Passport System Reform and Backlog Prevention Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I will try not to take more time than is necessary for a bipartisan bill that has broad support, but I do rise today in support of H.R. 6610, the Passport System Reform and Backlog Prevention Act.

I became the author of this bill not in the usual way as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, but actually as a man who has three constituent service personnel who spend a great deal of their time dealing with the fact that when a backlog becomes pervasive, what ends up happening is every passport renewal becomes an emergency, and it becomes an expedited payment. It becomes, in short, a problem that should not have happened.

We certainly understand that during COVID there were a number of problems. One of them was the State Department had never prepared for being able to, in any remote way, process passports. So during that time, the backlog became understandably immense.

Be that as it may, in the several years since COVID has passed, the backlog has continued, and it has never reached an acceptable point for the American people.

Even today, Mr. Speaker, when you surrender a passport for renewal, you have no idea whether it will be weeks or even months before you get one. Most people are advised to pay the expedited fee. In fact, the expedited fee seldom gives them the speed that was intended.

We have talked to several countries, if you will, not necessarily our peers, but countries that have the same challenges we have. Britain, Japan, and Australia routinely reauthorize within a matter of days while we take a 5- to 8-week turnaround.

That is unacceptable. We are the country that effectively created the computer, created automation, and created the ability for something as mundane as adding a new picture to a previously issued passport. We should and could beat this.

The modernization is the first since the days of the early modem, the item that made sound and certainly could transport only a small amount of information.

Congressional intervention is needed. The State Department understands that, and for that reason, we have five basic principles in this, the most important of which is that we ask for private-sector techniques to be used and, in fact, for the State Department to work with the private sector that is more than capable of creating a faster system. In fact, some American companies are processing passports for other countries.

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