As legislators contemplated the spending bill last week, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), a longtime critic of the TSA and head of the Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on government operations, said at a hearing that he will propose legislation to privatize all federal screeners within two years.
There are currently 48,000 TSA screeners, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said during the hearing. Some of those personnel are managers and supervisors, a TSA official told USA Today last week. As such, it is unclear how the cap would affect staffing at security checkpoints.
Among the spending bill’s other TSA provisions, the legislation expands the agency’s pre-screening program, requiring efforts to make half of all passengers eligible for it without lowering security standards. It also requires TSA to develop more advanced screening techniques with the lowest possible operations costs.
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