Aviation securityRep. John Mica urges airports to privatize security screening
Representative John Mica (R-Florida), the incoming chairman of House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is urging U.S. commercial airports to consider private screening companies/contractors as an alternative to the TSA; he has labeled TSA a “bloated bureaucracy” in need of revamping and has emphasized that airports, according to federal law, still have other security options available to them
Republican Representative John Mica of Florida is urging approximately 460 of the U.S. commercial airports to consider private screening companies/contractors as an alternative to the TSA. He has labeled TSA a “bloated bureaucracy” in need of revamping and has emphasized that airports, according to federal law, still have other security options available to them. One of the airports in Mica’s district, Orland Sanford International, is looking to switch to private screeners by January despite trepidation over effectively screening its thirty-four million annual passengers.
Mica’s spokesman, Justin Harclerode, spoke with Homeland Security NewsWire about Mica’s push to privatize the financing of infrastructure projects, air traffic control towers, training, inner-city passenger rail, and high-speed rail services. “A regulator should not regulate itself,” Harclerode noted, “…the more appropriate role for TSA is to provide oversight.” Private contractors would still be required to follow all TSA-mandated security procedures, including pat-downs when necessary.
In the previous two congresses, Mica served as the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Republican leader and voted against a DHS appropriation authorization bill that would have secured $7.36 billion for the TSA. The committee has broad jurisdiction over the U.S. highways, aviation system, transit, rail transportation, pipelines, the Coast Guard, maritime transportation, water resources, economic development, public buildings, and emergency management.
In a press release dated 20 May 2010 by the committee, of which Mica will become chairman in January, Mica stressed the inefficiency and over-spending by TSA: “At TSA headquarters, where 30 percent of employees are supervisors, the average salary is over $105,000. Thirteen percent of field employees are supervisors.” At Mica’s request, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed the TSA’s behavior detection program known as Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) which began its initial testing in October 2003.
In a letter to Janet Napolitano, DHS secretary, Mica urged the department to reevaluate the effectiveness of the SPOT program which costs “U.S. taxpayers $212 million annually, and nearly $1.2 billion over the next five years.”
Mica’s campaign finances have also been brought into question by an AP article that listed campaign donations amounting to $81,000 by political action committees and executives involved with private contractors at sixteen U.S. airports over the past thirteen years. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Firstline Transportation Security Inc. were among those listed. Mica’s spokesman said that the publication had “lumped together contributions over his entire career which predated 9/11 and all the issues involving screening by a number of years. [Mica] didn’t even know until the AP story that Lockheed and Raytheon were involved in the private screening business.”
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee intends to pass “stalled” surface transportation, aviation, and water resources bills. “It is critical that Congress jumpstarts transportation projects to rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure and get people working,” Mica stated.
