Lawmakers mobilize to keep PDX screeners

Oregon's leaders fire off a complaint to U.S. transportation officials and rally congressional allies against the reductions

Members of Oregon's congressional delegation joined Gov. Ted Kulongoski in launching attacks Friday against the federal government's plan to slash the number of passenger and baggage screeners at Portland International Airport.

The moves came one day after the Transportation Security Administration reshuffled the number of screeners it employs at airports nationwide, eliminating 168 of the 509 positions that had been allocated to PDX. The downsizing will take place through attrition rather than immediate layoffs.

Portland's airport was the hardest hit among the nation's 30 largest, showing the biggest loss of screeners in both absolute and percentage terms.

Citing concerns about security and delays after a year when traffic at PDX increased by 7 percent, the delegation and the governor fired off letters Friday to the assistant secretary of the TSA, Edmund Hawley. The delegation's letter said it found the cuts "short-sighted and inexcusable," while the governor said they would jeopardize Oregon's growing economy and the security of the state and region.

The congressional letter, signed by all members of Oregon's delegation as well as Brian Baird, the U.S. representative who lives in Vancouver, cited a study by USA Today showing that PDX already has the 24th-longest average wait time and the 27th-highest percentage of wait times over 10 minutes at the nation's largest 100 airports.

U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, a member of the house transportation infrastructure and homeland security committees, said Friday that the TSA blindsided almost everyone with the changes, including the airports and the relevant congressional committees. Moreover, the agency provided almost no detail on the model it says it used to determine the allocations, save a simple list of some of the variables it looked at.

DeFazio said the study was outsourced to a vendor, and he questioned its competence. Friday's letter to the Department of Homeland Security requested an in-depth explanation of the allocation model and access to the data used to determine the staffing at PDX.

"We've got to get into the guts of this thing and figure it out," DeFazio said. "It doesn't make any sense to me. There are not enough screeners in the United States, and this is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."

DeFazio and U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer said they were recruiting influential members of the transportation and homeland security committees and would push for hearings on the process used to make the allocations.

DeFazio accused Republicans of engaging in an ideological push to privatize airport security and screening at the expense of passenger safety.

But he declined to say that any of the cuts were politically motivated by factors such as Portland's high-profile and controversial withdrawal from the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

"That's ridiculous," said Jennifer Peppin, a TSA spokeswoman. "This is a model that addresses all 450 commercial airports around the country. It has nothing to do with anything political."

Peppin provided a list of variables used in the model that included passenger and baggage processing rates, nonpassenger demand and flight schedules. But she couldn't say which variables caused such a radical shift in Portland's allocation, and said the data wouldn't be made public because of security concerns.

Airline managers at PDX expressed concern Friday about the changes but said they had little information on how the cuts would play out.

Reggie Barnes, station manager for Southwest Airlines, said the airline has been operating 75 percent to 80 percent full on its 37 daily departures this summer. Earlier this summer, screening delays and lost baggage became a big enough issue that carriers held a meeting with the TSA to express their dissatisfaction, he said.

"Portland has been on the radar this summer for the performance of the TSA and the holding of our airplanes and passenger bags," he said. Over the past month, he said, "things got better. There was a new sense of urgency."

However, conditions could deteriorate with the new cuts, particularly during high-traffic periods around the holidays.

Blumenauer said he was confident Portland's screener allocation would be adjusted after the delegation delves into the TSA's methodology.

"For us to be assigned the largest cut in the entire system defies logic," he said. "We can and will push back."

Has Portland been singled out by the Feds? I certainly hope so!!! DeFazio is a lying little Rat of a man that keeps getting re-elected. Grrr. Before 9/11 Portland was giving grief to Customs because they were actually checking documents. The mindset here just defies logic.

Rhetorical question for Congress: "Remind us again how federalizing this function was supposed to improve things?"

2 posted on 07/30/2005 2:08:05 PM PDT by NonValueAdded ("Freedom of speech makes it much easier to spot the idiots." [Jay Lessig, 2/7/2005])

I believe this move is in response to the London bombings. Seems that since the terrorist murders there, fewer 80 year old white grandmothers are choosing to fly, so fewer screeners are needed.

Dispose of ALL Tottaly Stupid A$$&ole employees and managment and let the Minute Man Project run airport security as well as the borders.

4 posted on 07/30/2005 2:22:40 PM PDT by ChefKeith (If Diplomacy worked, then we would be sitting here talking.)

Rather than whine for more pork, they should take this opportunity to demand that the incompetent TSA boobs depart their state.

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