More Questions About Airport Safety
Way behind on hiring federal screeners and getting bomb-detecting machines into airports, and with complaints pouring down on him, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta blamed Congress for not providing all the emergency funds he's asked for, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob Fuss.
Mineta said Tuesday that a congressional spending bill "has dramatically undermined" the new Transportation Security Administration's ability to meet its deadlines later this year.
"The extraordinary delay in approving emergency funding and new restrictions imposed on TSA have dramatically undermined our ability to meet this goal," Mineta told the House Transportation aviation subcommittee. "Less money with no flexibility means fewer TSA employees, less equipment, longer lines, delay in reducing the hassle factor and/or diminished security at our nation's airports."
Mineta said the supplemental spending bill allocates $1 billion less than the $4.4 billion that the TSA requested, and limits the number of employees to 45,000 rather than the 65,000 needed.
The provisions are part of a $28.9 billion anti-terrorism package agreed to last week by House and Senate negotiators, four months after the president first offered the legislation.
Lawmakers have been critical of TSA's efforts so far to improve security.
They have cited recent TSA tests that found fake guns, bombs and other weapons got past security screeners almost one-fourth of the time at 32 major airports.
And they are skeptical about whether TSA can meet its deadlines for hiring federal employees to screen passengers and installing explosive detection machines to inspect checked baggage.
And they question some of the security measures taken in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.
"You have 535 members of Congress who are frequent flyers," Rep. John Mica, chairman of the House Transportation Committee's aviation panel, said last week. "People are not happy when there aren't some commonsense approaches to security. Shaking down 80-year-old ladies, Medal of Honor winners and 5-year-old kids makes no sense."
Critics also accuse Mineta of running a department that's in disarray. Last week, he fired TSA chief John Magaw.
"Now this week its all the problems with the appropriators, that you can't meet any of these deadlines," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. "This is unbelievable to me."
CBS News Correspondent Bob Orr reports Mineta also hinted at a possible flip-flop on arming pilots. With support in Congress for guns in the cockpit, the transportation chief said his department will reconsider its opposition.