[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 130 (Tuesday, October 2, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H6067-H6068]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       CURRENT AVIATION SECURITY SCREENING IS WOEFULLY INADEQUATE

  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the House needs to move forward and quickly 
with a thoughtful and comprehensive transportation and infrastructure 
security package. It should not be just limited to aviation. There are 
other areas of vulnerability that go to other modes of transportation, 
whether they are transportation moving people or cargo, our pipelines, 
our dams, generating facilities, nuclear plants, a whole host of 
things.
  For now the major focus is on aviation, and we are coming close to 
some agreement, but there is one vital issue still in disagreement on 
this package. There are a number of smaller items, but one in 
particular, and that is, who should be the front-line providers of 
aviation security at the airport? There is a whole host of places we 
need security.
  There is what is called the backside or the airside of the airport. 
Access to the airplanes where people, things, contraband, could be 
smuggled on board, or weapons, that needs to be tightened up 
dramatically. Thirty-eight percent of the security breaches registered 
by the FAA in the last 2 years related to screening at airports.
  Now, this is extraordinarily variable across the United States. Some 
airports, my little airport in Eugene, the screeners there do a very 
good job. They are very upset with me because of pushing for 
federalization and standardization of this, but other airports are a 
disaster, and we cannot allow those disastrous breaches and problems to 
continue.
  With whom do we want to continue the current system of private 
contracting? We already have, documented for decades, problems with the 
private contracting firms. Most recently, and outrageously, we have 
aviation safeguards at Miami International Airport, where the manager 
was falsifying background checks. The company was fined more than 
$110,000, put on 5 years probation. The manager was sentenced to 5 
years in Federal prison, and guess what, they are still providing the 
security screening at Miami International Airport.
  Then we have Argenbright Security, which does Boston, Newark and 
Washington. That company paid a $1.2 million fine for doctoring records 
and allowing convicted felons to work at the Philadelphia airport but 
Miami international officials said they were satisfied with the 
company's work.
  That is the status quo. Those are the most outrageous examples. Then 
we have the common examples, the fact that 90 percent of the screening 
personnel in the United States, unlike at my little home airport, where 
people stay in their jobs for years, 90 percent have less than 6 months 
experience because these are at all the major airports, the lowest paid 
entry level positions into the airport.
  We had testimony to that effect almost 2 years ago, when the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski) and I first proposed making 
these into Federal law enforcement positions where the people would be 
well paid, well trained, and we know they would be subjected to a 
thorough background check by the Federal Government, not by some 
private firm that sometimes has falsified those documents.
  The turnover at Boston Logan Airport among screeners last year, 207 
percent; Houston, 237 percent; Atlanta, 375 percent; St. Louis, 416 
percent. The screener of the year 2 years ago named by the private 
security companies came from St. Louis. He came before our committee 
and said, you know, Congressman, I am really lucky. I love this job and 
I can afford to do it. I said, well, what do you mean you can afford to 
do it? He said, well, I do not have to live on the income they pay. 
Nobody could live on that income. He said, I have got outside sources 
of income. I own some rental properties and I have got a little bit of 
other income so I can do the job. But everybody else, they look at it 
as a way to work up to McDonald's or Burger King, or maybe even really 
the top of the scale, cleaning the airplanes.
  This is not right. These people are the front line. They should be 
like INS, like Customs, and yes, like agriculture, where they are 
uniformed Federal law enforcement personnel with the right to question 
and detain people who might present a threat. We know they are 
professionally trained, they are paid well and we get rid of this 
turnover and the problems with the background screening.
  This is the major item in contention. We cannot be blinded. I have 
actually had colleagues say you know what we should do, we should 
privatize this, and I said guess what, it has been privatized, it has 
been supervised by the FAA although the new rules for screening 
companies were delayed for about 6 years. Not because of just 
bureaucratic intransigence at the FAA,

[[Page H6068]]

but because the security companies, the airlines, the Air Transport 
Association, and many others designed to delay those rules for years 
because they knew the new system would be more expensive and would be a 
little bit better than what we have today, but would still not be as 
good as a uniform, Federalized system.
  That is where we need to go to assure the traveling public, and then 
we have to look at all the other issues that relate to aviation and 
other modes of transportation.

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