Posthearing Questions Related to Aviation and Port Security	 
(12-DEC-03, GAO-04-315R).					 
                                                                 
This letter responds to a Congressional request that we provide  
answers to questions relating to our September 9, 2003, testimony
on transportation security.					 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-04-315R					        
    ACCNO:   A09017						        
  TITLE:     Posthearing Questions Related to Aviation and Port       
Security							 
     DATE:   12/12/2003 
  SUBJECT:   Air transportation operations			 
	     Counterterrorism					 
	     Education or training				 
	     Labor force					 
	     National preparedness				 
	     Personnel management				 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Transportation safety				 
	     Homeland security					 

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GAO-04-315R

United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548

December 12, 2003

The Honorable Ernest F. Hollings
Ranking Member
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
United States Senate

Subject: Posthearing Questions Related to Aviation and Port Security

Dear Senator Hollings:

This letter responds to your November 17, 2003, request that we provide
answers to questions relating to our September 9, 2003, testimony on
transportation security.1 The questions posed by Senator Frank Lautenberg
to GAO, along with our responses, follow.

1. 	I am concerned that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are dealing with our nation's
pressing life and death security needs by playing shell games with
critical resources. Last week, Secretary Ridge announced that 5,000 new
air marshals would be trained, but that these individuals would come from
the existing ranks of custom and immigration agents. During high-threat
periods, this cross-training plan might enhance air security but will come
at the expense of border and ground security. Under the Administration's
plan to utilize current immigration and customs employees to double as air
marshals, how will DHS ensure that, during high-threat periods, there are
adequate personnel both in air marshal roles and at the border as
customs/immigration agents?

DHS's plan does not explicitly address the adequacy of the current
immigration, customs, and air marshal workforces to address concurrent
high threats to border, ground, and aviation security. Rather, the plan
provides for temporarily enhancing the air marshal workforce to respond to
high threats to aviation. Specifically, according to Secretary Ridge,
cross-training immigration and customs officers in air

1U.S. General Accounting Office, Aviation Security: Progress Since
September 11, 2001, and the Challenges Ahead, GAO-03-1150T (Washington,
D.C.: Sept. 9, 2003) and U.S. General Accounting Office, Maritime
Security: Progress Made in Implementing Maritime Transportation Security
Act, but Concerns Remain, GAO-03-1155T (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 9, 2003).

marshal tactics would give DHS greater flexibility to adjust its law
enforcement resources according to varying threats and provide a surge
capacity during periods of high threats to aviation. The immigration and
customs officers would not be used as air marshals during every
high-threat period; they would be used as such only when there was a high
risk to aviation.

DHS's cross-training plan could have some benefits; but, as we recently
reported, it

                                       2

also poses training and administrative challenges. According to the
Secretary, the cross-training for immigration and customs agents and
federal air marshals will be centralized. Centralization could eventually
produce some cost efficiencies. However, cross-training will expand the
roles and responsibilities of all three lawenforcement workforces; and a
needs assessment will have to be conducted to identify each workforce's
additional training requirements. Cross-training requirements and
curriculums also will have to be established and approved. In addition,
each affected workforce's organization will have to coordinate the new
training requirements with its other mission requirements, as it schedules
its officers for cross-training. Finally, planned changes in the roles and
responsibilities of the federal law enforcement officers could have
implications for their performance evaluations and compensation.
Currently, the three law enforcement workforces are under different pay
systems and are compensated at different rates. DHS has efforts under way
to deal with these issues.

2. Are any new air marshals currently being trained?

New air marshals are currently being hired and provided basic training at
the rate of about one class per month, a rate sufficient to offset
attrition and maintain the current number of air marshals. According to
the Federal Air Marshals Service, there is no surge in hiring or training
forecasted because the goal for hiring air marshals set by the Secretary
of Transportation after September 11, 2001, was met in July 2002, as
planned.

In addition to the required basic training, the Service instituted a
4-week advanced training course for air marshals in October 2002. All air
marshals hired from October 2001 through July 2002 were required to
complete the course by January 2004. Air marshals hired after August 2002
attend this advanced training course after completing their basic
training. In August 2003, the Service reported that proposed cutbacks in
its training funds would require it to extend the January 2004 date to
mid2004. According to DHS, the Service's transfer to Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) will not adversely affect either the funding for
air marshals' training or the schedule for newly hired air marshals to
complete the 4-week training course, since a total of $626.4 million is
being transferred from TSA to ICE. However, it is not clear how much of
the funding will be allocated for training. Given the importance of
training to ensure that air marshals are prepared to carry out their

2U.S. General Accounting Office, Aviation Security: Federal Air Marshal
Service Is Addressing Challenges of Its Expanded Mission and Workforce,
but Additional Actions Needed, GAO-04-242 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 19,
2003).

mission, we believe that maintaining adequate funding for training should
remain a priority.

3. 	DHS has recently tried to divert $30 million from the Operation Safe
Commerce pilot program intended to identify and implement the systemic
port security initiation in order to cover a budget shortfall in airport
security. Do you believe federal port security programs are adequately
funded?

Effective maritime security requires the ability to put preventive
systems, controls, and infrastructure in place. According to
transportation security experts and state and local government and
industry representatives we contacted, funding is the most pressing
challenge to accomplishing this task. While some security improvements are
inexpensive, most require substantial funding. Additionally, given the
large number of assets to protect, the sum of even relatively less
expensive investments can be cost prohibitive. According to Coast Guard
estimates, the cost of implementing the new International Maritime
Organization security code and the security provisions in the Maritime
Transportation Security Act (MTSA) of 2002 will be approximately $1.5
billion for the first year and $7.4 billion over the succeeding decade.
These costs are substantial sums, but it is not clear at this point how
the costs will be paid, as the following examples illustrate.

Funding difficulties can be seen in the implementation of TSA's
Transportation Worker Identification Card (TWIC). Although no national
estimates of the cost are currently available, they are likely to be
substantial. According to a TSA official, nationwide the agency expects to
issue five to six million identification cards a year from mid-2004 to the
end of 2007. In our work at Los Angeles, port authority officials
expressed concern about how much it may cost to implement this card and
all the steps and equipment associated with it, such as the installation
of card readers throughout the port, the issuance of cards to port
personnel, and adding staff to operate and maintain the system. A study
for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach estimates that it will cost at
least $45 million to perform the necessary start-up tasks. Because of
these significant costs, maritime stakeholders are concerned about who
will ultimately pay for the TWIC. One port authority official indicated
that the cost may be passed on to workers as a cost of their employment.

Another example of funding difficulties can be seen at the federal level,
where an MTSA requirement for a vessel identification system is being
phased in over time, partly because of funding limitations. This
identification system, called the Automated Identification System (AIS),
uses a device aboard a vessel to transmit a unique identifying signal to a
receiver located at the port and to other ships in the area. This
information gives port officials and other vessels nearly instantaneous
information about a vessel's identity, position, speed, and course. Such a
system

would provide an "early warning" of an unidentified vessel or a vessel
that was in a location where it should not be. MTSA requires that vessels
in certain categories3 install tracking equipment between January 1, 2003,
and December 31, 2004, with the specific date dependent on the type of
vessel and when it was built. Effectively implementing the system requires
considerable land-based equipment and other infrastructure that is not
currently available in many ports. As a result, for the foreseeable
future, the system will be available in less than half of the 25 busiest
U.S. ports.4

Installing AIS at the remaining ports depends in part on when funding will
be available. The only ports with the necessary infrastructure to use AIS
are those that have waterways controlled by Vessel Traffic Service (VTS)
systems.5 Expanding coverage will require substantial additional
investment, both public and private. The Coast Guard's budget request for
fiscal year 2004 includes $40 million for shore-based AIS equipment and
related infrastructure-an amount that covers only current VTS areas.
According to a Coast Guard official, wider-reaching national
implementation of AIS would involve installation and training costs
ranging from $62 million to $120 million. Also, the cost of installing AIS
equipment aboard individual ships averages about $10,000 per vessel, which
is to be borne by the vessel owner or operator. Some owners and operators,
particularly of domestic vessels, have complained about the cost of
equipping their vessels.

As we suggested in our testimony,6 where the money will come from to meet
these funding needs is not clear. One theme we have heard from maritime
stakeholders is that the current economic environment makes this a
difficult time for the private industry or state and local governments to
make security investments. According to industry representatives and
experts we contacted, most of the transportation industry operates on a
very thin profit margin, making it difficult to pay for additional
security measures. In addition, nearly every state and local government is
facing a large budget deficit for fiscal year 2004. For example, the
National Governors Association estimates that states are facing a total
budget shortfall of $80 billion this upcoming year. Given the tight budget
environment, state and local governments and transportation operators must
make difficult trade-offs between transportation security investments and
other needs, such as service expansion and equipment upgrades. According
to the National Association of Counties, many local governments are
planning to defer some maintenance of their transportation infrastructure
to pay for some security enhancements. At the same time however, the

3All vessels of certain specifications on international voyages;
self-propelled commercial vessels 65 feet or more in length; towing
vessels 26 feet or more in length and more than 600 horsepower; vessels of
100 gross tons or more carrying one or more passengers for hire; and
passenger vessels certificated to carry 50 or more passengers for hire.

4In addition to Los Angeles/Long Beach, the other ports currently
scheduled to have this system are New York/New Jersey; the mouth of the
Mississippi River; New Orleans; Houston/Galveston; Port Arthur, Texas; San
Francisco; Seattle/Tacoma; Alaska's Prince William Sound; and Sault Ste.
Marie, Michigan.

5Similar to air traffic control systems, VTS uses radar, closed circuit
television, radiophones, and other technology to allow monitoring and
management of vessel traffic from a central shore-based location.

6GAO-03-1155T.

federal government faces its own challenges in finding considerable
additional funding. Due to the costs of security enhancements and the
transportation industries' and state and local governments' tight budget
environments, the federal government is likely to be viewed as a source of
funding for at least some of these enhancements. While federal moneys have
been made available, requests for federal funding for transportation
security enhancements will likely continue to exceed available resources,
given the constraints on the federal budget as well as competing claims
for federal assistance.

                                     -----

In responding to these questions, we relied primarily on our past work. We
reviewed
and analyzed data provided by the Federal Air Marshal Service and
interviewed DHS
officials. In addition, we visited the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach
to obtain
the views of port officials.

Should you or your office have any questions on aviation matters discussed
in this
report, please contact Gerald Dillingham at (202) 512-2834. For questions
on
maritime issues, please contact Margaret Wrightson at (415) 904-2200. Key
contributors to this report include Steve Calvo, John W. Shumann, and
Teresa Spisak.

Sincerely yours,

Gerald L. Dillingham
Director, Civil Aviation Issues

Margaret Wrightson
Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues

(540085)

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