|
February 16th, 2006 - -
Good morning. I would like to welcome Kip Hawley, Assistant Secretary for the Transportation Security Administration, in his first appearance before the Subcommittee as he presents his fiscal year 2007 budget request.
Mr. Hawley, you are the fourth Administrator that has come before this Subcommittee in the past four years. I hope you last longer than your predecessors because we need consistency in TSA leadership. Without it, TSA will not be able to overcome its fundamental problems.
- TSA is still unbalanced. It continues to focus almost exclusively on one mode of transportation—aviation—while worldwide the most common transportation attacks target rail and transit systems.
- TSA is still inefficient. It continues to be wholly dependent on airport screeners and dated technologies.
- The agency is still slow to implement new guidelines and regulations that would improve our screening of air cargo, airline passengers, and transportation workers. Delays prevail in all of these programs.
- And finally, TSA continues to disregard Congressional direction. For instance, while I was pleased to receive both the FY 2006 expenditure plan for EDS funding and the broader strategic plan for electronic baggage screening, both of these reports were two months behind schedule. Other Congressional directives, such as issuing new air cargo rules, are languishing in DHS. Year after year, TSA fails to meet statutory deadlines. This is extremely disappointing.
For fiscal year 2007, TSA is requesting a total of $6.3 billion. This is a status quo budget, essentially the same level as provided in fiscal year 2006. At best, this funds basic services that must be provided to the traveling public. But this no growth budget is occurring at a time when more and more demands are being placed on the aviation system. Traffic levels last year were at an all time high (700 million); this is more travelers than pre-September 11th. With these record traffic levels, a flat budget may not be enough.
On a positive note, I am pleased to see several key initiatives contained within this request, such as:
- $344 million for explosive detection systems installations. Not only will this fund the 8 Letters of Intent to move explosive detection machines out of an airport’s busy lobby and in line with the airport’s baggage systems, it will also provide ample resources to modify other airports and deploy next-generation equipment;
- $80.5 million to purchase and deploy next-generation passenger screening technologies, such as trace portals, whole body imagers, and automated explosive detection systems for carry-on baggage, so that we can better identify weapons and explosives; and
- Funding for less than 45,000 screeners in 2007. In the future, I am hopeful that instead of hiring more screeners to address TSA’s increasing workload challenges that you will aggressively deploy cutting edge technologies to do the same work.
While there are some positive notes in your budget, glaring holes continue to exist. These are topics that I have spoken to your predecessors about as well. For example:
- Only $37 million for non-aviation security activities, such as rail and transit security. It is clear that these are high-threat areas, particularly after recent incidents in London and Madrid, yet TSA has less than one-half of one percent devoted to these activities.
- The budget halves the explosive detection system procurement program to fund installation of these systems. It seems to me that we would need to both procure and install these systems, not play funding for one off the other.
- Air cargo security programs have been flatlined at $55 million. While TSA did increase the percentage of air cargo screened, you are over half a year behind schedule in finalizing a new rule to strengthen this program. Without this final rule, TSA cannot prioritize its efforts and focus its resources on the most glaring problems.
- The budget contains the perennial gimmick of raising aviation security user fees even though Congress and the airlines have rejected this before. This year TSA is asking Congress to raise the aviation passenger security fees, paid by airline travelers, by roughly $1.4 billion and for the airlines to pay retroactive security costs of roughly $300 million. It may be very difficult to adopt this proposal this year.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these and other issues during the hearing today.
Mr. Hawley, your entire statement will be placed in the record, and in a moment, we look forward to receiving your oral statement. But first, let me recognize my good friend, the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Sabo, for any opening remarks he would care to make.
|
