertise
and experience in transportation; I think it should stay there.
But I do want to hear at this hearing -- as I say, I've not just heard
from Chairman Rogers and Chairman Callahan, but I've heard many members talk
about building up this gigantic bureaucracy at the TSA. And I've heard it from
screeners themselves, that there's going to be screeners checking -- supervisors
supervising supervisors who are supervising supervisors. And we need an
efficient TSA.
We don't need some overstaffed, gigantic
bureaucracy with far too many employees. If we do things like that, we're giving
-- if we go overboard, we're giving terrorists victories that they don't
deserve.
With that, I'll yield back the balance of my
time.
REP. MICA: Thank you.
We
do have time -- we have a vote on. We have about three minutes left on this
side, just to be fair.
Mr. Lipinski, did you want to
yield to the --
MR. LIPINSKI: I'll be happy to yield to
any member on this side that wants to make an opening statement, as long as they
remember they go to the end of the line as far as questioning.
Mr. Mineta, you want to make an opening statement?
Mr. : Menendez.
MR. LIPINSKI: Menendez. Excuse
me. (Soft laughter.)
REP. DUNCAN: Keep him at bay.
REP. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D-NJ): I'd rather be Mr. Menendez
today than Mr. Mineta, but in any event -- (laughter) --
REP. MICA: Eight minutes. Eight minutes.
REP.
MENENDEZ: Mr. Chairman, last week, as one of the members of the Select Committee
on Homeland Security, we had a vote in our committee. And to a large degree, I
listened to what the secretary said when he appeared before the Select Committee
and answered my questions in addition to his testimony, which said clearly and
unequivocally that TSA will meet all deadlines, period. That was the secretary's
words.
I look at the statement that the secretary will
be delivering, and I get a sense that there's now some equivocation. And at the
time that that statement was made, it wasn't "if I get enough money in the
supplemental, "or if" this, "or if" that. It was simply period -- "We will meet
all deadlines."
Mr. Chairman, I think we struck that
provision of the chairman's mark in the homeland security bill, because that had
no limitations whatsoever -- no limitations on time, no limitations whatsoever
-- open-ended: "Tell terrorists that" -- you know -- "when we get around to it,
we'll do it." And what we did is replace the bipartisan amendment of this
committee -- I mean, this committee in its full pass, which basically said,
"We'll transfer TSA when and if a series of things happen."
Now let me just simply say that amendment passed with two Republican
votes joining my other three Democratic colleagues. Then it was switched. Now we
have an extension -- an extension that I don't hear anyone officially from this
administration calling for and quite saying the opposite.
So I look forward to today's testimony, because God forbid that we
grant extensions and there is a bombing on a plane. I want to see who visits
those families and says to them, "I'm sorry because we delayed. I'm sorry
because we were in search of some new technology that was going to be better,
quicker, faster, cheaper." I don't want to have to be that person, and I do not
intend to be supportive of any extensions unless you can show us why and you can
prove to us that you need it and that you tell us a time period that is specific
in that regard. And I hope we will go to the floor as a committee, as we did
here and ensure the American people who said to me when I was leaving yesterday
in the airport and saw the proceedings of the Homeland Select Committee -- I
want my baggage checked now."
That's the challenge
before us. That's the obligation that we have, and not to pander to some special
interest in this process with an open-ended possibility that just makes
absolutely no sense.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. MICA: I thank the gentleman.
We now have approximately five minutes. So we will stand in recess for
15 minutes. I believe there's a single vote. We'll return and we'll turn
directly to the secretary and our other witnesses.
We
stand in recess.
(Recess.)
REP. MICA: I'd like to call the Aviation Subcommittee
back to order. We need to ahead and proceed, if we could, because we do have a
full agenda, both in this open meeting and then in the closed hearing to
follow.
We have equally divided the opening time, and
all members can use the balance of their time for questions or statements. And
I'd like to proceed. I think it's very important that we hear Secretary Mineta,
Undersecretary Jackson and Admiral Loy in these proceedings.
Mr. Miller, can you make certain those folks are seated back where I
put them? (Pause.) That's by order of the chairman, Mr. Miller. Just sit them
down there. Thank you. Mr. Mineta, you're very important, but when I have
constituents, they get priority.
My colleagues, I'm
pleased to introduce -- I'm pleased to introduce the secretary of
Transportation, the Honorable Norman Mineta. He is accompanied, as he should be,
by someone who's worked very hard, who we owe a deep debt of gratitude for his
efforts non- stop through this attempt to secure both transportation and
aviation security, Michael Jackson, the deputy secretary of Transportation. And
we also have now acting undersecretary of transportation security, Admiral James
Loy.
So I would like to welcome each of you. We're
anxious to hear from you. And let me recognize Secretary Mineta first.
SEC. MINETA: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lipinski and
members of the subcommittee.
With me today, as you've
indicated, is -- are Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson, Acting Undersecretary of
Transportation for Security Admiral Loy, and our assistant inspector general,
Alexis Stefani.
Mr. Chairman, it's good to be home,
even under these circumstances.
Today, Jim Loy makes
his first appearance before Congress as the acting head of the Transportation
Security Administration, TSA. And I know that many of you have had the pleasure
of working with Jim in his previous position as commandant of the Coast Guard.
He is an outstanding manager with impeccable credentials in security,
intelligence, law enforcement and customer service, and he has deep operational
skills and leadership focus. Now, this is his second day on the job as acting
undersecretary, so I would ask that you welcome him to this new, large task.
Now, this testimony is an opportunity to provide a status
report on our work to build the TSA and to meet the vital objectives that
Congress set out for this new agency just over eight months ago. TSA's every
step has appropriately been the focus of intense scrutiny. There is a great deal
of handwringing going on in various quarters about the difficulty of
federalizing security at the nation's commercial airports. Some are urging
Congress to revise its mandated deadlines, which were spelled out in detail last
fall in the TSA legislation. Others seek earmarks or payments of non-federal
security costs that distract from TSA's core mission.
The Department of Transportation willingly took on the responsibility
to implement this law and its ambitious timetable. I recruited a superb team
that has literally met every single one of the many tough congressional
deadlines to this point, tasks that in normal times would have taken years of
preparation. We have made tremendous progress, and there is much more to
accomplish. We shouldered this task with enthusiasm for an important reason: we
are at war against a determined, well-trained terrorist who seek to attack and
seriously damage our nation and our people. And without doubt, this threat has
not abated. Just the opposite. The threat is real. The war is real. And so, the
questions we meet here today in order to discuss are profoundly important.
President Bush has rightly urged the American people to
return to life as normal. He has encouraged us to vacation with our loved ones,
to conduct business as usual, not to be cowed by the evil one.
But make no mistake. The TSA employees we are recruiting and training
nationwide are front-line troops in the war against terrorism. Unlike the
military troops that our nation sent to meet this challenge abroad, at home we
began TSA's deployment with a blank slate and a clear command: "Get the job
done! And do it this year. No excuses." And again, we accepted that mandate
willingly because I have read the intelligence reports, and I know that the
threat is real.
Today, I was expecting to discuss TSA's
challenges, to seek your counsel, to report to you on what's working and to tell
you what needs improving.
Most importantly, I was
prepared to renew our pledge to meet the ambitious deadlines established by
Congress and explain exactly how we were going to get there.
But the extraordinary delay in approving emergency funding and new
restrictions imposed upon the TSA have dramatically undermined our ability to
meet our goals. And let me explain why.
Four months
ago, President Bush asked Congress to approve a $4.4 billion emergency
supplemental to stand up this new agency. That's a lot of money, but that should
not be surprising because the mandates set out in the Aviation and
Transportation Security Act are ambitious. And we set out to work in good faith,
launching this massive effort required to meet the statutory plan. And we waited
for the funding through May, through June, and now July. In the meantime, the
Transportation Security Administration has had to borrow money; renegotiated
payment schedules with our vendors; defer purchase of explosive detection
equipment; and set back the pilot testing of various security measures. Now TSA
is literally days from running out of money to pay for the ongoing work of
screeners nationally.
We expected active congressional
oversight, but we also needed your support to fund TSA and to do it in a timely
manner. The administration's emergency supplemental request was the amount that
we needed to do our job -- no more, no less. Last Friday, the appropriations
conference committee voted to cut $1 billion from the $4.4 billion that was
requested by President Bush, and to impose new restrictions on our ability to
get the job done. Here are five facts from the conference report.
First, it eliminated $550 million off the top of our $5.5
billion request. Secondly, it set aside $480 million in a so-called "contingency
fund" that may not be available to TSA. Thirdly, it imposes $445 million in
numerous earmarks not requested or supported by the administration. And
fourthly, it limits the total number of full-time TSA employees to 45,000, at
least 20,000 employees short of what TSA needs to meet its statutory mission.
And then, finally, report language that severely restricts our discretionary
authority to manage TSA expenses in a cost-effective manner.
In short, TSA's budget was cut by at least $1 billion and possibly up
to $1.5 billion. And that is a whopping 34-percent cut of the president's
request.
Now here's the dilemma that Congress has
created: You have not yet changed TSA's mission, yet the budget to do the job is
apparently on the way to being radically diminished while new restrictions and
mandates are being imposed. What can be done? The amount of money Congress is
about the approve simply will not support the mandates and the timetables for
aviation security that Congress set last fall for TSA. Less money with no
flexibility means fewer TSA employees, less equipment, longer lines, delays in
reducing the hassle factor at airports and/or diminished security at our
nation's airports. Frankly, these conflicting signals set by Congress have
forced us to regroup and revise the TSA business plan. That will likely take
several more weeks. It will involve complex negotiations and a review of
literally thousands of TSA commitment and plans.
We
need the supplemental now to continue fighting the war on terrorism and
protecting the homeland. The administration will propose and support a
significant budget amendment for fiscal year 2003 for TSA. Even if approved,
however, we are confronted with a load that the TSA cannot lift. Such funds will
not arrive prior to our having to make immediate changes to our existing
deployment schedule. There are a number of voices in Congress calling for more
resources or less, maintaining current law or seeking flexibility in the law.
And what is needed most at TSA today, however, is clarity. Tell us the mission.
Give us the resources to do that mission in a timely fashion, and we will
accomplish it.
I want to reiterate that we are not
asking for a free pass from a rigorous oversight or criticism. That is expected.
Nor am I telling you that everything is prefect. Everything is not tidy, but it
is unreasonable to expect from a massive standup the same type of certainty and
stability found in long-established programs.
I have
perhaps been too blunt today, but the circumstances demand no less. I know how
difficult your job is. I've been there.
And I
understand the competing pressures that each of you face in making public
policy. And so I come before you today as a former chairman of this subcommittee
and as a former chairman of your full committee who loves this great
institution, the Congress of the United States. I am a lifelong Democrat proudly
serving an outstanding Republican president.
And so I
close with a simple message: There are literally thousands of committed TSA
employees working furiously to improve transportation security. Please support
them and their mission. Restore the money and the discretion to complete our
security work effectively, and give us the tools and the flexibility that we
need to build this young organization. We will then be able to hand off to the
new Homeland Security Department, led by a colleague who, like me, will continue
to work with you to strengthen the Transportation Security Administration.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that my written
testimony be made a part of the record, and I will be pleased to answer your
questions.
REP. MICA: Without objection, your entire
statement will be made part of the record.
Do we have
additional opening statements from Admiral Loy? Mr. Jackson? (None given.)
I have also asked the Inspector General's Office to
monitor some of the progress of our TSA mandates and report to us. We have with
us Alexis Stefani. Ken Mead is unable to be with us, but she's been following
this issue for the IG, and I'll recognize the inspector general representative
from the Department of Transportation.
MS. STEFANI: Mr.
Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify
today on the Transportation Security Administration's progress in implementing
the provision of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. We all recognize
that ensuring that our transportation systems are secure is a tremendous task,
one that has never been undertaken before on a scale of this magnitude.
Since we last testified before this subcommittee in
January, TSA has made progress in implementing the act's requirements. For
example, TSA has in place three major contracts for hiring and training all
passenger screeners and for deploying and installing the explosive-detection
equipment in over 400 airports.
Mr. Chairman, today the
deadline to have a federalized screener workforce in place is less than four
months away, and the deadline to begin screening all checked bags is just over
five months away. While there has been much debate as to whether these dates are
achievable, we can attest that TSA and the department are working diligently to
meet the deadlines and could not be working any harder.
As we get closer to the deadlines with only a fraction of the airports
completed, the task becomes more formidable.
In our
opinion, in the next 30 to 45 days, it should be clearer as to what exactly must
be done, airport by airport. Because airport assessments for the deployment of
the explosive-detection equipment are scheduled to be completed in over 260
airports by the end of August and because TSA will have gained more experience
in hiring passenger screeners, it will be in a much better position in a month
to judge what is or what is not feasible to accomplish at each airport by the
deadline.
Now, I would like to provide specific
information on TSA's progress in meeting the two key deadlines; first, hiring
and training passenger screeners. Today, TSA is operating three airports with a
federalized work force for passenger screeners and expects to add two more this
week. Currently, TSA's contractor is conducting assessments at over 200
airports, where they're looking to see what the checkpoints have to be
configured to match the passenger load at the airports, and they also are
developing a computerized model which will be able in the next couple of weeks
to tell TSA exactly how many passenger screeners will be needed at each
airport.
TSA estimates that it will need in total up to
33,000 screeners and supervisors to screen passengers. Over the last month, the
pace of hiring has increased and it's continuing to accelerate, but the heavy
lifting is still to be done. TSA has almost doubled the number of screeners
hired from over 1,200 to now we're at 2,475, and with another 4,000 individuals
who have accepted offers for employment. As of last week, they were accepting
applications at 250 airports, but, however, with less than four months left
before the deadline, TSA needs to hire and train more than 7,600 passenger
screeners each month to achieve its goal.
While the TSA
has made some adjustments in the hiring process to respond to past results, one
area of concern needs to be highlighted. TSA is having difficulty in hiring
enough screeners in major metropolitan airports, for example, New York. While
TSA estimates it will need about 2,300 for the three large airports in the New
York City area, job offers have been accepted for only about 15 percent of the
targeted amount. Delays in hiring in these large cities have largely been due to
no-shows. About 25 to 30 percent of those who apply don't show up for further
assessment, and about 50 to 60 percent of those who show up for assessment fail
the aptitude test. In our opinion, TSA needs to move quickly at all the major
metropolitan areas to get its process going in order to try to make the hiring
goals it has.
Moving on to the checked-bag challenge,
the challenge facing TSA in meeting the December 31st deadline to screen 100
percent of checked bags is unprecedented. An effort of this magnitude has never
been done in any single country or group of countries. In fact, the amount of
explosive-detection equipment to screen all checked bags, approximately (7,000
?) units is estimated to be at least three times the amount of equipment
deployed at airports worldwide. And the success of TSA in this area means that
it must effectively manage three major program activities running on concurrent
tracks.
First, it must place the remaining equipment
orders and ensure that the manufacturers deliver the equipment on time. It has
to order an additional 75 EDS machines and over 4,500 trace machines to complete
the deployment, and funds for these orders are included in its pending
supplemental. Because of manufacturer long-lead times, up to about 60 days in
some cases, the orders must be placed by the end of September if the deadline is
to be met.
Second, TSA must keep its deployment on
schedule. While TSA has finalized its deployment schedule and hired a contractor
to carry it out, what our -- in our opinion, the key is the assessment phase. By
the end of August, about 260 airports will have had their assessments
completed
The remaining phases that must be done,
including construction and installation, stretch out over the remainder of the
year, with our 43 largest airports -- the Dallas-Forth Worth, San Francisco's
and Atlanta's -- scheduled to be completed in the last week of December. The
contractor needs to stick to its milestones, because any creep in any one phase
can affect the ability to ultimately meet the deadline.
And finally, they also must hire, train and deploy 21,600 screeners for
checked bags. This is in addition to the 33,000 for passenger screeners. While
it's too early to tell whether they'll have the same kind of hiring problem with
the checked bag screeners, we think the lessons they've learned to date should
be important in meeting the deadlines.
Finally, I'd
like to discuss usage of the equipment that is already in place. Seventy-seven
percent of the machines in use today -- the big explosive-detection equipments
-- are on average screening 750 bags per day or less. These machines should be
screening 1,250 bags per day. TSA needs to direct that the current rate of
machine usage pick up substantially. Otherwise, we will miss out on the
opportunity to practice screening a higher percentage of checked bags in order
to better understand the logistics and physical constraints of these machines
installed in the lobby.
Mr. Chairman, our statement
also includes information on controlling cost for -- in the TSA. And the -- an
overriding goal of TSA must be to provide tight security in a manner that avoids
waste and ensures cost-effective taxpayer dollars.
I --
at this point in time, I would be glad to answer any questions on that, and this
concludes my statement.
REP. MICA: Thank you for your
statement and also for your independent analysis of the situation.
We'll now turn to a first round of questions, and I'll
begin. Secretary Mineta or Deputy Secretary Jackson, I said in my opening
statement the math on this does not work.
Let me go
back to the inspector general first. Ms. Stefani, you had two reports -- I think
that I read one earlier that said 72,000 people would be required, and then I
think you backed up and said 67,000 people would be required to complete the
task. Is the 67(,000) a standing figure of your assessment?
MS. STEFANI: That is correct.
REP. MICA: And
the secretary testified we're going to be 20,000 personnel short. Is that
correct, Secretary Mineta?
SEC. MINETA: That's correct.
At the -- with the cap of the 45(,000) in the supplemental appropriations.
REP. MICA: With a 45,000 cap --
SEC. MINETA: There's a 45,000 cap --
REP.
MICA: -- the math just does not work on this.
Now,
Undersecretary Jackson, have you ordered the -- now we don't have a -- I know
you've ordered the EDS equipment -- explosive- detection, large checked-baggage
screening equipment. And I think you've ordered 1,100 units.
Is that correct? Or --
MR. JACKSON: We've
ordered 800 to date, sir, and --
REP. MICA: Okay, I'm
sorry. Eight --
MR. JACKSON: -- we have an option for
additional 300, subject to -- for the --
REP. MICA: And
have an option for additional 300.
MR. JACKSON: Yes,
sir.
REP. MICA: Okay. And the balance you determined of
checked- baggage screening would be conducted by trace-detection equipment. And
that requires a large number of personnel, correct?
MR.
JACKSON: Yes, sir.
REP. MICA: So have you placed the
order for the trace-detection equipment? And if so, how much?
MR. JACKSON: We've placed order for a significant portion of it, and
the remainder was contingent upon having the funds available.
REP. MICA: The inspector-general estimated we would need 4,500
trace-detection devices to complete the job. Is that accurate?
MR. JACKSON: Roughly, I think. Yes, sir.
REP.
MICA: Okay. So we -- what we have is a situation where you wouldn't -- you might
have the equipment, but you may not have the personnel to man the equipment. Is
that correct?
SEC. MINETA: Mr. Chairman, it depends,
because to the extent that if we can get the money for 1,100 machines, then that
depresses the need for the number of ETD machines. We estimate that to be
roughly around 4,600. But if we only had the money for 800 EDS machines, that
increases the ETD up to something like 6,700.
Now the
reason we can do that is because the EDS machines are -- let's say roughly
800,000 a piece. ETDs are available at 35 (thousand) to 40,000. So we can sit
there, depend upon the money available, then adjust that. But in adjusting it,
because of the throughput, as the assistant inspector-general indicated --
because of the throughput, based on that balance, it'll affect it. And so what
we were trying to do was to get a goal of 10 minutes going through the security
line. And in terms of the number of people, the magnetometers, the whole
combination of a systems approach would not hold.
REP.
MICA: Well, I'm told with this action just in the last few days by the
appropriators -- and I think you testified today -- over a billion dollars has
been diverted from what you requested and what we mandated as authorizers, as
far as your responsibility. I've been told by staff that, in fact, you may --
the financial situation is so bad you may be facing default in some of the
contracts you've already undertaken. Can you address that, Mr. Jackson?
MR. JACKSON: Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. I don't think we're
going to have any danger in defaulting under existing contracts. The major --
two of the major contractors that we retained to help us in the deployment
effort negotiated with the department to string out our payments when we found
ourselves in July without sufficient funds to meet the initial payment schedule
that we had negotiated. They did so willingly, and we're okay there. But we do
need the supplemental by the end of this month, the beginning of next month,
because we face substantial payments to third-party screening companies and
which we don't have the funds to cover.
REP. MICA: Even
with the supplemental, you've -- the secretary's testified here today, it's
going to be difficult to accomplish the original mission as mandated by
Congress. Is that --
MR. JACKSON: Yes, sir. With a cut
of 1 billion to $1 1/2 billion out of a $4.4 billion request, we have to
restructure fundamentally the business plan to get us through the end of the
year and to do the job that we've been given.
So there
is much to look at and a significant amount of work to do to try to figure out
what we can accomplish with what we've been given.
REP.
MICA: Well, finally, one of the things that I've tried since -- post-9/11 and in
our bill was, we authorized $50 million for research and development to get us
to the next generation of equipment; and I was shocked to learn, just the last
few weeks, that part of that $50 million that was appropriated, I believe 50
percent was earmarked for another project that didn't deal with either
checked-baggage screening or with passenger screening. Is that correct?
MR. JACKSON: Yes, sir, that is.
REP. MICA: And so it makes it difficult to even get us to the next
generation of technology. And most of the technology we have at our airports
today is 1950s-'60s x-ray technology.
So I think, in
all fairness to the secretary and to undersecretary now Admiral Loy taking over
this task, you have done your best to try to move toward the mandate that
Congress imposed in November, but I think we're facing a real crisis at this
juncture as you take over, Admiral Loy. Are you planning to sit down and sort
this out, Admiral Loy?
MR. LOY: We certainly will sit
down and sort it out, Mr. Chairman, but the bottom line is, as the secretary has
described it, without some kind of an adjustment either on the requirements end
or the resources supplied to meet the mandates, we will have to devise a backup
plan for what we now expect to be the funding stream that will flow from the
supplemental.
REP. MICA: And the FY '03 appropriations,
what's the problem there, finally, Mr. Jackson, with waiting for that? Or how is
that going to impact your ability to complete the task?
MR. JACKSON: Mr. Chairman, the secretary announced this morning that
the administration would be seeking an additional budget amendment increasing
the amount of money devoted to the TSA for fiscal year '03; but given the fact
that the fiscal year doesn't begin until October, and given the historical
uncertainty about whether or not appropriations will be approved at the actual
start of the fiscal year, we're going to have to make a decision in the next
several weeks about how to stage the money that we have. So at the end of the
game, as Admiral Loy says, we are faced with an anti-deficiency act. We can't
spend money that we haven't had appropriated to this function by the Congress.
So we will have to re-sort and re-stack the business plan to see what we can do
with the money we've been given. It's just like a checkbook that every American
has to balance, and we're going to have to balance ours.
REP. MICA: I thank you both. I will work with you, as you know. We have
an obligation to put in place the very best protection for the American people
possible, both for transportation and aviation security. So we'll figure out a
way to get the job done.
Let me yield to our ranking
member, Mr. Lipinski.
REP. LIPINSKI: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
I yield my five minutes to Mr. DeFazio.
REP. PETER DEFAZIO (D-OR): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll
dispense with the niceties here.
Mr. Secretary, so
you're saying that the administration supported fully the request of the
president last week up to the last minute, up to the vote in the committee,
since you're blaming Congress and the appropriators for the reduction; is that
correct?
SEC. MINETA: I'm sorry?
REP. DEFAZIO: Did the administration fully support its request all the
way through the process for the TSA, all the funds that you're now saying are
not there that are going to cause you to have problems?
SEC. MINETA: Well, we did support the --
REP.
DEFAZIO: Did they fully support it, yes or no? Are you aware?
SEC. MINETA: The only part of the $4.4 million (sic/billion) that they
did not support, until the very end, was $200 million less than the $4.4
billion.
REP. DEFAZIO: Right. That's correct. On the
last night of negotiations, the right hand of the administration, Mr. Daniels at
OMB, requested to the left hand of the administration a $219 million cut in the
TSA.
I'm just bemused, unfortunately, by your
performance. Last week Mr. Magaw was fired and we're making nice about it. He
was incompetent. The problems you had with the appropriators was because Mr.
Magaw instilled no confidence; he had no business plan. People thought he was
totally out to lunch. But you stuck with him for far too long.
Now suddenly in one week -- last week, you go before this committee,
which Mr. Menendez is on, and there is not one inkling, not one breath of a
problem. You can meet all the deadlines, everything's fine, everything's good.
The appropriators have been talking about these cuts for two months. Two months!
And suddenly you're going to say, well, you were out of the loop?
SEC. MINETA: Not at all.
REP.
DEFAZIO: And then the administration itself proposed a $219 million cut at the
last minute! The president has the authority; will the president ask to restore
the $480 million? All he has to do is sign his name to a piece of paper. You're
bemoaning the loss of half a billion dollars.
SEC.
MINETA: No, no. Mr. -- Mr. DeFazio --
REP. DEFAZIO: He
declares an emergency, the money goes back in.
SEC.
MINETA: -- you better read -- you better read the --
REP. DEFAZIO: This is the most extraordinary exercise!
Excuse me, Mr. Secretary. I've known you a long time. I am just really
-- just really upset at your performance here today. I mean, this was so
partisan, so political! There are problems, there are problems with the
appropriators, yes. There are problems in this House, in this committee, yes.
But there are a hell of a lot of problems downtown! And last week you fired Mr.
Magaw, and now it's this week it's all the problem with the appropriators that
you can't meet any of these deadlines! This is unbelievable to me!
Now, Mr. Secretary, I'd yield you some time.
SEC. MINETA: We don't have access to the $480 million in
that contingency fund unless the president exercises the full $5.1 billion
that's unavailable under that conference report for contingency. And so to me,
the $480 million doesn't exist. But I know that real money was taken away from
us. And we've been making an effort --
REP. DEFAZIO:
Mr. Secretary --
SEC. MINETA: -- constantly in terms of
trying to restore the money in terms of what we were requesting all the way
through.
REP. DEFAZIO: Mr. Secretary, if you would
today, with the full support of the president, bring forward a well-documented
request -- perhaps it will take longer than today, since I think Mr. Magaw left
quite a mess when he was fired, but something brought forward by Admiral Loy,
who does have the confidence of the Hill, who did run an agency that's been
underfunded for years, who did met his budget guidelines, if you brought that
forward, I believe we could jam that through the process in no time at all. If
the president said this is essential to protect people, and the only alternative
is to delay these deadlines and to have people at risk of their lives, I don't
think there'd be a problem.
But when OMB recommends,
when the president's own director of OMB recommends a quarter of a billion
dollar cut, it's hard to say the administration was there 100 percent and is
pushing. And last week you didn't raise a single budgetary issue before the
Homeland Security Committee. Mr. Menendez, I think, will wax eloquent about that
later. He was there. I'm only talking secondhand.
SEC.
MINETA: It wasn't a budgetary hearing. The question is whether or not --
REP. DEFAZIO: But -- but did you -- hadn't you read any of
the press accounts about the proposed cuts, the extraordinary failure of Mr.
Magaw to convince people that he needed this much money to be able to justify it
in any manner? You hadn't heard any whiff of that?
SEC.
MINETA: No, the -- I think, Mr. DeFazio --
REP.
DEFAZIO: None? And then his health problems just deteriorated.
SEC. MINETA: -- I think you're misreading -- I think you're misreading
what was going on during this whole time period. There had been a number of
meetings between me personally, the deputy undersecretary, our budget --
assistant secretary of Transportation for budget with the House and Senate, long
prior to the conference reporting out their actions.
And that was not available to us until Thursday, as I recall. We didn't
even see the language.
REP. DEFAZIO: You hadn't even --
you hadn't heard a thing. That's funny because I read in Congress Daily that
they were talking about cutting your budget. David Obey and Mr. Young, the
Republicans and the Democrats on the House side, savaged Mr. Magaw.
SEC. MINETA: We knew going in what they were talking about
because the House had already passed their bill, as did the Senate. The Senate
was 4.7 billion higher than where the House was. But -- we knew that.
REP. DEFAZIO: And the president insisted on cuts in the
overall supplemental to meet an arbitrary target.
SEC.
MINETA: For TSA, only 200 million to try to get to some figure that would be
accommodating. But on top of that --
REP. DEFAZIO: Only
200 million?
SEC. MINETA: That's right. But on top of
that --
REP. DEFAZIO: Only? So, you're saying you
needed every penny, but that 200 million that the president didn't want doesn't
count?
SEC. MINETA: I understand. I've been -- I've
been where you've been sitting. But on top of that, now under this new
conference report, they're imposing on us, under what they call PPAs -- the
programs, projects and activities -- for us to be able to line-item every item,
under a long list here on page three and four of the conference report, what we
are going to be spending in these categories, and that we will not be able to
reprogram or another. And so, they're even putting that much more restriction on
our ability to be flexible. So, it just seems to me that here when we're
thinking that we're going to see some daylight, we realize that what we -- the
light that we're seeing at the end of the tunnel is really the train coming at
us.
REP. DEFAZIO: It's a train coming toward you.
SEC. MINETA: Absolutely.
REP.
DEFAZIO: Mr. Secretary, if I could, just to get the record straight. The
recommendation made by Mr. Daniels, the president's appointee to OMB who is
known as Blade or Hatchet Man by the president, who likes to nickname people, so
he obviously revels in this guy's actions, he proposed on the last evening a cut
of 219 million to an already reduced budget to get it down to 600 million less,
to get the whole bill down to an arbitrary figure which the president supported.
No matter what was in it. It was just an arbitrary number. That was the
bottom-line result they wanted. Mr. Daniels knew when he recommended the 219,
you were already short these other funds in what the Appropriations Committee
had proposed. He knew that. So, I don't think the right hand of the
administration seems to know what the left hand is saying it needs.
I suggest to you, and if I could, in the interests -- my
time is up. I will support any reasonable documented request for any amount of
money, and I don't believe there's a single member of Congress who would want to
go on record not doing that. If the appropriators have done something egregious,
point it out, document it, and send back down a well-documented request that
people have confidence in, written by Admiral Loy, and, by God, we'll get it
through this place, and we'll get it through in a timely manner, and you won't
have to re-do everything. I think the re-doing everything at this point seems to
me an awfully auspicious sort of coincidence with the firing of Mr. Magaw.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP.
MICA: I thank you. And let me --
SEC. MINETA: Mr.
Chairman, may I respond?
REP. MICA: Yes. Go right
ahead, Mr. Secretary.
SEC. MINETA: First of all, Mr.
DeFazio, we've been at this effort since we sent a letter to the Appropriations
Committee on the 27th of June outlining to them what the consequences would be
if we did not get the money. Even as late as Thursday night, in terms of the
negotiations going on in the conference, I believe we were down to 3.8 billion
in terms of where -- what the -- where the conference was going.
But then we found out, even after they were down to the 3.8 billion,
they put in some more cuts. So it's -- you know, I'm with you on this in terms
of where we are on the funding, and -- because I don't want to see this kind of
cut going on. But by the same token, I know that the reality is, if these are
the cuts, I know what the impact is going to be in terms of what we're going to
have to do at TSA to scale back the program.
REP. MICA:
I thank the secretary. Let me -- and the gentleman. Let me turn Mr. Petri.
REP. PETRI: Thank you very much.
Mr. Secretary, thank you for coming and testifying before this
committee. Just wanted to say that I, as one member, feel that it's important if
we're going to do something in the area of national security in particular that
we do it right.
And in that connection, I'm alarmed
when you come before us and indicate that the supplemental appropriation bill
that we're going to be -- we're scheduled to be voting on possibly later today
is 1/3 underfunded so far as your needs are concerned. Do you think it would
make sense for us to go back to the drawing boards and do it over? Or should we
pass what we have and try to supplement the supplemental? Or what would be your
advice as to how we move forward on this?
SEC. MINETA:
Well, could I even add another wrinkle to this thing that makes it even worse?
Because we were waiting for the funds to come on board to be available to us, we
borrowed in two clumps: first, 750 million and then additional 260 million, I
believe, from FEMA. So given what is in this supplemental appropriations bill,
there is even another billion that is going to have to be reduced for us to pay
back FEMA. So it really is very bad situation from my perspective, in terms of
what we have to do at TSA.
Now it's above my pay grade
or -- in terms of determination. And that is really in the hands of Congress as
to what to do with the supplemental. But I don know that given where we are
right now -- we started at 4.4; we had reductions from that in terms of how much
was taken off by Congress and then how much is available to us in terms of how
much working capital TSA will have. And as I recall, that comes down to less
than $2 billion. I think it's something like 1.85 billion in terms of available
resources.
Now is it too late to do something to plug
the dike? Practically speaking, I think it is. And so the question is, how do we
make up for it? And the immediate way is to get a budget amendment for fiscal
year '03 but again, that's just looking to '03 to make up for the things that
we're not going to be able to do in fiscal year '02.
REP. PETRI: Well, how is all of this going to affect the deadlines or
timetable that you or Congress or the administration has set for itself?
I mean, we might as well be realistic about this, because
the worst thing we need to do is to set goals that because of underfunding or
whatever can't be met and then come right up against them and suddenly fall
short. It's much better, for confidence and everything else, to recognize
reality and set reasonable goals. How will they have to be adjusted, given this
one-third shortfall in funding?
SEC. MINETA: Well, Mr.
Chairman, I think that's where there is some -- given where we -- what we see
coming at us, that determination hasn't really been set in concrete. That's
something that we're still discussing among ourselves, as to what's the best
approach to take.
And I suppose if I were to think out
loud, I mean, we could stay with the November 19th and December 31 deadlines.
And yet, on the other hand, it may mean longer lines, because we won't have as
many people necessary for the passenger screening, and we may not be able, in
terms of the number of people and the number of machines on the bag-screening
side, again, not be able to process them.
You know,
we're processing 3 million bags a day, 1.1 billion bags a year, and what do we
have across the country? Something like 246 EDS machines right now.
And so, again, we can get utilization, as the assistant
inspector general talked about. We can get increased utilization. We can get
increased bags per hour through those machines. But on our present course, given
the monies that are in the conference, then I think we either look at having to
slow down the process, in terms of what happens at the airport, or maybe we keep
passenger screening at where we intended and slow down the baggage screening
piece of it.
REP. PETRI: Mr. Secretary --
SEC. MINETA: But those are the alternatives that -- we
haven't come to a conclusion yet --
REP. PETRI: My time
has expired.
SEC. MINETA: Yes.
REP. PETRI: But I think it would be worth also reviewing with the
airline industry some of their ideas about separating the sheep from the goats,
so to speak. There are many people in this country who are frequent flyers, who
are screened, some of them two or three times a day, almost daily. And if there
are ways of separating those people who are clearly not security risks and
concentrating the more limited resources on those who are not vetted in that
way, it, I think, would make the whole system much more efficient, and you could
probably save some money in the process.
SEC. MINETA:
Mr. Chairman, we are looking or working at that right now. We're hoping that our
work on CAPS 2 will expedite the very issue and the point that you're making.
REP. MICA: I thank the gentleman and the secretary. Let me
yield to the gentlelady from the District, Ms. Norton.
DEL. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D-DC): Welcome, Mr. Secretary.
Let me take an issue off the table before I get to what I
regard as very serious personnel matters. New York is where the worst of the
9/11 terrorism occurred.
Is business aviation up in New
York? Is business aviation proceeding in New York? General aviation?
SEC. MINETA: General aviation I think is probably --
across the country is down.
DEL. NORTON: No, let me
clarify. Are the New York airports accommodating general aviation? Are they open
for general aviation?
SEC. MINETA: No, I see what you
mean. General aviation is restricted in New York, D.C. and over sports events
and --
DEL. NORTON: Is general aviation -- is general
-- are the airports in New York open for general aviation? I understand there
would be restrictions.
SEC. MINETA: Yeah, they are
open, but there are restrictions as to how they operate in New York and D.C. But
New York, they are restricted.
DEL. NORTON: Yeah. I
raised New York. I could have raised Boston, I could have raised Atlanta. My
point is -- my point is that at least general aviation can go into the New York
airport with restrictions, as I understand it. Now, general aviation is totally
closed down in this, the capital region of the United States, certainly the most
important region of the United States.
Now, I bring
this up before I get to my other questions, because this airport was treated
differently as well when it was closed down for three weeks. Everybody
understood why. I want to thank you for working with us to get it open.
But on general aviation, the agency, your agency has been
working, apparently, with the industry, indicated there would be a rule by the
end of May. This is the end of July. And the capital region, this region, the
nation's capital, still has no general aviation. New York does, Boston does,
Atlanta does, every other place does. But this place does not. I understand that
the industry is willing to do whatever you say do. And still, general aviation
isn't open. Again, the same treatment we had with National Airport. We fought
it. I'm here to fight it when it comes to general aviation, to ask you why nine,
10 months after 9/11, this is the only airport where general aviation is down
and it's up everyplace else?
SEC. MINETA: We were all
set to open up Ronald Reagan National Airport to general aviation. We had been
meeting with the general aviation community, and I believe we had set the date
as June 23rd. But then, all of a sudden, daily I get my intelligence briefings,
and in then talking about those intelligence reports, we then decided that we
would not proceed with opening of DCA to general aviation. And --
DEL. NORTON: Indefinitely?
SEC.
MINETA: -- in the meantime, we have been working with the general aviation
community, and last Friday we then had a meeting with all of the principal
players in general aviation, and I informed them that for the immediate future,
we are not going to be opening Ronald Reagan National Airport.
DEL. NORTON: Did you inform them of why? And what does "the immediate
future" mean?
SEC. MINETA: Well, I can't give you a
date.
It is, you know, bigger than a breadbasket and
not as big as a house. But on the other hand, we did give them a -- we had not a
-- what do you call -- a classified briefing, but we did give them a briefing to
indicate the nature in a general way of some of the threats that still exist.
DEL. NORTON: Mr. Secretary, I'm going to be in the
classified briefing at 2:00, and I just want to put everybody on notice I want
very specific answers here --
SEC. MINETA: Absolutely.
That's --
DEL. NORTON: -- because I am quite aware that
Secret Service wanted to keep National Airport closed permanently. So the notion
of running scared at National Airport has to be met.
I
do have a question about personnel and recruitment. It was clear that there
would be personnel problems before the supplemental mark came down. You were
having problems -- you testified to some of them -- in hiring people. I just
want some clarification on the personnel front, given what now seems to be
inevitable. It looks like that workforce, that non-federalized workforce that is
now in place is going to be the workforce for some time to come. I want a
discussion of that.
But before that, I want to know --
because I think this may have influenced the appropriators -- you started off
with an estimate of something like 28,000 to 31,000. You ultimately said you
need 67,000 workers. Well, you can see now you came up to, you know, more than
half, more than 50 percent more. I need to know what made that difference from
the original estimates and the estimate you now give us, and how the
appropriators arrived at 45,000. I have to assume that they didn't pull that out
of the air. And I also assume -- (laughs) -- oh, they did? -- I also assume that
you should have assumed they would not have given you every body -- every last
body that you wanted.
After you let me know what in the
world happened, I need to know whether you are intending to keep the majority of
this workforce in place, and what you are going to do to make sure they can
handle the job, given recent reports that they continue to miss -- apparently,
they missed a quarter of the bombs and the guns that were put through as a test
most recently. And since they are likely to be the workforce, since you're so
far behind, what is being done to train them? How can we be assured that,
whatever happens with the back and forth or getting new folks, that there will
be people who will not let guns and bombs through?
SEC.
MINETA: First of all, the estimates that you speak of are correct, 28(,000) to
30,000. But was just the passenger-screening force and not including the
baggage-screening force. And so --
DEL. NORTON: So, why
didn't you include both in your --
SEC. MINETA: Because
at the time the legislation was being created, it was talking about the
passenger screening, and it was only later on that the whole issue of baggage
screening came in at the very end.
But when we were
first talking, we were only talking about the numbers as they related to
passenger screening. Then you ask about whether or not -- and so, that's why we
are upper in terms of this year, asking for the equivalent -- what we asked the
Appropriations Committee for was 51,253 FTE's, full-time equivalents. But they
didn't see fit to do that. They capped us at 45,000 full-time employees, as I
recall the phrase in the bill.
Now, you talk about, is
that work force going to be there that we have right now? And the answer is no.
Because, first of all, I would say that 90 percent of them are part of the
private screening companies that we had to keep in place under the law that said
we take over everything on the 17th of February. So, we took over all of the
screening companies that were there on the 17th. Where they had their contracts
with the airlines before, we -- they now have the contracts with TSA. And so,
those are the folks who are --
DEL. NORTON: Those are
the same folks, Mr. Secretary, aren't they? They just have a different
contractor.
SEC. MINETA: Oh, no. No. But what we have
done -- what we are doing in terms of as we bring on our work force, training
them to much higher standards. Where the present work force had something like
-- oh, I've forgotten, maybe six or eight hours of classroom training and 40
hours of on-the-job training, our new TSA federal work force has 44 hours of
classroom training and 60 hours of on-the-job training. So, it's a vastly
different standard that we're applying.
DEL. NORTON:
Mr. Secretary, my time is up. I just want to note that these are the folks that
are missing a quarter -- I'm talking about the non-federal work force that
clearly is going to be in place. They are missing a quarter of the guns and the
bombs.
SEC. MINETA: They're not going to be in
place.
DEL. NORTON: Well, you -- the testimony here is
that you are very far behind in hiring to do this job.
SEC. MINETA: That's right. The hiring -- first of all, in hiring the
new work force, we're on schedule. If you want to look at what our benchmarks
have been in terms of what our expectation of the number of employees of the new
work force, we are on schedule. And we will submit that for the record.
DEL. NORTON: Okay, but -- Mr. Chairman, this is very
important testimony because the testimony is that -- is that none of this
contractor work force will be in place, this work force that is missing guns and
bombs will be in place and you will meet the deadline for hiring federalized
people, hiring and training federalized people.
SEC.
MINETA: Again, you're -- it's not the same work force that will be there on the
19th of --
DEL. NORTON: That's what I understand your
testimony to be. That's what I understand your testimony to be.
SEC. MINETA: No.
REP. MICA: I'm going to have
to turn to the next member. We've got to get through this, and we've got a lot
of members that have questions. We'll get -- and you can ask some of these
questions to the session at 2:00.
Mr. Duncan.
REP. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR. (R-TN): Well, thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Let me, if I may, ask Admiral Loy a couple of
questions. And I'm sure other members run into this same situation. But I go
home every weekend, and as I walk through the Knoxville airport when I get in,
and then I come back on Monday or whenever, and I get hit by a change of shifts,
I guess, but I have those screeners ask me every time, every weekend, about
their jobs.
And at a hearing a few months ago, I asked
Secretary Magaw -- I told him that I did not think that we should fire 28,000
screeners just to start over again if they had a good record and were doing a
good job. And he assured me that there would be a preference given to the people
who were already working as screeners, as long as they had a job and they were
fluent in English, which was one of the requirements in our bill. Can you give
me that same assurance, so that I can tell the screeners in Knoxville when I'm
asked about it when I go home on Friday, that they will be able to keep their
jobs as long as they have a good record and they're doing a good job?
MR. LOY: Sir, the process is simply an application
process. Our experience to date with BWI, for example, was that from the
existing screeners there, we only had about a 10-percent qualification rate in
the aftermath of application and checking their citizenship requirements,
checking the English-proficiency requirements and then running screening tests
associated with their potential to be pulled on as new employees. But the
opportunity -- you can absolutely guarantee those folks that their opportunity
to be part of that application process for consideration is an absolute.
REP. DUNCAN: I don't think you'll run into the same
citizenship and English-language failures, I don't think, at Knoxville. But
also, I do want to tell you this, and I wish you would check into this: I had a
constituent call yesterday who said he was notified last Friday night around
11:00 p.m. that he was to report to a shopping mall in Oak Ridge to interview
for a screening position. And he said he drove 100 miles round trip to be there
by 7:00 in the morning, and after waiting for over an hour, along with many
other applicants, no one from the TSA showed up or ever called to cancel the
meeting.
Also, I read in The Wall Street Journal -- and
I've read some other stories that said that some TSA officials have not been
cooperating or cordial with some of the local airport managers. Now I've not
heard this complaint from the Knoxville airport, but I did read in one story
that this -- it told about the Orlando airport. It said a TSA advance team
showed up unannounced and set up a hiring center for screeners on airport
property. When the airport director went to investigate, he was threatened with
arrest for trespassing in a federal area. Is that true?
MR. LOY: The incident has been pretty well documented at this point,
Mr. Duncan. And the incident occurred. There was a communications gap that was
unacceptable. The TSA end of that operation is no longer present there, you
know, doing that job. So the communications-improvement game is something that
I'm very much dedicated to. And that is not only with airports but with airlines
executives, with the Congress and with whoever else is necessary to help us
understand and make a contribution to sorting this out in the future.
REP. DUNCAN: All right. Also, I've been asked by many
passengers who travel often if we're making progress toward a trusted- traveler
program or -- it's called other names by other people. What can you tell me
about that?
MR. LOY: As the secretary testified
earlier, sir, there is, I think, general acceptance that the notion of CAPS II,
when it comes online, will make a great boost forward with the potential for a
trusted-traveler program to be dealt with.
We believe
that there are certain absolutes associated with that, background investigations
with some kind of a spectrum beyond which we will not go in terms of what we
might find in those background investigations. But there is absolutely no doubt
that part of the hassle reduction program that we need to offer to the system at
large will be a trusted traveler program of some kind.
REP. DUNCAN: Also, finally, let me just say that I know Secretary
Mineta, when he was here on this committee, was a strong supporter of general
aviation, as I tried to be. And I hope that we can work something out to have
some of the same concerns in regard to general aviation as Mrs. Norton. And I
know that you all are struggling with that also. But that -- general aviation is
a very, very important part of our economy, and we're already reading enough bad
stories about the economy right now, and so we need to, I think -- I hope we can
work on that a little bit.
MR. LOY: Couldn't agree with
you more, sir.
REP. DUNCAN: All right, thank you very
much.
SEC. MINETA: Mr. Chairman, may I respond to one
part of the question?
REP. MICA: Yes. Yes, go right
ahead, Mr. Secretary.
SEC. MINETA: Mr. Duncan, you were
asking about the trusted traveler program. We are going to go into a trusted
employee program at TSA. But in the supplemental, they say that TSA is directed
not to obligate further funding on this effort, what we call TWIC, the Transport
Worker Identification Card.
So again, you know, there
are all kinds -- there are some things in this bill that some people think could
be ways to keep spending down. But there's a lot of things in here that are
"gotchas." And I don't think we ought to be legislating on appropriations bill
by "gotchas."
REP. DUNCAN: You mean it directs you not
to go further with the trusted employee program?
SEC.
MINETA: It does not allow us to move forward with the Transportation Worker
Identification Card. And this would be including for all personnel --
government, commercial, non-profit and others requiring access to secure
facilities in any mode of transportation nationwide.
REP. DUNCAN: Well, as you know, I have some very close friends on the
Appropriations Committee. I may talk to them about that, Mr. Secretary.
SEC. MINETA: We'd appreciate it, Mr. Chairman.
REP. DUNCAN: Thanks very much.
REP. MICA: The gentleman from Maine, Mr. Baldacci.
REP. JOHN BALDACCI (D-ME): Thank you very much, Mr. Mica.
Welcome, Mr. Mineta. Nice to have you here. There are
three areas that bother me particularly. The three areas that bother me
particularly are, one, who is running the airport screening security program,
the airlines or the Security Administration? I get different signals at
different times. Who is responsible for the policies instituted at the airports,
the Security Administration or the airlines? Do you want to comment on that?
SEC. MINETA: Yes, sir. Under the Aviation Transportation
Security Act, for the first time in the history of our country, aviation
security has been made a direct responsibility of the federal government. So
that responsibility is the Transportation Security Administration of the
Department of Transportation.
REP. BALDACCI: The
trusted traveler program that's been proposed to reduce the hassle factor for
frequent fliers, the airlines have advocated the implementation of a trusted
traveler program.
Has that been done in conjunction or
coordinated with the Transportation Security Administration?
SEC. MINETA: We have asked the airlines, through the Air Transport
Association, to submit to us what they want to see in a "trusted traveler"
program. I believe we have made that request on a number of occasions, probably
going back to -- (to staff) -- six months ago? At least six months ago. We have
not gotten that, and yet everyone complains at us about not having a "trusted
traveler" program. And we keep going back and saying, "Well, airlines, submit
something to us." And we have not yet heard from them.
And I know there's a great deal of interest in this. Director Ridge
would like to see some kind of a "trusted traveler" program, and so at a meeting
at the White House one day, with Governor Ridge there, as well as all of the
airline CEOs, we said, "Please, Governor Ridge, and working with the CEOs,
submit to us a 'trusted traveler' program that you would like to see." And as of
12 noon on the 23rd of July, I'd say we still haven't seen it.
REP. BALDACCI: Mr. Mineta, when I get a ticket at the counter and it
comes out with a category stamped on it, it's my understanding, at least from
the counter people, that that determines whether we get wanded or screened or
additional security reviews occur. That establishment of that category on that
ticket -- is that done in consultation with the Security Administration in
developing as to who is reviewed and who isn't reviewed? Or is that done by the
airport particularly -- the airline?
SEC. MINETA: No,
that is done under what is referred to as CAPPS. The -- and the CAPPS program
will determine who becomes a selectee. And so the CAPPS is the computer-assisted
pre-screening -- passenger pre-screening system.
Now
the one we have right now is very elemental, and it's been in existence for a
number of years. And you probably would become Exhibit 1 as to why CAPPS is not
working.
And so what we are doing is working on a new
CAPPS II program. We're hoping to have that developed -- and maybe I could ask
Deputy Secretary Jackson, but I believe, as I recall, it's in the
August/September time frame that we hope to have the outline of the new program
developed.
REP. BALDACCI: I think that -- and I
appreciate that, but one of the common complaints they got before the
establishment of the department and why we needed to federalize the screeners is
coordination, uniformity of practices and review, because different airlines
have different practices.
SEC. MINETA: Yeah. Yeah.
Absolutely.
REP. BALDACCI: And I do not see that
changing eight months into this department, and it being at the core of some of
the issues. And we'll review that particular issue later.
One of the other things that concerns me is that all of the sky marshal
requirements and all of the baggage screener requirements and mandates have not
been achieved, and it didn't look like it was going to be achievable, from what
the GSA had to say in terms of its oversight. And yet this week we're going to
be asked to merge this with the Homeland Security Department.
And there's a concern expressed in the GAO report about this
overlapping that's going to be taking place. And they use the example of a
Customs inspector, intelligence information officer, as an example, and the
recommendation was maybe holding back on moving forward until that all shakes
out.
Are you going to be able to move ahead in this new
department and be able to maintain the mandates that are in the law that the
Congress has passed; you know, to make sure that they're met?
SEC. MINETA: I have told our folks at the Transportation Security
Administration that they are not to look over their shoulder as to what their
future might be, whether it's going to be in Department of Transportation or in
the Department of Homeland Security; that we are going to be driven by the
provisions of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. And in that, there
are some number of schedules, and we have to meet the mandates of that
legislation. And so the folks at TSA are focused on what they have to do, and
they are not letting up based on where they think they might be tomorrow or
whatever date.
See, first of all, even if you folks
pass the Department of Homeland Security bill, that doesn't go into effect until
January 1, 2003. The mandates we have are November 19th, 2002, and December 31,
2002. So we've got to bust our buttons to make sure we adhere to those mandates
and not worry about anything else. And that's what we are doing. That's why I
say we have our time lines all drawn out as to what we're going to do for
personnel, machines, whatever. And we're meeting those schedules.
REP. BALDACCI: Mr. Chairman, just one final question.
Last week, I think, or the week before, the Congress,
because of the frustration with the department, we did have a permit program to
be able to arm pilots that was supposed to have had a process to be reviewed by
the department on a case-by-case basis. And because of frustration, I believe,
being a large element of being able to work within that process, the Congress
went ahead and voted to go ahead in a much more expansive program. Have you or
the administration changed your position, or is your position still, in regards
to that issue of arming the pilots, the same that it's been?
SEC. MINETA: That is still under discussion within the administration.
In terms of -- and one of the things I've asked Admiral Loy to do is to look at
this in terms of should we be taking another approach, in terms of lethal versus
non-lethal, in terms of arming pilots. Because when you look at this legislation
-- and I recognize the terrific work that all of you did here on this committee,
but nowhere have I seen so far the costs that are associated with this program.
And from our reading of this legislation right now, it's something like $860
million to set up the program, and then about $250 million a year to do the
quarterly recurrent training that would be required of the pilots.
So, rather than to get into the business of arming 82,000
pilots and having to purchase the weapons, train the pilots and then do the
recurrent training, I've asked Admiral Loy to take a look at this and see
whether or not -- is there some alternative that we might be able to come up
with?
Even if it is lethal weapons, do we give each and
every one of the pilots a weapon? Or can we have an enclosure, a secure
enclosure, in the cockpits? And yet, there are other kinds of problems with that
in terms of maintenance and cleaning and what about -- I don't know, if I'm the
pilot who opens it up, and the next crew comes on, and I forget to lock the
compartment, whatever? But there are a lot of things that we'd like to take a
look at, and I've asked Admiral Loy to take a look at in terms of alternatives,
both lethal as well as non- lethal.
REP. BALDACCI: So,
it'd be fair to say, Mr. Mineta, that in its current form, it would not be
acceptable at this point, and that you're reviewing alternatives to that?
SEC. MINETA: From my personal perspective, yes, sir.
REP. BALDACCI: Thank you.
REP.
MICA: All right. Thank you very much. Doctor Horn --
MR. JACKSON: Mr. Chairman, with your indulgence --
REP. MICA: Yes?
MR. JACKSON: -- can I clarify
one point?
REP. MICA: Sure. Go ahead.
MR. JACKSON: Sir, on the federal air marshal program that you
mentioned, we would be happy in the briefing this afternoon to talk about the
federal air marshal program, but I will just give you the punchline. We set
significantly expanded goals for this program back in November. The secretary
made a pledge to the president about exactly what he would deliver on those very
ambitious goals. By midpoint this year, we have nailed those goals to the wall.
We have a significantly expanded force up in the air. And I'd be happy to answer
questions this afternoon on that program.
REP.
BALDACCI: Well, just in completion, let me just say, look, we have all a major
task to undertake. And I think what we've recognized is to a large degree
there's a spirit of cooperation to bring this about successfully. It does get
frustrating at times, but I think everybody is trying to get to the main mission
of security for American passengers and the American public. And I appreciate
the opportunity to work constructively with you all as we try to address that.
But I think that we cannot accept this going on and on without having people
recognize that this is the main mission, and they've either got to get with the
program or find alternatives.
REP. MICA: All right.
Thank you very much.
Dr. Horn.
REP. STEPHEN HORN (R-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'll get to some of these in the classified part, but I'm concerned
with the size of carry-on baggage. Too many times, I've seen passengers injured
by falling carry-on baggage that is simply too large to be placed in the
overhead bins of our commercial airlines. As more and more Americans return to
flying, I'm wondering how you're planning on dealing with this problem? In
addition, since the tragic events of September 11th, many airports were given
permission from the former Transportation Security Administrator Magaw that they
could remove the templates from the X-ray machines to help expedite the
screening process. This has led to many passengers carrying extremely large
carry-on baggage. Are you open to replacing those templates to ensure that
oversize baggage is checked at the ticket counter rather than being brought
aboard airplanes and placed in overhead bins?
SEC.
MINETA: Congressman, that -- in terms of the baggage templates of which you
speak, that really has -- those have been removed from -- as far as TSA is
concerned, and leaving that up to the airlines for -- in terms of the size of
the bag.
But I think where -- the previous rules
usually have been relating to whether or not a person has two carry-ons or one
and -- but not in terms of the size. Now I might be correcting Michael.
MR. JACKSON: We'd be happy to look at the question. We
have discussed some of this with the airlines, who have the principal
recommending force here. But we'd be happy to talk further about it and keep
(tracking ?).
REP. HORN: Let me go after another issue,
which -- my colleague on the other side of the aisle just touched on the thing.
And that is, we gave the department discretionary authority to enter the
cooperative agreements with local law enforcement agencies to allow police
officers and sheriffs' deputies to serve as deputized air marshal (sic). The new
law requires that they receive all the necessary training and certification
before they can carry weapons on board an aircraft. This program could provide a
pool of trained law enforcement personnel to supplement the air marshal program
at significant savings for the taxpayers.
What's the
current status of this provision in the new law? Is this being actively
explored, and is it a viable solution for some of the problems that go with
expanding the air marshal program very rapidly?
SEC.
MINETA: Congressman, I believe we still have that discretionary authority,
because in the state of California, as you probably know, we are now allowing
the California Highway Patrol on intrastate flights to board with their weapons.
And -- but we have also required of them specific training in terms of serving
in that capacity, so that even if they are law-enforcement officers in another
capacity, if they are serving as air marshals on board an airplane, then they
have to have specific training.
And so to that extent
-- we still have the discretionary authority, but the mere fact that -- let's
say there's somebody on vacation who would like to serve as a federal air
marshal; we haven't done that at all. But we are looking at programs where
people can be authorized in their -- as air marshals in their non-local law
enforcement capacity. But they do have to go through specific training for
that.
REP. HORN: How extensive is that training?
SEC. MINETA: It's extensive -- especially as it relates to
firing of the weapon, as to how it's done and under what circumstances. And so
one of the things that we have to be careful of -- there are people who want to
purposely have some kind of incident occur on the airplane so that they might be
able to identify who the air marshal is on board -- because as soon as there's a
scuffle, then if someone stands up to move forward to try to deal with the
situation, then the air marshals are giving themselves away right away. And
then, as they get up, they'll say, "Ha, ha, ha ha. We know what you do."
And so again, there is specific training that we have to
give to people on not only when they exercise the use of the lethal weapon but
in terms of their own conduct when things happen. So they're well trained, they
sit there as a passenger. And frankly, you know, you wouldn't be able to -- I
don't think -- and I fly, as you do, a great deal, but I don't think I'd be able
to identify an air marshal on board. And if I did, I wouldn't say anything.
REP. HORN: All right. Thank you very much.
I'm told that on the Democratic side, I'm supposed to go to Mrs. Brown
next.
So, Ms. Brown.
REP.
CORRINE BROWN (D-FL): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome,
Mr. Secretary, Mr. Loy. My first question dealt with the incident that happened
at the Orlando airport. Orlando is in my area. And I wanted to know who was in
charge of informing the airport administrators when the TSA is planning to
conduct screening, interviews and other activities at the airport. But knowing
you, Mr. Loy, and having -- working with you -- with the Coast Guard, I know
that you are going to correct that communication problem with the airport
directors.
MR. LOY: Yes, ma'am. We have already made it
clear to all those players that they're what I call common stakeholders in the
well-being of the security profile that we want to get to that airport. So
during the assessment process, during the data-gathering process we are making
sure that Boeing contractors, for example, know when the Lockheed Martin people
are going to be there so there is communication there. And absolutely with all
of the local players, the airlines at that airport as well as the airport
managers themselves. It is unacceptable for us to do anything other than do that
right.
REP. BROWN: I have a concern that has been
raised from airport directors and the screeners. I push for the federalizing of
the workers because I support the training, the upgrade, the -- a lot of the
companies was (sic) just taking all of the dollars, not investing in the workers
itself. But I am very concerned that minorities, females, Hispanics are not
given the opportunities to be screeners. I think you've hired about 45
directors. My understanding, none of them are females or African Americans, and
maybe one or two Hispanics. I am very concerned, and when you look at the
contracting of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, none of the contracts have gone to
minority qualified business who have been working in the area of -- you know,
with the airports for years, particularly in central Florida. Can you address
that? I know you just got there.
MR. LOY: (Laughs.)
REP. BROWN: But it is a problem that exists once you got
there.
MR. LOY: I can offer several comments, Ms.
Brown. And if Mr. Jackson or the secretary would like to add, they certainly
can.
First of all, I think you know personally my
devotion to diversity with respect to organizations and how they should be led.
And I certainly will bring that same attention to detail to the new job.
Secondly, within the Boeing and the Lockheed Martin
contracts there are a host of subcontractors, and we have been working very hard
with them to make sure that 8-A and minority-owned contractors are part and
parcel of their bigger effort to get done the challenges that we've offered to
them. So the -- I will certainly take a hard look at the process. We realize
first and foremost that we had --
The gender issue rose
its head relatively early. One of the opportunities that lends itself quite
readily is part-time or seasonal employment that often is available to a woman
that otherwise would not be available for a normal eight-hour day. So we're
stressing very hard the opportunities that could materialize with part-time and
seasonal employment. And we are working hard on making sure that we have a
balanced workforce. And, in fact, we actually require a balanced workforce with
respect to the provisions associated with any passenger that walks to the right
counter and needs wanted -- to be so wanted by a member of that same gender.
REP. BROWN: But you know that's not happening. I mean, I
travel twice a week, and the person that screened me is not a female. Never.
But they will get you one if you're willing to wait aside
and request it.
MR. LOY: If you ask for one.
REP. BROWN: So I just go with the flow, like most
people.
MR. LOY: Yes, ma'am. If you ask for one, you
certainly will be provided a female wander.
SEC.
MINETA: Mr. Chairman, may I also add --
REP. DUNCAN:
Yes, sir, Mr. Secretary.
SEC. MINETA: -- first of all,
in terms of any wanding that goes on, it has to be of the same gender. That is a
rule, and if you're not getting that, then that's a breakdown in our own
system.
REP. BROWN: Well, I can assure you, Mr.
Secretary, that it is not happening. And in fact, in one case, I had to ask for
a female for another person because the person that was doing the wanding, in my
opinion, was enjoying it too much.
SEC. MINETA: Well,
no, that is a very -- that's the very reason why we instituted this policy of
same-gender wanding.
And the other thing is that in
terms of my own values, my own interests, this whole issue of diversity in the
workforce is very strong. It's something that I refer to on a regular basis as I
get reports, not only as it relates to TSA -- especially as it relates to TSA,
but to all the activities within the department -- boards, commissions,
whatever. Sean Moss, our director of small business and disadvantaged business
units, is integrally involved with the procurement people at TSA to try to look
for those kinds of opportunities for small business and women-owned
businesses.
So again, this is something we're trying --
that we are doing on a regular basis. And so -- and you're absolutely right,
from my perspective, the results are not healthy, but we keep working at it. And
I know that Admiral Loy will continue that effort.
REP.
BROWN: Well, I feel better that -- now that Mr. Loy is in place, that things
will improve, having worked with him, you know, over the Coast Guard as the
ranking person. But I do also know your commitment, Mr. Secretary, and I just
wanted you to know that it is not happening. And if you look at the directors
that's in place, out of the 45 you have no women and no minorities.
SEC. MINETA: We do have women, ma'am. We have women -- we
have a woman federal security director at Phoenix; Mobile, Alabama. I can't
think of where we have, but we have -- Stan Kobyashi (ph) in Honolulu is a
minority. (Willy ?) Williams in Atlanta. But not enough -- but you're right, not
enough.
REP. BROWN: Okay, and I just want to know that
-- some top-level people had applied that I knew about, who had been United
States Marshals, you know, in the Florida area, and in many cases was not even
given the courtesy of a interview, which is, you know, just really unacceptable.
They had strong backgrounds with law enforcement. So I have a concern there.
Let me just go on quickly.
REP.
DUNCAN: No, no. We've got to move on to other members, Ms. Brown. I'm sorry.
We've got so many other members here.
REP. BROWN: Well,
I will be at the meeting at 2:00.
REP. DUNCAN: Okay.
Dr. Ehlers.
REP. VERNON EHLERS (R-MI): Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
I will not skip the niceties, as one member
did. I do want to welcome you, Admiral Loy. I appreciated your service
previously and working with us on this committee, and I look forward to some
really good things from you.
MR. LOY: Thank you,
sir.
REP. EHLERS: And I am very pleased that you
received that appointment.
I also want to mention,
since my home city of Grand Rapids was one of the pilot airports, even though
they did not ask to be, but I assume they were because I've raised such a fuss
about the fact that you were neglecting smaller airports, it is not working
well.
I do have to say the EDS machines, explosive
detection machines, somewhat to my surprise, are working out well. And it's to
my surprise because they are really crammed into a crowded lobby. The flow
pattern is very bad. The airport is going to have to do some rather expensive
expansion to accommodate it.
But the reason I say it's
working well is that people are pleased with it. And that makes the gate
attendants -- pardon me, the ticket counter folks very pleased, because they're
not getting any complaints. They expect a lot of complaints. The passengers are
very happy to see their bags checked for explosives, because they know every bag
is being checked. And so I have to say that part of it is a success.
There was the same problem, relationship difficulties,
between the TSA and the airport that you've heard about before. And, in fact, at
one point, the TSA packed up and left, said "We're not going to deal with you."
And the reason was simply because the airport director required at least for the
space they were using, he was going to give it to them free. But they refused to
sign a lease. And what's especially ironic about it is that the Customs Service,
which is at the airport, for years has had a lease, free of charge again,
because -- out of courtesy for the federal government. So you had some rough --
(laughs) -- rough bumps, and I hope this work with the pilot airports will
certainly help you do better in the rest of them.
The
-- I would also make a plea. We haven't -- I haven't heard this discussed at
all, but I think it's very important that we get in place rather rapidly a more
rapid method of security for frequent fliers. If you -- I did some calculations
on that, just observing the people I know. And since I fly in and out of my city
every week, I know who the frequent fliers are. And I look at those numbers, and
if we had a more rapid method of dealing with them, it could really help unclog
the lines that you have at the security stations. And it wouldn't be that hard
to do. So I hope you do pursue that, because I see that as actually a
cost-effective way of helping shorten the lines at very little cost. Just as
you're trying to do it for the employees, it should be done for the frequent
fliers as well.
Let me also just comment on the
incredible need for uniformity and understandability of the rules for the
passenger screeners and the baggage screeners. And today is not a good day to
talk to me about it, because I had a horrible experience yesterday. We've also
had two very bad experiences in my home city airport at Grand Rapids in the past
two weeks, where two females were -- they call it "strip searched". That doesn't
quite fit the police definition of a strip search. But they had to have their --
they had blouses lifted, skirts pulled down, and even underclothing. In one
case, it was a cancer patient who had a metal implant. She had had a double
mastectomy, had metal implants in both breasts, and, of course, that set off the
detector. Even though she had a doctor's statement and her medical records with
her, they insisted that she remove her blouse and lift her brassiere. I -- that
is incomprehensible, and we've already communicated that to the secretary. And
yet other airports treat it much better. Similarly, at my airport, at which the
screeners are by far above the national average, I found it on my travels, very
often do things better and differently from other airports. There's just a total
lack of uniformity, but also a lack of understanding of the rules. And frankly,
I've gotten in trouble with some of them because they think any customer who
argues with them is obviously a troublemaker or a suspect. But I've had cases
where they simply don't know the rules. And I've told them that they're -- they
don't know the rules and they're not applying them right. Then, of course, then
I'm immediately subjected to a greater search. That's -- the need for uniformity
of rules, it's great.
Now, how long is that going to
take? Are the rules well established now? Should the people out there know them,
even though they're still the previous employees? What's the process? And, I
guess, Michael, you might be the best one to answer that.
MR. JACKSON: Yes, sir, I'd be happy to. This is something that you are
absolutely appropriately raising and we've been struggling with to bring
uniformity on what was multiple different teams of people trained in different
ways by different people for different standards. And we have been trying to
bring greater uniformity. I think we have made moderately good success there,
but not good enough. The real solution to this one is that beginning under our
plan, this summer we are beginning these massive roll-overs to have federal
screeners. And is the uniformity. That's the key to this problem. That is, a
consistent training, a retraining and testing, and education to courtesy and
decency in the screening process.
So, we believe we can
take care of this problem with the new work force. And we certainly don't think
that we have a free pass on dealing with it during the transitional period as
well. It's just that I honestly confess we're struggling with it each day. But I
think that the training program is the key to getting this problem nailed
permanently and effectively. And that is part of what we're doing with the
switchover to the federal work force.
REP. EHLERS:
(Inaudible.)
REP. DUNCAN: All right, thank you very
much. Dr. Ehlers --
REP. EHLERS: Just one quick --
REP. DUNCAN: Well, very quickly. I've got all these other
members that need to ask questions, and we're going to run into the 2:00 --
REP. EHLERS: This will be very quick. Are you still
changing the rules? Because yesterday I was screened three times. And one time,
I was told when I objected to certain things, they said, "Well, this is a new
rule. Went into effect two weeks ago."
MR. JACKSON: We
are constantly looking at the rules in order to evaluate their utility against
the threat that we see. So, we continuously look at the threat. We take
experience from other airports, and we're trying to refine them. I think we're
going through a bubble of change which should stabilize out later this fall. But
we are constantly looking.
REP. DUNCAN: Let me just
apologize to all the members. I'm told we have to be out of here a little bit
after 1:00 to do a security sweep. And so, I'm going to have to be really strict
with this five- minute rule. And we'll go next to Ms. Millender-McDonald.
REP. JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD (D-CA): Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I hope to be rather brief. I think I will.
It's good to see you, Mr. Secretary, again, our native son from
California. And, you know, they say hindsight is 20/20. Perhaps had we looked at
and got a more comprehensive and cohesive plan, short and long term, for TSA,
maybe we would not be in this predicament. Who knows? But it certainly seems as
if there was not a plan that was working or a plan at all. And so, this is why
we've stumbled into so much.
But, Mr. Secretary, as
I've spoken with persons around California in terms of TSA, it has been my
understanding of their comments that the interaction with TSA has not been the
best, at best. And so, I hope that in the future there will be a more cohesive,
more uniform type of training methodology that will create a better climate.
I was also speaking to the LAX folks, and in the recent
incidents at LAX, they are having to expend greater resources to provide
security at the security checkpoints because of those incidents of July 4th. And
I would like to ask you, and like for you to tell this subcommittee, just what
actions are you planning to or TSA is considering or the acting person to secure
the areas in front of checkpoints? Because it happened in LAX. It could very
well happen at O'Hare and all the other big airports.
And the second thing is, in spite of us not having EDS's in place to
the fullest extent that we want, I continue to talk about the unaddressed
security gap that we have and the emotional investment in new screening
security. I would like for you and all of you who are sitting before me to look
at Telair's Hardened Unit Load Device, which is a product that you put in the
belly of a plane that will secure to ensure that there will not be any
explosives -- or it will not blow up the plane if explosives are inside of this
apparatus. And it's called H-U-L-D, HULD. Please let us bring these folks in so
that you can look at that. In light of not having enough EDS, we need to look at
other devices that will help us in circumventing any airplanes being blown up
because of a lack of EDS.
So I urge you to look at
that. Telair is in my district. I would love to invite them back here. They
would be happy to come back and let you see this.
But
in light of the incidents of LAX, what are we putting in place for that, given
that they're utilizing their resources for other things in order to secure that
checkpoint?
SEC. MINETA: That's correct about the --
local airports are using, in many instances, local law enforcement in order to
-- because we do not have our own federal PSA LEOs, the law enforcement
officers. And so to the extent that we don't have the law enforcement officers
on board, we are contracting with the local airport authority or the city to
provide that law enforcement capability. And we are paying and reimbursing the
local authority for that, and --
REP.
MILLENDER-MCDONALD: Are you? Because I talked with the airports authority, and
at the time I spoke with them, which was as late as last week, that was not my
indications of what they said. So I would like to revisit this --
SEC. MINETA: Okay, I'll check on it.
REP. MILLENDER-MCDONALD: Yes, please.
SEC.
MINETA: But we're providing that at the checkpoints, so I'll look -- but let me
check on that.
REP. MILLENDER-MCDONALD: Could you
please check on that?
SEC. MINETA: Absolutely.
REP. MILLENDER-MCDONALD: And can we please invite Telair
to come and see you again on this whole --
SEC. MINETA:
Yeah, I thought we were doing some on that Kevlar hardened -- (to staff) -- are
we not --
STAFF: (Off mike.)
SEC. MINETA: They are already one of two approved hardened container
contractors.
REP. MILLENDER-MCDONALD: That's correct;
they are approved. But to get it implemented and utilized is what I suppose
we're asking for, and I will talk with you on that at a later date.
SEC. MINETA: I would assume that that will be up to the
airlines themselves to say, "Yes, we're going to order from Supplier A or
Supplier B," and --
REP. MILLENDER-MCDONALD: So it's
the airlines who would have the ultimate decision with that?
SEC. MINETA: And I would assume that they would not be buying them
until they have to replace their own containers.
REP.
MILLENDER-MCDONALD: That is your understanding.
SEC.
MINETA: But we'll follow up on that with --
REP.
MILLENDER-MCDONALD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP.
DUNCAN: All right. Thank you, Ms. Millender-McDonald.
Mr. Thune.
REP. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): Thank you,
Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate the testimony this morning and would -- I was
interested in the comments in response to Mr. Ehlers' question, because I also
represent a number of smaller airports and ensuring that there is a uniform
approach to larger and more rural airports is very important.
I have just a couple of quick questions. One has to do with the -- and
Secretary Mineta, I think the department and TSA recently released a security
rule for charter aircraft weighing 95,000 pounds or more. And I understand that
it does exclude some of the -- you know, the vast majority of on-demand air taxi
operators that -- because they have lighter aircraft. But it does not exclude
those that may operate heavier ones.
And I'm just
curious -- this is something that's been brought up from the industry -- in my
state we have a lot of charter traffic into and out of South Dakota because
sometimes our commercial operations require that people find other ways of
getting to their destinations -- about how you would propose to implement this
and the concerns that have been raised logistically -- the commercial airport in
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is an example -- is right here, and then you've got
the general aviation, the charter services over here, and how are you going to
screen all these people and, you know, the equipment and everything else? I
mean, it just seems like it's going to be a very difficult thing to do. And I'm
curious as to your thoughts about that, because economically that's something
that has a big impact in my state.
As I said, we have a
lot of charter operations. So your thoughts?
SEC.
MINETA: First of all, the rule relating to security for charters is 12,500 up to
95,000 and then another rule for 95,000 pounds and above. And those have now
been issued where they're in a combat period. I believe they've been in a combat
period. But in any event, what we're trying to do -- and we've been working with
those associations that represent charters and try to work out a program so that
it is not financially burdensome but yet, on the other hand, it's something that
there's a great deal of interest to make sure that we do have some kind of
control in terms of security provisions, even with a smaller air-taxi operation
or charter operation. And so we are working with the professional associations
on trying to devise a common-sense approach to this.
REP. THUNE: I appreciate that, and I would encourage you to continue to
work closely with those organizations. And those services are an important, as I
said, economic component in our state. And I think they have some unique
concerns and needs, and it's going to require a certain amount of flexibility to
deal with the -- you know, obviously, the security requirements but do it in a
way that is not, you know, just completely over the top in terms of the economic
impact and then also the -- just the other issues associated with forcing people
who come in and use charter services to go through the same sort of screening
you would in a commercial operation.
SEC. MINETA: In
fact, it was a week ago today, as I think about it, that Deputy Secretary
Jackson and I met with them about security issues.
REP.
THUNE: One other question -- and this comes back to a question that was asked
earlier, and I'm not sure I got a definitive answer, but one of the questions
has been raised among the employees that currently serve as screeners in the
airports in South Dakota is, as this transition takes place -- and obviously,
ours is a smaller airport, so our expectation is that it'll probably happen
somewhere down the road -- but nevertheless, there is a concern that a number of
the people who I think in the airport -- and I travel a lot -- do an exceptional
job there -- about their jobs and what it will mean as this is implemented in
terms of people who are currently serving in those positions.
If they are doing a good job and they meet the requirements under the
law, will they continue to serve in those (positions ?)? I think the chairman
actually asked that question earlier, but that's a question that I'm asked on a
routine basis, too. And I'm not sure I got a clear, definitive answer to that. I
think you at least made some reference, some passing reference to that. But are
those people who are currently serving in those positions, if they are up to the
task, going to continue to serve there?
SEC. MINETA:
Well, they would be, but the problem, I guess, is, first of all, they have to
apply through two methods right now: a 1- 800 number or through an online
registration on their part. Once they do that, then they would be notified to
come to an assessment center. Now one of the problems we've had so far is that
we haven't had enough assessment centers.
And so one of
the things that the contractor is doing is to broaden the number of assessment
centers that they do have, so that people in more rural areas will still be able
to get to an assessment center to get onto the roles for consideration for the
screener positions.
But the mere fact that they're a
screener right now is not a guarantee that they will be part of the new
workforce. But again, because of their experience, then I think they would have
a better chance.
And, Michael, maybe you can --
MR. JACKSON: The secretary's absolutely right that there's
not an absolute lock on getting a job. But this is just common sense, and we're
trying to put common sense into play as much as possible in this world.
We're recruiting in the sense of telling people: Look,
you're working here. Do you want to stay? We're looking for people that have a
brightness in the eyes and a conviction to work. And we're asking our federal
security directors and our IFRs to say, "Here's how to apply. Do you know where
to go? Do you have the forms? Is there any question I can do to help you?" So
we're trying to make our people recruiting agents for good employees and to do
that on a proactive basis in the airports.
We have to
tell you you have to meet the citizenship requirement, the education
requirements, the other things that are in the law. But it's part of our job to
go out and find the very best people, and if some of them are sitting on our
doorstep, we'd be foolish not to pull them in and ask them to help out.
REP. DUNCAN: All right, thank you very much.
Mr. Sandlin.
REP. MAX SANDLIN
(D-TX): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be very quick.
Following up on what Mr. Thune asked, Mr. Secretary, could you tell us
what the reasoning was, or how the 95,000-pound limit was set? It seems to be an
arbitrary limit. And I understand that there is an organization called the
International Civil Aviation Organization that makes changes at 100,000. Could
you comment maybe on that weight limit and how it was selected?
SEC. MINETA: Let me get some help.
(Confers
off mike with staff.)
Michael?
MR. JACKSON: Sir, I think it was statutorially imposed. But there are
various break categories in FAA core regulations, and 95,001 is actually one of
those break points for certifications of different aircraft, so -- just as the
12,500-pound rule was tagged in some prudent way in the drafting of the
legislation to a class of aircraft that had been regulated (in set and known ?)
ways, this second category was grabbed from that template and that's how they
came about, I understand, the designation there.
So we
actually are entertaining in one of these cases a request from the industry to
add the rule one pound, because it has inadvertently added an entire class of
aircraft to an additional set of requirements. So we're looking at that issue as
well.
REP. SANDLIN: Well, if it made common sense to
change the 95,000 to 100,000, do you think that would be possible? And are we in
a period of comment where those changes could be made, if that seemed to make
sense?
MR. JACKSON: Certainly we would entertain the
comments in the comment period in a formal way. We may need a statutory change
to be able to come back, and we have a technical corrections bill which the
administration is, I hope, poised to submit to the Congress for consideration,
and we're looking at one of these issues in that technical correction.
REP. SANDLIN: Okay. Could you look at that, please, for
me, and see if there would be a way to make that change because I think it could
be a common sense change that wouldn't affect safety, but would make it more
economical for our constituents.
One other question and
then I'll be finished, Mr. Chairman.
I understand that
the Department of Transportation has suggested that AIP funds can be made
available to TSA to offset the cost of manpower and equipment.
And many of our small airports, of course, rely on these AIP funds for
capital improvements. Are there going to be AIP funds to offset shortfalls in
the TSA budget? And is there some way to assure that that would not impact our
smaller airports on their capital improvements?
SEC.
MINETA: First of all, the AIP funds will be available for local airports if they
make that choice on their own. That's not something we're imposing. But we're
saying, "Here are your AIP funds, and if you chose to use it for security
purposes, you're free to do so, but that option also expires at the end of
fiscal year '02.
Now, we --
REP. SANDLIN: Mr. Secretary, are you putting them in a position,
though, of saying, "Okay, if I want to implement these security measures that
should be implemented, I'm going to have to use my AIP funds to do that, but
then I won't have money for my needed capital improvements"?
SEC. MINETA: Right. That's why we will have -- airports have secured
under the supplemental bill $231 million for reimbursement to the airports for
their security needs. And it's in the supplemental appropriations bill. Because
again, as you've indicated, we don't want to -- because AIP funds are for
capacity and safety purposes, that we don't want to divert AIP funds for
security. But because of September 11th, the priority moved from capacity and
delays after September 11th to security. So that's why we made this eligible for
security purposes but only through September 30th of this year.
There are other sums that are available for local airports for security
purposes, one of them being the $231 million. But I think as the economy
rebounds, we've got to get prepared for capacity and delay issues, so we want to
minimize the drawdown against the AIP funds and keep it for landing, for
taxiways and runways.
REP. SANDLIN: Thank you. (I had
some questions ?), but I see I'm out of time.
Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. DUNCAN: All right. Thank you
very much.
Mr. Moran.
REP.
JERRY MORAN (R-KA): Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr.
Secretary, Admiral, general aviation is an awfully important sector of our
American economy, certainly true in my home state of Kansas. And we've had
significant concerns about increasing rules, regulations and hurdles placed in
front of our pilots, our aircraft owners. And I just wanted to explore with you
for a moment -- I assume that you're willing to reassure me that the rules and
regulations that we're going to experience are going to take into account the
unique nature of general aviation and the tremendous hurdles that you could
place in the general aviation industry's way. What kind of theory, attitude,
approach does the department intend to take?
SEC.
MINETA: Frankly, this has probably been one of the most vexing issues facing us.
And recognizing that you come from the GA capital of the world. And my interest
has been with GA for a long time. The problem that we're facing is that -- and I
think we have to, all the way around, sort of mount a communications and public
relations program about general aviation and its impact around the country,
especially on smaller, local communities.
I have
probably, as with Deputy Secretary Jackson, spent an inordinate amount of time
trying to convince security people not within the department -- namely, the U.S.
Secret Service, the National Security Council, sometimes the Homeland Security
Office -- that some of the things that we are doing are restrictive and are
impacting on local communities.
And so I would like to
work with you in some way to open up and make sure that GA is not constricted in
terms of how it operates. We recognize the value of GA and the importance of it.
And maybe Michael can give some of the things that he's been doing in this
area.
MR. JACKSON: We had a really good conversation,
as the secretary said, last week with the heads of all of the major stakeholders
in the GA world. And we did it for a couple of reasons. We brought some people
from the intelligence community in for a specialized briefing, and not public
safety-sensitive briefings, security-sensitive briefing, to explain to them some
of the threat analysis that the intelligence community has done relative to the
GA world. And honestly, we can talk about this later today.
There is a concern to make certain that we have effectively looked at
the GA issues. But then we solicited their help in putting together some new
mechanisms, and possibly even allowing for some classified briefings for select
individuals to help us divide some policies. They have themselves agreed to get
together and to put a top 10 list, a high priority list of things that they
think that we can do to both make GA safer, more secure, and at the same time
work with them in ways that will allow them to prosper and to thrive.
So we've committed to a process, we've looked at some of
the particular threat analysis work together. And we have committed, with Jim's
good work, set up an ongoing and routine way to vet things that we've thinking
about in this world.
REP. JERRY MORAN: Mr. Secretary,
your statement confirms at least my impression, perhaps understanding, that it
has not been so much the Department of Transportation that has created
unreasonable rules, regulations, it has been those involved in security. And I
think what you're telling me is that those folks in security need to have more
knowledge and awareness of how GA operates.
I have a
particular circumstance I'd like to have -- if you would, Mr. Secretary, ask one
of your staff to visit with me about a pilot and his crop duster and issues that
he has encountered post- September the 11th, I'd appreciate your assistance.
SEC. MINETA: Crop dusters have probably presented us with
the most problems across the country. And I will get back with you on that.
REP. JERRY MORAN: Well -- in addition to Kansas being the
air capital of the world, we also have a significant amount of agriculture, and
crop dusting is a significant component of that industry as well. And in both
those areas I'd like to have a good working relationship with you, the
department, and others involved in these issues.
SEC.
MINETA: Absolutely.
REP. JERRY MORAN: Thank you, Mr.
Secretary, for your time.
REP. DUNCAN: Ms. Tauscher?
REP. ELLEN O. TAUSCHER (D-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, Mr. Deputy Secretary, Admiral Loy, Ms.
Stefani, thank you for being here and for your staff that's right behind you
that I know is working very hard. Let me thank you for all your hard work.
Not to mix metaphors, but it seems that while we're seeing
the light, we should probably read the handwriting on the wall. And I think for
quite a long time it's been obvious to me that that the dates for hiring all the
federal screeners and for putting these EDS machines in were both arbitrary and
unachievable, while at the same time necessary to do. So I feel like a good
American woman telling you all that you have to continue doing hat you've been
doing, which is multi-task. Unfortunately, you have to do it all.
Unfortunately, it's hard to do. And now, it looks like
we're not going to give you the money. So, welcome to 21st century democracy.
But I think the most important thing we have to do,
because we did have a 435-member frequent flyer focus group a few weeks ago that
overwhelmingly voted to arm pilots, I think we have to concentrate on what is
achievable, what we can deliver to the American public, what they will visibly
see, what they will say, "Aha, that means something to me," and that is armoring
the cockpit doors. I think we all know that we've gone to the Home Depot, bought
a couple of screws, gotten a couple of bars, and that you can blow the door down
with a deep breath.
If we do not armor those cockpit
doors, we're going to find ourselves with an American public that doesn't have
any real optical, measurable way of saying they're doing something. Because keep
in mind, a lot of what we're doing is behind the door. We're changing logos on
people's T-shirts. But they don't really see the difference to it.
Those cockpit doors save us the problem of trying to
figure out how to arm pilots, which now sounds like it could cost us hundreds of
millions of dollars, could cost time and energy. I think that what United
Airlines is doing, by making it part of the cockpit equipment, by making sure
that these are things that everybody has access to, but at the same time aren't
floating through airports and going to the Outback Steakhouse during a crew rest
in Cincinnati, these are things that we have to do.
Now, we have an April 9th date. We have, I think -- April 3rd? April
3rd date, that's even better. April 1st would be even better. But we have got to
achieve this. This cannot be a date that we miss. Now, we've, I guess, rolled
over the international carriers and gotten them to pick that date, too.
What can we do to ensure that you meet those dates? What
can we do to make sure that the dates that we're not going to achieve,
optimistically, in November and in January are still being vigorously worked on?
And besides this money problem, which I know is huge, what can we do to make
sure that we're achieving things that are going to add to the peace of mind, add
to the kind of confidence the flying public has, and not have the airlines
bleeding red ink all over the floor?
One of the things
I'm concerned about is that airlines have to pay for or take out of rotation
airplanes where they lose revenue in order to armorize these cockpit doors;
they're going to be slow to do it. I would hope we would be creative and think
about using some kind of bridge financing to provide the ability of getting
these cockpit doors armorized so that we're not telling the American people once
again, "Oh, but we couldn't afford to do it," or "We couldn't make them do
it."
So, if you could address some of those things, Mr.
Secretary, I would really appreciate it.
SEC. MINETA:
First of all, let me stand corrected. It is April 9th. You are correct. But 2003
--
REP. TAUSCHER: April 3rd.
SEC. MINETA: Yeah. That is, the April 9th -- not 3rd -- April 9th date
is something that we will hold to, without a doubt. As you've indicated, now we
have gotten the international airlines that are flying into the United States
also to adhere to the April 9th date in terms of converting their cockpits to
hardened cockpits.
This is something that we recognized
right from the beginning as something that had to be done. So, right after
September 11th, we put out the rule about bolting the door. And that was
accomplished -- I believe we put out the rule on something like the 25th of
September, and by the 5th of November, there was something like 5,800 airplanes
here in the country that had their doors hardened -- or at least put bars in
them.
The next phase is the hardening of the whole
cockpit, and I believe there are already two approved concepts. And so, now it's
a question of getting those to be implemented. As you've indicated, airlines
don't like to take planes out of revenue service. The extensiveness of these
changes will probably say that they will do it only on a "D" check.
So that means they're going to be a long time in coming in
some of these aircraft.
There is some money, I believe,
that will be made available, but we will work on this issue and keep you all
informed about what we're doing on this.
REP. TAUSCHER:
Mr. Chairman?
REP. DUNCAN: Mr. Pascrell?
REP. BILL PASCRELL (D-NJ): Welcome, Mr. Secretary,
Admiral.
Admiral, I have a great deal of admiration for
what you've done at the Coast Guard. And we've been in several situations where
I think you've gone beyond. And I know you're going to do a great job.
However -- (isolated snicker) -- I think that Mr. Magaw
has been made out to be a scapegoat, because his job was to establish TSA, and
he got a lot of mixed messages not only from the administration but from the
Congress of the United States. And I think he tried to do his best. And I think
you would admit to that. He's worked very closely with Secretary Mineta, and I
have confidence in Secretary Mineta. I do not have confidence in the
administration, because when everything's a priority, nothing's a priority. And
every budget has consequences like every election has consequences.
So Mr. Secretary, my first question to you is, will the
administration recommend that the House take the deadline extension language out
of the homeland security bill?
SEC. MINETA: I don't
believe that there's been a conclusion on that issue right now. If fact, --
STAFF: (Inaudible.)
SEC. MINETA:
Yeah.
REP. PASCRELL: Mr. Secretary --
SEC. MINETA: I can't say that we have said in terms of --
REP. PASCRELL: Mr. Secretary, the administration is
talking out of both sides of its mouth. I asked you a pretty simple question. I
don't think it's very complex.
SEC. MINETA: And I'm
saying that there is no answer yet right now.
REP.
PASCRELL: We're voting on it this week. Within 45 minutes to an hour, we're
going to be debating the supplemental. You talked extensively about the
supplemental -- what it's lacking. I mean, when are these changes going to take
place? Here we are, talking about rushing to pass homeland security, make it a
department -- which came out of the Congress as a recommendation long before the
president caught up. And then we're saying "slow down" in terms of the
deadlines. Pretty complex. Pretty interesting.
If the
language is included in the final product, Mr. Secretary, would the TSA then
slow their efforts at all to implement a program of 100 percent explosive
screening at all airports?
SEC. MINETA: As I said
earlier, the whole issue of giving the restricted moneys that would be available
to us -- how we apply those resources -- do we take down passenger screening a
little bit, take down baggage screening a little bit? Or do we say, let's keep
passenger screening at its full level and reduce baggage screening or vice
versa?
Now those things we haven't determined. Deputy
Secretary Jackson and I, given the outcome of the supplemental bill, are
discussing right now how to deal with that issue.
And
maybe I can ask him to think out loud with you, as well as we have, on how to do
this. As I said earlier, there are two approaches on this thing, and the
question about whether we do the baggage- screening side or the
passenger-screening side, or cut both down, or just keep one at its full level
and chop the other on down, we have not determined yet.
REP. PASCRELL: Mr. Secretary, for the -- (inaudible) -- it's so
important that folks feel secure. We want to get them back on the planes,
because otherwise, the airline industry will collapse all together. And in order
to do that, we have to fulfill our obligations and our responsibilities on time.
You've said that. You've said it many, many times.
I'd
like to ask you very quickly, do you have the breakdown of how much the aviation
industry, the federal government, and now passengers through fees, will be part
of the aviation security plan, what is the percentage that each is paying right
now? What are the airlines doing?
SEC. MINETA: Well,
the airlines, when the Aviation Transportation Security Act was being put
together, said that their cost in aviation security was anywhere from $700
million up to $1 billion. Now, just recently, as we were talking about the
aviation community, the airlines, as to what they would be doing in -- what they
had done in the past, said that it was really around $300 million. So we are now
-- I believe we have asked the IG to conduct an audit of the airline as to how
much were they investing in security --
REP. PASCRELL:
Good question.
SEC. MINETA: -- because we're depending
on that money coming in from them, because we had said to them at the time that
the Aviation and Transportation Security Act was passed, that yes, they would
continue to pay what they had been spending on security. And then, all of
sudden, when we give them the bill, they said, "Hold it. It wasn't that
much."
So again, the passenger fee is, of course, based
on the $2.50 per segment and the $5.00 round trip. And that will generate, I
believe, $400 million.
And then, in terms of the
general funds going into it, then that would be --
REP.
PASCRELL: So the passengers are actually -- with the numbers you just presented,
Mr. Secretary, are putting more into the security than the airlines?
And I just -- I don't want to ask you a question, I want
to make this point.
Ms. Stefani, this is excellent
testimony to the point concerning the personnel. Many of them aren't showing up,
they're just not showing up. And for us to hold Mr. Magaw responsible for people
not showing up, and then a third of them aren't qualified, to me is ludicrous.
And I know that we are in a place called Washington, D.C. where we look for
scapegoats -- we'll blame everything on him, since he's gone, or her. I want to
thank you for being very articulate in your testimony, and I -- (off mike) --
REP. DUNCAN: Ms. Berkley?
REP.
SHELLEY BERKLEY (D-NV): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And
welcome, Secretary Mineta. It's very good to see you. Safety of the flying
public is of principal concern to all of us. I fly home every weekend to my
district -- most of us do. So not only are we members of Congress, but we're
members of the flying public.
You know my district very
well, and you know McCarren Airport very well. And of course you know that 46
percent of the visitors that come to Las Vegas come through McCarren Airport.
That's 46 percent of 36 million people. So McCarren is a lifeline to my
community.
Not only do the travelers that come to Las
Vegas have to feel safe, they have to be safe. And we also need to implement
security measures that are both efficient and realistic as well.
An aviation consulting firm working with McCarren Airport has recently
reported that the current proposal by TSA to screen all baggage by December 31st
will add an additional three to four hours of waiting time at McCarren Airport.
This creates additional security concerns, such as long lines at the airport,
and will also have the potential of devastating the economy, the tourist
destinations throughout the United States, particularly in communities, like Las
Vegas, that depend so much on our tourism trade.
Now I
have a series of questions. What I would like, if you don't mind, is to ask them
and have you respond in writing, in the interests of time. And I must say, with
all candor, that the reason that I'm asking these questions at this hearing is
because the TSA has been totally non-responsive to the people at McCarren, the
people on the ground. They're making suggestions. They're asking. They're
inquiring of TSA. They get little if anything back. So I'd like to ask the
questions on their behalf that -- questions that they've been asking for quite a
while.
Current security measures have caused
significant lines and delays at the terminals. Airport officials have raised
concerns that this could make our airports terrorist targets as well. At any
given time at McCarren Airport, there is a thousand people waiting in line to go
through the security checkpoints. This becomes a very target- rich environment,
having a thousand people concentrated in one area at the airport. And McCarren
Airport officials would like to know if the Department of Transportation is
looking into ways and what we're doing to make the airports more secure. And I
know there's concrete barriers, and cars can't linger in any location anymore,
but what are we really doing to keep our airports safe, in addition to keeping
our airplanes safe as well?
The second question that
I'd like answered is, McCarren Airport is ranked second in the country for
numbers of passengers going through ticketing and security checkpoints. When the
second round of security funding is distributed, will the number of passengers
going through the doors be accounted for? Because in the funding -- in the
formula mechanism that currently exists, McCarren is getting shortchanged by
considerable millions of dollars, because we have so many more passengers going
through McCarren than are accounted for under the current formula.
Officials at McCarren Airport are also concerned that the
airport will not be able to have all of the explosive-detection devices needed
in place by December 31st, by the deadline. As you know, because of the volume
at McCarren Airport -- and if it's 46 percent of 36 million people, we're
talking about 18 million people, with an average of 1.8 bags that need to be
checked -- if -- because of this incredible volume -- and we need 16 of these
machines; each one is the size of a pickup truck -- there's no place in the
current configuration of McCarren Airport to put these large machines. They
would like to -- they're going to have to make modifications to the terminal to
house the devices, and what they ideally would like is to build a baggage
facility to accommodate the large number of baggage at McCarren Airport.
My question is, how is TSA and the department working with
our airport officials at McCarren?
I mean, if there
truly is -- if it truly is impossible to meet the deadline and we have to get 16
of these devices in and there's no place to put them, what are we going to do?
And has anybody been thinking about what it is that we're going to do? And if
they have to build facilities or reconfigure the terminal, will that time be
accounted for?
And the last question that I have. It's
my understanding that at the Olympics, when the bags were checked by ETD
machines, the bags were swiped on the outside, and if explosives were detected,
the bags were then to be opened and checked thoroughly. Right now, the ETD
proposal would be a 40-40-20 check. And I'm wondering why, if it worked so well
at the Olympics doing it the way we did it, why are we doing it in a different
manner which is going to add additional time and problems at the individual
airports?
And again if I could welcome the admiral and
suggest to him that he has his people contacting the people on the ground, that
do a pretty outstanding job. No one's consulting them. So what's happening up
above is, decisions are being made in the vacuum, and the people who know what
they're doing and work at the airports on a day- to-day basis and run the
airports aren't being consulted at all.
SEC. MINETA:
And I will get these answers back to you for the record.
REP. BERKLEY: I would appreciate that. Thanks.
REP. DUNCAN: Mr. Honda?
REP. MICHAEL HONDA
(D-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to welcome and
thank and appreciate the witnesses today.
And I want to
join my colleagues in their concerns about the security. And I guess during
today's testimony, I'm a little bit disturbed to hear that it seems like the
congressional dynamics that's going on right now in terms of appropriations is
hindering the realization of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act.
One of the portions of that act that I was particularly
interested in (seeing were ?) -- Mr. Matheson and myself had fought to include
in the act was the 20 pilot programs that we'd like to see across the country,
20 pilot programs that would look at technologies, the utilization technology in
creating a secure system, a secure airport, and also guaranteeing that the
passenger cabin and the cockpit would be safe from terrorist activities.
The mayor of San Jose and myself formed a blue-ribbon task
force comprised of CEOs from Silicon Valley who are experts in technology. And
we have some community members and law enforcement folks that got together and
in a hundred days came back with a report that we submitted to the
department.
My question is hopefully that the pilot
programs will continue to be moved forward and that there will be sufficient
funding for that. I believe the budget for FY '02 had $10 million in it. And
hopefully, that's being dedicated to the realization of the pilot programs.
There's 23 pilot programs that were mentioned in terms of exemptions from
federalization. There's another pilot program in terms of looking at the
security of the airports, in terms of validating the workforce, validating the
workplace, validating and securing the cybersystem and communications systems
while assuring the civil liberties of folks, and then also whose target is to
make sure that the movement of people (to ?) the airport is efficient, is
respectful. And that was one of our four goals.
I was
hoping that you might be able to enlighten us as to the progress of the pilot
programs and assure us that -- or reconfirm, or reaffirm that we're going to
move forward on that piece of legislation.
MR. JACKSON:
Yes, sir, congressman. We have put out a solicitation from TSA to all of the
airports in America, notifying them of the funds that we have available for
R&D deployments, for various biometric tools, security methods that can be
tested at the nation's airports. And we are in the process of reviewing
applications from airports for participation in this program. And we see that we
would do it in a series of waves, testing, exchange of information, and then
testing new technologies. So we have a fairly free hand in this arena to
structure the money that we have available to us and to test the things that we
think have the highest value. We're getting pretty good feedback from airports
that want to participate in these programs, so we anticipate a pretty robust
pool of airports that will be able to participate with us.
REP. HONDA: Do you have any dates that we can look at in order to
benchmark our progress and, in discussing the format that -- we're not looking
at only one technology or current technology --
MR.
JACKSON: Right.
REP. HONDA: -- we're also looking at a
process for involving new and emergent technologies as we move forward, because
we don't want any one technology to be ossified in any one place.
MR. JACKSON: Right. We're looking for the full range of
things that have common sense applications in airports. So it's -- for example,
on the biometric front, it's not just one biometric technology that we're open
to evaluating, but multiple technologies. So there's no going-in limitation on
the types of technologies that can be tested with the program.
REP. HONDA: And the time lines? Do you have any idea?
MR. JACKSON: We want to do a handful of some this year, and also the
rest of them next year so that we can take it in two chunks. That was the
initial -- that was the initial thinking for the program.
REP. HONDA: And then the appropriation process: do you see that
interfering with the -- with the deployment and the roll-out of this -- of these
pilot programs?
MR. JACKSON: I believe we were actually
given some earmarks -- unrequested, but other earmarks for additional pilot work
of particular R&D technologies. One of the problems that we've had
historically is that sometimes the Congress has earmarked technologies which we
don't believe merit additional investment. We have an earmark for one such
technology in the explosive detection arena right now that we have put a
considerable amount of money in but don't see as a short-term solution to
problems. So we're trying to work with Congress and triage the limited amount of
money that we can have and apply it against technologies that'll give us the
best bang for the buck immediately.
REP. HONDA: Yeah. I
see the outcome of these pilot programs being able to address a lot of the
issues that we've heard today and a lot of the issues that are -- that comes
along with security.
MR. JACKSON: Yes.
REP. HONDA: To the chair, if I may have two quick questions on --
REP. BOOZMAN: I'm sorry, Mr. Honda, there -- we're
actually supposed to be out of here at 1:10.
REP.
HONDA: Okay. Can I just ask it, and get a written response?
One was --
REP. BOOZMAN: Yes, sir. Very
quickly.
REP. HONDA: One was in terms of the pilot
programs that were exempt. Employees, if they're not eligible for citizenship or
are competent, can there be exchanges of personnel between different airports?
Second is, the assessment centers: have we thought about utilizing real-time
video interviews using the video technology? And I'll -- I'll --
MR. JACKSON: I'd be happy to get back with formal answers for you,
sir.
REP. BOOZMAN: Mr. Menendez?
REP. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D-NJ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, admiral, to our other witnesses, thank you for hanging
in there, the stamina.
Mr. Secretary, I know what you
said today, but I want to re-visit what you said a week ago before the Homeland
Security Select Committee, of which I am a member. You said, and I quote:
"I know some have expressed concerns that moving TSA will
slow or interfere with the agency's ability to meet its congressionally mandated
deadlines. The concern, while understandable, is without merit. We are going to
meet the deadline that Congress gave us with respect to TSA. And when the day
comes for TSA to transfer to the new department, TSA will be ready. And being
ready means meeting every deadline asked of it before that day, period."
And then I asked you a question, because you were so
resolute in your statement and seemed so fixed and equivocal.
And I asked you, "You're telling this committee that TSA will meet all
of its congressionally mandated deadlines under the act, without reservation;
yes or no?" And your answer was yes.
Now, at the time,
while it was not a budget hearing, you did not suggest that your statement to
the committee was in any way conditioned upon what the Appropriations Committee
did or what anybody else in the Congress did. You made a clear and unequivocal
statement that TSA would meet all its deadlines.
And
I'd like to refer -- then you fired the head of TSA two days after you appeared
before the committee, and a day before we took our vote last Friday. Last Friday
the Appropriations Committee did mark up. And I took the opportunity -- the
three hours that I've been sitting here -- to speak to the appropriators both on
the majority and the minority side, and here's what they say in response to the
statements that you've given this committee, which suggests that TSA cannot now
meet its deadlines because of what Congress is going to do, versus what I
believe the administration has not done.
As it relates
to the $550 million off the top, the appropriators said TSA simply couldn't
justify the request. As to the $480 million in contingency funds, they advise
that this is the normal way of doing things for non-requested monies, and that
the president may designate an emergency and use the funding, if he so needs it.
So the money is ultimately there. The $445 million in earmarks, the TSA request
was for people; the money was earmarked for explosive detection devices and
procurement and to modify the airports. And as it relates to the limiting of to
45,000 employees, which you suggest is 20,000 less, the committee said, well,
you have only 10 weeks left in the year 2002 and you couldn't possibly hire all
65,000 employees within those 10 weeks. And as to the report language that you
suggest is restrictive, the best that they could come up with is that TSA has to
report on a website waiting times in airports.
Now, if
you take the fact that part of this money was to repay FEMA already for money
that was used, which is a little over a billion dollars; if you take the fact
that OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, said that the level of funding at
$3.85 billion was sufficient to meet your responsibilities, it seems to me that
taking the committee's action -- the appropriators' action is a propitious
excuse not to meet what this administration has said time and time again will be
a successful completion of all the congressionally mandated deadlines.
So could you please tell me and this committee how you
reconcile your unequivocal comments of a week ago, last Tuesday before the
Homeland Security Committee? Why you didn't raise any concerns about funding and
any other possible obstacles that would have led you not to make such an
unequivocal statement? What's your response to the appropriators, in the context
of what they're saying, because they have a different view, and certainly their
view is not one that gives rise for the excuse for TSA not to meet its
obligations.
And lastly, you said, in response to Ms.
Brown, that you want to have TSA look like America. I'd like to ask you,
specifically, what steps are you taking to ensure that that in fact becomes the
reality.
So if you'd answer those questions, I'd
appreciate it.
SEC. MINETA: First of all, let me take
that first -- or the last issue on the hiring. I don't recall the numbers
exactly, but I think it's in the area of about 2,400 people that we've hired so
far, let's say as of mid-July, for the work force.
And
of the work force, I believe that -- well, of the 2,200 who have been hired so
far for screeners, 477 are women; 453 are African- American; and 130 Hispanic.
So, that would be 4, 5, 6 -- let's say about 670 of the 2,200 are minority and
women. And we've been doing this -- what I've been doing also is asking our
director of small business and disadvantaged business units to work with the TSA
to make sure that in granting -- or in putting out contracts, that we have
subcontractors that are minority and disadvantaged business units. And so, we're
making, I think, a good, strong effort in that area. It's something that I'm
interested in and have pursued all my life in terms of opportunities, and will
continue to do so.
Now, in terms of why -- or in terms
of the appropriations and why I don't feel the sufficiency of what's in this
supplemental will take us through this fiscal year. We sent a letter to the
Appropriations Committee back in June outlining what our needs would be. And
again, indicating what our needs are to fulfill the mandates under ATSA.
In terms of what are we going to be doing on adhering to
the November 19th and December 31st dates, that was part of the discussion we
had here. My belief is that we still can meet those deadlines. The question is,
do we take the money out of the passenger screening side or -- in order to --
given the financial resources that we have, or do we take it out of the baggage
screening side? In any event, it means that there will be longer lines and
inconveniences to the traveling public.
But it just
seems to me that with the mandate that's against us, we'll go ahead and meet the
deadline. And if it means that we can't process people through the lines as
quickly, or if we say, no, let's make sure the passenger screening operates 100
percent and to the snuff, then we're going to have to take the money and the
resources out of the baggage screening side. But, again, I still feel that we
will be meeting the 19th of December date.
I remember
right after the Aviation Transportation Security Act passed.
And I think it was about two weeks after the legislation was signed
into law. And I was asked by the press, "Are you going to be able to meet the
requirements of this law?" And all I could think of at that time was, "How do we
handle 3 million bags a day with 146 EDS machines all across the country?" My
response was, "We won't be able to make it." And then everybody on the Hill and
everybody else said, "Look at that! Not only does a law get passed, and Mineta's
already saying he's not going to adhere to the law."
Well, we found out also in reading the legislation that we could meet
that requirement five ways. So then we decided, okay, we could do it canine, we
could do it bag match, we could do it manual. We employed all five methods in
order to meet that requirement under ATSA. So as far as I'm concerned, we're
going to meet these dates, we're going to do the baggage screening, but it may
slow the process down. And we're going to meet the passenger-screening
requirements. But to the extent that we don't have the full funds to do
everything, then it's going to slow down. To me, that's just the reality of the
situation.
REP. MENENDEZ: Well, Mr. Chairman, thank
you. I just want to say in closing, I haven't heard you dispute the
appropriators' responses to your testimony today. And what I have heard you say
is once again that you'll meet the deadlines, and that's exactly why we believe
that there's no need to have a change in the law. If you can say here again
before this committee that under the laws that exist, you may not have every
explosive-detection device deployed, but you can meet it under the law, then
there is no reason to be changing deadlines when the law can be met. And I would
hope to hear that from the administration.
SEC. MINETA:
I've said nothing about changing the deadlines. I've said nothing about changing
the deadlines.
REP. BOOZMAN: Thank you, Mr.
Menendez.
I want to thank the panel. We appreciate your
testimony, appreciate your openness, appreciate all that you're doing, working
very hard on behalf of the agency.
I ask unanimous
consent that after the subcommittee recesses this morning, you reconvene in
executive session because disclosure of matters to be considered during that
session would endanger national security and compromise sensitive law
enforcement information. Without objection, it is so ordered. (Sounds gavel.)
