The Transportation Security Adminstration - Shaking Us Down in More Ways Than One

As most airline travelers know, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is the Federal agency that is supposed to keep us safe when traveling, with their most visible responsibility being the screening stations and pat down routines that we all have to go through to get to our airline flights. It has been well documented that the TSA does not do the greatest job possible, with complaints of aggressive pat downs and groping and incidents where tools, guns, ammunition and other potential weapons got past the TSA screeners.

Now, a new investigation from the House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure identifies other areas where the taxpayer gets shaken down by the TSA, wasteful spending and inefficient operations. Their recently released investigative report, "TSA Ignores More Cost-Effective Screening Model" was released last week. A major finding from the investigation was the conclusion that a private business/Federal screening option, the Screening Partnership Program (SPP), does a much better screening job than TSA's own employees.

The SSP was established after the 9-11 attacks in 2001. The program allowed individual airports to opt out of TSA operated screening processes and employees and request the use of approved private screening contractors. These contractors would have to adhere to TSA standards and procedures, be pre-approved before an airport could use them, and would be subjected to TSA oversight. Starting in 2002, five airports initially used private company screeners and that number has increased to sixteen, with many other airports requesting this option over TSA's own employees.

Despite airports' desires to switch to private screening companies, their legal right to do so, and Congress' intent to allow them to do so under the law, the TSA unilaterally decided to stop approving new requests for private screeners. This Congressional investigation, according to the authors of the report, proved that the cost and financial justifications the TSA used to block new requests were invalid. Findings from the investigation include the following:

- Screening under private SPP screeners is far more effective and efficient than TSA screeners.
- The investigators estimated that private screeners were 65% more efficient and could reduce costs by 42%.
- If the nation's top 35 airports used private screeners, it is estimated that U.S. taxpayers would save over a $1 billion over the next five years.
- Congressional investigators concluded that the TSA "cooked the books" when doing their cost analysis, falsely increasing the costs of using the private companies vs. TSA's own screeners.
- When the committee compared the security operations at Los Angeles International Airport, which has TSA screeners, to the security operations at San Francisco International Airport, which has been using private screeners, they concluded that taxpayers could save $38.6 million a year if Los Angeles adopted San Francisco's operations model.
- The TSA has much higher job attrition rates than the private screening companies, resulting in high employee turnover, a less experienced staff, significantly higher training costs, and a very expensive mobile screening force that is flown and stationed around the country, at great expense, to temporarily fill the many TSA staffing needs.
- The United States is one of the very few governments around the world that operates its own screening staff, most other countries oversee private companies who do the actual screening.
- There are clear and significant advantages for forcing the TSA to approve five pending SPP requests.

Two observations here, one good and one bad. First, the good news. This is one of the few times in my life where I actually saw a Congressional committee do its job in a stellar manner. Most of the time, the Congressional committees seem to just go through the motions. This committee actually did an in-depth investigation, identified root causes of the problems, quantified the problems, and came up with the necessary changes listed below, all to the benefit of the American traveler and taxpayer.

The bad news. According to the committee, the TSA did not cooperate at all in this investigation, despite the Obama administration's claims that this was the most transparent Presidential administration of all time. The investigators claimed that the TSA did not comply with multiple requests from the Committee. If true, this is a disgraceful situation. A Congressional committee is trying to do its job under the tenets of the Constitution but administration bureaucrats refuse to cooperate, even if it would make airline travel safer, more efficient, and less costly for American taxpayers.

Not surprisingly, the investigators found evidence that TSA officials lied when they denied talking to union representatives about the SPP. This implies another example where the potitical class sells out the American taxpayer for votes, in this case, union votes.

As a result of this extensive investigation. the committee developed the following recommendations:

- The TSA should adopt the model for airport screeners that most of the rest of the world uses, i.e. TSA should not be the regulator, operator, and auditor at airports.
- The TSA should immediately approve any valid SPP request that was previously placed on hold and approve any valid current applications.
- The head of the TSA should not have blanket power to approve or disprove any airport's SPP request.
- The TSA should pre-qualify private screening companies to compete with SPP contracts.

This is good government in action. It is consistent with Step 1 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." That step would reduce Federal government spending by 10% a year for five years in order to get government spending under control. However, a major underpinning of Step 1 was a ground up review of all government operations. Such an effort would uncover inefficiencies and wasteful spending in every government nook and cranny, just like the Congressional committee did with this TSA analysis.

If this type of Congressional committee behavior and Step 1 were widely implemented, the American taxpayer would no longer be shook down by politicians that use government functions for votes and bureaucrats who would rather protect their turf than protect American lives and wealth.


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