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Friday, July 29, 2005

Vote Republican or Die
Posted by Jill | 6:17 AM

That's essentially the sentiment in the Republican-controlled Senate, which voted yesterday to cut up to 13% of the nation's airport security screeners:

The House voted to cut 2,000 screeners in the budget that takes effect Oct. 1, Blank told a Capitol Hill hearing.

Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees Homeland Security funding, disputed Blank's figures and said the House is not cutting any screeners but is cutting unnecessary management costs.

Airport directors predicted enormous lines if 6,000 screeners are cut as air travel hits record levels.

"There's no one who's going to get through a checkpoint in 10 minutes," William DeCota, aviation director at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports, said afterward.

Ben DeCosta, manager of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, said the TSA told him Tuesday that the airport would lose several hundred screeners under the Senate plan.

"I'm concerned that the lines would be over an hour and would go around the building, through baggage claim, out the door and down the sidewalks," DeCosta said.

Blank told the panel that "very crowded airport lobbies are a security threat" because so many people could be an inviting target for terrorists.

The Senate slashed 6,000 screeners after rejecting an administration proposal to add a $3 fee to airline tickets to help pay for aviation security. Earlier this month, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., called the cuts "very unfortunate" and blamed them on a budgetary misunderstanding about the process for raising fees.

The House plan cut 5% from the administration's proposal for screeners but added $40 million to buy automated luggage-scanning machines that require far fewer screeners to operate than are needed to handle manual machines now in many airports.

Rogers said he was "pushing TSA to install next-generation technologies" that would improve bomb detection in luggage, speed up screening and cut personnel costs.

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., criticized the administration for not seeking more money to meet airport demand for automated luggage scanners. "There is a chance here for major savings," Dicks said.

TSA's Blank said increased air travel is generating more fees for airports, which "are sitting on some cash that they can invest" in security.

Blank testified the same day the TSA announced its annual redistribution of screeners at the 441 airports where it provides security. Airports will gradually lose or gain screeners in coming months.


The big winners: Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport, Houston's Intercontinental and Los Angeles International Airport, which opened seven new security lanes this month to alleviate some of the longest lines in the USA. "It will be a great help," LAX spokesman Tom Winfrey said.

Big losers: New York's Kennedy, Pittsburgh and Portland, Ore.


Hmmmm....let's see...New York? Voted for Kerry. Pittsburgh, PA? Voted for Kerry. Oregon? Voted for Kerry.

Just another example of a pattern in which Republicans are punishing the states that didn't vote for them.
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