Transportation Security Administration head Kip Hawley before the Senate Commerce Committee last month said TSA is on track to launch the Registered Traveler program by mid-June "depending on the pace of our market-driven private industry partners," but said the agency would not implement passenger prescreening system Secure Flight until operational criteria outlined last year in a Government Accountability Office report are met. "We will move forward with Secure Flight program as expeditiously as possible," Hawley said, adding, "My priority is to ensure we do it right, not that we do it quickly."
GAO last year issued a scathing report on TSA's Secure Flight and found that implementation progress was neither right nor quick, noting that the program had failed to meet 10 criteria set by Congress
(BTNonline, March 28, 2005)."The next point of this process is that TSA has met all 10 of these issues," Hawley said, adding that the agency will audit the program before moving forward. He did not give a timetable.
"It's not clear what Secure Flight capabilities will be delivered, when and at what cost," GAO director of homeland security and justice Cathleen Berrick said during the hearing. Although questions still linger, Berrick said, "TSA has made some progress in all of these areas."
With Registered Traveler's progress moving largely on the back of private industry, Hawley noted that "Secure Flight is a program that's more important to us," as it impacts the entire traveling public. As such, TSA last year moved much of the Registered Traveler program from the hands of the federal government.
The National Business Travel Association, in testimony to the Senate committee, pledged support for the Registered Traveler program as well as the intention of Secure Flight, if not its progress to date. Executive director Bill Connors said the 10 operational standards for Secure Flight outlined in the GAO report must be met and a speedy redress process must be implemented before its launch. American Association of Airport Executives and the Air Transport Association representatives also supported a properly run passenger prescreening system.
Following a request by NBTA's Connors, committee chair Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said the committee and other participants by late May would reconvene for a follow-up hearing.