After two and a half years of deliberations and more than 20,000 public comments on its original plans, the Homeland Security Department released the specifications for state-issued identification cards and driver’s licenses today.
People will need Real ID documents to board federally regulated aircraft or to enter federal buildings. Several states have resisted the program and under the new rules, residents of those states would have to use other forms of identification to fly, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a press conference announcing the requirements.
As of May 11, federal buildings will no longer accept driver’s licenses or ID cards from states that are not complying with the act unless a state has gotten an extension from DHS, which can last through May 2011.
Residents in states with extensions can continue to use their old IDs to board aircraft and enter federal buildings through Dec. 1, 2014, and Dec. 1, 2017, if the holder is older than 50 years old.
DHS’ Real ID plan aims to satisfy requirements laid out in the Real ID Act of 2005, which mandates that the federal government establish national standards to strengthen the integrity of state driver’s licenses.
DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said the new requirements for the cards, which are estimated to cost an extra $8 per license, represented a 73 percent cost reduction from the original estimated cost of $14.6 billion. States and civil libertarians expressed their concerns about the initial regulations that the department released last March.
Officials at the American Civil Liberties Union called the Real ID cards unworkable and impossible to implement. Officials accused DHS of “kicking the can down the road” to the next administration by extending the projects implementation to as late as 2017.
At a press conference about the Real ID regulations, the ACLU encouraged states not to spend money on the program, which according to the civil liberty advocates faces significant legislative challenges.
Chertoff said that by passing the rules the Bush administration was avoiding “kicking the problem down the road” and the “time-tested Washington way of smothering any proposal with process.”
Anyone with concerns about the new regulations should submit them online so he could answer them on DHS’ Leadership Journal blog.
Initial reaction from Capitol Hill was mixed.
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