AEMCA

Excerpts of House Appropriations Committee Report on Homeland Security

AIR CARGO

     The Committee recommends $60,000,000 for air cargo, $20,000,000 above the President’s request and $20,000,000 above the amounts provided in fiscal year 2005. The Committee continues to be concerned that TSA is not focusing enough staff or resources on the security issues surrounding air cargo. For example, Section 513 of the fiscal year 2005 appropriations bill required the Department to immediately amend security directives to triple the screening of air cargo on passenger aircraft. The Committee is deeply disappointed that TSA has yet to fully implement this section. Similarly, late last year, the Intelligence Reform Act required TSA to issue a final notice of proposed rulemaking that would strengthen the air cargo security program. This has been slow to occur. At this time, TSA plans to finalize a rule to strengthen this program on August 19, 2005. The Committee is extremely disappointed that the fiscal year 2006 budget request does not include any funding to support these additional security enhancements. As a result, the Committee has: (1) included $10,000,000 to hire 100 new air cargo inspectors, which would increase the number of air cargo inspectors to 300; (2) increased travel funds for air cargo inspectors by $3,000,000; (3) increased funding by $5,000,000 to enhance the automated indirect air carrier maintenance system and known shipper database; and (4) included $2,000,000 to conduct security threat assessments of regulated parties and fast track certain provisions in the pending air cargo notice of proposed rulemaking.

     The Committee is concerned that, while $130,000,000 has been appropriated in the past two years for air cargo research and development, a substantial amount remains unobligated. Specifically, as of January 31, 2005, TSA has obligated less than 4 percent of air cargo security funding appropriated in 2005 and did not obligate almost $7,000,000 appropriated in fiscal year 2004. While the Committee recognizes that it takes a significant amount of time to develop and test existing and new pilot technologies to screen air cargo, high unobligated balances give the impression that TSA does not view air cargo as a serious aviation security vulnerability.

     Because of the slowness to implement Congressional direction and to obligate funds, the Committee sees it necessary to provide further direction to TSA on air cargo issues. As a result, the Committee has included three new legislative provisions relating to air cargo screening and standards development (Sections 512, 522 and 523):

     (1) A legislative provision relating to section 513 of Public Law 108-334 and the failure of TSA to modify security directives.

     (2) A legislative provision requiring TSA to develop standards and protocols, in conjunction with airline stakeholders, to better screen air cargo. Over the past two years, TSA tested current explosive detection systems, including both EDS and ETD, in the cargo screening environment and ultimately issued screening protocols using ETD systems. The Committee directs TSA to expeditiously develop similar screening standards and protocols for EDS so that the airlines have more options available to them to screen air cargo, particularly break bulk packages that could easily fit through an EDS machine. The Committee also directs TSA to develop protocols and standards in conjunction with promising new technologies to screen air cargo. In the past, delays have occurred in deploying technologies to screen air cargo while waiting for TSA to finalize usage protocols and standards.

     (3) A legislative provision requiring TSA to screen cargo at existing checked baggage screening locations to the greatest extent practicable. The Committee understands that the cargo screening peak times come prior to the passenger screening peak times and that under the last Code Orange alert, TSA screened some cargo at its checked baggage screening locations. TSA is directed to provide monthly reports, beginning with November 2005, to the House Appropriations Committee on the amount of cargo screened at checked baggage locations by TSA at each airport.

TRANSPORTATION WORKER IDENTIFICATION CREDENTIAL

     The Committee continues to be deeply disappointed with the direction and scope of the transportation worker identification credential (TWIC), which TSA is currently prototyping for use at various locations in the United States. The goals of the TWIC program are ambitious, but necessary: to create one standardized identification card, universally recognized and accepted across the transportation system. Given the complexity and importance of the initiative, the Committee is extremely frustrated with the lack of progress. Missed deadlines, high turnover, lack of budget justification, and subversion of Congressional direction have plagued this program from the very beginning.

     As in years past, the Committee again directs the Department to develop a personalization system that is centralized, and that uses an existing government card production facility for these purposes. These two conditions are integral to the success of the program as they relate to operational and physical security of the product. TSA shall not continue the program until these fundamental requirements are implemented. In addition, TSA may not move into the next phase of production until the House Appropriations Committee has been fully briefed on the results of the prototype phase and agrees that the program should move forward.

TRANSPORTATION SECURITY CLEARINGHOUSE

     The Committee includes a new general provision (Section 527) that directs the Secretary to utilize the Transportation Security Clearinghouse (TSC) as a central identity management system for a variety of transportation credentialing and vetting programs currently under development or in operation. This language was included because, despite TSC’s proven track record, DHS appears to be taking a typical government contracting approach where it awards large programs to individual vendors as a means of maintaining some programmatic control and then relies on those contractors to build a program from scratch. The case of hazardous materials truckers is a perfect example. Rather than integrating the existing TSC model to process and reconcile fingerprints from hazardous materials truckers across the country, TSA awarded the contract in its entirety to a separate vendor that is now trying to reinvent key parts of the TSC. Doing so increases both the cost to the Federal government and the time it takes to begin conducting background checks on hazardous materials truckers.