Aviation security agency faces budget, staffing challenges

Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead told a House panel Wednesday that the new Transportation Security Administration faces "tremendous budgetary challenges" in implementing baggage-screening technology and must hire 40,000 employees to provide air security.

At a hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Mead estimated TSA would need $2 billion to $2.5 billion to acquire new screening and explosive detection technology, plus another $2 billion for construction costs.

The current approach of installing explosive detection systems in airport lobbies is labor-intensive, Mead noted. At Dulles International Airport alone, he said, at least 400 screeners would be needed at peak periods to handle checked baggage at lobby-installed machines.

Overall, Mead said, the latest estimates show that TSA will need to hire at least 40,000 employees, including more than 30,000 screeners, an executive team, law enforcement officers, air marshals and support personnel.

TSA officials have said they will begin processing screener applications in the spring. Assuming TSA doesn't begin hiring and training new employees until May, Mead said, the agency will need to bring on about 5,000 screeners per month for six months in order to meet a deadline in the aviation security bill passed last year of hiring all 30,000 screeners by Nov. 19.

Following a security check Jan. 18, Mead said the IG's office generally is pleased with the airports' progress on security matters, but noted that many airports are meeting the law's requirements on checked baggage simply by matching bags to passengers on originating flights.

"Positive passenger bag match has limitations, and one gap in the process needs to be closed. The current procedure does not cover passengers and their baggage on connecting flights," Mead said.

Undersecretary of Transportation John Magaw, who heads TSA, said the agency would maintain the goal of trying to screen all bags within a year.

But House Transportation and Infrastructure ranking member James Oberstar, D-Minn., other lawmakers and Transportation Inspector General Kenneth Mead expressed concern that future attacks could come if the loophole were not addressed.

"This is the Achilles' heel of aviation security," Oberstar said. "I am concerned that the actions of the administration fall short of what the law says."

At the hearing, legislators raised concerns about passengers being delayed at the airport, as well as the logistics required to implement new screening technology requirements.

"We want the public to be safe, but we also want them to move along," said Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, recalling how he experienced several hours of delay at an airport because only two of 10 checkpoints were open.