House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul has been making the media rounds lately calling out the Obama administration for their lackluster anti-terror efforts. ISIS is still “on the march,” he said during a speech at George Washington University last week. In his remarks, he also explained that aviation security is our most vulnerable and important aspect of national security.
On the same note, the chairman is sounding off on the long wait times in airlines across the country. Security is paramount, but we don’t need to have two-three hour long security lines, he insisted during an appearance on Fox News on Thursday.
“TSA just doesn’t get,” McCaul told Fox’s Bill Hemmer on Thursday. “I don’t think they’re listening.”
Congress, however, is also to blame, the chairman said. These headaches could be easily alleviated if the Senate passes his two bills.
“We have two bills sitting in the Senate—one to deal with PreCheck expansion in the program, to take these long lines and put them into PreCheck lines—and another one to reform TSA and they’re just sitting over there in the Senate and they’re not taking action. They could help resolve this problem today if they would act. We also have a bill we’re introducing today to deal with this local input issue to mandate that they talk to the airlines and the airport authorities about when the flights are coming in.”
Airports are right to be on edge after the disappearance of EgyptAir flight 804. Yet, keeping families standing in line for hours on end does not seem like an efficient use of time. We should be holding airlines to a high safety standard, but we should be doing it in ways that make sense.
The Senate should start with McCaul's legislation.