Committee Hearing Focuses on TWIC Programs Decade-Long Delays (Video)
Washington, DC – The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, chaired by U.S. Rep. John L. Mica (R-FL), held a hearing this morning to review the status of the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program, implementation of which continues to be delayed a decade after Congress directed its establishment.
The TWIC program was designed to meet these requirements and do the following:
• Positively identify authorized individuals for secure access.
• Determine eligibility of individuals by conducting a security threat assessment.
• Ensure that unauthorized individuals are not able to defeat or compromise the system.
• Identify individuals that are permitted secure access but fail to subsequently maintain eligibility.
Unfortunately, various problems have delayed the TWIC program. TSA has yet to put in place technology that can actually read the TWIC’s biometric information, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has uncovered significant programmatic weaknesses and raised serious questions about the security of the program.
When witnesses on the hearing’s first panel failed to provide clear answers about an updated timeline for finally approving TWIC readers so that cards can actually serve their purpose, Chairman Mica dismissed the panel. This included a representative from the Department of Homeland Security who repeatedly deferred questions to the Transportation Security Administration, which declined to appear at the hearing.
The following is the statement of Chairman Mica:
“We are here today, many years after we have attempted to implement a Transportation Worker Identification Credential. This process has gone on since 2002 and unfortunately, I cannot think of too many programs in government that have had more delays, more costs to the taxpayers, and more incidents of failing to perform.
“I am most disappointed we are here. Time after time we have been promised in this hearing room that the program would put into place measures that would allow us to identify who is going in and out of our ports in a secure manner, and that we would have an identification card for those workers with biometric capability, and we would have readers for those cards. Now we’re faced with 2 million cards having been issued under this program, which is costing the federal government hundreds of millions of dollars. We still do not have completion of the biometric requirements that were asked for years ago, and promised to us in a number of hearings.
“So, here we are, just a few months away from the five-year expiration of these cards, and now we are going to face again the cost of deploying cards that have become a joke within the transportation community. It is intended to be a sophisticated federal ID that is supposed to help secure our ports, but it has yet to be used as it was currently intended.
“Finally, what baffles me is there are other agencies that have developed similar identification credentials and are using them today. We are reinventing the wheel at great public expense and great delay in implementation.”
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Watch the full committee meeting at www.MaritimeTV.com
