Safe Passage

What's the Transportation Security Administration doing to safeguard those who travel by train, ship or car?

Want to understand the differences between aviation security and security for ports, rail systems, highways, mass transit and pipelines in the United States? Simply do the math.

Every day, 1.8 million people travel by air and 14 million people use mass transit. In 2003 and 2004, the Homeland Security Department spent $11 billion securing commercial aircraft and $115 million securing buses and trains.

That's $9.16 per flier and one-half cent per rider.

The DHS agency that oversees these matters argues that such a comparison isn't fair, because it doesn't take into account the financial contributions of other federal agencies, state and local governments, industry associations and operators. But less than 10 percent of the nation's annual $5 billion investment in the Transportation Security Administration goes to surface transportation, and just how much the others chip in isn't clear.

With the post-Sept. 11 aviation crisis defused, public attention is turning to security on the surface. Having met the aviation security deadlines Congress set, TSA is turning its attention to securing the maritime and land modes, too.

TSA officials argue they've always paid attention to these modes. But transportation experts, government auditors, industry leaders and even the agency's own partners at other federal organizations are lobbing criticisms about the pace and depth of TSA's nonaviation work. They say it suffers from a lack of funding, direction and coordination. "It just seems to me out of whack," said Rep. William J. Pascrell, D-N.J., at a House hearing last year.

The rush-hour train bombings in Moscow and Madrid in early 2004 heightened the interest of Congress in reducing the threat of terrorist attacks against transit operations, particularly passenger rail systems, in the United States. Their inquisitiveness intensified when the 9/11 commission reported that Homeland Security had no forward-looking strategic plan-one that analyzes assets, risks, costs and benefits so that transportation security resources can be allocated to address the greatest risks in the most cost-effective way. They started asking: Where is the integrated approach?

TSA says the answer will come with next month's release of the long-awaited transportation security operations plan. More than three years in the making, the plan is part of a national transportation security strategy that an impatient Congress ordered up from the Homeland Security Department last December. The 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act demanded a full accounting of vulnerable transportation assets, what's needed to make them secure, and which federal, state, regional, local or private organizations will be held responsible.

"For the first time," says TSA's Chet Lunner, "we'll be able to give our policymakers both a look at what's normal . . . and the ability to spot anomalies, deal with security incidents, and generally manage the system when bad things happen." Until recently, Lunner headed the agency's Office of Maritime and Land Security, which was responsible for protecting the 3.9 million miles of public roads, 2.2 million miles of pipeline, 120,000 miles of railroad track and 361 commercial ports that make up the nation's surface transportation infrastructure. He spoke with Government Executive in mid-January. Lunner was sidelined and his office was dissolved Feb. 7 as TSA abruptly reorganized, officials said, to better align the agency with President Bush's December 2003 homeland security directive. The directive instructs federal agencies to prioritize and coordinate the protection of critical infrastructure and key resources that could be harmed or exploited in a terrorist attack. It also calls for the Homeland Security Department, in which TSA resides, to collaborate with the Transportation Department and relative private entities on all transportation infrastructure protection and security matters.

Lunner was director of public affairs at the Transportation Department on 9/11. He was standing outside the agency's Washington office with Secretary Norman Mineta when reports of the suicide hijackings started coming in. Lunner recalls that Mineta had little choice about how to react. "Prudently, he shut down the entire system until we had a better understanding of what the threat was. It was an on-off switch which had never been thrown in the history of the United States." It took several days to get the aviation system back up. Airlines still are suffering the economic effects.

In its plans for separate modes of transportation, TSA aims to gain an intimate understanding of the complex organism known as the transportation system. "In the horrible event that sort of choice may face us in the future, we'll be able to make much smarter choices-perhaps shut them down or reroute them by conveyance or mode or region," says Lunner.

Getting a snapshot of the entire surface transportation network in its normal state has been a challenge. Before 9/11, no government agency was looking at all the various pieces of infrastructure as an integrated system. Compared with aviation, surface transportation offers easier access to more users, making it both an attractive target and difficult to protect. Experts at the Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council are among those who have pointed out that an aviation-style "guns, guards and gates" approach will not work. So TSA is tackling the problem with an eye toward "domain awareness"-the constant monitoring and capturing of operational metrics in a vast, diverse and vulnerable system.

Who's in Charge?

Although surface modes of transportation shoulder a much heavier burden than aviation, they get only a tiny share of TSA's budget. Instead, TSA shifts much of the financial burden to public-private partnerships and to several agencies that shared responsibility for surface transportation security before the agency was created in 2001.

TSA was given explicit instructions and strict deadlines for federalizing airport passenger and carry-on baggage screening and for installing explosives detection systems at commercial airports. It got statutory responsibility for securing the other modes, but was allowed to define its own role in meeting that mission. Agency leaders decided to leave the specifics of land and maritime transportation security in the hands of those who know it best-the public and private owners and operators of the assets, and the Transportation Department's modal agencies dealing with highways, motor carriers, railroads, transit systems and maritime issues. They assigned themselves a coordinating role through strategic research and planning.

TSA also shares duties with the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection bureau in the Homeland Security Department. The 2002 Maritime Transportation Security Act designated the Coast Guard as the lead agency for the maritime component. To better evaluate potential threats, the Coast Guard instituted new reporting requirements for ships entering and leaving U.S. ports. CBP initiated the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, which expedites cargo processing for importers that have approved security plans. Transportation's Maritime Administration developed training materials for maritime security officials and joins the other agencies in a working group seeking better ways to secure maritime containers.

As TSA worked to establish itself and concentrated on improving aviation security, the Federal Railroad Administration and Federal Transit Administration turned their attention to improving passenger and freight rail security. FTA awarded grants for mass transit emergency response drills, offered free security training and conducted security assessments at transit agencies across the country. FRA shared threat information with railroads, provided commuter rail systems with funding and security planning help, and reviewed Amtrak's security efforts. Transportation's Research and Special Programs Administration established shipping and security regulations for hazardous materials transport, boosted hazmat security awareness through advisories and training, and investigated the security risks posed by hazmat warning placards.

TSA uses threat-based risk management principles to tackle the challenges of securing surface transportation. Rather than issuing rules, it is developing tools-software that state, regional and local transportation providers can use to assess their own vulnerabilities and formulate their own security plans. TSA also is testing a universal biometric identification card for workers in all transportation modes.

To address specific threats, TSA has undertaken a range of pilot projects alone and in conjunction with other agencies and industry representatives. Operation Safe Commerce, a $58 million cargo tracking pilot, is testing electronic seals, use of the Global Positioning System and radio frequency identification tags on containers shipped from foreign docks to three U.S. ports. Working with the Coast Guard, TSA screened automobiles for explosives at a ferry terminal. It also tested a system to screen commuters and their briefcases in a moving train car. TSA's most successful collaboration with industry is its $19.3 million expansion of Highway Watch, an American Trucking Associations program that trains commercial drivers to identify and report safety and security situations on the nation's roads.

One of TSA's most important jobs is ensuring that threat information gathered by the FBI, the CIA and similar federal agencies is shared with appropriate transportation officials. That information-sharing isn't as timely as it could be, the Government Accountability Office found in a 2003 report (GAO-03-616T), because federal, state and local governments and industry haven't implemented standard protocols.

Confusion Reigns

GAO warned in another 2003 report (GAO-03-483) that the roles and responsibilities of TSA and the agencies that oversee specific modes of transportation are not clearly defined, creating the potential for overlap, duplication and confusion. Transportation and Homeland Security signed a memorandum of understanding last September spelling out their general roles and responsibilities. TSA has a more detailed memorandum of understanding with the Federal Aviation Administration. As of mid-February, it had not completed similar agreements with the other modal agencies but said it was making good progress.

The abundance of masters leaves industry wondering which one to serve. "There's a lot of confusion as to . . . security roles . . . of the different federal organizations," says Bob Brodesky, a transportation planning and policy manager with EG&G Technical Services Inc., which has a long-term contract to support the Transportation Department's Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. Brodesky made the comment during a presentation on training needs and best practices at a Transportation Research Board conference in Washington in January. He was reporting the preliminary results of a survey of government and industry officials seeking feedback on the Federal Highway Administration's Professional Capacity Building Program. "There's not really a clear message coming down to the state level," Brodesky said, "and it is creating problems and difficulties for states to move forward and do an effective job." The highway administration's program tries to ensure that planners, builders and operators have access to the necessary knowledge and resources to safeguard the highway system against terrorist attacks. Brodesky says the survey revealed inconsistencies at the state and regional levels and a lack of focus at the federal level.

Officials inside the modal administrations say it's clear to them who's in charge. "The responsibility for transit security rests with DHS," Richard Gerhart, manager of security and technology assistance programs at the Federal Transit Administration, told the TRB meeting. "Our role is technical assistance and guidance, taking advantage of our long relationships with transit agencies."

FTA conducted threat and vulnerability assessments on the 37 largest transit agencies in the country after 9/11. Some of those assessments are at least two years old and need to be updated, but in the absence of a formal agreement, FTA is deferring the job to TSA. "There is confusion from transit agencies because they had a readiness assessment from FTA and now they're getting calls from TSA or [Homeland Security's Office of Domestic Preparedness]," Gerhart said.

TSA acknowledges the problem. "The cry out there we've heard from folks is, 'One asset, one vulnerability assessment,' " James Orgill, the agency's risk management branch chief, told a TRB audience during an update on bridge and tunnel security assessments. "I can't tell you we've got it straightened out today, but we're working in it."

Not even the TSA-supervised security pilot programs are immune to confusion. An industry participant in Operation Safe Commerce says the government-industry demonstration of seaborne shipping container security tools has exposed overlap between TSA and CBP. What is TSA's role if CBP already is inspecting incoming cargo and collecting information about shipments using a 24-hour advance notice rule? Complicating the question is the fact that Operation Safe Commerce is a grant-based program, and TSA's grant authority was transferred to another part of DHS last year. "It's clear to me that TSA believes it has responsibility. But I can't tell who's in charge," says an Operation Safe Commerce participant, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I will tell you this: The organization that has the impact on whether or not the goods come into the country is CBP."

The dilemma caught the attention of DHS auditors, who reviewed port security grant programs administered by TSA, the Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration. In a January report, acting DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner praised the "good, respectful working relationships" that enabled the three agencies to create a competitive grant program in 2002. But Skinner said the program does not adequately direct resources toward the nation's highest security priorities, partly because it is not clear where the private sector's responsibility for preventing terrorism ends and the federal government's begins.

TSA's unclear mission muddles the domestic border security picture, according to a December report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Heritage Foundation. In "DHS 2.0: Rethinking the Department of Homeland Security," authors David Heyman and James Jay Carafano observe that giving TSA statutory responsibility for cargo security "has injected [the agency] into the realm of border security and created friction" with the Coast Guard and CBP. They criticize DHS' Border and Transportation Security division for failing to delineate clearly the responsibilities of TSA and CBP. They also note that because TSA has no authority over the Coast Guard, policy impasses arise. Heyman and Carafano recommend that TSA be renamed and refocused as an operational agency with no oversight or infrastructure protection policy functions. They say it should focus on supervising DHS deployments to protect transportation infrastructure of national importance, the most notable being security screeners at airports.

Lunner chalks up all the complaints to the difficulties of the biggest government reorganization since the end of World War II. Twenty-two agencies were merged to create DHS. "You cannot snap your fingers and change . . . legacy relationships overnight," he says, adding that things inside are in better shape than they appear from the outside. "In my experience, I've got to tell you, the internal cooperation just gets better and better and better."