GAO-04-315R Aviation and Port Security

United States General Accounting Office 

Washington, DC 20548 

December 12, 2003 

The Honorable Ernest F. Hollings 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation 

United States Senate 

Subject: Posthearing Questions Related to Aviation and Port Security

Dear Senator Hollings: 

This letter responds to your November 17, 2003, request that we provide answers to 

questions relating to our September 9, 2003, testimony on transportation security.1 

The questions posed by Senator Frank Lautenberg to GAO, along with our responses, 

follow. 

1. I am concerned that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the 

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are dealing with our 

nation’s pressing life and death security needs by playing shell games with 

critical resources. Last week, Secretary Ridge announced that 5,000 new 

air marshals would be trained, but that these individuals would come from 

the existing ranks of custom and immigration agents. During high-threat 

periods, this cross-training plan might enhance air security but will come 

at the expense of border and ground security. Under the Administration’s 

plan to utilize current immigration and customs employees to double as 

air marshals, how will DHS ensure that, during high-threat periods, there 

are adequate personnel both in air marshal roles and at the border as 

customs/immigration agents? 

DHS’s plan does not explicitly address the adequacy of the current immigration, 

customs, and air marshal workforces to address concurrent high threats to border, 

ground, and aviation security. Rather, the plan provides for temporarily enhancing 

the air marshal workforce to respond to high threats to aviation. Specifically, 

according to Secretary Ridge, cross-training immigration and customs officers in air 

 

1

U.S. General Accounting Office, Aviation Security: Progress Since September 11, 2001, and the 

Challenges Ahead, GAO-03-1150T (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 9, 2003) and U.S. General Accounting 

Office, Maritime Security: Progress Made in Implementing Maritime Transportation Security Act, 

but Concerns Remain, GAO-03-1155T (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 9, 2003). 
Page 2 GAO-04-315R Aviation and Port Security 

marshal tactics would give DHS greater flexibility to adjust its law enforcement 

resources according to varying threats and provide a surge capacity during periods of 

high threats to aviation. The immigration and customs officers would not be used as 

air marshals during every high-threat period; they would be used as such only when 

there was a high risk to aviation. 

DHS’s cross-training plan could have some benefits; but, as we recently reported, it 

also poses training and administrative challenges.2 According to the Secretary, the 

cross-training for immigration and customs agents and federal air marshals will be 

centralized. Centralization could eventually produce some cost efficiencies. 

However, cross-training will expand the roles and responsibilities of all three lawenforcement workforces; and a needs assessment will have to be conducted to 

identify each workforce’s additional training requirements. Cross-training 

requirements and curriculums also will have to be established and approved. In 

addition, each affected workforce’s organization will have to coordinate the new 

training requirements with its other mission requirements, as it schedules its officers 

for cross-training. Finally, planned changes in the roles and responsibilities of the 

federal law enforcement officers could have implications for their performance 

evaluations and compensation. Currently, the three law enforcement workforces are 

under different pay systems and are compensated at different rates. DHS has efforts 

under way to deal with these issues. 

2. Are any new air marshals currently being trained? 

New air marshals are currently being hired and provided basic training at the rate of 

about one class per month, a rate sufficient to offset attrition and maintain the 

current number of air marshals. According to the Federal Air Marshals Service, there 

is no surge in hiring or training forecasted because the goal for hiring air marshals set 

by the Secretary of Transportation after September 11, 2001, was met in July 2002, as 

planned. 

In addition to the required basic training, the Service instituted a 4-week advanced 

training course for air marshals in October 2002. All air marshals hired from October 

2001 through July 2002 were required to complete the course by January 2004. Air 

marshals hired after August 2002 attend this advanced training course after 

completing their basic training. In August 2003, the Service reported that proposed 

cutbacks in its training funds would require it to extend the January 2004 date to mid2004. According to DHS, the Service’s transfer to Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement (ICE) will not adversely affect either the funding for air marshals’ 

training or the schedule for newly hired air marshals to complete the 4-week training 

course, since a total of $626.4 million is being transferred from TSA to ICE. However, 

it is not clear how much of the funding will be allocated for training. Given the 

importance of training to ensure that air marshals are prepared to carry out their 

 

2

U.S. General Accounting Office, Aviation Security: Federal Air Marshal Service Is Addressing 

Challenges of Its Expanded Mission and Workforce, but Additional Actions Needed, GAO-04-242

(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 19, 2003). 
Page 3 GAO-04-315R Aviation and Port Security

mission, we believe that maintaining adequate funding for training should remain a 

priority. 

3. DHS has recently tried to divert $30 million from the Operation Safe 

Commerce pilot program intended to identify and implement the systemic 

port security initiation in order to cover a budget shortfall in airport 

security. Do you believe federal port security programs are adequately 

funded? 

Effective maritime security requires the ability to put preventive systems, controls, 

and infrastructure in place. According to transportation security experts and state 

and local government and industry representatives we contacted, funding is the most 

pressing challenge to accomplishing this task. While some security improvements 

are inexpensive, most require substantial funding. Additionally, given the large 

number of assets to protect, the sum of even relatively less expensive investments 

can be cost prohibitive. According to Coast Guard estimates, the cost of 

implementing the new International Maritime Organization security code and the 

security provisions in the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) of 2002 will 

be approximately $1.5 billion for the first year and $7.4 billion over the succeeding 

decade. These costs are substantial sums, but it is not clear at this point how the 

costs will be paid, as the following examples illustrate. 

Funding difficulties can be seen in the implementation of TSA’s Transportation 

Worker Identification Card (TWIC). Although no national estimates of the cost are 

currently available, they are likely to be substantial. According to a TSA official, 

nationwide the agency expects to issue five to six million identification cards a year 

from mid-2004 to the end of 2007. In our work at Los Angeles, port authority officials 

expressed concern about how much it may cost to implement this card and all the 

steps and equipment associated with it, such as the installation of card readers 

throughout the port, the issuance of cards to port personnel, and adding staff to 

operate and maintain the system. A study for the ports of Los Angeles and Long 

Beach estimates that it will cost at least $45 million to perform the necessary start-up 

tasks. Because of these significant costs, maritime stakeholders are concerned about 

who will ultimately pay for the TWIC. One port authority official indicated that the 

cost may be passed on to workers as a cost of their employment. 

Another example of funding difficulties can be seen at the federal level, where an 

MTSA requirement for a vessel identification system is being phased in over time, 

partly because of funding limitations. This identification system, called the 

Automated Identification System (AIS), uses a device aboard a vessel to transmit a 

unique identifying signal to a receiver located at the port and to other ships in the 

area. This information gives port officials and other vessels nearly instantaneous 

information about a vessel’s identity, position, speed, and course. Such a system 
Page 4 GAO-04-315R Aviation and Port Security 

would provide an “early warning” of an unidentified vessel or a vessel that was in a 

location where it should not be. MTSA requires that vessels in certain categories3

 

install tracking equipment between January 1, 2003, and December 31, 2004, with the 

specific date dependent on the type of vessel and when it was built. Effectively 

implementing the system requires considerable land-based equipment and other 

infrastructure that is not currently available in many ports. As a result, for the 

foreseeable future, the system will be available in less than half of the 25 busiest U.S. 

ports.4

Installing AIS at the remaining ports depends in part on when funding will be 

available. The only ports with the necessary infrastructure to use AIS are those that 

have waterways controlled by Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) systems.5

 Expanding 

coverage will require substantial additional investment, both public and private. The 

Coast Guard’s budget request for fiscal year 2004 includes $40 million for shore-based 

AIS equipment and related infrastructure—an amount that covers only current VTS 

areas. According to a Coast Guard official, wider-reaching national implementation of 

AIS would involve installation and training costs ranging from $62 million to $120 

million. Also, the cost of installing AIS equipment aboard individual ships averages 

about $10,000 per vessel, which is to be borne by the vessel owner or operator. Some 

owners and operators, particularly of domestic vessels, have complained about the 

cost of equipping their vessels. 

As we suggested in our testimony,6

 where the money will come from to meet these 

funding needs is not clear. One theme we have heard from maritime stakeholders is 

that the current economic environment makes this a difficult time for the private 

industry or state and local governments to make security investments. According to 

industry representatives and experts we contacted, most of the transportation 

industry operates on a very thin profit margin, making it difficult to pay for additional 

security measures. In addition, nearly every state and local government is facing a 

large budget deficit for fiscal year 2004. For example, the National Governors 

Association estimates that states are facing a total budget shortfall of $80 billion this 

upcoming year. Given the tight budget environment, state and local governments and 

transportation operators must make difficult trade-offs between transportation 

security investments and other needs, such as service expansion and equipment 

upgrades. According to the National Association of Counties, many local 

governments are planning to defer some maintenance of their transportation 

infrastructure to pay for some security enhancements. At the same time however, the 

 

3

All vessels of certain specifications on international voyages; self-propelled commercial vessels 65 feet or more in 

length; towing vessels 26 feet or more in length and more than 600 horsepower; vessels of 100 gross tons or more 

carrying one or more passengers for hire; and passenger vessels certificated to carry 50 or more passengers for 

hire. 

4

In addition to Los Angeles/Long Beach, the other ports currently scheduled to have this system are New 

York/New Jersey; the mouth of the Mississippi River; New Orleans; Houston/Galveston; Port Arthur, Texas; San 

Francisco; Seattle/Tacoma; Alaska’s Prince William Sound; and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. 

5

Similar to air traffic control systems, VTS uses radar, closed circuit television, radiophones, and other technology 

to allow monitoring and management of vessel traffic from a central shore-based location. 

6

GAO-03-1155T. 
Page 5 GAO-04-315R Aviation and Port Security

federal government faces its own challenges in finding considerable additional 

funding. Due to the costs of security enhancements and the transportation industries’ 

and state and local governments’ tight budget environments, the federal government 

is likely to be viewed as a source of funding for at least some of these enhancements. 

While federal moneys have been made available, requests for federal funding for 

transportation security enhancements will likely continue to exceed available 

resources, given the constraints on the federal budget as well as competing claims for 

federal assistance. 

- - - - - 

In responding to these questions, we relied primarily on our past work. We reviewed 

and analyzed data provided by the Federal Air Marshal Service and interviewed DHS 

officials. In addition, we visited the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to obtain 

the views of port officials. 

Should you or your office have any questions on aviation matters discussed in this 

report, please contact Gerald Dillingham at (202) 512-2834. For questions on 

maritime issues, please contact Margaret Wrightson at (415) 904-2200. Key 

contributors to this report include Steve Calvo, John W. Shumann, and Teresa Spisak. 

Sincerely yours, 

Gerald L. Dillingham 

Director, Civil Aviation Issues 

Margaret Wrightson 

Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues 

(540085) 
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