Background checks serve a noble goal. They be sure that unhealthy actors can’t entry safe services, delicate info or high-risk supplies. However what safety worth is gained by requiring people to bear the identical background test a number of occasions?
Truck drivers who go the background test to function at ports and maritime services should bear the identical background test once more to be eligible to haul hazardous supplies. Equally, warehouse employees who go the background test to entry storage services are required to bear the identical background test once more to be eligible to deal with harmful items like compressed gases or biomedical gear.
This redundancy doesn’t improve our nationwide safety. In truth, it does the other. The siloed system for issuing these credentials is dear and inefficient. Including insult to the harm to our nationwide safety, the workers who’re required to carry these credentials are compelled to foot the invoice.
The women and men within the trucking business and different important members of our provide chain deserve a federal credentialing course of that respects their money and time. That’s why I’m calling on Congress to go the Transportation Safety Screening Modernization Act, a invoice launched within the U.S. Home by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash.
This bipartisan laws would harmonize our transportation safety applications, bringing long-overdue reforms to a system that was created with one of the best of intentions shortly following the 9/11 terrorist assaults. Upon the recommendation of the 9/11 Fee, the U.S. authorities established the Transportation Employee Identification Credential for provide chain employees accessing ports, the Hazardous Supplies Endorsement for drivers hauling hazardous supplies like gas and fertilizer, and the Free and Safe Commerce card to expedite border crossings.
Beneath the current system, these credentials should be utilized for individually, despite the fact that the background checks, supporting paperwork, and biometric info offered by candidates largely overlap. The Transportation Safety Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Safety administer key provide chain safety applications, and every has its personal personnel, enrollment services, enrollment processes, and IT methods. The hefty charges candidates are charged to enroll in every program can shortly add up.
The Transportation Safety Screening Modernization Act would codify suggestions repeatedly made by authorities audits to scale back redundancy, prices, and problem for credentialed populations. Way back to 2007, only a few years after the implementation of those applications, the Authorities Accountability Workplace suggested TSA and CBP to extend coordination. The failure to implement these cheap modifications and harmonize applications that require the identical background test has compounded provide chain bottlenecks and elevated nationwide safety vulnerabilities.
If the companies is not going to act, then Congress should.
The act wouldn’t solely cut back the monetary and bureaucratic burdens positioned on transportation employees fulfilling their core job obligations, however it might additionally inject some much-needed frequent sense into authorities procedures. A extra unified system would allow Division of Homeland Safety personnel to give attention to their major duty of safeguarding the nation and thwarting terror assaults, and it might eradicate pointless fragmentation that might permit a risk to slide by the cracks.
Importantly, this bipartisan invoice doesn’t make any modifications that might water down present background checks. Candidates would bear the identical rigorous evaluation that they do below the present legislation. The laws would merely permit transportation employees to use for a number of credentials concurrently, saving them important money and time whereas additionally lowering the variety of complicated regulatory hurdles they should clear to do their jobs.
I thank Rep. Smith for spearheading this initiative within the Home, and I name on Sen. Maria Cantwell to champion the Senate companion laws within the higher chamber.
Given our lengthy border with Canada and the bustling Port of Seattle, Washington has rather a lot to realize from this laws. It could additionally profit a whole bunch of 1000’s of truck drivers, pipeline operators, longshore employees, warehouse managers, and different important employees nationwide.
The individuals who preserve our economic system transferring shouldn’t be burdened by pointless bureaucratic redundancy. Congress ought to take this chance to implement a streamlined system that helps America’s employees and the resilience of our provide chain.
