NATIONAL NEWS
The Hill: Federal court denies Amtrak regulatory powers
http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/278194-dc-circuit-rules-amtrak-cant-have-regulatory-power
A federal appeals court ruled on Friday for the second time that Congress cannot give Amtrak regulatory power over other private railroads and competitors. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said even though Amtrak is a public-private hybrid, it is unconstitutional to allow a passenger rail company with its own economic interests to impose rules on its rivals.
CityLab: Paris introduces car-free Sundays
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/04/paris-introduces-car-free-sundays/480609/
Beginning May 8, some Sundays in Paris will be a little less smoggy. The French city will ban car traffic along the Champs Elysées and nine other routes on the first Sunday of each month, adding to the 13 areas already announced as part of the “Paris Breathes” campaign, The Independent reports. (Mayor Anne Hidalgo moved the launch to May 8 from May 1 to avoid conflict with a public holiday.) Another four zones will be pedestrian-only on Sundays, but just during the summer.
Bloomberg Technology: Gas delivery startups want to fill up your car anywhere. Is that allowed?
A new crop of startups are trying to make gas stations obsolete. Tap an app, and they'll bring the gas to you, filling up your car while you're at work, eating breakfast, or watching Netflix. Filld, WeFuel, Yoshi, Purple and Booster Fuels have started operating in a few cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Nashville, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia. But officials in some of those cities say that driving around in a pickup truck with hundreds of gallons of gasoline might not be safe.
STATE NEWS
New York Times: A warmer, fuzzier Los Angeles
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/opinion/sunday/a-warmer-fuzzier-los-angeles.html?_r=1
I GOT lost the other day driving on Venice Boulevard. This is a street, a mile south of where I live, that I use to travel east or west. But it has changed of late, like much of Los Angeles. Over the past few years, Venice Boulevard has been the site of a huge infrastructural project: the building of the second phase of the Expo Line. When it opens on May 20, this light-rail route, the latest addition to Los Angeles’s Metro system, will connect downtown and Santa Monica.
New Jersey.com: DO NJ commuters pay the highest fares in America?
An analysis by a commuter advocacy group says that NJ Transit rail riders pay the highest fares in the nation for the second straight year. The New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers 2016 analysis found that, with the exception a one Long Island Rail Road fare zone, NJ Transit charges the most out of nine major commuter railroads surveyed.
Chicago Tribune: New buildings near ‘L’ mostly aimed at well-to-do
In a city that seems increasingly divided between rich and poor, the "L" is the great equalizer. While just a lucky few can get box seats at the ballgame, or send their kids to Latin School, anyone can pay $2.25 to squash into a rush hour train. But what if you can't afford to live near the "L"?
The Sentinel: Purple lines proponents push public/private
http://www.thesentinel.com/mont/newsx/local/item/3447-purple-line-proponents-push-public-private
Three civic leaders said the public-private partnership (P3) building the Purple Line will maximize the likelihood of it being finished on time and within budget. Three panelists and the Maryland Secretary of Transportation explained the effectiveness of using a P3 on a transit project during a Thursday forum at Montgomery College’s Cultural Arts Center, hosted by the advocacy group Purple Line Now! Panelists said a P3 is the most efficient, cost effective and least-risky option to connect the New Carrollton and Bethesda Metro stations.
CBS Detroit: $21 million project links 20 miles of Detroit pathways
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2016/04/29/21-million-project-links-20-miles-of-detroit-pathways/
A $21 million project linking 20 miles of walking, running and biking paths in Detroit has wrapped up as part of an effort to boost recreation activities, better connect redeveloping neighborhoods and spur growth. A ribbon-cutting takes place Friday to celebrate completion of the Link Detroit project at the new Wilkins Street Plaza, located along a half-mile extension of the Dequindre Cut Greenway in Eastern Market. A community celebration is Saturday.
Nashville Scene: Barry talks transit, affordable housing and conflict in first state of Metro
Tucked right in the middle of Mayor Megan Barry's first State of Metro address — in which she outlined the major pieces of the city's first-ever $2 billion budget — were two of the most pressing issues facing Nashville in the post-It City era: transit and affordable housing. Both are challenges Barry inherited from her predecessor, Mayor Karl Dean, whose administration left a lot to be desired in each area. At the same time, Barry was, for eight years, among the most prominent members of a Metro Council that rarely pressed Dean on either issue, at least until later in his tenure.
Lower Hudson Valley Journal News: Housing trend focuses on downtown train stations
Thousands of units of housing are sprouting up around train stations, as the trend of "transit-oriented development" takes off in the Lower Hudson Valley. The fledgling trend holds the promise of transforming once-neglected downtowns with residential-commercial buildings and pedestrian-friendly streets.
Politico Morning Transportation
By Martine Powers | 05/02/2016 05:53 AM EDT
With help from Jennifer Scholtes, Lauren Gardner and Heather Caygle
IN BUDGET FIGHT, APPROPRIATORS EYE TSA WAIT TIMES: The bad news: Security lines at airports around the country are expected to get a longer than ever this summer. The good news (at least for the travel industry): Those increasingly disruptive wait times may prod Congress to up appropriations for the Transportation Security Administration. Our own Jennifer Scholtes has a forecast this morning about how wait times and funding levels are going to play out. As she explains, "Plumping spending accounts at the security agency has never been a popular notion. But neither is the prospect of angry constituents tying up congressional phone lines with stories of snaking screening lanes and missed flights. And all signs say this year's security queues will far surpass those of years past."
The current situation: "Lawmakers in charge of divvying up federal dollars have yet to lay out their own proposals for funding the agency next year, leaving the president's fiscal 2017 budget request of $7.6 billion for TSA the only one on the table so far." But the concerns about this budgetary crunch is on the minds of both aviation insiders as well as lawmakers, Jen says. "After all, on most weeks they trudge twice through airport security themselves." Here's what some folks have to say about the issue:
- Jonathan Grella, U.S. Travel Association: "The stakes are high. People are watching. ... It's pretty clear that there's a communications gap between TSA and Congress. ... And it seems pretty evident that they need to talk more and reconcile this disconnect that's going on - because stealth might be good when you're talking security, but not when you're talking appropriations."
- Ross Feinstein, American Airlines: "At LAX, lines are going out the door to a whole 'nother terminal . ... The staffing model doesn't work right now."
- Rep. John Carter, head of the House subcommittee that funds TSA: "We know what he says his problems are, and we're looking at them. ... We're working on deciding what we're going to do, if anything."
- Christian Beckner, GWU's Center for Cyber and Homeland Security: "Because they're so constrained from a budget standpoint, and not wanting to increase fees ... I just don't see where the funds would come from in the current congressional environment to do anything about this issue. ... There's not any low-hanging fruit to pull money from elsewhere in the department."
Read Jen's full story here: http://politico.pro/21plRPX
IT'S MONDAY: Good morning and thanks for tuning into POLITICO's Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on all things trains, planes, automobiles and ports.
Happy belated May Day! Reach out: mpowers@politico.com or @martinepowers.
"Little GTO, you're really lookin' fine/Three deuces and a four-speed and a 389/Listen to her tachin' up now, listen to her why-ee-eye-ine." (h/t Dr. David Lippman, father of POLITICO Playbook's Daniel Lippman, who bumped into MT during his tour of POLITICO's Rosslyn office on Friday afternoon.)
THIS WEEK: The House and Senate are in recess this week. Look out for big news from NTSB on Tuesday, explained below.
Tuesday: The National Transportation Safety Board is scheduled to announce the probable cause of the Jan. 2015 WMATA incident at L'Enfant Plaza, which killed one person and injured nearly 100 others. George Washington University's Center for Cyber and Homeland Security also holds its annual conference. And the Center for Strategic and International Studies holds a discussion on "The Future of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration," with PHMSA Administrator Marie Therese Dominguez.
Wednesday: The State Department holds a meeting of the Shipping Coordinating Committee to prepare for the 96th session of the International Maritime Organization's Maritime Safety Committee.
Thursday: The United States Coast Guard holds a meeting of the Navigation Safety Advisory Council to discuss matters relating to maritime collisions, rammings, and groundings, Inland Rules of the Road, International Rules of the Road, navigation regulations and equipment, routing measures, marine information, diving safety, and aids to navigation systems.
OOPS: The Federal Railroad Administration continues to monitor a CSX freight train derailment that happened in northeast Washington D.C. on Sunday morning; no one was injured, but the train cars containing sodium hydroxide, calcium chloride, and ethanol were found to have leaked chemicals before being sealed. Though the derailment did not come into contact with Metro tracks, passenger service was interrupted between NoMa and Brookland stations. (Check out this dramatic photo of the derailment, from the Associated Press: bit.ly/24hqX63.)
And in other not-so-great Washington railway news, the Washington Post reported Sunday that the Federal Transit Administration spotted numerous track defects during inspections that took place throughout April. The documents from the FTA, now made public, also suggest that Metro employees knowingly ignore rules on setting handbrakes when parking trains, and that operators have overrun red lights at least five times since the FTA began safety oversight of the system.
ANSWER THE PHONE, I KNOW THAT YOU'RE HOME: House Transportation Chairman Bill Shuster and Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune finally had that long-awaited chat about FAA reauthorization - it happened over the phone on Thursday. The takeaway? Shuster needs "a few more weeks" to help the House "determine its course" on the future of the FAA bill, a GOP source told Heather Caygle. In the meantime, House lawmakers are waiting to hear more about Shuster's approach as they mull potential provisions to deal with post-Brussels terrorism risks. Heather's got more on those prospective changes, here.
TAKING SIDES: A federal appellate court declared Friday that it's backing the freight rail industry in an ongoing battle over whether Amtrak can act as both a commercial interest and a governmental regulatory authority when helping to determine which railroads get the most, and best, access to track right-of-way. The court's take: A 2008 law that allowed Amtrak to act in both capacities was unconstitutional because, "armed with coercive regulatory power, Amtrak wields a weapon of considerable advantage in its competitive battle for scarce track," a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in the opinion.
What are the long-term effects of this decision? Our Lauren Gardner explains: "The decision deals another blow to DOT's 2010 attempt to develop performance metrics with FRA to ensure timely passenger service, challenges to which have wound through the courts for years. What effect it could have on the Surface Transportation Board's clunky efforts to define on-time performance and the decades-old concept of preference to Amtrak over freight operations is unclear."
Flashback from English class: Railroad nerds perusing the court's 34-page decision may notice a literary Easter egg, straight from the post-war American canon: an excerpt from John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" that's used to make a point about train punctuality. "Train schedules are a matter of pride and of apprehension to nearly everyone," Steinbeck writes. "When, far up the track, the block signal snapped from red to green and the long, stabbing probe of the headlight sheered the bend and blared on the station, men looked at their watches and said, 'On time.' There was pride in it, and relief too. ... One thing late or early can disrupt everything around it, and the disturbance runs outward in bands like the waves from a dropped stone in a quiet pool."
Back to the courtroom: From Steinbeck's prose, the court's decision segued back to ... the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008. "It may be said that PRIIA's architects shared Steinbeck's pride in the punctuality of train schedules," the court declared. "But as we've shown, there are limits to how far Congress may go to ensure Amtrak's on-time performance."
SPEAKING OF AMTRAK ... Happy 45th birthday to America's national passenger rail system! Check out Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman's just-posted statement on the sapphire anniversary, here . And take a look at this front-page article from the New York Times, documenting Amtrak's inaugural day: politico.pro/1SUUCt5. (Headline: "AMTRAK CHUGS IN WITH FEW ABOARD - Little Confusion or Fanfare and Usual Low Patronage Mark New Day on Rails.")
COMING TODAY: The Competitive Enterprise Institute is planning to file a lawsuit today against TSA, arguing that a rule published earlier this year on the use of body scanners to conduct security screening. In the lawsuit, CEI says that TSA has downplayed the intrusiveness of body scanners in their push to replace walk-through metal detectors. The organization argues that the body scanners will cause many would-be airline passengers to choose to drive instead, and that change of mode could result in increased traffic fatalities.
From CEI's Marc Scribner: "While the TSA is promoting body scanners as a security measure, the odds are that this rule actually puts the traveling public at greater risk, not less. ... They failed to account for the invasiveness and delays associated with the TSA's scanners that prompt some air travelers to take to their cars instead, which is a riskier mode of travel than flying."
DO WE REALLY NEEED TO 'SHIP AMERICAN'? POLITICO's The Agenda has a deep dive into The Jones Act - a century-old maritime statute requiring that goods shipped from one U.S. port to another must travel on a ship built in America, with an American crew, and owned by Americans - and its role in the heated debate over Puerto Rico's future. From the story, by Danny Vinik : "For Puerto Rico, opponents say the law drives up costs of everything from energy to consumer goods. ... As policymakers look for ways to ease the island's financial burdens, the Jones Act has come under the microscope as an example of ways that domestic U.S. laws disproportionately drive up costs for a distant and cash-strapped territory.
" ... Though it's not in the House draft of the Puerto Rico relief package, it has come up at congressional hearings, and an amendment exempting Puerto Rico will likely be offered when the bill hits the floor." Salim Furth of the Heritage Foundation added in his take: "[The merchant marine] are highway robbers. ... They basically said, 'We got the government to say that we could extract rents from everyone who wants to use this route, and we have these 3.5 million people who are stuck on an island and we're just going to take their money because we can.'"
ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL: The Coast Guard has filed a declaration of equivalency asserting that existing U.S. laws on verifying shipping container weights are adequate to comply with the new SOLAS international shipping weight measurement requirements. The declaration, issued late last week, states that "current regulatory regime provides for other entities within the container export chain to work in combination with the shipper to determine and verify container weights."
What does that mean? Now, ocean carriers have extra encouragement to work with shippers to find the least-onerous or least-costly methods to verify the weight of containers and their contents. The ongoing controversy surrounding this issue has been so fraught, it's attracted the attention of Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune; last month, he talked about the "great need for carriers to sit down with shippers, and for both parties to come to a mutually agreeable path forward."
THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ):
- Prime Minister Trudeau: "Canada Eager to Consider Investing in New Montreal Rail Network." Reuters.
- "Takata Falls on Report Recalls May Widen to 100 Million Vehicles." Bloomberg.
- "Bombardier Faces Off With Airbus, Boeing." The Wall Street Journal.
- "Uber, Blind Riders Reach Settlement Over Service Animals." The Associated Press.
- "A Warmer, Fuzzier Los Angeles" - thanks to a new, potentially-transformational light-rail project. The New York Times.
- Uber for gasoline: Cool idea, but is it legal? Bloomberg.
- Incoming Delta CEO talks about his successes, including beating former New York Giants running back Tiki Barber in a marathon. The Wall Street Journal.
THE COUNTDOWN: DOT appropriations run out in 153 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 75 days. The 2016 presidential election is in 191 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 1,615 days.
THE DAY AHEAD:
12 p.m. - The Senate Commerce Committee's Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security Subcommittee holds a field hearing on "Keeping Goods Moving in America's Heartland." Western Nebraska Community College, Harms Advanced Technology Center, Plex Room, Scottsbluff, Neb.
1:30 p.m. - The XPONENTIAL 2016 trade show for the unmanned systems and robotics industry begins, with panel discussions and keynote addresses from top executives from Amazon Prime Air and Cisco Systems, along with top officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Defense. Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans.
Did we miss an event? Let MT know at transpocalendar@politicopro.com.
Stories from POLITICO Pro
Summer travel lines and appropriations season converge - but will it get TSA more money? Back
By Jennifer Scholtes | 05/02/2016 05:11 AM EDT
Lines at airport security are expected to stack up to nightmarish levels this summer, just as Congress is deciding how much money to give TSA next year - a situation airports, airlines and the travel industry hope will prod Congress to cough up more money for the agency.
Plumping spending accounts at the security agency has never been a popular notion. But neither is the prospect of angry constituents tying up congressional phone lines with stories of snaking screening lanes and missed flights. And all signs say this year's security queues will far surpass those of years past.
"When it comes to TSA appropriations, we have taken note of this seeming collision course as lines are about to form," says Jonathan Grella, lead spokesman for the U.S. Travel Association. "The stakes are high. People are watching."
Lawmakers in charge of divvying up federal dollars have yet to lay out their own proposals for funding the agency next year, leaving the president's fiscal 2017 budget request of $7.6 billion for TSA the only one on the table so far. But the ensuing travel crisis is on the minds of appropriators as they finalize decisions on which accounts to cut and which to plus up. After all, on most weeks they trudge twice through airport security themselves.
Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), who heads the House subcommittee that funds TSA, said he is already noticing lengthy waits when he flies home from the nation's capital. But the screening line crisis has yet to hit his home hub, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, he said.
"They're crazy here," Carter said about wait times at Washington, D.C.-area airports. "We've had a lot of talk about long lines, but I don't know whether there will be more money for TSA."
The Texas Republican said he and his staff met last week with TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger, who laid out his funding priorities for those who hold the purse strings.
"We know what he says his problems are, and we're looking at them," Carter said. "We're working on deciding what we're going to do, if anything."
In the Senate, Homeland Security Appropriations Chairman John Hoeven (R-N.D.) has expressed his intention to "adequately fund TSA," acknowledging the lengthy lines and that TSA is under pressure to more diligently screen travelers in light of recent terrorist attacks and the agency's failure to detect the vast majority of threats during covert testing.
It's an unspoken faux pas for an agency head to plead, at least in plain sight, for funding levels above what the administration at large has laid out in the president's budget request. And while the Obama administration's fiscal 2017 spending blueprint calls on Congress to hike TSA funding, the increase is piddling in comparison to the recent growth in aviation travel and wait times at airport checkpoints.
"It's pretty clear that there's a communications gap between TSA and Congress," Grella said. "And it seems pretty evident that they need to talk more and reconcile this disconnect that's going on - because stealth might be good when you're talking security, but not when you're talking appropriations."
The president's budget calls for nearly $7.6 billion for TSA, with an almost $149 million increase over current agency funding levels, amounting to about a 2 percent bump. As for bodies, the request assumes 450 more fulltime positions within the agency overall, for a total of 51,558 employees.
That proposed workforce boost comes as TSA's screening staff is at its lowest count in five years, with an annualized tally of 42,350 fulltime positions for transportation security officers. From that benchmark, TSA is showing an overall attrition rate of nearly 11 percent for those officer spots.
In testifying before appropriators this year, Neffenger has highlighted the administration's request for $3 billion to support just under 42,850 fulltime transportation security officer positions. That ask amounts to 323 more workers over fiscal 2016 - a less than 1 percent increase.
Meanwhile, TSA is hearing from the airline industry that passenger volume is expected to be up more than 7 percent over last summer. And the agency expects to screen more than 740 million travelers by the end of the fiscal year, adding up to about 45 million more than the previous fiscal year.
At many airports, though, passengers are reporting increased wait times that are disproportionately higher than that uptick in travelers. And some airports are faulting flaws in TSA's staffing levels.
During one particularly bustling week of spring break this year, 6,800 American Airlines customers missed their flights. Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for the airline, says his company is seeing an up to 150 percent increase in the length of screening lines over last year, with three-hour waits at some airports.
"One week of spring break is basically the entire summer. ... At LAX, lines are going out the door to a whole 'nother terminal," said Feinstein, who used to be a spokesman for TSA. "The staffing model doesn't work right now."
At some of the airports where lines are growing especially long, local officials complain that TSA isn't even staffing all screening lanes during peak travel times.
At the end of March, Charlotte Douglas International Airport twice broke local records for flier counts, surpassing even the aviation traffic the hub handled during the 2012 Democratic National Convention there. In a letter to TSA headquarters last month, the airport's aviation chief explained that the airport, airlines and TSA had all expected the massive flow - and yet, the TSA still wasn't prepared.
"The morning of March 25th airport staff were surprised to find that the TSA was only staffing seven screening lanes," wrote Aviation Director Brent Cagle. "By mid-morning security wait times had exceeded three hours and approximately 600 passengers had missed connections due to this fiasco. ... This situation could have been avoided, had the TSA had the proper staffing (or overtime budget necessary) to meet the customer demand."
Lawmakers, too, have noticed that TSA has neglected to staff screening lines during busy travel times. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the House Homeland Security Committee's ranking Democrat, also wrote to Neffenger this month, noting that "staffing shortages often leave the lanes unused, and as a result, the queue grows and wait times increase."
Acknowledging that it was TSA's decision last summer to limit speedier PreCheck lines to vetted travelers that caused some of this slowdown, the agency is trying to encourage more travelers to officially enroll in the PreCheck program. As of late April, about 2.5 million people were enrolled in PreCheck - a population the agency is growing at about 8,000 per day.
Hoping for a more immediate fix, the agency is also trying to accelerate both hiring and training for its workforce, adding more classes at its training center in Georgia and preserving overtime to prepare for an uptick in summer travel.
Lawmakers have begun complaining, though, that security officers are getting bumped from spots at the training academy and that TSA staffing turnover has been so drastic that airports will be short-staffed regardless of additional training classes.
On top of that, even if appropriators do swoop in this summer with more cash to help the agency with its workforce shortage, that funding won't be delivered for several months and won't kick in for many more. That means not even Congress can save travelers from lines this summer.
"I think you're going to see summertime pressures on travel connect with when money is being appropriated. The question is whether we're going to see action on that," said David Inserra, a homeland security analyst at the Heritage Foundation. "They could put a lot of money toward it, but is it actually going to reach the TSA screening line in time?"
As legislators sort out TSA's budget this year, one major obstacle could stifle the agency from getting a big raise: the administration's assumption that Congress will hike aviation fees - a notion lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have written off as a nonstarter.
Because the president's budget request calls on Congress to increase the Aviation Security Fee from $5.60 to $6.60 and to reinstate a $420 million contribution from airlines to collect a total of almost $909 million more in fiscal 2017, appropriators are left to dig up that cash from other accounts within the Department of Homeland Security.
"Because they're so constrained from a budget standpoint, and not wanting to increase fees. ... I just don't see where the funds would come from in the current congressional environment to do anything about this issue," said Christian Beckner, deputy director of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University. "There's not any low-hanging fruit to pull money from elsewhere in the department."
TSA: Beefed up airport security could roil summer travel lines Back
By Heather Caygle | 04/08/2016 03:18 PM EDT
Bomb blasts in Brussels two weeks ago have caused U.S. security officials to do a reassessment back home, meaning summer travelers will likely see a bigger police presence and more random searches before flying this year.
TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger told reporters Friday that the agency has significantly stepped up its visible presence after the Brussels blasts, just one effort to deter would-be copy cats from targeting U.S. airports and train stations.
"Visibility is a deterrent factor and it's a disruptive factor too," he said.
Neffenger happened to be on a plane pulling up to a gate at the Brussels airport right as the bombs went off. The TSA chief was safe but had to sit on the plane for more than two hours while officials processed the chaos and tragedy inside the building.
For U.S. passengers, security in the aftermath of the attacks doesn't just mean more officers patrolling baggage claim. It will also mean more random bag checks, particularly for bigger luggage, and additional inspections of cars and taxis coming into the airport.
Combine the random checks with what's expected to be longer security lines, and passengers could be staring down a frustrating summer travel experience.
"This is one of the busiest or highest volume travel years we've ever seen," Neffenger said, adding that travel has increased about 8 percent on average over last year.
"I care about lines, it's not that I don't ... [but] we have to do our jobs. We learned that last year," he added, referencing a series of security failures that embarrassed the agency.
But even with more security patrols, bomb-sniffing dogs and bag checks, Neffenger wouldn't say for certain that a Brussels-like attack couldn't happen in the U.S.
The Brussels terrorists picked nonsecure areas of the city's airport and metro system to set off bombs that killed at least 32 people and injured hundreds of others.
And though TSA's main responsibility lies beyond the security screening barricades, Neffenger said there is "a lot more patrolling of public areas here than I believe was the case in Brussels."
"Would that have been enough to have caught that? I can't say for certain. ... I'm comfortable that in the United States, in particular, that we're doing about as much as we can do to track, to identify and to pay attention to people of concern," he said.
Congress also took steps this week to beef up security in the wake of the Brussels bombings. On Thursday, the Senate approved a bipartisan package of amendments to an aviation bill, intended to tighten the vetting process for airport workers and double the agency's number of visible security teams that use bomb-sniffing dogs.
However, there's no guarantee those provisions will make it into law, as the bill is still working its way through the process.
On Wednesday, before the Senate approved the security package, Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) took Neffenger to task, criticizing TSA for not doing enough to screen airport workers.
Nelson said the Atlanta airport worker gun smuggling ring uncovered in December 2014 and more recently, bombs snuck onto commercial planes overseas, make it imperative that TSA push airports to tighten up access and screening for their employees.
"Atlanta, Miami and Orlando," have thorough worker vetting in place, Nelson said. "What about the rest of the 297 airports nationwide?"
Neffenger said the agency and airports have taken significant steps in recent months to tighten worker access - but Nelson wasn't satisfied.
"The only person that is going to get the airports off their duff to limit the access into their airports is going to be you and your administration," Nelson said during the hearing Wednesday.
Neffenger defended the agency during his meeting with reporters Friday.
There are "a lot of players" in airport security, he said, not just TSA. Therefore, he said, it's up to everyone - including local police and employers - to vet airport workers and cargo, such as catering equipment, that enter secure areas.
"I think that's a shared responsibility. There's no way that TSA could - we don't have the current resources to physically check everybody," Neffenger said.
Summer travel lines and appropriations season converge - but will it get TSA more money? Back
By Jennifer Scholtes | 05/02/2016 05:11 AM EDT
Lines at airport security are expected to stack up to nightmarish levels this summer, just as Congress is deciding how much money to give TSA next year - a situation airports, airlines and the travel industry hope will prod Congress to cough up more money for the agency.
Plumping spending accounts at the security agency has never been a popular notion. But neither is the prospect of angry constituents tying up congressional phone lines with stories of snaking screening lanes and missed flights. And all signs say this year's security queues will far surpass those of years past.
"When it comes to TSA appropriations, we have taken note of this seeming collision course as lines are about to form," says Jonathan Grella, lead spokesman for the U.S. Travel Association. "The stakes are high. People are watching."
Lawmakers in charge of divvying up federal dollars have yet to lay out their own proposals for funding the agency next year, leaving the president's fiscal 2017 budget request of $7.6 billion for TSA the only one on the table so far. But the ensuing travel crisis is on the minds of appropriators as they finalize decisions on which accounts to cut and which to plus up. After all, on most weeks they trudge twice through airport security themselves.
Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), who heads the House subcommittee that funds TSA, said he is already noticing lengthy waits when he flies home from the nation's capital. But the screening line crisis has yet to hit his home hub, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, he said.
"They're crazy here," Carter said about wait times at Washington, D.C.-area airports. "We've had a lot of talk about long lines, but I don't know whether there will be more money for TSA."
The Texas Republican said he and his staff met last week with TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger, who laid out his funding priorities for those who hold the purse strings.
"We know what he says his problems are, and we're looking at them," Carter said. "We're working on deciding what we're going to do, if anything."
In the Senate, Homeland Security Appropriations Chairman John Hoeven (R-N.D.) has expressed his intention to "adequately fund TSA," acknowledging the lengthy lines and that TSA is under pressure to more diligently screen travelers in light of recent terrorist attacks and the agency's failure to detect the vast majority of threats during covert testing.
It's an unspoken faux pas for an agency head to plead, at least in plain sight, for funding levels above what the administration at large has laid out in the president's budget request. And while the Obama administration's fiscal 2017 spending blueprint calls on Congress to hike TSA funding, the increase is piddling in comparison to the recent growth in aviation travel and wait times at airport checkpoints.
"It's pretty clear that there's a communications gap between TSA and Congress," Grella said. "And it seems pretty evident that they need to talk more and reconcile this disconnect that's going on - because stealth might be good when you're talking security, but not when you're talking appropriations."
The president's budget calls for nearly $7.6 billion for TSA, with an almost $149 million increase over current agency funding levels, amounting to about a 2 percent bump. As for bodies, the request assumes 450 more fulltime positions within the agency overall, for a total of 51,558 employees.
That proposed workforce boost comes as TSA's screening staff is at its lowest count in five years, with an annualized tally of 42,350 fulltime positions for transportation security officers. From that benchmark, TSA is showing an overall attrition rate of nearly 11 percent for those officer spots.
In testifying before appropriators this year, Neffenger has highlighted the administration's request for $3 billion to support just under 42,850 fulltime transportation security officer positions. That ask amounts to 323 more workers over fiscal 2016 - a less than 1 percent increase.
Meanwhile, TSA is hearing from the airline industry that passenger volume is expected to be up more than 7 percent over last summer. And the agency expects to screen more than 740 million travelers by the end of the fiscal year, adding up to about 45 million more than the previous fiscal year.
At many airports, though, passengers are reporting increased wait times that are disproportionately higher than that uptick in travelers. And some airports are faulting flaws in TSA's staffing levels.
During one particularly bustling week of spring break this year, 6,800 American Airlines customers missed their flights. Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for the airline, says his company is seeing an up to 150 percent increase in the length of screening lines over last year, with three-hour waits at some airports.
"One week of spring break is basically the entire summer. ... At LAX, lines are going out the door to a whole 'nother terminal," said Feinstein, who used to be a spokesman for TSA. "The staffing model doesn't work right now."
At some of the airports where lines are growing especially long, local officials complain that TSA isn't even staffing all screening lanes during peak travel times.
At the end of March, Charlotte Douglas International Airport twice broke local records for flier counts, surpassing even the aviation traffic the hub handled during the 2012 Democratic National Convention there. In a letter to TSA headquarters last month, the airport's aviation chief explained that the airport, airlines and TSA had all expected the massive flow - and yet, the TSA still wasn't prepared.
"The morning of March 25th airport staff were surprised to find that the TSA was only staffing seven screening lanes," wrote Aviation Director Brent Cagle. "By mid-morning security wait times had exceeded three hours and approximately 600 passengers had missed connections due to this fiasco. ... This situation could have been avoided, had the TSA had the proper staffing (or overtime budget necessary) to meet the customer demand."
Lawmakers, too, have noticed that TSA has neglected to staff screening lines during busy travel times. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the House Homeland Security Committee's ranking Democrat, also wrote to Neffenger this month, noting that "staffing shortages often leave the lanes unused, and as a result, the queue grows and wait times increase."
Acknowledging that it was TSA's decision last summer to limit speedier PreCheck lines to vetted travelers that caused some of this slowdown, the agency is trying to encourage more travelers to officially enroll in the PreCheck program. As of late April, about 2.5 million people were enrolled in PreCheck - a population the agency is growing at about 8,000 per day.
Hoping for a more immediate fix, the agency is also trying to accelerate both hiring and training for its workforce, adding more classes at its training center in Georgia and preserving overtime to prepare for an uptick in summer travel.
Lawmakers have begun complaining, though, that security officers are getting bumped from spots at the training academy and that TSA staffing turnover has been so drastic that airports will be short-staffed regardless of additional training classes.
On top of that, even if appropriators do swoop in this summer with more cash to help the agency with its workforce shortage, that funding won't be delivered for several months and won't kick in for many more. That means not even Congress can save travelers from lines this summer.
"I think you're going to see summertime pressures on travel connect with when money is being appropriated. The question is whether we're going to see action on that," said David Inserra, a homeland security analyst at the Heritage Foundation. "They could put a lot of money toward it, but is it actually going to reach the TSA screening line in time?"
As legislators sort out TSA's budget this year, one major obstacle could stifle the agency from getting a big raise: the administration's assumption that Congress will hike aviation fees - a notion lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have written off as a nonstarter.
Because the president's budget request calls on Congress to increase the Aviation Security Fee from $5.60 to $6.60 and to reinstate a $420 million contribution from airlines to collect a total of almost $909 million more in fiscal 2017, appropriators are left to dig up that cash from other accounts within the Department of Homeland Security.
"Because they're so constrained from a budget standpoint, and not wanting to increase fees. ... I just don't see where the funds would come from in the current congressional environment to do anything about this issue," said Christian Beckner, deputy director of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University. "There's not any low-hanging fruit to pull money from elsewhere in the department."
Shuster needs 'few more weeks' on FAA plan Back
By Heather Caygle | 04/29/2016 04:33 PM EDT
House Transportation Chairman Bill Shuster needs a little more time to plot a strategy on his FAA bill, he told Sen. John Thune in a phone call Thursday.
A GOP source familiar with the call said the two men chatted briefly about the FAA bill with Shuster indicating the House needs "a few more weeks to determine its course."
Thune stressed the need for the House to follow the Senate and pass a full reauthorization, not just another short-term extension.
Current FAA law expires July 15. Shuster has shown no sign of abandoning his plan to strip air traffic control from FAA oversight but he has had trouble rallying support for the idea from both Republicans and Democrats.
House response to Brussels terror waiting on FAA bill's path forward Back
By Heather Caygle | 04/29/2016 11:00 AM EDT
A House response to the Brussels terror attacks is in a holding pattern, as lawmakers wait for a path forward on the chamber's controversial FAA bill.
The Senate included a package of aviation security provisions in its FAA bill earlier this month, many in direct response to the Brussels bombings that rocked the city's airport and subway system and left dozens dead.
And while House Homeland Security Committee leaders say they back the Senate action, they're still unsure exactly how the provisions may become law.
"It really depends on what [House Transportation Chairman Bill] Shuster does," House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas) said in an interview. "The question is whether he can pass an FAA bill ... or whether he just passes an extension."
For now, key lawmakers including McCaul and the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Bennie Thompson, have yet to plot a firm strategy for getting the TSA provisions to the president's desk.
"There's been no real discussion," Thompson (D-Miss.) told POLITICO.
But both men say they're determined to see the measures become law this year, especially given the increase in high-profile terrorist attacks overseas targeting aviation and transit.
But even if they don't ride on an FAA bill, many of the ideas still have a chance at becoming law because several of the provisions included in the Senate FAA bill have been passed by the House as stand-alone measures.
For instance, an effort to expand PreCheck so people move through security lines quicker and aren't congregating in unsecured areas of the airport was included in the Senate reauthorization. Similar language also passed the House as a solo bill (H.R. 2843) last summer.
Another bill (H.R. 4698) to beef up security at overseas airports with flights into the United States passed the House earlier this week. The bill would allow TSA to donate unused screening equipment to overseas airports, after first giving Congress a heads up. Similar language was included in the Senate's FAA reauthorization.
But for now, final action on the anti-terrorism provisions is on hold, lawmakers say, as they await Shuster's next steps.
Shuster (R-Pa.) has shown no signs that he plans to abandon his dream of kicking air traffic control out of the FAA's direct control.
But he doesn't seem to be garnering the swell of support he'd need from other lawmakers to get his bill across the House floor, at least so far. Those odds don't improve as each day passes, with a mid-July deadline approaching.
Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said he hopes Shuster tries to pass some kind of long-term bill, not just another extension, before the July deadline.
The House could bring up a bill minus the contentious air traffic control language - but Shuster shows no signs of interest in this tack. Another strategy would be to pass a clean FAA extension as a vehicle to go to conference with the Senate and add in the anti-terrorism language there. That's procedurally similar to what the House did in 2012, when a revolt among rank and file Republicans forced the leadership to yank a highway and transit bill off the schedule.
Or, alternately, the Senate could use a fast-track method to take up the handful of standalone security bills that have already cleared the House.
"The bills that we passed, the [Senate] put them on the FAA bill and it's a good vehicle to get it done. The only alternative would be by [unanimous consent] on the Senate floor," McCaul said.
For now, the plan is to wait and see.
"They probably could pass by UC on the Senate floor. I don't think they're really controversial," McCaul said.
Appellate court deals blow to Amtrak regulatory power Back
By Lauren Gardner | 04/29/2016 11:42 AM EDT
A federal appellate court sided with freight railroads today in their challenge to a 2008 law they say is unconstitutional because it grants Amtrak governmental regulatory authority to boost its commercial interests ahead of theirs as competitors for track space.
"Armed with coercive regulatory power, Amtrak wields a weapon of considerable advantage in its competitive battle for scarce track," a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in the opinion. "And while the Constitution may grudgingly accept the reality of self-interestedness, it does not endorse it as an unmitigated good."
The decision deals another blow to DOT's 2010 attempt to develop performance metrics with FRA to ensure timely passenger service, challenges to which have wound through the courts for years. What effect it could have on the Surface Transportation Board's clunky efforts to define on-time performance and the decades-old concept of preference to Amtrak over freight operations is unclear.
The judges wrote that, despite the Supreme Court's 2015 opinion that Amtrak is a government entity, the railroad still must act to preserve its own economic interests - which they argue is problematic since Congress gave it regulatory power over industry competitors.
"Make no mistake: our decision today does not foreclose Congress from tapping into whatever creative spark spawned the Amtrak experiment in public-private enterprise," the court wrote. "But the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment puts Congress to a choice: its chartered entities may either compete, as market participants, or regulate, as official bodies."
The Agenda: Do we really need to 'ship American'? Back
By Danny Vinik | 04/29/2016 10:29 AM EDT
As Puerto Rico's debt crisis triggers congressional fights over issues like bankruptcy protection and a possible new federal oversight board for the island, it's also reviving a controversial debate about an obscure shipping law whose origins date to the very first U.S. Congress: The Jones Act.
The law - whose current version was passed in 1920 - says that any goods shipped from one U.S. port to another must travel on a ship built in America, with an American crew, and owned by Americans. Originally intended to ensure sea-readiness in case of a war, it is now derided by its critics as an expensive, protective measure for maritime unions and shipbuilders. Supporters say the original rationale for the law is just as valid today as it was in the 18th century.
For Puerto Rico, opponents say the law drives up costs of everything from energy to consumer goods. The island lies nearly 1,000 miles from the U.S. mainland, and imports 80 percent of what it consumes. So as policymakers look for ways to ease the island's financial burdens, the Jones Act has come under the microscope as an example of ways that domestic U.S. laws disproportionately drive up costs for a distant and cash-strapped territory. Though it's not in the House draft of the Puerto Rico relief package, it has come up at congressional hearings, and an amendment exempting Puerto Rico will likely be offered when the bill hits the floor.
"[The merchant marine] are highway robbers," said Salim Furth, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "They basically said, 'We got the government to say that we could extract rents from everyone who wants to use this route, and we have these 3.5 million people who are stuck on an island and we're just going to take their money because we can.'"
Read more here: http://politi.co/1VXDQwY.