Transportation Security Administration Reform and Improvement Act of 2015
Latest action. Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Transportation Security Administration Reform and Improvement Act of 2015
TITLE I--AVIATION SECURITY
(Sec. 101) This bill directs the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to operate a trusted passenger-screening TSA PreCheck Program that provides expedited screening for low-risk passengers and their accessible property based on a comprehensive and continuous analysis of specified factors.
The TSA shall publish PreCheck application enrollment standards to add multiple private sector application capabilities for the program to increase the public's enrollment access to the program.
Upon publication of such standards, the TSA must:
coordinate with interested parties to deploy TSA-approved ready-to-market private sector solutions that meet such standards, make available additional enrollment capabilities, and offer secure online and mobile enrollment opportunities;
partner with the private sector to collect biographic and biometric identification information via secure mobile enrollment platforms to reduce the amount of travel to enrollment centers;
ensure that any biometric and biographic information is collected in a manner comparable with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards and that protects privacy and data security, including that any personally identifiable information is collected, retained, used, and shared in a manner consistent with the Privacy Act of 1974;
ensure that individuals who have started an application with a single identification verification at one location will be able to save it on any mobile enrollment platform and be able to return within a reasonable time to submit a second identification verification;
ensure that any enrollment expansion using a private sector risk assessment instead of a fingerprint-based criminal history records check is equivalent to the fingerprint-based check conducted through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI);
develop and implement a process for approving private sector marketing of the program and a strategy for partnering with the private sector to encourage enrollment; and
report on any PreCehck Program fees collected in excess of the costs of administering the program, including recommendations for using such amounts to support its marketing.
The TSA must also:
The summary continues for 42 more paragraphs. Read it in full on Congress.gov
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Passed House amended" stage on February 23, 2016. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on February 24, 2016: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 114th Congress (2015-16), 329 of the 10,233 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.2 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
John Katko (R-NY) introduced it on September 22, 2015, and 2 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They come from both major parties: 1 Democrat, 1 Republican.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on September 22, 2015, 4006 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 3851 days ago, on February 24, 2016.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 114th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2017 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers