Key Panel OKs Leahy-Stevens Amendment
To Mandate Delay Of Border-Crossing Card 

WASHINGTON (Thursday, June 14) – The Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday approved an amendment by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to halt the launch of a plan for a new border-crossing card for at least 17 months, to give the Departments of State and Homeland Security more time to fix its problems. 

The Leahy-Stevens Amendment mandates at least a 17-month shift in the launch of the land and sea components of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) -- from next January, to June 1, 2009.  That phase is by far the project’s largest.  Leahy cited current passport processing backlogs, caused by recent implementation of the smaller air travel phase of WHTI, that have snarled thousands of Americans’ travel plans in recent weeks.  He said today’s disruptions are a hint of worse chaos to come if the Administration holds to its current schedule. 

The amendment was included in the managers’ package of amendments to the annual Homeland Security Appropriations Bill, after Leahy and Stevens lined up a formidable bipartisan coalition of support.  The bill goes next to the full Senate.  Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) also are cosponsors of the Leahy-Stevens Amendment. 

The Leahy-Stevens Amendment reflects growing frustration that the two departments have refused to take the extra time Congress gave them last year, in an earlier Leahy-Stevens Amendment, to iron out the program’s problems.  Administration officials tried to thwart the Leahy-Stevens Amendment and insist they will be ready this coming January, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.  The Leahy-Stevens Amendment enacted last fall gave the two departments a choice in using 17 more months to work out WHTI’s problems.  Their new amendment doesn’t give the departments a choice.  The amendment also includes the same seven requirements that must be certified as met before the land and sea phase can be launched.   

Leahy said, “Senator Stevens and I believe we should fix these problems before this plan is imposed on travelers, instead of trying to clean up the mess afterward.  The Administration is walking blithely toward a cliff with this program, and they’re threatening to take millions of Americans with them.  Their competence in being able to get this right was already in question, and when they keep insisting they’ll be ready in six months, so is their judgment.”  

Stevens said, “Senator Leahy and I have followed this issue for nearly three years because there’s a real chance our states will be adversely impacted if these requirements are implemented in haste.  Thousands of travelers must pass through Canada by road or by cruise ship each year in order to reach Alaska.  Federal agencies need this extra time – they’re already struggling to keep up with an extreme increase in passport applications, and the full implementation of this initiative will generate even more requests.  Without careful and thoughtful planning, the WHTI’s land and sea provisions could cripple the ability of Alaskans and others to travel to and from our state.”   

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Leahy and Stevens earlier this week asked the departments to voluntarily delay implementation for 17 months.  [The letter is posted on the Leahy website, leahy.senate.gov] 

The certification requirements require the two departments to: 

1) Ensure that the technology for any Passport Card (PASS Card) meets certain security standards - and that the National Institutes of Standards and Technology certify the technology chosen by DHS and State. 

2) Share the technology with the governments of Canada and Mexico. 

3) Justify the fee set for the PASS Card.  

4) Develop an alternative procedure for groups of children traveling across the border under adult supervision with parental consent. 

5) Install all necessary technological infrastructure at the ports of entry to process the cards and train U.S. agents at the border crossings in all aspects of the new technology.  

6) Make the PASS Card available for international land and sea travel between the United States and Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean and Bermuda. 

7) Establish a unified implementation date for all sea and land borders.

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