The U.S. Coast Guard now says that up to 1.5 million workers could need Transportation Worker Identification Credential cards -- twice the number that some had originally estimated would need the smart cards for unescorted access to secure areas of U.S port facilities and vessels.
But before the workers who will likely need the smart cards can begin to fully use their credentials, the Homeland Security Department still faces several challenges, including greater demand than was originally anticipated and unanswered policy questions about the requirements for individual ports and card reader specifications.
Initial predictions about how many credentials would be needed for some areas in the Gulf Coast were fractions of the number of cards that the region’s merchant mariners, port facility employees, longshoremen and truck drivers will likely need. For example, initial estimates for Baton Rouge, La., were 6,000 cards, but current predictions suggest that up to 60,000 will be needed. The disparity caused increased wait times for enrollments in those areas.
The Transportation Security Administration, which is in charge of issuing the credential, and Lockheed Martin, which TSA chose last year to oversee the enrollment process, say that after initial waits caused by increased demand, the program hired more employees and cut the average TWIC enrollment time nationwide to about 10 minutes.
Judith Marks, president at Lockheed Martin’s Security Solutions, said that the company also had corrected the information technology issue that originally caused several workers to have to come back to re-enroll after their data was not forwarded to TSA. Marks testified about the TWIC card enrollment progress at a Jan. 23 hearing before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee.
Although Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the subcommittee’s chairman, commended Lockheed Martin, TSA and the Coast Guard for their progress at the hearing, he also expressed concern about the reports regarding insufficient personnel and equipment being deployed in the enrollment process.
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