The TSA's latest effort to make air travel more efficient would have let passengers board flights at some small airports without being screened for threats like guns or explosives.

But then Congress got wind of the proposal. And now the TSA is backing down after lawmakers denounced the idea as bizarre and even dangerous, especially following terrorist attacks such as the March bombings in Brussels.


“From a security standpoint, it makes no sense,” said Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who learned months ago that the TSA had refused to place screeners at a regional airport in his district. Instead, the agency suggested, it would screen the passengers after they landed at larger airports and before they boarded connecting flights.

The dispute represents yet another setback for the agency’s troubled efforts to adopt what advocates call a leaner, more “risk-based” security strategy in an era of flat-lined budgets.

The agency has offered few public details about the latest proposal, including how many airports it would have affected, and refused to answer questions from POLITICO about its change of course. Members of Congress say TSA's strategy would have affected at least six airports, and some sources say it could have been as many as 22.

Supporters of the TSA plan say the risks would be limited: The smaller airports get relatively little air traffic, and the regional planes in question would be far smaller than the hijacked jumbo jets that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

But lawmakers criticized the idea as an invitation for terrorists to bring bombs or other weapons on board — something they called an unacceptable risk. They expressed astonishment that the TSA would even propose such a strategy.

“Their answer is fly to Portland, we’ll screen you when you land — reverse screening,” Walden said. “But meanwhile, what says the plane ends up in Portland? And by the way, it’s just flown over Oregon’s biggest city.”

“I don’t think most Americans would agree to get on a plane that’s got 49 other passengers without a sense that everybody on that plane is safe to be with,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) told POLITICO. Walden and Moran have each offered legislation — adopted by the House and Senate in separate bills — to prohibit the TSA from going ahead with the proposal.

The TSA has acknowledged the danger of not staffing some airports, no matter how small or rural. But ultimately, the agency has to weigh the risks against its budget and staffing, Administrator Peter Neffenger said.

“Basically you fly unscreened in that aircraft, then you land at another airport, then you get screened at that airport,” Neffenger said. “I understand the concern with that.”

But on the other hand, he said, many small airports don’t have a steady stream of flights, and sometimes airlines pull out entirely. “You have to have some guarantee that they be in service long enough to justify the expense of hiring screeners, putting the equipment in,” Neffenger said. “You don’t want to go in there and six months later have to pull it all back out.”

The TSA is already struggling with long lines at many of its major airports because of an uptick in travelers, a shortage of staff and a roughly $7 billion budget that Congress has kept essentially stagnant in recent years. Until last year, TSA was whittling down its front-line workforce year after year as it transitioned to what it called a more risk-based security strategy.

But the agency all but put that approach on hold last summer after a string of embarrassing security failures, including an internal investigation revealing that TSA screeners had failed to catch mock bombs and weapons in more than 95 percent of covert tests. The agency has also abandoned its practice of randomly sending unvetted passengers into its less-rigorous PreCheck screening lines, after an audit found that a known domestic terrorist had been allowed to board a plane that way.

The idea of “reverse screening” — screening passengers after they land instead of before they take off — has been around for more than a decade and is used in parts of Alaska. But several lawmakers said what works in the Last Frontier state shouldn’t be a tactic in the Lower 48, especially with overseas terrorist attacks like the Brussels airport and subway bombings fresh in their minds.

“You want people when they fly to have confidence,” Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said in an interview. “And that means flying from anywhere, any point of contact in the country.”

TSA relented on its latest plan Thursday, agreeing to staff screeners at least at some of the airports in question. That happened after the House passed a bill (H.R. 4549) this month — primarily written by Walden — that would require the TSA to staff small airports. On Tuesday, the Senate passed an FAA reauthorization bill (H.R. 636) containing identical language from Moran.

Walden’s office said he’s still determined to see his bill enacted to ensure the agency doesn’t backslide.

Lawmakers accused the agency of backdoor-lobbying members to vote against Walden’s bill.

“They were making up numbers that were wildly inaccurate about how much it would cost,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the top Democrat on the House Transportation Committee. “They were trying to get people from larger airports in urban areas to oppose the bill.”

DeFazio also objected to the idea of the agency simply refusing to offer screening at small airports, even if reverse screening is off the table. “John Mica and I created the TSA, and it was never our intent that they would dictate who can and cannot have commercial air service,” he said.

John Barsalou, director of the regional airport in Klamath Falls, Ore. — inside Walden's district — told POLITICO late last week that he still hasn’t heard from TSA about its plan to return. He essentially learned the news like everyone else: from a Capitol Hill news release.

The Klamath airport lost scheduled commercial service in June 2014 after an airline pulled out. But a different air carrier has been offering to resume service at the tiny airport since last fall if TSA would bring back security operations.

Barsalou said the TSA has rebuffed repeated requests over the last several months to resume screening at the airport — until Congress got involved.

The TSA refused to answer questions from POLITICO about which airports it would be restaffing. It also would not say how widespread the practice of reverse screening is, whether the agency had lobbied House lawmakers not to pass the bill and how it plans to pay for additional security staff.

“To me, the whole reverse screening thing was silly and didn’t make a lot of sense to a lot of people,” Barsalou said. “This is a budget thing for them.”

Indeed, staffing more airports would come with additional costs — a bill that Congress would have to pay, Neffenger said.

"Personally, I’d like to see us provide that service where they ask for it,” he said. “So my goal is to figure out a way to do that and provide the costs associated with it.”

But lawmakers from both sides of the aisle don’t seem convinced that TSA needs more money to do what they say is already its job — providing security at any and all airports that fly commercial service.

“They can find a way,” DeFazio said.

