Kay Granger: “this Congress set December 31 as the deadline for screening checked baggage for explosives, and 75 percent of our…”

“this Congress set December 31 as the deadline for screening checked baggage for explosives, and 75 percent of our airports will make that deadline, but for the other 25 percent, we have a train wreck coming. It is a crisis and it is a crisis of our own making because the deadline cannot be met. And let us understand why. First of all, let us talk about equipment, the baggage screening systems that will be used. As of this month, only 488 machines are being used at 59 airports nationwide. That leaves 6,600 machines that have to be bought, installed, and tested for accuracy by December 31. Can that be done? How well have we done so far? The Transportation Security Administration has been buying, installing, and testing one machine every 48 hours, and perhaps that is okay except TSA will have to go from one every 48 hours to one every 35 minutes to meet the December 31 deadline. That is assuming the machines can even be manufactured and ready, 6,600 in the next 5 months. And let us now go to personnel. We had a big debate over Federal baggage screeners, and upon our instructions TSA began hiring. Thus far, TSA has hired 166 Federal baggage screeners at the rate of one every other day. To meet the requirement and demand for a December deadline, TSA has to recruit, hire, and train another 21,434 baggage screeners in the next 159 days. That means not one every other day but one every 11 minutes.”