TSA to adjust screener staffing levels at airports
Agency needs to reallocate staff based on limit of 45,000 screeners set by Congress.
The Transportation Security Administration in the coming weeks will tell airport officials how many security screeners they must have to meet congressionally authorized staffing levels, officials said Wednesday.
Congress mandated that TSA maintain a workforce of 45,000 passenger and baggage screeners at the nation's airports. Most airports, however, have been operating with a workforce based on a previously authorized level of 49,600 screeners, TSA's deputy director, Steven McHale, told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Infrastructure and Border Security. Some lawmakers noted that the 45,000-screener level was arbitrarily created by Congress and asked if it was enough to meet airports' needs, especially heading into the busy summer travel season.
"We think we can handle the load that we're seeing today at 45,000," McHale said. "As the strain builds up on that, we'll come back to the Congress and point out where we have issues and problems. We are redistributing the workforce and we have not yet gone back out to all the airports with their reallocation at the 45,000 [level]. We need to do that … and we certainly need to do that shortly."
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation is scheduled to hold a hearing Thursday on what TSA is specifically doing to prevent major passenger delays this summer.
Reps. Kay Granger, R-Texas, and William Pascrell, D-N.J, told McHale Wednesday that staffing levels at airports in their districts seems to be arbitrary and confusing. For example, Granger said, officials at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport believe their screening workforce is going to be reduced by 179 positions.
McHale denied that Dallas-Fort Worth would see a reduction in screeners, saying staffing levels should remain steady.
Granger noted that a there appears to be a communication breakdown between TSA and airports. "Are you intentionally reducing the screener workforce levels at large airports?" she asked.
"Not at most of the large airports as far as I know," McHale replied. "There may be some adjustments at a few of them, but, generally, I think the large airports are either growing or staying about the same."
He added: "Frankly, we're going to be adjusting, reshaping and re-rightsizing that every day and every week as we go on around the country."
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., expressed concern that airline passengers would be inconvenienced or that safety might be compromised because the number of screeners is not adequate.
According to McHale, TSA made it through the Christmas holiday season with a reduced screening workforce. "We are developing plans and working closely with the airports, airlines and our federal security directors to deal with the summer season," he said.
McHale also refuted claims that aviation security is worse today than before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying he wanted to "come to the defense of our people on the front lines of our nation's airports."
"That is nonsense rising from misunderstanding of covert test results and a misreading of recent testimony by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general," McHale said. A report issued last month by Homeland Security Department Inspector General Clark Ervin concluded that TSA screeners and privately contracted airport workers "performed about the same, which is to say, equally poorly."
"In fact, the IG has assured us that he believes that the difference between pre-9/11 screeners' performance and the performance of our screeners today is like the difference between night and day," McHale added. "Comparing pre-9/11 testing results to testing results today is like comparing testing in elementary school to college-level testing. Our people are that much better."