[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 27 (Tuesday, February 13, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1905-S1906]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. COLLINS:
  S. 563. A bill to extend the deadline by which State identification 
documents shall comply with certain minimum standards and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to 
address the growing concern among States regarding the Real ID Act of 
2005, which requires States to meet minimum security standards before 
citizens can use drivers' licenses for Federal purposes. As the 
deadline for compliance with Real ID rapidly approaches, States are 
beginning to send a very clear message that they are deeply concerned 
that they will not be able to meet these standards. The bill I 
introduce today recognizes those concerns by giving everyone more time 
to devise a way to make drivers' licenses more secure without unduly 
burdening State governments and without threatening privacy and civil 
liberties.
  To begin, some background may be useful. The 9/11 Commission, finding 
that all but one of the 9/11 hijackers had acquired some form of U.S. 
identification, recommended that the Federal Government should set 
standards for the issuance of drivers' licenses. Taking up that 
recommendation I worked with a bipartisan group of Senators, especially 
Senator Lieberman, to craft a provision in the 2004 Intelligence Reform 
and Terrorism Prevention Act that would accomplish this goal. This 
provision called for the creation of a committee composed of experts 
from the Federal Government, from State governments, and from other 
interested parties such as privacy and civil liberties advocates and 
information technology groups. This committee was charged with 
developing a means of providing secure identification that protected 
privacy and civil liberties and respected the role of States in issuing 
these documents.
  The committee diligently began meeting, but before it could complete 
its work, the House of Representatives attached the Real ID Act of 2005 
to an emergency war supplemental bill, thus halting this productive 
effort. Unlike our intelligence reform bill, the Real ID Act of 2005 
did not include States and other interested parties in the rulemaking 
process and instead instructed the Department of Homeland Security to 
simply write its own regulations. Nearly 2 years later, we still have 
not seen these regulations in spite of a looming May 2008 deadline for 
States to be in compliance with the Real ID Act.
  As States begin work this year on their 2008 budgets, they still have 
no idea what the regulations will require of them. They do know, from a 
study released in 2006 by the National Governors Association, that the 
cost to States to implement Real ID could total more than $11 billion 
over the first 5 years. As a result, many States--my home State of 
Maine included--have passed resolutions that have sent the message to 
Washington that they cannot and will not implement Real ID by the May 
2008 deadline.
  My bill has two primary objectives: 1. It gives us the time and 
flexibility we need to come up with an effective system to provide 
secure drivers' licenses; and 2. it gets the experts from the States 
and from the technology industry and from the privacy and civil 
liberties advocates back at the table and gives them a chance to make 
these regulations work.

[[Page S1906]]

  There are three main provisions in this bill: First, the bill 
provides that States will not have to be Real ID compliant until 2 
years after the final regulations are promulgated. This means that no 
matter how long it takes the Department of Homeland Security to finish 
these regulations, States will have a full 2 years to implement them. 
Most likely that will mean an extension from 2008 to 2010.
  Second, the bill gives the Secretary of Homeland Security more 
flexibility to waive certain requirements of Real ID if an aspect of 
the program proves technically difficult to implement. Under the 
current law, the Secretary of Homeland Security has the discretion to 
waive the requirements for Real ID on a State-by-State basis if the 
State cannot comply for justifiable reasons. Because it is possible 
that some of the technological advances necessary for Real ID may not 
be in place when compliance is required, the bill will provide the 
Secretary specific authority to waive compliance with specific 
requirements if these technological systems are not up and running--
relieving the States from the burden of seeking exemptions from Real ID 
for technological reasons not within their control.
  Third, it reconstitutes the committee that we created in 2004 and 
that was making good progress in its discussions. The committee would 
be required to look at the regulations published by the Department of 
Homeland Security and to make suggestions for modifications to meet the 
concerns of States, privacy advocates, and the other interested 
parties. The committee would report these suggestions to the Department 
of Homeland Security and to Congress. The Department of Homeland 
Security would either have to make these modifications or explain why 
it chose not to do so. In addition, the committee could recommend to 
Congress statutory changes that would mitigate concerns that could not 
be addressed by modifications to the regulations.
  This bill gives us the time and the information that Congress and the 
Department of Homeland Security need to better implement the 
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission in order to make our drivers' 
licenses secure so that they cannot be used again as a part of a plot 
to attack our country. This bill does this in a way that does not 
rewind the clock three years but instead keeps us moving forward to a 
more secure America.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle to address Real ID and to put us back on track in protecting our 
privacy, protecting our liberty, and protecting our country.
                                 ______