Congress announces possible
changes in airport security
and would permit pilots to carry
guns. Its first-year cost is put at
$2.6 billion.
“As soon as the president signs it,
we can restore confidence in air
safety,” said Sen. John McCain, R
Ariz.
The central issue holding up the
bill had been the status of baggage
screeners.
The Senate had wanted to make
all such workers federal employees,
but House conservatives and the
White House fought to allow private
firms to keep doing the work under
strict government supervision.
“As soon as the president
signs (the proposed bill),
we can restore confidence
in air safety/'
Sen. John McCain
R-Ariz.
Screening of bags and passengers
is often called the weakest link in air
security. Currently, airlines contract
out the work, usually to the lowest
bidding firms. The workforce is
trained and paid poorly, and annual
turnover exceeds 100 percent at
some airports, according to the U.S.
Government Accounting Office.
In the next 60 days, the airlines
would have to make a good faith ef
fort to screen as many checked bags
as possible. Within two years, the
federal government would be
screening every piece of checked
luggage.
Under the lawmakers’ compro
mise, federal supervisors would be
deployed immediately, and screen
ing checkpoints would be manned
entirely by federal employees with
in one year. Federal screening
would continue for two more years,
but then airport authorities could
“opt out” and privatize security if
they chose.
But advocates of federal screen
ing doubt that will happen.
“That ought to give us enough
time to show that Western civiliza
tion is not going to end by putting
the federal government in charge,”
said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., said,
“It would be very difficult for air
ports to opt out once they have a
good secure system in place.”
The new screeners would not be
permitted to strike and are required
to be U.S. citizens, Mineta said.
The legislation would cover all
airports except for five yet-to-be
identified facilities of varying size
that would be permitted to experi
ment with privately-run security
systems under federal supervision.
The Department of Transportation
would choose the five airports; their
participation would be voluntary.
The House won one other major
disagreement; the Department of
Transportation will retain control
over air security rather than the De
partment of Justice, which the Sen
ate had favored. The Justice Depart
ment is a law-enforcement agency,
which senators thought would be
less likely to bow to the airlines.
To help pay for the increased se
curity measures, the legislation
would impose a $2.50 fee on air
plane tickets, with a maximum
charge of $5 per one-way trip, if that
involved two or more planes.
Knight Ridder correspondent Cassio Furtado
contributed to this report. © 2001, Knight
Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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■The proposed deal would
put weapon responsibilities
in the hands of government
employees ratherthan firms
By Jackie Koszczuk
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON (KRT) — The
federal government would imme
diately take charge of security at
most U.S. airports, including
screening luggage, under a deal an
nounced Thursday by congres
sional negotiators.
The legislation would make gov
ernment employees, rather than se
curity firms hired by the airlines, re
sponsible for keeping weapons off
airplanes. But it would phase in
screening of checked baggage, an
area many experts believe is the
biggest vulnerability in air travel.
The breakthrough agreement
cleared the way for the Senate and
the House of Representatives to vote
Friday on sweeping legislation to
tighten security in U.S. air travel,
eight weeks after terrorists hijacked
four airliners and used them to at
tack the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon.
Both chambers are expected to
pass the measure easily, and Presi
dent Bush should sign it into law by
Thanksgiving. Speaking for the
Bush administration, Transporta
tion Secretary Norm Mineta hailed
the compromise as “a major mile
stone in the creation of a consistent,
high-quality nationwide aviation
security force.”
To deter hijackers, the measure
would greatly increase the number
of plainclothes federal marshals
assigned randomly to flights,
would require cockpit doors to be
reinforced and locked during flight