Aviation and Transportation Security Act4

The president of the United States signed the Avi­ation and Transportation Security Act on Novem­ber 19, 2001. The Act created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) (see Ligure 35-3), which was originally placed in the Department of Transportation, and which is charged with insur­ing the implementation of a sequenced series of enhanced security measures applicable to both aircraft and airports. These measures include installation of fortified cockpit doors on aircraft, implementation of new standards for airport bag­gage screeners, revitalization of the federal air marshal program, and the strengthening of air­port perimeter areas. The TSA was moved to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.

Fiscal year 2011 collections ($ millions) from airlines

DHS = $3.66B

A.

Y

FAA = $11.4B

O’

Passenger screening was previously the responsibility of the FAA, which was carried out by the airlines under FAA guidelines. The Act transferred this function to the TSA, which had to be organized, staffed, and trained at significant expense. The Act authorizes the TSA to impose user fees on both passengers and air carriers to help pay for these new security efforts, which added another level of stress on the struggling airlines, and which increases the cost of airfare for the passenger. See Figure 35-4 for a graphic repre­sentation of these taxes, fees, and unfunded man­dates. As of 2011, these impositions have added nearly $18 billion to aviation costs since 2001. Government taxes as a percentage of airfare have grown to 20 percent as of 2012. See Figure 35-5. Domestically, a base airfare has tacked onto it:

1, A 7.5 percent federal excise tax,

2, A $3.80 per segment federal tax (a segment is one leg of the total flight),

Source: Airlines for America (A4A). Reprinted by permission.

1972 Taxes 1992 Taxes 2012 Taxes 7% ($22)* 13% ($38)* 20% ($61)*

3, A $2.50 September 11 federal tax per seg­ment (to pay for security screening), and

4, A $4.50 passenger facility airport charge per departure.

The base fare is retained by the airline. The excise tax, the segment tax, and the 9/11 tax are paid to the federal government. The PFC charge is paid to the airport. Federal taxes are higher for international flights, which include departure, customs, immigration, and arrival taxes.

Although the idea of a federal security agency was popular immediately after 9/11 (the Senate voted 100 to 0 in favor), over the 10-plus years that enhanced federal aviation security has been in effect, mounting criticism has been lev­eled at the TSA. Complaints about long lines at airport screening points, rude treatment, and unnecessarily invasive searches of passengers by TSA workers, reactionary policies and proce­dures, and an increasingly wasteful bureaucracy have been lodged. Although the Aviation and Security Transportation Act provided for an “opt out” of federalized screening for airports, few took advantage of it. San Francisco Interna­tional Airport, however, is one that did; it hired a privatesecurity firm to conduct its screening.

A leaked 2007 TSA study found that San Francisco’s private screeners were twice as good at detecting fake bombs as TSA screeners. The private screeners were “friendlier” and “more helpful.”

Their lines were shorter and the private company used procedures to minimize wait times. A House Transportation Committee in 2011 found that the San Francisco screeners could process 165 pas­sengers in the same time that it took TSA screen­ers in Los Angeles International Airport to process 100 passengers. Scores of other airports have peti­tioned the TSA to allow them to switch to private screeners, without success. The TSA has responded exceptionally slowly, and when it has responded, it has denied the applications on the stated basis of “no benefit to the federal government.” New leg­islation is pending in an attempt to provide more transparency to such TSA decision-making.

There are good reasons to question the effi­cacy of TSA procedures. Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” who attempted to bring down a trans­atlantic flight in 2002, was stopped by passen­gers on the airplane, not security forces. Yet, ever since this episode, all passengers have been required by the TSA to take off their shoes for x-ray inspection. The “New York Times Square bomber,” who botched his car bombing attempt in 2010, left the area and “ordered his ticket on the way to JFK, went through TSA, and got on the plane.”5 In 2011, a House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee found that there had been more than 25,000 documented air­port security breaches under TSA auspices.

The TSA also installed nearly 100 explo­sive detection machines at airports at a cost of $150,000 each, only to discover that they do not work. The TSA paid the Department of Defense $600 each to destroy them.6