08-03-2002
NATIONAL SECURITY: Let the Blame Game Begin When Congress passed monumental legislation last fall overhauling the
nation's airport security, Washington seemed guided by a sense of unity,
purpose, and determination to get the job done. "The broad support
for this bill shows that our country is united in this crisis,"
President Bush said when he signed the legislation into law. "We have
our political differences, but we're united to defend our country, and
we're united to protect our people. For our airways, there is one supreme
priority: security."
But eight months later, this unity has become a political blame game. At
two separate congressional hearings last week, the Bush administration
faulted Congress for not giving the administration enough money to do the
job. House Democrats blasted their Republican counterparts over a GOP
effort to extend a key airport security deadline. And Congress, the
airlines, and other aviation interests have continued to pillory the new
Transportation Security Administration, contributing to the ouster of the
agency's chief, John W. Magaw, in mid-July.
However, it shouldn't be surprising that airport security has turned into
such a political food fight. After all, fighting is one of the things that
Congress and presidential administrations do best. "Assigning blame
and finger-pointing is easy in Washington," Sen. John McCain,
R-Ariz., said last week at a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Committee hearing.
Most understood that overhauling airport security wasn't going to be easy.
In November, Congress passed legislation creating the Transportation
Security Administration, which was placed inside the Transportation
Department and assigned the task of providing security for the nation's
airways, highways, waterways, and railways. The bill also required the TSA
to scrap the old airport screening workforce run by the airlines and turn
it into a federal one.
The legislation, moreover, set ambitious deadlines. It mandated the TSA to
hire and deploy this federal screening workforce by November 19. And it
required the agency to install thousands of explosive-detection machines
to screen all passenger bags by December 31. Congress created these tough,
arbitrary deadlines because it had become frustrated by the delays and
inaction that resulted from its previous attempts over the past two
decades to revamp airport security. "We want those guys to move
heaven and earth to get there," said Andy Davis, spokesman for Sen.
Ernest F. Hollings, D-S.C., who played a key role in writing the
legislation.
Yet at the congressional hearings last week, Transportation Secretary
Norman Mineta maintained that the TSA cannot move heaven and earth without
sufficient funding. Congress, he complained, had cut $1 billion from the
$4.4 billion the agency requested in the recently passed $28.9 billion
emergency supplemental appropriations bill. That measure also capped the
TSA's total workforce at 45,000 for the rest of this fiscal year; Mineta
says that the TSA will eventually need 67,000 workers.
Mineta warned that if the TSA doesn't receive the money and the workers it
needs, it will have a hard time meeting the difficult deadlines that
Congress has set. "Give us the tools and the flexibility that we need
to build this organization," he told the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee.
Many members of Congress, however, didn't buy Mineta's argument. They
noted that the Bush administration's Office of Management and Budget
seemed quite happy to cut a sizable amount of the TSA spending to trim the
overall supplemental package to $28.9 billion. Furthermore, nearly half of
what Mineta was calling a cut-$480 million-was actually set aside in a
contingency fund, and insiders say that this money would eventually be
available to the TSA.
Still, one transportation lobbyist points out that Mineta's complaint
about a lack of money was a smart move. "They know they aren't going
to meet that [baggage] deadline," the lobbyist said. "And they
have to find someone to blame."
Other finger-pointing was also going on last week. Because of doubts about
TSA's ability to meet the December 31 baggage-screening deadline, House
Republicans added a provision in the recently passed Department of
Homeland Security legislation that could extend the deadline as much as a
year for many airports. Airlines and airport groups have argued that
placing bomb-detection machines-which are the size of sport-utility
vehicles-inside the airports poses architectural problems. They have also
noted that, as the TSA hurries to meet the deadline, the agency will have
to resort to smaller (but more labor-intensive) explosive-trace machines,
which will crowd airport lobbies and create long lines and waits. "I
think we are heading for a national embarrassment during the holiday
season," said Kevin P. Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel
Coalition. "I don't think that three-hour check-ins will be an
exaggeration."
But the move to extend the baggage deadline infuriated House Democrats.
"This is an outrageous attempt to undo what we did last fall,"
said Rep. James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., ranking member of the Transportation
Committee. Added Rep. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.: "God forbid we grant
an extension and [later] there is a bombing on a plane. I want my baggage
checked-now."
There's also a possible political angle to this particular dispute: As the
November elections draw closer, Democrats will likely seek to score points
on the deadline extension by portraying the GOP as soft on airport
security. Indeed, Democratic National Committee spokesman Bill Buck noted
that with this extension, the Republicans seemed to be putting the
concerns of the airports and airlines "over the safety of the
American flying public."
In addition to the blame games over funding and the baggage-screening
deadline, the TSA has increasingly become a punching bag for its critics.
Congress and aviation interests have complained that the new agency has
failed to communicate with them and has moved too slowly to meet its
deadlines. Moreover, many were disappointed that the TSA ruled against the
proposal allowing pilots to carry guns in the cockpit and also against
plans to introduce a "trusted-traveler" card that would help
frequent fliers move quicker through security checkpoints. All of that
criticism made it easier for Mineta to fire TSA Director Magaw on July 18.
Capt. Duane E. Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Association,
contends that Magaw was a disaster. "So many projects were lost in
the bureaucracy of the TSA," he said.
Mineta replaced Magaw with Adm. James M. Loy, who had served as commandant
of the U.S. Coast Guard. Insiders say that Loy has already developed a
quality that his predecessor lacked: good relations with Congress.
"He clearly knows how to handle the congressional side of
things," said airport lobbyist Todd Hauptli. In fact, at his
appearance before the Senate Commerce Committee last week, Loy told
senators that he would communicate better with the airlines and airports
than Magaw did. Loy also announced that he'll take another look at the
issues of guns in the cockpit and the trusted-traveler plan.
During all the finger-pointing at the hearings last week, however, no one
took a more brutal beating than Mineta. On the House side, Rep. Peter A.
DeFazio, D-Ore., skewered the secretary for trying to deflect criticism by
first firing Magaw and then by blaming appropriators. "This is
unbelievable to me," DeFazio said. "I'm just really upset at
your performance here today."
Meanwhile, over in the Senate, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., argued that Magaw's
firing didn't reflect well on Mineta. "It clearly does not send a
message that the administration is on top of this issue," he said.
Wyden also attacked Mineta over recent reports about airport security
breaches.
Unfortunately for Mineta, with the key deadlines just months away, things
aren't going to get any easier. The TSA is supposed to deploy an estimated
33,000 federal screeners and supervisors by November 19. Yet according to
the Trans- portation Department's inspector general, the TSA had trained
and deployed only 2,500 screeners as of July 13. With less than four
months left, the TSA will need to hire and train more than 7,600 per month
to meet the deadline. (The agency, however, says it has already hired
nearly 8,000 screeners.) In addition, the TSA needs to deploy an estimated
1,100 explosive-detection (EDS) machines and 6,000 trace systems to meet
the December 31 baggage-screening deadline. But as of July 9, only 215 EDS
and 273 trace machines were in use at airports.
The good news for Mineta is that the TSA won't be his responsibility
forever, because Congress is working diligently to move the agency next
year into the proposed Homeland Security Department. Still, Mineta and the
TSA have a lot of work to do to meet the upcoming deadlines. As McCain
explained last week, "The road ahead is likely to be even rougher
than the one already traveled." And if that's the case, expect the
blame game to continue.
Mark Murray
National Journal
|
