Airport Perimeter and Access Control Security Act of 2016

Floor Speech

I rise today in strong support of my legislation, H.R. 5056, the Airport Perimeter and Access Control Security Act.

I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry) for his hard work in the Committee on Homeland Security where we are colleagues, as well as his work trying to keep our Nation's security and our airport security at its highest level.

Mr. Speaker, this bill was a long time coming. Since I was first elected to Congress in 2010, I have worked hard to secure our Nation's airports.

The last case I had when I was a district attorney before entering Congress was the case of a young 16-year-old who had secreted himself on a commercial airliner penetrating the perimeter of the Charlotte- Douglas International Airport and, undetected, stowed himself away in the wheel well. Tragically, he went from North Carolina, and his body was found in Massachusetts in the district I represented.

As we investigated the cause of that death, we found out what the circumstances were that he had penetrated all the security. In fact, I sent my investigators down from Massachusetts to look at that. Even knowing that this had occurred, there was no record, videowise or otherwise, of what he had done. So even looking backwards, we couldn't even find out where the security was breached until we made the conclusions at the end of our investigation and looked at the perimeter of that airport and how vulnerable that was.

Since that time, I have demanded information on areas of perimeter and access security in our airports. Frankly, not satisfied with the progress in addressing these security issues, I requested an independent review in 2014 of all airports with a Transportation Security Administration presence.

Released this spring, this independent report by the GAO found that while TSA has made some progress in assessing risks to airport perimeter and access control security, the agency had not taken new or emerging threats into consideration, as well as the unique makeup of individual airports, the points of access at those individual airports, and the unique perimeters surrounding those airports.

Updating the risk to our airports with information that reflects the current threat ensures that the TSA bases its risk management decisions on current information and focuses its limited resources on the highest priority risks to each airport.

Further, GAO found that TSA has not comprehensively assessed the vulnerability of commercial airports systemwide. In fact, from 2009 to 2015, TSA conducted these comprehensive assessments at only 81 of the 437 commercial airports nationwide or 19 percent. And that is cumulatively. Some years, that assessment only occurred in 3 percent of the airports. This legislation will make permanent the recommendations from this independent report.

Specifically, the bill requires TSA to update transportation security sector risk assessments for the entire aviation sector. It requires it to update the comprehensive risk assessment perimeter access control with the most currently available intelligence. It requires that it conduct a thorough assessment of airport perimeters and access control points, such as the unique geography each individual airport entails. And it determines a future strategy of regular updates.

Further, the bill incorporates the input of major airport operators, which we met with here in D.C. with the Committee on Homeland Security. We heard firsthand their concern of the lack of an individualized security strategy.

A recent report of the Associated Press investigation found that intruders breach airport fences approximately every 10 days. Altogether, there were at least 39 breaches nationwide in 2015, which was also the annual average from 2012 to 2015. TSA's own calculation over a 10-year period ending in 2011 showed 1,300 perimeter breaches in the 450 domestic airports, but that figure does not account for continued perimeter security breaches since 2011, including stowaways, trespassing across tarmacs, scaling of perimeter fences, and driving vehicles through barriers across airport property.

The landscape in which terrorists operate is constantly changing and it is challenging. We have to stay ahead of it. We have to look no further than the recent attacks in Paris, Brussels, and Istanbul to see what the threats are within access points and perimeters of airports. We were lucky here in the U.S. that the individuals that breach these access points and perimeters did not have the same nefarious intentions, but that doesn't mitigate the risk. It doesn't mitigate the fact that these people pose dangerous behavior potentially to our airports, to our employees and, of course, the passengers and travelers who rely on TSA officers and airport operators for their security.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 5056.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, the attacks on airports currently in Europe show the challenging terrorist attack efforts that are currently a threat here in the United States. This bipartisan legislation will close loopholes in our airport security practices and procedures and bring us closer to ensuring that access control points and perimeters of all design are as secure as possible.

Passage of this bill is an important step in the safety for passengers, pilots, and airport employees as well.

I thank the chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security's Transportation Security Subcommittee, Mr. Katko; our ranking member, Miss Rice; full committee ranking member, Mr. Thompson of Mississippi; Mr. King; Mr. Richmond; Mr. Swalwell; and Mrs. Torres for joining me and supporting this legislation.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 5056.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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