[Senate Hearing 117-558]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-558

                     NOMINATION OF DAVID P. PEKOSKE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
               HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS


                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                  NOMINATION OF DAVID P. PEKOSKE TO BE
         ADMINISTRATOR, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION,
                  U.S DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
                               __________

                             JULY 21, 2022

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                       Printed for the use of the
        Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
        
        
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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
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        COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

                   GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware           ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
ALEX PADILLA, California             MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  RICK SCOTT, Florida
                                     JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri

                   David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
                    Zachary I. Schram, Chief Counsel
         Christopher J. Mulkins, Director of Homeland Security
                      Claudine J. Brenner, Counsel
                    Nitka Khani, Research Assistant
                Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
    Andrew Dockham, Minority Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director
       Cara G. Mumford, Minority Director of Governmental Affairs
       Kirsten D. Madison, Minority Director of Homeland Security
                    Allen L. Huang, Minority Counsel
     Clyde E. Hicks, Jr., Minority Senior Professional Staff Member
                     Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
                     Thomas J. Spino, Hearing Clerk


                            C O N T E N T S

                                 ------                                
Opening statements:
                                                                   Page
    Senator Peters...............................................     1
    Senator Portman..............................................     4
    Senator Carper...............................................    11
    Senator Hawley...............................................    14
    Senator Scott................................................    17
    Senator Ossoff...............................................    20
    Senator Rosen................................................    24
Prepared statements:
    Senator Peters...............................................    27
    Senator Portman..............................................    29

                               WITNESSES
                        Thursday, July 21, 2022

David P. Pekoske to be Administrator, Transportation Security 
  Administration, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
    Testimony....................................................     3
    Prepared statement...........................................    31
    Biographical and professional information....................    33
    Responses to post-hearing questions..........................    55

 
                  NOMINATION OF HON. DAVID P. PEKOSKE

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2022

                                     U.S. Senate,  
                           Committee on Homeland Security  
                                  and Governmental Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m., in 
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Gary Peters, 
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Peters, Carper, Hassan, Sinema, Rosen, 
Ossoff, Portman, Lankford, Scott, and Hawley.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETERS\1\

    Chairman Peters. The Committee will come to order.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appear in the Appendix 
on page 27.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Today we are considering the nomination of David Pekoske to 
be the Administrator of the Transportation Security 
Administration (TSA) at the Department of Homeland Security 
(DHS). Administrator Pekoske, welcome back to the Committee and 
congratulations on another nomination for this position, and 
thank you for your willingness to continue to serve in a 
challenging and important role in the Federal Government.
    Over 20 years ago, the Transportation Security 
Administration was established in response to the September 
11th terrorist attacks to carry out the essential mission of 
ensuring that travelers are both safe and secure. Since its 
creation, travelers have encountered TSA on a daily basis, most 
notably during the security screening process at our nation's 
airports. In fact, TSA currently screens over 2 million 
travelers each and every day.
    This is a significant undertaking, and it would not be 
possible without our dedicated frontline TSA staff, who work 
hard each and every day to ensure our transportation system's 
safety but especially throughout the national pandemic, where 
they continued to serve with great honor.
    Administrator Pekoske, I am thankful for your vocal support 
of the TSA workforce and I look forward to working with you to 
ensure that our TSA officers receive the compensation and the 
benefits that they certainly deserve.
    As we discussed during last week's hearing, the threat to 
our homeland security posed by unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) 
is rapidly growing, and I know TSA has requested explicit 
authorities to conduct counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) 
activities to maintain our transportation security, and I 
certainly support these efforts. I am working on bipartisan 
legislation now to reauthorize and strengthen counter-unmanned 
aircraft system authorities to better tackle this threat, which 
I plan to introduce in the coming weeks.
    As we work to protect travelers from threats in the sky we 
must also focus on the travel experience on the ground. As 
Chairman of this Committee, I have long pressed the Department 
of Homeland Security and its component agencies to address 
concerns raised by communities, including Michigan's Muslim and 
Arab communities, about challenges they face during the travel 
screening process. The security of our transportation system is 
absolutely critical, but we must also ensure that TSA is 
upholding civil rights and civil liberties and the privacy of 
our travelers.
    I am pleased that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has 
recently announced a new Senior Community Relations Manager to 
address these very unique concerns, but I would like to see TSA 
take a more proactive step to be responsive to the affected 
communities and address these concerns as well.
    Administrator Pekoske, if confirmed for a second term, you 
will play a critical role in ensuring our travel screening 
procedures and standards, specifically the DHS Traveler Redress 
Inquiry Program, are fair and equitable, easy to navigate, and 
as transparent as absolutely possible.
    I look forward to working with you to ensure TSA can 
proactively protect travelers and our transportation facilities 
and to hearing more from you about your vision for continuing 
the TSA's critical mission.
    Ranking Member Portman will be joining us shortly. We have 
a lot going on all around Capitol Hill right now. He will be 
here shortly and will have an opportunity for an opening 
statement at that time.
    Now it is the practice of the Committee to swear in 
witnesses, so if you will please stand, sir, and raise your 
right hand.
    Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this 
Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
the truth, so help you, God?
    Mr. Pekoske. I do.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you. You may be seated.
    Today our witness is David Pekoske, who is nominated to 
serve a second term as Administrator of the Transportation 
Security Administration at the Department of Homeland Security. 
Administrator Pekoske oversees 60,000 employees and is 
responsible for security operations at nearly 440 airports 
throughout the United States and the security of highways, 
railroads, mass transit systems, and pipelines.
    While at DHS, Administrator Pekoske also served as the 
Acting Secretary and as the senior official performing the 
duties of Executive Secretary.
    Previously, Administrator Pekoske served as the 26th Vice 
Commandant of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), and as an 
executive in the government services industry where he led 
teams that provide counterterrorism, security, and intelligence 
support services to government agencies.
    Administrator, welcome back to this Committee. Thank you 
once again for your service and your willingness to serve once 
again. You may proceed with your opening remarks.

       TESTIMONY OF DAVID P. PEKOSKE,\1\ NOMINATED TO BE 
  ADMINISTRATOR, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, U.S. 
                DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

    Mr. Pekoske. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning 
Chairman Peters, Ranking Member Portman, and distinguished 
Members of the Committee. I have had the honor of serving as 
the leader of the Transportation Security Administration for 
nearly 5 years now, and it is my great privilege to be before 
you today to be considered for a second 5-year term as 
Administrator.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Pekoske appears in the Appendix 
on page 31.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I thank President Biden for renominating me for this 
important national security position and I would like to also 
thank Secretary Mayorkas and the entire DHS team for their 
support during this process. I deeply appreciate the support my 
family provides me in this position and throughout my career.
    When President Biden announced my renomination, one 
acquaintance said to me, ``That is a tough job. Why would you 
want to do it again for another five years?'' The answer to 
this is simple. I want to continue to support the amazing TSA 
workforce. The TSA workforce is exceptional, and during my time 
at TSA, they have performed at a high level amid challenging 
and historic circumstances.
    Whether it is transportation security officers, Federal air 
marshals, inspectors, or all of the TSA employees who support 
them behind the scenes, I am immensely proud to be a part of an 
organization laser-focused on protecting our nation and its 
transportation system. They are a dedicated, committed 
workforce.
    Our transportation security officers interact with millions 
of people every day and perform a critical national security 
function for our Nation. Their watch never stops. They came to 
work without pay during a 35-day partial government shutdown in 
2019. They staffed the checkpoints when much of the rest of the 
country remained home amid the onset of the Coronavirus Disease 
2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Transportation Security Officers 
(TSOs) have been an important part of the recovery of air 
travel that we are seeing this year, especially this summer.
    Similarly, our Federal air marshals protect the Nation 
during shutdowns, pandemics, and other high-level incidents. 
They do so with a level of professionalism and integrity that 
serves as a model for the entire TSA family.
    Our workforce is an inspiration to me and totally deserving 
of our full support. That starts with funding the President's 
fiscal year (FY) 2023 budget request, which provides pay equity 
for TSA employees and finally puts them on equal footing with 
the rest of their counterparts in the Federal Government.
    If confirmed, I will continue to do all that I can to 
advocate for and hopefully implement pay equity. I will 
continue to work hard to ensure the TSA workforce is well 
prepared to meet the challenges of the next five years and 
beyond.
    TSA does not do its job alone. Our mission success is 
directly dependent on the cooperation between the Agency and 
its myriad of partners.
    In aviation, we continue our strong partnerships with our 
critical stakeholders--the airlines, the airports, State and 
local governments, other Federal agencies, foreign governments, 
and of course pilots and flight attendants.
    Equally important are the growing partnerships we have with 
the surface transportation sector, where TSA works closely with 
the oil and natural gas pipeline, passenger and transit rail, 
freight rail, trucking, and bus industries.
    Finally, amid the challenges of growing cyber threats, TSA 
relies heavily on forging productive partnerships with owners 
and operators of our critical transportation infrastructure, 
for which TSA serves as the security regulator.
    I value our strong partnership with organized labor, 
employee resource groups, and advisory panels who provide 
advocacy for our workforce. They help us remain strong by 
promoting healthy and thriving work environments for our TSA 
family. I want to take a second and recognize these 
partnerships and thank all of those entities for their 
contributions toward securing our nation's transportation 
systems.
    If confirmed, I will do everything I can to make sure that 
TSA maintains and strengthens these important partnerships to 
ensure that our pursuit of the highest level of transportation 
security works in tandem with the facilitation of trade and 
commerce in the transportation system.
    Finally, I want to thank this Committee for your critical 
work to provide the authority to the Department, and now 
explicitly to TSA, to counter unmanned aerial systems. I also 
appreciate the Committee's work on critical infrastructure 
security, to include efforts addressing the cybersecurity of 
the transportation sector. If reconfirmed, I hope to continue 
this important cooperation between the Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) and TSA.
    After 20 years, TSA has grown considerably and we have 
learned a great deal about how to be the best at protecting our 
nation's transportation system. We still have much more work to 
do, but I remain committed to TSA's future.
    Chairman Peters, Ranking Member Portman, and distinguished 
Members of this Committee, I look forward to answering your 
questions. Thank you, sir.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Administrator.
    Ranking Member Portman, you are recognized for your opening 
comments.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN\1\

    Senator Portman. First, thank you, Mr. Pekoske, for your 
willingness to serve again, and Mr. Chairman, thanks for having 
this hearing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Portman appears in the 
Appendix on page 29.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This is a really critical position--I do not have to tell 
you that--and you know it well. It is also one that this 
Committee cares a lot about, given our oversight 
responsibilities. TSA has played a vital role since 9/11, of 
course, in combating terrorism and ensuring that our aviation 
and transportation systems are protected. As I walk through the 
TSA line, which I do twice a week, I say, ``Thank you for 
protecting us,'' because that is what you do.
    We appreciate that and we have fought to try to help ensure 
that your TSA personnel are treated appropriately in the 
Federal Government law enforcement context and we want to do 
more in that regard. We appreciate your work and the diligence 
of the TSA workforce.
    If you look at the record, although the Government 
Accountability Office (GAO) and others have helped to make your 
system work better by pointing out flaws, we have been blessed 
with not having the kinds of incidents that everybody feared 
that we would have repeatedly after 9/11.
    I will say that 9/11-type threats, having been really the 
greatest challenge and really the reason TSA was bulked up, 
appropriately, those threats have evolved over time, and 
specifically I want to talk to you about how TSA needs to 
realign to meet those evolving threats.
    Your job is not just to protect our airports and air 
travels but also the nation's surface transportation systems. 
Colonial Pipeline, you may know, is a big issue at this 
Committee. We had hearings on it. We drafted legislation. We 
actually enacted some legislation to help deal with that kind 
of a threat. It exposed vulnerabilities in TSA's oversight of 
our nation's surface transportation system, specifically the 
pipelines. But more broadly, that ransomware attack that hit 
Colonial Pipeline was the largest attack on oil infrastructure 
in the history of the country.
    It also prompted you to issue the first-ever cybersecurity-
related security directors for owners and operators of 
pipelines. It requires mandatory incident reporting and the 
adoption of mitigation measures. When issuing these directives, 
TSA used emergency authorities, as you know, to bypass 
regulatory notice and comment periods. I remain concerned that 
the use of this emergency authority departs from TSA's 
previously collaborative approach with industry experts on 
cybersecurity standards, and this Committee, I think it is fair 
to say, on a bipartisan basis, has some concerns about this.
    Another area of concern we have is the repeated refusal to 
provide any information to this Committee about those draft 
directives to Congress. This includes the Chairs and Ranking 
Members of this Committee and other congressional oversight 
committees, despite having shared copies of the drafts of these 
directives to the pipeline industry. You provided them to the 
pipeline industry but not to the oversight committees.
    The explanation we have gotten is that you will not provide 
the drafts because they are pre-decision and, therefore, 
deliberative. I guess that confuses me, since you have already 
shared them with external companies, officials. Today will be 
an opportunity for you to explain how these documents can be 
both internally deliberative and yet externally shared with the 
private sector. That is a contradiction.
    I think sometimes when things come up to Congress they tend 
to become too public. All I can say is I think Chairman Peters 
and I, in particular, have a history of treating these kinds of 
sensitive documents in the appropriate way, and we need to know 
what your draft directives are saying to the private sector to 
be sure that our oversight responsibilities, which are 
incredibly important right now with regard to what is happening 
with these pipelines and other potential threats, are able to 
be fulfilled.
    Again, thank you for your years of service. TSA will 
continue to be a really important piece of the security 
framework of the United States as we get back even more travel. 
I was at the Greater Cincinnati Airport on Monday, and it was 
packed, and I was told that we are at 85 percent of where we 
were pre-COVID, but the summer, frankly, we are back to where 
we were in the summer of 2019. So that is good to hear. I know 
business travel is still off, but even with inflation and all 
the concerns about where our economy is headed, your travelers 
are back, and we have to be sure that TSA continues to provide, 
as I said earlier, this important service to protect them, 
protect our Nation, and we appreciate what they do every day.
    Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this timely 
hearing, and I look forward to further talking about this draft 
directive.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Ranking Member Portman.
    There are three questions that this Committee asks of 
everyone who comes before us. I will ask you, Administrator 
Pekoske, if you could just respond briefly with a yes or no to 
each of these questions.
    First, is there anything you are aware of in your 
background that might present a conflict of interest with the 
duties of the office to which you have been nominated?
    Mr. Pekoske. No, sir.
    Chairman Peters. Second, do you know of anything, personal 
or otherwise, that would in any way prevent you from fully and 
honorably discharging the responsibilities of the office to 
which you have been nominated?
    Mr. Pekoske. No, sir.
    Chairman Peters. Lastly, do you agree, without reservation, 
to comply with any request or summons to appear and testify 
before any duly constituted committee of Congress, if 
confirmed?
    Mr. Pekoske. I do.
    Chairman Peters. Great. Thank you.
    Administrator Pekoske, you and I have spoken at length 
about concerns raised from the Muslim and Arab American 
communities about many of the TSA-implemented lists and 
policies and programs that can lead to additional screenings at 
the airport. We can both agree that security for airline travel 
is of the utmost importance, and that is something I am focused 
on 100 percent, as I know you are. But there are also multiple 
documented cases of individuals remaining on these lists for 
over a decade, even though there is no evidence whatsoever that 
they pose any sort of threat.
    My question for you, sir, is, please tell me what steps you 
are taking to address concerns that these policies 
disproportionately impact certain communities and have done so 
for at least 20 years?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for 
raising the issue and for our conversation last week. This is 
something that I really do want to address completely and 
fully, because I think it is very important for an agency that 
has security responsibility that directly impacts 2-plus 
million people every single day in the United States to have 
the trust of that traveling population to know that the 
procedures that we have and the processes we use are fair, 
equitable, consider civil rights, liberties, and privacy 
concerns of every single traveler.
    I commit to you that I will do everything that I can, which 
is substantial, to address this issue. You mentioned in your 
opening statement the designation of a direct report to provide 
input, and I fully endorse that idea. We do have an Office of 
Traveler Engagement within TSA that is a direct report to the 
Administrator. But I do want to make sure that we ensure that 
those lines of communication are robust to the point of rather 
than waiting for somebody to come to us that we have a 
regularly scheduled engagement.
    The other thing that I promise to do is to visit the 
communities in the State of Michigan and the State of Minnesota 
to introduce myself to those communities and to begin to 
establish a relationship with them at my level, in addition to 
the relationships that exist at other levels within the agency. 
I want people to feel that if they have a question about how 
TSA processes their security that we listen carefully, we get 
the facts that are there, and then make sure, when we go back, 
that we are not unfairly causing additional process to any 
particular traveler.
    The other thing, sir, that we discussed that I am already 
looking at is in our communications with travelers through the 
Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP), through the redress 
program, I think we can improve what we communicate back to 
passengers to clearly explain what the letter says and what it 
means and what it does not mean for them.
    Sir, you have my full commitment to address this. I know 
Commissioner Magnus was up in Michigan just recently. He came 
back and had a very good experience up there. I look forward to 
partnering with him and the Secretary to present a DHS team 
that can begin to address this problem completely.
    Chairman Peters. Excellent. Good to hear that. I appreciate 
your commitment and we will look forward to hosting you in 
Michigan in the near term. Thank you for your willingness to do 
that.
    As our nation continues to recover from COVID-19 pandemic, 
TSA's frontline staff, as you are well aware, continue to work 
tirelessly to ensure that our system remains safe and secure. 
However, significant parts of the TSA workforce I think are 
underpaid relative to other similarly situated Federal 
employees at other agencies, which has impeded TSA's ability to 
retain the qualified workers that are so essential for us.
    My question to you, sir, is, I appreciate your support of a 
proposal in the President's budget to address this longstanding 
inequity that would provide our frontline TSA staff with an 
increase in their base pay. But I would like you to address, 
what is the impact of this compensation and benefit disparities 
on our frontline TSA workforce, and why do we need this action 
in order to rectify this situation?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, Mr. Chairman. This is my No. 1 priority, 
as the Administrator currently, and if confirmed, as the 
Administrator going forward, is to fix this pay issue. As you 
mentioned, our frontline transportation security officers, the 
uniformed officers that travelers see every time they travel 
through a security checkpoint, on average they get paid 30 
percent less than their counterparts in the rest of the Federal 
Government. That is fundamentally unfair. It inhibits our 
ability to recruit and to retain talent. I think this is the 
most important thing facing us that we need to address.
    As you mentioned, the President included in the fiscal year 
2023 budget request to improve pay across the board in TSA, not 
above any other Federal agencies but equitable with every 
Federal agency. I just think it is so important that we do 
that.
    We have, in our screening workforce, about a 20 percent 
attrition rate. That is way too high. When I watch average 
levels of experience in our checkpoints go from five years to 
four years to three, that is a security concern as well.
    I would appreciate your continued strong support of pay 
equity. It is really so critically important for the success of 
TSA going into the future.
    Chairman Peters. All right. Thank you.
    Last week, this Committee held a hearing to examine the 
threat to the homeland posed by unmanned aircraft systems as 
well as a potential expansion of authorities to counter these 
UAS threats. Part of the legislation that I am working on 
currently with Senator Johnson would provide explicit 
authorization for the TSA to conduct C-UAS activities to 
protect transportation facilities and assets.
    Administrator Pekoske, my question to you is, could you 
explain the UAS threat that airports are currently facing, for 
this Committee, to fully understand, and why TSA needs these 
authorities, and you need them now, to maintain safe and secure 
air travel?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Airports are facing UAS 
challenges every single day, and just yesterday we had three 
reports from pilots of sightings of a UAS as either they were 
landing or taking off. Two or three days ago we had a 
helicopter that had a collision with a UAS in Pennsylvania.
    When we conduct our test beds--we have two test beds 
underway, one in Miami and one in Los Angeles ``that is just 
beginning''--those test beds show us that the reports that we 
get from pilots, that I just mentioned, are just the tip of the 
iceberg of UAS activity in and around airports, because we are 
testing our detect, track, and identify equipment to get a good 
picture of what is operating around those airports.
    We have done a lot of work on this, but there is so much 
more work to do. As you said, our authorities expire very 
shortly. They expire in October. If our authorities expire 
without being renewed or refreshed or enhanced, all of those 
test bed activities that we currently do and all the 
coordination work that we currently do will stop. This is a 
growing threat to our aviation system, and we need to continue 
this work apace.
    I appreciate your focus and your emphasis on providing 
direct authority to the agency. This is something that we need 
to be able to respond to on an instant, and having those direct 
authorities will greatly enable that.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you.
    Ranking Member Portman, you are recognized for your 
questions.
    Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Pekoske, I am 
going to ask you first about terrorism and a TSA success, which 
was in possibly identifying a known terrorist, a Columbian 
national, whose name is Isnardo Garcia-Amado who was attempting 
to board a plane in Florida. Was this man listed on the No-Fly 
List?
    Mr. Pekoske. No, sir. He was not listed on the No-Fly List. 
This occurred back in April, about four days after he was 
encountered by the Border Patrol at Yuma, Arizona. When he 
showed up at the TSA checkpoint, given the information that he 
provided to the carrier when he purchased his ticket, we knew 
that we needed to do some additional identity verification work 
with this traveler, and then if that warranted some additional 
enhanced screening or with him as well, and that is what we 
did.
    Senator Portman. Was he in the Terrorist Screening 
Database?
    Mr. Pekoske. I cannot confirm whether any passenger--in 
general, we just do not confirm whether passengers are on the 
Terrorist Screening Database. What I can say is that the 
information this passenger provided indicated to us that we 
needed to provide enhanced screening and that we also needed to 
get further information on his identity. Furthermore, we 
thought it was necessary that we provide Federal air marshals 
on the flight that he was on.
    Senator Portman. OK. Do you allow some names on the 
Terrorist Screening Database to fly?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir.
    Senator Portman. Why would you allow that?
    Mr. Pekoske. Because we do not think that those passengers 
present such an immediate risk as to be catastrophic to an 
airplane in flight. But we have concerns, and we feel that we 
can mitigate those concerns through our screening process, and 
where appropriate, through the presence of Federal air marshals 
on the flights.
    We also, as part of that process working with the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation (FBIs) Terrorist Screening Center 
(TSC), is to coordinate that information across the 
interagency, so all agencies that have an interest are advised 
of that passenger's travel.
    Senator Portman. I would like to follow up on that. Maybe 
it is better in a classified setting. But if seems to me if 
someone is on the Terrorist Screening Database, rather than 
having to bring air marshals in to be able to fly with that 
person, that person should not be permitted on a U.S. carrier, 
or on a U.S. flight.
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir. I understand and I am very happy to 
brief you in the appropriate setting. But this is a very 
carefully developed and coordinated and governed risk 
management process that we have used for years. But I am happy 
to brief you on it.
    Senator Portman. Yes. You are not going to tell me whether, 
Mr. Pekoske, he was on that list, but it sounds like you 
treated him as though he was.
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir. We treated him with the risk that we 
felt he presented, and we wanted to mitigate that risk.
    Senator Portman. Is he continuing to fly?
    Mr. Pekoske. I do not know whether he has attempted to fly 
but he would be permitted to fly.
    Senator Portman. Is he here legally?
    Mr. Pekoske. I do not know the answer to that question, 
sir. That would be a Customs and Border Protection question.
    Senator Portman. You did not find that out in the process 
of screening?
    Mr. Pekoske. He was admitted into the country by the Border 
Patrol, so he is likely awaiting immigration proceedings.
    Senator Portman. A couple hundred thousand people a month. 
It does not mean they are here lawfully.
    Mr. Pekoske. Right. But he was admitted in, and he was most 
likely awaiting immigration proceedings.
    Senator Portman. Can you explain to this Committee why you 
can share draft copies of these directives we talked about 
earlier? These are the draft directives you provided to 
industry with regard to security for the pipeline industry. Can 
you explain why you would provide these draft copies to the 
private sector and not to congressional oversight committees?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir. We want to collaborate with our 
oversight committees and their staffs as greatly as we can, and 
we benefit significantly from that process. We have offered, 
and I believe we have briefed on the second security directive 
that you referenced in your opening statement of what is 
contained in that directive.
    Senator Portman. Yes, let me be clear on that. here is a 
letter from October of last year, where we asked the inspector 
general (IG) to get involved in this because we were not 
getting the information. I know they are doing an IG 
investigation now to try to figure out what is appropriate, an 
audit of your processes.
    We have been asking for this for a long time, and I see 
your staff nodding their heads when you say ``we briefed.'' We 
briefed last week, and you briefed only staff, and you did it 
in camera, meaning you would not leave the documents for the 
rest of us to see, including Members of the Committee. You did 
it last week, I assume, because you were coming in here today, 
which we appreciate you being here.
    But again, Senator Peters and I have a history of treating 
these documents with their appropriate level of sensitive. In 
this case there may be reasons for us to have these documents 
provided to us in a classified setting. We understand that. But 
we would certainly like to see them. We would like to know what 
you are directing these folks to do. We do not want another 
Colonial Pipeline, and our job is to try to, through our 
oversight, to avoid that. We are drafting legislation to deal 
with it, and not to know what the directives are you are 
telling the pipelines. It makes our job very hard, and I think 
it makes your job harder too.
    I would ask you today to share those with us. You say they 
are in internal deliberations. Is that the reason you have not 
shared them?
    Mr. Pekoske. We are about to reissue those. I intend to 
sign that directive this afternoon when I get back to my 
office. The reason why the briefs were offered last week was 
because it was in final form. That way you could see the net 
result process of our working with the industry and with our 
other Federal partners in developing----
    Senator Portman. But why have you not shared those with us?
    Mr. Pekoske. We will, sir. You will get a copy this 
afternoon.
    Senator Portman. OK. Thank you. I appreciate that. The 
Federal courts have been very clear about that. When the 
government voluntarily shares with a non-Federal party they 
waive any claim that the information is exempt from disclosure, 
and that has been true. I mentioned we have been at this for a 
long time. It goes back to October of last year. We appreciate 
you sharing it with us.
    Again, I thank you for your willingness to step up and 
serve again. You have a tough job because it is a difficult 
task for TSA, and your pay grades are not that of other Federal 
law enforcement officials. I think the TSA morale problem is 
real. Again, I have a lot of discussions with TSA individuals 
and have gotten to know some of them through the years. This 
problem has spanned administrations and spanned secretaries so 
I am not putting the onus on this administration. You have been 
in both the Trump administration and now the Biden 
administration.
    If confirmed, what do you believe is your role in improving 
morale at TSA, and what plans do you have to do things 
differently, based on your experience over the past five years?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir. My central is the leader of the 
agency, and part of what I am trying to do--and this takes some 
time--is to, one, be very responsive to the feedback we are 
getting from our frontline workforce and the workforce across 
the agency. As you know, we do the Federal Employee Viewpoint 
Survey (FEVS) every year. We encourage--in fact, it closes, I 
believe, tomorrow, and we have actively encouraged people and 
given them time to fill out those survey results. Then I think 
we demonstrate very well to our employees that we pay attention 
to the input that we receive, and we look at individual 
location differences so that we can drill in and figure out 
what is going on, to address the source of dissatisfaction.
    I think pay is a big part of it but it is not the only 
part. Part of it is to make sure that people have opportunity 
to grow in TSA and to do all the great things that we do, in 
the security checkpoint and beyond.
    Senator Portman. OK. My time has expired. We look forward 
to the draft directive.
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir.
    Senator Portman. Thank you for your service.
    Mr. Pekoske. Thank you, sir.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER

    Senator Carper [presiding]. Senator Portman, good morning. 
How are you?
    Senator Portman. Just got back.
    Senator Carper. Yes, I did. Nice to be back. It is always 
good to see you.
    He and I worked together on this Committee for a long time, 
and he chaired the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations 
(PSI) and he was good enough to let me be his wingman. We did 
some very good work.
    How are you today?
    Mr. Pekoske. I am doing great, Senator. How are you?
    Senator Carper. Good. Thanks so much for coming by 
yesterday and bringing some folks from your team. I look at the 
lineup behind you and I see a couple of very familiar faces, 
and it is always a pleasure to see them. I like to say we are 
only as good as the people we have around us, and you have some 
exceptional people around you.
    My staff has given me a couple of questions that they would 
like for me to ask, and I will get to those. But I want to 
start off by saying you have had an opportunity to serve in 
this role for five years. What are some things that you have 
learned over the last five years that you think will help you 
be an even more effective leader in the next five?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir. Every day is a learning experience 
in TSA because the agency is incredibly complex. We talked 
about, in the Chairman's opening statement, that we are known 
primarily for aviation security, but even just that sentence 
understates the scope and the scale of what we do, because 
aviation means airlines and airports, it means cargo facilities 
that screen cargo before it gets on board aircraft, et cetera. 
It is a very complex job.
    I endeavor to be as close to the front line of TSA as I 
possibly can, because I do not want to be in a setting like 
this, speaking to the agency's process, and have folks that 
work in TSA hearing me say that going, ``OK, he does not have 
that as right as we wish he would.'' I want to be a credible 
voice for my workforce.
    As I said my opening statement, sir, and we talked about 
this in your office, I am humbled by the tremendous workforce 
that TSA has, and I view my primary responsibility to support 
and enable them and to give them the tools and the technology 
they need to get the job done. They serve us proud.
    Senator Carper. All right. Thank you. I wanted to talk a 
little bit about Innovation Task Force (ITF). I recall, I think 
it was in 2015, the Transportation Security Administration 
created an Innovation Task Force. I think it was for a couple 
of reasons. One was to foster innovation, and also to improve 
the passenger experience while trying to ensure that the agency 
stays ahead of the very dynamic threat environment in which we 
all operate and live.
    You have stated that this task force is collaborating, I 
think, with industry, with airlines, airports, equipment 
manufacturers, and others to try to find and deploy the very 
best technology to further improve security and improve the 
passenger experience.
    Could you give us an update, please, perhaps maybe some 
concrete examples, on how this task force has responded to the 
evolving threat landscape by bad actors, who use gaps in our 
defenses, and additionally, how is TSA working with 
international and with industry partners to enhance our 
security?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, Senator. Thanks for your comments on the 
Innovation Task Force. I mean, it is one of the crown jewels of 
TSA. It is embedded in our requirements and capabilities 
analysis staff within TSA headquarters, but really it reaches 
across the entire agency and with our entire partner set.
    I will give you a couple of examples of things the 
Innovation Task Force has done that passengers can see now when 
they go through the screening process. When you think about, 
you put it in context of a government agency actually 
delivering capability very quickly that improves security and 
improves the passenger experience at the same time.
    The first example I would give you is our new identity 
verification technology, and I will even take it a step further 
as to where this is going over the next couple of months. We 
just announced a partnership with Apple where passengers can 
download their State driver's license in States that 
participate into their Apple Wallet. You will be able to, and 
you can right now at Baltimore Washington International (BWI) 
Airport, for example, in this area, Phoenix airport in Arizona, 
when you walk up to the checkpoint rather than handing over 
your driver's license or inserting your driver's license in a 
slot on a machine you tap your phone and it transmits the 
information. So totally touchless.
    What happens not infrequently is people forget their 
driver's license sometimes, but they hardly ever forget their 
phones. Having this in your phone is a huge benefit, I think, 
to passengers and certainly it is better security for us.
    The next technology is our computer tomography (CT) scan x-
ray technology. What this does is it gives us a much better, 
much richer picture of what is in a carry-on bag, to the point 
where we can resolve any concerns we have generally on the 
screen. We do not need to do a bag search and passengers that 
use the CT technology when they go through the screening 
process do not have to take out liquids, aerosols, and gels, or 
laptops, because we literally can have the machine look all 
around the bag to determine if there is anything in there that 
would cause a concern of ours.
    We pride ourselves in working really closely with our 
partners, too, and I will give one final example, Senator, if I 
could. We have been working with one of the major carriers on 
curb-to-curb biometrics. What this means is that a passenger 
can show up--these are PreCheck passengers currently--can show 
up and use their facial image to validate that they are who 
they say they are--and we have really developed this technology 
significantly--to the point where they can just check their 
bags with their face. It spits out a bag tag. They put it on 
the conveyor belt. They walk up to the screening checkpoint, 
use their face as their identity to get the beginning of the 
screening process, and then when they get to the gate to board 
the aircraft again it is their face that gets them admitted 
onto the aircraft.
    It means there are a lot less pieces of paper and 
credentials that you need to carry, and for us it is very much 
improved security posture.
    Senator Carper. Good. Thank you for that.
    Others have asked about morale already. I am sure they will 
come back and ask that again. Whenever I fly, and I fly a fair 
amount--I mostly take trains but I fly lot--and almost always 
when I am going through security I talk to the TSA agents and 
thank them for what they do, tell them who I am and the role 
that I play here, and let them know that we appreciate very 
much what they do, and I hope others do that too.
    I spent a lot of years of my life--I ran for office as a 
Naval Flight Officer (NFO) and was a midshipman before that, 
and learned a whole lot about leadership, and I learned a lot 
about morale, how to foster good morale in the military.
    You have had great leadership opportunities in the Coast 
Guard. What are some lessons that you learned there that you 
are able to put to work now? I will ask you to be fairly 
succinct.
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir. Thank you for your service. I would 
sum it up in presence. You need to be present with your 
workforce and they need to see you there, and to see that you 
are engaged in the work that they do and you understand it. 
Second is communications, and we always say, and I am sure you 
experienced this when you were in the Navy, every after-action 
report says communications could have been improved. We could 
prewrite that. So let's get ahead of that as much as we can and 
continue strong communications.
    Finally, one of the things that I think is so critically 
important to the smooth functioning of an organization is that 
everybody feels included. Nobody feels excluded and everybody 
feels that they have the opportunity that their counterparts 
have. I really want to foster that as I continue on, if 
confirmed.
    Senator Carper. OK. Those are all good.
    Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly relinquish the gavel.
    Chairman Peters. [presiding]. Thank you for your great 
service.
    Senator Carper. It is a good thing I do not get paid by the 
minute. It would not have been much.
    Chairman Peters. Very good.
    Senator Hawley, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HAWLEY

    Senator Hawley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. 
Pekoske, thanks for being here. I have some questions for you, 
and to be frank with you I have some concerns about your 
record. Let's start with your decision to allow illegal 
immigrants to use arrest warrants as a form of identification 
(ID) at TSA checkpoints.
    In response to a congressional inquiry on this you 
responded, and I am going to quote you now, ``TSA established a 
process where it will accept certain DHS-issued forms for non-
citizens and non-U.S. nationals who do not otherwise have 
acceptable forms of ID for presentation at security 
checkpoints.'' Then you went on to list the forms that TSA 
would accept that included a warrant for arrest of an alien, a 
warrant of removal to deportation, the order of release on 
recognizance, an order of supervision, a notice to appear 
(NTA), an arrival and departure form, which included a printout 
of an electronic record or an alien booking record.
    Now I wrote to you on January 31st of this year, asking you 
about this. Have you responded to this letter yet?
    Mr. Pekoske. No, sir, we have not responded----
    Senator Hawley. I did not think so.
    Mr. Pekoske [continuing]. But I will respond tomorrow.
    Senator Hawley. Right after today's hearing. It is amazing 
how that works.
    Mr. Pekoske. Actually I saw a response earlier and it did 
not meet----
    Senator Hawley. Do I have the response?
    Mr. Pekoske. No, you do not, but you will have it tomorrow.
    Senator Hawley. Right after today's hearing. Maybe we 
should have more of these hearings. This is July, is it not? I 
sent it to you in January. That is a very long time to respond 
to a letter that is 2\1/2\ pages long.
    Let's just see if we can get some answers now. How many 
individuals have presented TSA with arrest warrants or 
deportation notices and were permitted to travel in this 
calendar year?
    Mr. Pekoske. Under 1,000, sir.
    Senator Hawley. How does this policy comport with 18 United 
States Code (USC) 1325, which criminalizes improper entry into 
the United States by an alien?
    Mr. Pekoske. Sir, these individuals that have these arrest 
warrants, those arrest warrants were issued by the Border 
Patrol or a Customs office, and they serve as a begging to our 
identity verification process. You cannot walk up to a 
checkpoint, wave that form, and then you can go right through 
into screening. We go through a process to verify that you are 
the person that you claim to be and that you are receiving the 
level of screening, which always includes enhanced screening 
when people do not have the proper identification.
    Senator Hawley. Somebody who presents an arrest warrant is 
subject to an in-person interview with the airport's Federal 
security director?
    Mr. Pekoske. They have an interview with the officers that 
are on scene at the checkpoint, but that is not all that is 
happening. What those officers are doing is they are talking 
to----
    Senator Hawley. Wait. When you say the officers on scene at 
the checkpoint, what are we talking about?
    Mr. Pekoske. The transportation security officers. The 
uniformed officers at the checkpoint.
    Senator Hawley. OK. But not the Federal Security Director 
(FSD).
    Mr. Pekoske. They will bring in the Federal Security 
Director if needed.
    Senator Hawley. Why would that person not be needed if you 
have someone who is an illegal immigrant?
    Mr. Pekoske. Right. We are not looking at whether a person 
is legal or illegal in the country. Our function is to make 
sure that----
    Senator Hawley. Why not?
    Mr. Pekoske. Because our role is to make sure that people 
that might pose a risk to transportation that is significant 
enough to either require enhanced screening or to not allow 
them to fly, that the proper procedure----
    Senator Hawley. Is it your position someone who is known to 
have violated the laws of the United States does not thereby 
need enhanced screening? You are not concerned about this 
person as a security threat?
    Mr. Pekoske. Sir, there are people every day that violate 
the laws of the United States that fly. We look for things that 
are related to transportation security.
    Senator Hawley. You do not think someone who is, by 
definition, if somebody presents a warrant for arrest, you do 
not think that that necessitates enhanced screening?
    Mr. Pekoske. They get enhanced. All of those individuals 
get enhanced screening.
    Senator Hawley. You just told me that it does not necessary 
involve any interview with the Federal Security Director, and 
you also said that you may well let them get on airplanes, and, 
in fact, you have allowed at least 1,000 people to get on 
airplanes, in just this calendar year alone.
    Mr. Pekoske. But enhanced screening and getting on an 
airplane are two very different things.
    Senator Hawley. I think for every person watching this 
hearing who has experienced the TSA screening process, it can 
often be very onerous, it is very long, and in fact, under your 
tenureship the times for screening have gone up, up, up at 
airports all across the country, including in my home State of 
Missouri. St. Louis is now the sixth-longest screening process 
in the country, despite the size of our airport there.
    People who have done absolutely nothing wrong, are law-
abiding citizens in every respect, are subject to the most 
invasive screenings at these airports. Yet you are allowing 
illegal aliens to present warrants for arrest and waving them 
onto airplanes. How does that make sense?
    Mr. Pekoske. We are not doing that, sir.
    Senator Hawley. You just told me that you have let 1,000 
people travel on airlines who present to you warrants for 
arrest.
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, and they present those warrants. That 
warrant is the beginning of an identity verification process 
which follows.
    Senator Hawley. Why is it not the end? Why is that not the 
end of the process and you say, ``Sorry, you have a warrant for 
an arrest. We are not going to allow you to get on an 
airplane.''
    Mr. Pekoske. Because we want to identify who has presented 
themselves as the screening checkpoint and ensure that those 
individuals get the right level of screening. For folks that do 
not have the acceptable forms of ID that we list on our 
webpage, they all receive enhanced screening. Every single 
person that presents a warrant receives enhanced screening 
before they are allowed to get on an aircraft. Now if they do 
not pass that screening they do not get on the aircraft.
    Senator Hawley. Boy. I think you are going to have a hard 
time explaining to folks who wait for all this time in these 
lines, who subject themselves voluntary to all of the 
restrictions that you impose, who are patted down, who are 
frisked, who are asked to step aside, who have their luggage 
rifled through, who have items confiscated from them, who are 
randomly selected or sometimes perhaps not so randomly selected 
for enhanced screenings, but you are allowing illegal aliens 
with warrants for arrest to get onto airplanes, and you have 
allowed at least 1,000 of them in this calendar year. I mean, I 
just find that totally extraordinary.
    Let me ask you about something you did when you were 
briefly Acting Security of DHS, from January 20 to February 2, 
2021. You published a memo during that time that enacted a 100-
day moratorium on almost all illegal immigrant removals from 
the United States as well as a 100-day review of DHS 
immigration law enforcement policies. Thankfully, this was 
blocked by a Federal judge.
    I just want to have you explain. I do not understand why 
you were trying to reduce border enforcement capabilities at a 
time when we were and are experiencing record levels of illegal 
immigration.
    Mr. Pekoske. Sir, we do not have enough resources, clearly, 
to handle the number of people that are coming across the 
border. We were trying to focus the resources that we have. I 
mean, no agency in this government has all the resources they 
need to do the jobs that they have been asked to do.
    Senator Hawley. I am sorry. So your answer is that you 
wanted to do less enforcement and just ignore everybody who was 
here before November 1, 2020?
    Mr. Pekoske. Not at all. We wanted to do more effective 
enforcement.
    Senator Hawley. Here is what you attempted to do. You tried 
to narrow DHS's enforcement abilities to include only three 
types of illegal aliens: one, spies and terrorists, two, aliens 
who entered after November 1, 2020, or those convicted of 
aggravated felonies and were released from incarceration on or 
after the date of your memo. That is a significant narrowing. 
Basically, if you came before November 1, 2020, and you issued 
this in January 2021, they are just off the hook.
    Mr. Pekoske. Sir, those were enforcement priorities but not 
all the enforcement that could occur, and if you read further 
in that memo it allows for discretion by the officer. Those 
priorities are primarily for resource allocation decisions as 
to where the resources would be placed to be most effective.
    I think those three priorities are three of the very top 
priorities that we ought to focus our limited enforcement 
capability on.
    Senator Hawley. I am just glad that a judge blocked the 
attempt to do this. I have to say, in terms of your priorities 
and what you have done, from allowing those with arrest 
warrants to fly while subjecting law-abiding citizens to what 
you have done, to your record of the terrible wait times and 
experience that you are putting law-abiding citizens through, 
to this action, I just cannot say that I agree with your 
priorities, Mr. Pekoske.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Hawley.
    Senator Scott, you are recognized for your questions.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT

    Senator Scott. Thanks for being here. I did not get to hear 
all of Senator Hawley's questions, but go through exactly how, 
and under what authority of the law, you allow illegal 
immigrants, they are permitted to use their U.S. Immigration 
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest warrants as an acceptable 
form of identification for TSA? Explain why you would do that.
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir. I will, and thanks for the 
opportunity. That ICE arrest warrant is not a criminal warrant 
in the common term that most people would interpret it to mean. 
What it means is that this individual has encountered ICE, and 
ICE has released that person and given them this document as a 
form of beginning an identity verification process, like for 
TSA.
    When ICE issues these forms, and that person chooses to 
travel, they make reservation with the carriers as they 
normally would, they come into the screening checkpoint, they 
show us that form. That begins an entire process where we work 
to verify their identity. Essentially what we are looking to do 
is to ensure that this is the person who claims to be in front 
of us. We have advanced this quite a bit over the past year, 
year and a half, to now we are working with Customs and Border 
Protection, we use biometric identification. Sometimes when 
these individuals approach the checkpoint, already with a 
reservation, we do a biometric or facial scan. That appraisal 
that is on an iPhone will return us a result that, yes, this 
person was encountered by Border Patrol or a Customs field 
officer and they were paroled into the country, and we verify 
their identity biometrically. They have been checked against 
the Terror Databases at the----
    Senator Scott. Have you been down to the border?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, I have.
    Senator Scott. So in my trips down there, everybody throws 
their ID away before they come across the border. OK? I have 
not experienced where people have come over with their ID. So 
what you just said does not seem like that is the way it would 
work. How could anybody ever verify who they are?
    Mr. Pekoske. They use the biometrics. So either a facial 
imagine or a print.
    Senator Scott. Do we have it from Mexico or Venezuela?
    Mr. Pekoske. No. We have it from the individual, sir. The 
individual provides their biometric. We use that biometric to 
ensure that that biometric is not represented on any of our 
watch listing information.
    Senator Scott. We actually do not really have good 
information. What you are saying is, somebody throws their ID 
away, they come across the border and say, ``I am Rick Scott.'' 
Then they say, ``I am Rick Scott. Here is my information.'' The 
Border Patrol has no background because Cuba is not going to 
give it to you or Venezuela or Nicaragua. Then they use that to 
get on the plane.
    Mr. Pekoske. That person who might not have identification 
encounters the Border Patrol. The Border Patrol captures their 
fingerprints, uses the fingerprints to ensure that they are not 
watch-listed and they are admissible into the country. Then 
when that person approaches the TSA checkpoint we go back and 
verify that this is the person that the Border Patrol admitted 
into the country, and this is the person that did not have any 
watch-listing information on them.
    Regardless of what outcome that is, once we go through 
identity verification process they all received enhanced 
screening. No person with one of those arrest warrants, which 
again are non-criminal arrest warrants, gets into an aircraft 
without enhanced screening. In that enhanced screening process 
there are situations where, through enhanced screening, we 
eventually deny entry as well, but that is kind of rare.
    Senator Scott. OK. As an American citizen you have to have 
a photo ID. Let's take somebody coming across the border. If I 
came across the border today, the Border Patrol stops me, and I 
say, I am whatever my name is. They take my ID. How fast can 
they fly on a plane?
    Mr. Pekoske. We have processes where we have American 
citizens every day that lose their identity, or forget their 
identity when they come to the checkpoint. We have some 
passengers that approach the checkpoint with no identity 
whatsoever. We use this very same identity verification process 
that is basically run out of our operations center here in 
Washington.
    Senator Scott. They could fly the same day they get in the 
country.
    Mr. Pekoske. They can fly the same day, provided that we 
can validate their identity. We have a whole series of 
processes that we use to do that.
    Senator Scott. But if they are a Cuban citizen, you do not 
have any ability. If they have lived in Cuba all their life, 
they flew into Mexico City, flew to Mexicali, came across the 
border, then you have no information.
    Mr. Pekoske. If we have no information and cannot validate 
their identity then they do not fly.
    Senator Scott. If they came across, they had no ID, and if 
no background, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the 
person comes and gives their name and their fingerprint, they 
would not be able to fly.
    Mr. Pekoske. Unless we had captured their prints on their 
border crossing and checked them against the watch listing 
information that we all hold.
    Senator Scott. But you have no information.
    Mr. Pekoske. Right, but we would have their print.
    Senator Scott. All you have then is they say their name and 
their print, and that day they could fly.
    Mr. Pekoske. Arguably, yes, although that is rare it is the 
same day.
    Senator Scott. Stop right there for a second. You know you 
have no information from Cuba, right?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes.
    Senator Scott. You get nothing out of Iran. You get nothing 
out of North Korea. You get nothing out of probably a lot of 
Africa.
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes.
    Senator Scott. You get nothing out of Nicaragua, and people 
can get on airplanes and fly immediately. I mean----
    Mr. Pekoske. Sure, but----
    Senator Scott [continuing]. As an American citizen, would 
you not say that does not make sense?
    Mr. Pekoske. Before they can get on the aircraft they go 
through a full pat-down, they go through a full bag search, in 
addition to our regular screening process. We have mitigated 
risk substantially in that process. We know that because we 
take their print when they cross the border, we know that their 
print is not matching with anybody that is on the Terrorist 
Screening Database.
    Senator Scott. I just think, as an American citizen, you 
know people are coming across our border to harm us, right. We 
did not stop the 9/11 attackers, and we had the system there, 
right? To me, I just think this is unbelievable risk. When you 
stop and think about it, you can throw your ID away, you are a 
terrorist. You might not be on the list yet but you are here to 
do harm, and that day, people can fly. I mean, that just does 
not make sense.
    Mr. Pekoske. Things are quite different, though, now from 
9/11, and we have a very sophisticated system that would detect 
people that would present harm to the United States. We have 
used that system successfully for years now. This identity 
verification process has been in place since 2019.
    Senator Scott. Let me ask you a question. When I have gone 
through sometimes they are doing tests to see how many people 
get through. You guys do that, right? How many people get 
through? How many times does a gun get through?
    Mr. Pekoske. We do covert tests on a pretty regular basis. 
Those results are always classified, for obviously reasons. We 
use those convert tests to show us where vulnerabilities might 
exist in our system and to close those vulnerabilities as 
quickly as we can.
    Senator Scott. But I think you would acknowledge that 
knives get through, guns get through.
    Mr. Pekoske. Right. Now knives and guns never get through 
enhanced screening.
    Senator Scott. Cannot get through a hand screening.
    Mr. Pekoske. Right, because we are taking the bag apart. We 
are doing a full pat-down of the person.
    Senator Scott. How about explosives?
    Mr. Pekoske. We would detect explosives, knives, any 
prohibited item. It is very thorough, as it needs to be.
    Senator Scott. OK. Thanks, Chair.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Scott.
    Administrator Pekoske, both Senator Scott and Senator 
Hawley have been asking about the policy to accept arrest 
warrants at TSA checkpoints. My question for you is, when did 
the TSA make that policy change?
    Mr. Pekoske. That policy change, sir, was made in 2019.
    Chairman Peters. During the Trump administration?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir.
    Chairman Peters. OK. This is a Trump administration policy?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir, and we have made it stronger since 
then.
    Chairman Peters. OK. Thank you.
    Senator Ossoff, you are recognized for your questions.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR OSSOFF

    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Administrator, 
thank you for joining us. I want to begin by addressing staff 
capacity concerns and delays that are, in particular, affecting 
Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta (ATL). As 
the public returns to air travel after the worst periods thus 
far of the COVID-19 pandemic, airline passengers have been 
frustrated by cancellations and long lines at airports in 
Georgia and across the country.
    Over the past year, many airports have faced delays due to 
staffing capacity issues at TSA security checkpoints. How is 
TSA proactively addressing workforce shortages through expanded 
recruitment and employee retention efforts?
    Mr. Pekoske. Sir, thank you for the question, and thank you 
for the support of the team at ATL. We very much appreciate it.
    We are seeing rapid recovery of travel, to the point of 
about 90 percent of where we are overall, pre-pandemic. So 
three years ago, we are about 90 percent of those levels.
    Our staff is not where it needs to be but, in general, 
across our system, every single day, at 430 airports in the 
country, we are meeting our wait time standards, and those 
standards are for a non-PreCheck passenger to get through 
screening within 30 minutes and for a PreCheck passenger within 
10. We consistently, across the system, meet those standards, 
with rare exception. I mean, when you consider 430 airports and 
roughly 2,400 screening lanes, I will have maybe three or four 
reports a day where we might have exceeded those standards.
    Having said that, we do need more staff than what we have 
today, and we expect the recovery to continue into the fall and 
into the December holidays.
    We have done some great work in providing incentives. First 
you have to keep the great employees we currently have, and so 
we have provided more incentives to keep current employees in 
TSA.
    Second, and we just did this at Atlanta, we do focused 
recruiting events. We had 600, 700 people that showed up for 
the recruiting event that we held in Atlanta, and what we do 
there is we do all of the steps in our recruitment process all 
at one time. You do your computer-based testing, you begin your 
medical process, and you start to fill out your security forms. 
This greatly streamlines our ability to bring people on board.
    The other thing that is critically important, sir, and I 
would appreciate your support of this, is we do have a proposal 
in the budget, the President's budget for 2023, to provide pay 
equity for TSA. As you may know, our frontline screening 
workforce receives 30 percent less pay than if they worked in 
any other Federal agency. If you went through the standard 
process of classifying their positions and then providing their 
compensation for that, we are about 30 percent off. That has a 
significant impact on our ability to recruit people and to 
retain folks.
    I think that is one of the most important things, that is 
my most important thing as the agency head, to provide 
responses to questions that Members of Congress such as 
yourself might have and then hopefully, if it is approved and 
appropriated, to implement.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Administrator. Will you commit 
to working with my office and with the ATL leadership, 
including B.B. Bheodari, the general manager at Hartsfield-
Jackson, to ensure the airport has sufficient staff and drive 
down wait times?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir. I have met with him. I have been to 
Atlanta many times, and I absolutely commit to do that.
    Senator Ossoff. I appreciate that commitment, 
Administrator. I want to ask you about airport firearm safety. 
Georgia has twice the national rate of firearms detections by 
TSA. This number is increasing, and it is estimated that 86 
percent of firearms that TSA detects are loaded.
    Last month, Fox 5 Atlanta reported that a firearm made it 
through security at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport 
unnoticed. It was reported that the armed individual was not 
found and may have boarded a flight. TSA has confirmed that it 
has investigated the event and is implementing training and 
policy changes to prevent incidents like this from recurring. 
It goes without saying that undetected firearms present a 
serious danger to airline passengers and aviation safety, and 
this potential incident is extremely concerning.
    What steps are you taking in response to the increasing 
number of firearms detected at airports, particularly those in 
Georgia and at major hubs like Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta 
International Airport?
    Mr. Pekoske. A number of steps, sir, and thanks for the 
question. It is a significant issue of concern for all of us.
    So far this calendar year we have had about 3,400 weapons 
detected in our checkpoint process. That number, compared to 
last year, is about the same number, when you prorate it for 
where we are in this calendar year, but the rate per million 
passengers is starting to go down, but it is still way too 
high.
    What we are doing is we are making sure that we are very 
public, particularly in the checkpoint, as people are going 
through the queue line, to remind everybody that you cannot 
bring a weapon into the secure area of an airport. You can 
carry a weapon in your checked baggage, and there are 
procedures for doing that.
    The other thing that we are doing, and we would really 
appreciate your support on this, sir, is we are putting new 
technology in our screening checkpoints, and we have a lot of 
that new technology at Atlanta airport. But part of that new 
technology is the ability for the technology to automatically 
detect some of these prohibited items, which currently we do 
not have the ability to do. That will be a huge assistance to 
our officers who, as you can imagine, when you are looking at 
literally hundreds of images in any given shift rotation, 
having those technology assists--which are out there and 
available and we just need to fine-tune it for our 
application--would further drive down the number of cases like 
the one you cited.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Administrator. Would you provide 
to my office and this Committee an explanation of this specific 
incident, the steps that you took in response to it, and update 
us as soon as the policy changes and officer training changes 
that you are implementing in response are complete?
    Mr. Pekoske. Absolutely. Yes, sir.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Administrator. The Federal 
Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) Program provides training and allows 
TSA to deputize volunteer pilots and flight attendants to 
defend the flight decks of aircraft against violence and 
terrorism. The program was created in the wake of 9/11 and 
since then has trained thousands of volunteer flight crew 
members, many of whom receive training in Georgia.
    However, the program has not received sufficient funding to 
support its continue growth, and with air travel booming again 
this program is more vital than ever, which is why I am leading 
an effort to strengthen this vital aviation security program in 
the upcoming Federal Appropriations Bill.
    Administrator, will you champion continued funding for the 
Federal Flight Deck Officer Program should you be confirmed to 
another term at the top of TSA?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir. It is a fantastic program. I really 
appreciate all the captains and first officers volunteering to 
go through the training and to perform this function for us. We 
do intend to provide a recurrent training facility in Atlanta 
on a permanent basis, and would appreciate your support for 
that appropriation.
    Senator Ossoff. I appreciate your responses and your time 
and your service, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Ossoff.
    In January, Mr. Administrator, I had the opportunity to 
tour a TSA checkpoint at Detroit Metro Airport (DTW), and I had 
the opportunity to see firsthand some cutting-edge technologies 
that are being employed right now at these checkpoints, as well 
as all across the country, not just in Detroit.
    My question for you, Administrator Pekoske, is that one of 
the technologies I was able to observe was the TSA's credential 
authentication technology (CAT) machine. Could you discuss how 
the TSA's CAT machine can provide additional security at our 
airports, for the Committee?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, sir. The credential authentication 
technology is a really significant advancement in our 
capability at the checkpoint, and what that does is it 
validates the authenticity of a credential. You can imagine if 
you are an officer and you have to memorize the markings on 56 
different types of driver's licenses just in this country, or 
the markings on passports from around the world, that is a very 
difficult job to do. This technology does it automatically. The 
first thing it does is it verifies the authenticity of the 
document.
    The second thing, very important for us, for the first time 
in TSA's history we are able to do near real-time risk 
evaluation by passenger as they are standing in front of the 
officer. That technology is connected to our Secure Flight 
Database, and that will tell us what flight the passenger is 
on, what the passenger status is, whether they are a PreCheck 
passenger, a standard passenger, or a passenger who may require 
enhanced screening. That ensures that in real time, rather than 
24 hours out, which in the past you could print out a boarding 
pass for, that we can assess it right there on scene.
    Additionally, in a pandemic, not having to hand your 
credential over to somebody else was, I think, appreciated by 
our officers and certainly appreciated by passengers. The next 
version of this credential authentication technology will 
include a camera, a very high-fidelity camera, that will allow 
us to do biometric matching. The camera will take a picture of 
the person that is standing in front and will compare the 
digital image that is on their driver's license or passport and 
do a digital match, which is highly accurate. It speeds things 
up, it is better security, it is better for passengers.
    Chairman Peters. I understand that TSA has also been 
working on a new generation of these CAT machines,CAT-2--it 
sounds like a good name for the next generation machine--that 
allows for biometric verification of passenger identity using 
camera and facial matching as part of the process.
    When can we expect these new CAT-2 machines to become more 
widely used at airports across the country, and tell me a 
little bit more about them.
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes. Thanks, sir. The CAT-2 technology, first 
and foremost, attaches the camera to the system so it basically 
brings the biometric capability in. Additionally, the CAT-2 
technology has the ability to read a digital identity. If you 
are using a mobile driver's license that is now provisioned on 
some Apple devices and soon will be on some Android devices, 
you can use that digital identity in the screening process.
    The CAT-2 system right now is in the prototype stage. We 
expect to reach full operating capability somewhat distant into 
the future, because we have just re-baselined this program. The 
initial idea behind the CAT program was that it would be just 
at the largest airports in the country. We have since 
reassessed that and determined to put it at every single 
airport in the country. At the current funding levels that will 
not be completed for a good long time. That is why my focus is 
on getting the capital account of TSA at a level more 
commensurate with where we see the need to close security gaps, 
which CAT does.
    Chairman Peters. Great. Thank you, Administrator.
    Senator Rosen, you are recognized for your questions.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROSEN

    Senator Rosen. Thank you, Chairman Peters. I appreciate you 
waiting for me. Thank you for your willingness to serve.
    Let's talk a little bit about transportation cybersecurity. 
TSA, I know you have an enormous and complex responsibility of 
securing the nation's transportation system, from both physical 
and, of course, cyber threats. With cyberattacks on American 
transportation infrastructure, while they are escalating in 
both frequency and severity, earlier this year Senator Wicker 
and I wrote to both DHS Secretary Mayorkas and Transportation 
Secretary Buttigieg requesting information about their 
respective agencies' security-related processes to detect, to 
prevent, and to respond to these cyber threats.
    As you know, TSA recently announced new security directives 
and guidance for measures to strengthen cybersecurity across 
the transportation sector. Additionally, you mentioned, when we 
met in my office last month, that TSA is going to start to more 
robustly regulate cybersecurity, especially at airports for 
airlines and also for the freight rail systems.
    Mr. Administrator, would you talk about what the future TSA 
cybersecurity efforts will look like, if you are confirmed for 
another term, and really, does TSA have the resources it needs 
to properly address the cybersecurity threats to our nation's 
critical transportation system? What do you need from us?
    Mr. Pekoske. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate the question, 
and you are right. I mean, we have placed a lot of effort, 
particularly over the past year-plus, on cybersecurity across 
critical transportation infrastructure in the country. We began 
with the oil and natural gas pipeline system, issued two 
security directives last year, to do a couple of things. One of 
them is very consistent with what this Committee has long 
championed, and that is cyber reporting. We require significant 
cyber incidents to be reported to Cybersecurity and 
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), who then distributes 
them throughout the interagency.
    Then in July of last year we put a series of measures in 
place that required those companies, 97 companies out of 3,000, 
to put these measures in place over the course of the ensuing 
year.
    We were about to issue today--and I will send you a copy of 
what we issue today--a revision to that second security 
directive that changes the approach. It allows what has 
currently been done to continue, but if owners and operators 
want to more tailor their cyber approach to their own business 
model it gives them the flexibility to do that. We are going 
from a very prescriptive, measures-based approach to a 
performance-based approach, which we think will be well 
received. We know it will be well received by the industry 
because we have gotten some very good feedback from them. This 
will be a template for our approach to rail and for aviation in 
the future.
    Senator Rosen. That is great, because I know you have other 
security pilot programs in the works, because the Department of 
Commerce said they recently published its 2022 National Travel 
and Tourism Strategy, which focuses Federal Government efforts 
to support the U.S. travel and tourism industry. It sets an 
ambitious five-year goal of attracting 90 million international 
visitors to the U.S. each year. I am chair of the Subcommittee 
for Tourism, Trade, and Export Promotion, so that is 
particularly important and, of course, important to my State of 
Nevada.
    To reach that goal the national strategy contemplates 
harnessing the efficiencies at TSA checkpoints, and 
specifically that One-Stop Security Pilot Program. My Omnibus 
Travel and Tourism Act, we like to refer to it as the Tour Bus, 
includes the One-Security Program that would allow passengers 
and baggage arriving from certain foreign airports to not have 
to go through additional screening. They would bypass that 
second round if the last-point-of-departure airport has 
screening commensurate with that in the United States.
    During last week's Commerce committee we talked about how 
might the creation of the One-Stop Security Pilot Program 
support your mission, support TSA's mission, and what do you 
think about that? Considering some of the new technologies that 
have emerged in the travel space, contactless booking, quick 
response (QR) codes, all of those things, what are you thinking 
about to make the travel experience a little bit more 
efficient, maybe pleasant?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, Senator Rosen, and we always want to make 
the travel experience one, from my perspective, more secure, 
from FAA's perspective, more safe, absolutely more efficient, 
and a better passenger experience for all the travelers going 
through our system.
    One-Stop Security, I appreciate your championship of that 
program. It improves security. It means that flights from 
airports that we have a One-Stop agreement with are more 
secure, more commensurate with U.S. standards than they would 
otherwise be. Additionally it provides great facilitation for 
those travelers once they arrive in the United States, because 
they would not have to go through screening again in the United 
States, because we would establish commensurate security levels 
at those last-point-of-departure airports.
    It has a significant technology piece to it as well, 
because that will mean that we synchronize our technology and 
our standards of performance internationally, even more so than 
we do today.
    I would also like to highlight, Senator Rosen, because you 
touched on it, is Harry Reid Las Vegas International Airport 
(LAS), a tremendous airport, it is the home of our TSA Academy 
West, and they have also provided us an entire checkpoint that 
we have termed our Innovation Checkpoint. If you go into that 
airport--and you have seen this----
    Senator Rosen. I have seen it.
    Mr. Pekoske [continuing]. You see our very latest 
technology. The benefit there is we can actually bring 
passengers through our most recent technology and get a gauge 
for how are they interacting with it, what do they think about 
it, so we can calibrate along the way. I appreciate your 
support of that as well.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. I appreciate that. Any thought 
about using QR codes or some of the other newer technologies, 
biometrics and those?
    Mr. Pekoske. Yes, ma'am. We are moving very rapidly to use 
biometrics because it is better for security, it is much more 
error-free, and it is touchless and friction-less for 
passengers. We are working very closely with American Airlines 
(AA) on a QR code digital identity that is showing great 
promise already. So couple that with the mobile driver's 
license work we do, those are two different forms of digital 
identifications. Better for passengers, much better for us from 
a security perspective, and quicker.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Rosen.
    Administrator Pekoske, I would certainly like to thank you 
once again for joining us here today to discuss your nomination 
to serve a second term as TSA Administrator. If confirmed, I 
certainly look forward to continuing to work with you on all 
the issues that we have discussed here today, and we will 
always welcome you back to the Committee to discuss these 
issues in public as well.
    The nominee has filed responses to biographical and 
financial questionnaires, and without objection this 
information will be made part of the hearing record,\1\ with 
the exception of the financial data, which is on file and 
available for public inspection in the Committee offices.
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    \1\ The information of Mr. Pekoske appears in the Appendix on page 
33.
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    This hearing record will remain open until 12 p.m. 
tomorrow, July 22nd, for the submission of statements and 
questions for the record.
    This hearing is now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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