The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed two amendments aimed at boosting airport and transportation security as part of its consideration of a bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) through the end of FY ’17.
The Airport Security Enhancement and Oversight Act (S. 2361) allows the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to have real-time access to additional terrorism-related databases maintained by the intelligence community and allows the agency to conduct real-time continuous criminal records checks through the FBI. The amendment passed by a vote of 85-10.
The amendment would also increase the fines that airport operators have to pay for missing security credentials for airport workers that have unescorted access to secure areas of an airport.
The legislation follows high profile incidents of gun and drug smuggling in the United States by airport and airline employees in the past two years who had access to secure areas of airports because they had approved security credentials. It also follows the bombing last year of a Russia-bound plane from Egypt that may have been caused by a bomb put on board the plane by in insider in Egypt’s air transportation system.
The amendment “provides enhanced tools for oversight and vetting of personnel along with additional checks to guard against insider threats,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), one of the sponsors of the bill and the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said in a statement.
The amendment also directs TSA to expand enhanced and random physical inspections of airport employees in secure areas of airport an at entrances to secure areas, conduct more red team and cover tests of access control to secure areas, and review the insider threat posed by airport employees with access to secure areas of U.S. airports.
“Recent terror attacks, along with gun-running and drug smuggling incidents, are all examples of why much more needs to be done to reduce insider threats to our aviation system,” Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), ranking member on the Commerce Committee, said in a statement. “If an airport or airline employee can easily smuggle drugs or guns onto a plane, just imagine what a terrorist might do.”
The Senate also approved by a 91-5 vote an amendment by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), that would expand the number of Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams that TSA has at its disposal to enhance security throughout the transportation system, including surface and air.
The Heinrich amendment (S. 3482) would permit TSA to have up to 60 VIPR teams, twice its current total, and make homeland security grant funding for states available for use in non-secure areas of airports and surface transportation facilities.