27 September 2001

Senior Administration Official Briefs on U.S. Airline Safety

The federal government is going to assume responsibility for the security of U.S. airports and airlines, a senior administration official told reporters September 27 at a briefing on the airline security proposals President Bush had announced the same day in a speech at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

"What the President is proposing is to set up a federal agency that will assume management and control of the screening and security functions, and provide a uniform federal law enforcement presence at our nation's commercial airports," the senior administration official said.

While the U.S. Congress works on the proposal, President Bush is asking the governors of the 50 states to provide National Guardsmen to provide security at the 420 commercial airports in the country, the official said. Some 4,000 to 5,000 National Guardsmen, he said, will be "augmenting" the security workers already on duty at those airports, the official said, for a period expected to last about six months.

In addition, the senior administration official noted that "We're dramatically expanding the federal air marshal program. That expansion has been under way since September 11th. It will continue over the next few months, and the President will seek to make the expansion of the program permanent, with Congress' support," the official said.

President Bush is also proposing to set aside $500 million in grants to the airlines to provide cockpit security and aircraft security, the official said.

"The Department of Transportation will begin taking applications immediately; the funds will become available October 1st. And those funds will be used for programs that the airlines can immediately begin implementing to provide for cockpit security, and will also go to fund research and development for advanced technologies that will provide continued and greater security in the future."

Following is the transcript:

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Hi, how are you doing? As most of you are aware, last week, on Saturday, the President signed into law a package that had been worked with Congress to provide for stabilization of the airline industry in light of the terrorist attacks of September 11th. I think most of you probably know already what the details of that package were, but I'll just go over them very quickly.

The $5 billion in cash grants for immediate cash injection into the airlines to make up for losses that they suffered in the week directly following the attack, and expected losses because of decreased demand in the couple of months following the attack before the end of the year.

The package also approved $10 billion in loan guarantees and set up a stabilization board chaired by the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and including Secretary O'Neill, Secretary Mineta, and the Comptroller General as an ex officio member.

It also took care of some retrospective liability and prospective liability concerns that were making it difficult for the airlines to achieve the economic stability to move forward, and at the same time, set up a fair and expeditious process for compensating victims.

The President thought that was critical to do that last week in order to provide the stability the airlines would need to keep the planes flying. At the same time, the President reserved, last week, $3 billion for safety and airline security because he understood, as did the leaders in Congress, that the single most important thing we can do for the airlines to get them back on their feet and stable is to restore consumer confidence and the confidence of the American public that the American airlines' airplanes are safe.

So, today, the President rolled out, as you know, the outlines of his proposal that he'll be working -- the administration will be working with Congress on over the next few days and weeks as to how to achieve that airline security. I'll just go over very quickly what the main pillars of that proposal are, and then I'll take any questions you may have.

The first one is that the President announced that we're dramatically expanding the federal air marshal program. That expansion has been under way since September 11th. It will continue over the next few months, and the President will seek to make the expansion of the program permanent, with Congress' support.

The second step is that the federal government is going to assume responsibility for the security of our airports and airlines. What the President is proposing is to set up a federal agency that will assume management and control of the screening and security functions, and provide a uniform federal law enforcement presence at our nation's commercial airports.

The third pillar of the President's proposal is to set aside $500 million in grants to the airlines to provide cockpit security and aircraft security. The Department of Transportation will begin taking applications immediately; the funds will become available October 1st. And those funds will be used for programs that can immediately begin -- that the airlines can immediately begin implementing to provide for cockpit security, and will also go to fund research and development for advanced technologies that will provide continued and greater security in the future. And you heard the President mention a couple of those today -- things like transponders that can't shut off from the cockpit in flight, and a little bit further down the road, working on technologies that could allow the air traffic control to take control of an aircraft in flight by remote control and bring it to ground safely in the event the pilot should lose control.

So those are the basic pillars. And the last one, actually, is a transitional announcement that the President made today, which is that he is going to be asking the governors of the 50 states to provide National Guardsmen to provide security at the 420 commercial airports in the country, to immediately begin restoring that confidence of the flying public so they see a uniformed presence of a federal officer -- well, in this case, a state officer as a National Guardsman, and will have that security of knowing that there are armed personnel there overseeing the functions of the security personnel.

And I'll open it up to any questions.

Question: In terms of security, the actual screeners will not be federal workers, they will just be federal supervision in training and background checks, right?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Once the President's final proposal is in place or with the National Guardsmen?

Question: No, what's the President's final proposal?

Senior Administration Official: Oh, what the President is proposing and what he's going to work with Congress on over the next few days is a plan that would have a federal agency supervise, oversee, manage, train --

Question: I understand that, but the actual workers would not be federal workers?

Senior Administration Official: Some of the workers I think will be federal workers. There will be armed law enforcement personnel -- federal law enforcement personnel. The actual screeners? The intention is that the federal government will have the option of contracting that out to private firms who the federal government will train, supervise, do background checks on, and set the standards for.

Question: Now, in terms of the sky marshals, are we talking 100,000 sky marshals, which people say that's what it would take to put one on every aircraft?

Senior Administration Official: The number of sky marshals is not -- is something the administration is going to try and keep classified for the obviously security reasons, is that we don't want terrorists knowing how many are up there and kind of figure out what the odds are. But it's going to be dramatically increased -- it already has been significantly increased and will continue to be over the next couple of weeks, and then finally when the President and the Congress make the plan permanent.

Question: Is there some sort of range you can give us -- like tenfold or -- on the numbers for sky marshals, can you give any kind of ballpark thing, percentage, a tenfold increase --

Senior Administration Official: No, is the short answer. Like I say, we're going to keep that classified as much as possible. It's a dramatic increase. It already has been a dramatic increase, and as I say, it's going to continue. And to some extent, those numbers will have to be finalized between the administration and Congress. But it's going to be dramatic.

Question: And it's obviously not every flight. There will not be an sky marshal on every flight in America, right? You can't say what percentage, even?

Senior Administration Official: No, I'm not prepared to say that at this time.

Question: Can you say how you select the flights the sky marshals fly on?

Senior Administration Official: Well, generally speaking, the FAA currently makes a determination as to the threat assessment. They look and take advantage of whatever intelligence information they might have and try and determine the best allocation of the federal air marshals that they have. And as I say, that number is increasing by the day.

Question: Can we say that there were no federal air marshals on the flights that were hijacked on September 11th?

Senior Administration Official: I believe that's been confirmed, that there were not.

Question: What about calls from some of the mayors that the President's proposals don't go far enough? They say they want security along the par of what's already in place in Israel and Germany and France.

Senior Administration Official: Well, I can tell you the administration has been working -- the question was how does the administration respond to complaints by mayors --

Question: -- to the mayors' call that the measures don't go far enough.

Senior Administration Official: Which mayor?

Question: The U.S. Conference of Mayors are saying the proposals don't go far enough.

Senior Administration Official: Well, the first thing is I think the proposal was just announced today. It's going to take a little bit of time, as the President works with Congress, to see the exact language of what comes out of it. But I think most people, when they sit down and look at it, are going to think that this is a considerable improvement. The federal government is assuming responsibility for the security of our airports and airlines, and the administration thinks that the best way to do that is to take the approach the President announced today.

One of the reasons for that, quite frankly, is that when you have private contractors, the federal government has much more flexibility in terms of hiring and firing. And I think that a lot of people will come to see that that actually contributes to safety because the federal government will have much more latitude to take employment actions when they think that safety standards aren't being met.

Question: But in terms of them saying they want security forces like in Israel, France or in Germany?

Senior Administration Official: Well, I think every country has different security circumstances and has different population circumstances. Israel, obviously, has a very different set of circumstances with the number of airlines that it has and the number of flights, the number of people, the number of airports. I think that when folks get a look at this plan, they'll see it's very robust and that the President and, I think, the Congress are very serious about assuring the safety of America's airports and aircraft.

Question: On the National Guard deployment as a temporary basis -- how quickly could they get into the airports, given the time for activation, and then the FAA training?

Senior Administration Official: We think that that could happen very quickly, in a matter of days, actually. There's going to be some coordination that needs to take place between the FAA and the Department of Defense will be assisting the coordination with the state governors. FAA has a plan to do training on the spot either at the airports or at armories, and FAA tells us that they can do that training in three or four days. So the hope is that the governors will respond, and I think the belief is the governors will respond very quickly to provide the resources, and the FAA will be in just as quickly as possible to start on that training.

Question: What will they actually do at airports?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The intention is to station the guardsmen at the security checkpoints at the airports. There are 420 airports, roughly 750 security checkpoints. The FAA has worked out the numbers that they think are appropriate to provide security and to provide the American public with the confidence that there's an armed, trained professional force there to ensure the safety of the airports.

Question: So they won't be replacing the people who run --

Senior Administration Official: They will not be replacing the people -- they will be augmenting. They'll be --

Question: How many guardsmen, and what's the cost?

Senior Administration Official: The initial estimate of the numbers of guardsmen it will take is somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 to 5,000, which I think closer to this 4,000 number. But the idea is to get these folks on the ground, and FAA will continue to look at it and see exactly whether those numbers are meeting the needs.

Question: Will they carry live ammunition? Because guardsmen usually don't.

Senior Administration Official: I'm going to have to direct that question to either the FAA or the Department of Defense. I actually don't know the answer to that.

Question: Cost?

Senior Administration Official: The cost of this -- first estimates -- and we're still working it out, and of course, it depends on how the governors respond -- but the initial cost estimates are somewhere in the ballpark of $100 million to $150 million. That will be for a six-month period. Hopefully, it will be less than that -- be required for less than that.

Question: Democrats on the House, a lot of them, have said that they don't want to pass this legislation, security legislation, without measures or legislation for the displaced workers. The President didn't address that issue today in any sort of specificity. Is that something that the administration is going to do in the next week?

Senior Administration Official: The question is, some Democrats on the Hill want to link displaced workers legislation with an airline security package, and what's our position on that.

Question: Yes, if this legislation is going to be held up unless those demands are met.

Senior Administration Official: Our anticipation is that this legislation won't get held up, that we've had very close consultations with Democrats and Republicans in both Houses. Everybody is extremely interested in providing for airline-aircraft security. I think everybody understands how important that is to the traveling public and to the economy. So our expectation is we're going to be able to work well with both Houses and members from both parties, and hopefully move with the speed that the administration and Congress was able to move with last week in getting the important stabilization package through.

Question: And where are you, though, on that issue of help for these workers?

Senior Administration Official: I'm going to let the President speak to that -- you said he did not speak to that today -- I'm just going to talk about what he did speak about today.

Question: Has the President ruled against allowing pilots to carry guns?

Senior Administration Official: It's not my understanding that the President has made a ruling of any sort on that. The FAA and the Department of Transportation are viewing all manner of proposals, and they'll continue to do so. This, by no means, I think the President said yesterday -- and Claire can correct me on this -- I think he said we're open to all proposals and the administration is listening to them. It's not, obviously, part of the package the President rolled out today, but the Secretary of Transportation and the Administrator of the FAA will continue to evaluate the proposals as they come on.

Question: And just to follow up on the stationing of the Guard troops, do you anticipate they will be needed for less than six months then, while these other measures are implemented?

Senior Administration Official: Right now we're estimating that it will take 4 to 6 months to get these measures through. That's assuming, as I said in response to the last question, that the Congress moves quickly, which I think that they will -- 4 to 6 months. We're going to try to get this program up as fast as possible and provide the American public with the security that they need.

Question: Two questions. The federal agency, do you see it as a free-standing, or under which department would it be? And the remote control proposal, how much money do you actually plan to spend on that?

Senior Administration Official: On the first one, the federal agency, the proposal right now is to set this up under a federal agency. The final determination hasn't been made. As I said, the administration is in consultation with Congress on all of these elements of the proposal, and obviously, the administration will be listening very closely to what Congress has to say about where they think this agency -- where this authority ought to be. And the administration is reviewing options for that as well.

On the second question, which was remote control, I don't know how much of the money, of the $500 million that the President set aside today will be devoted to research and development on that. The Department of Transportation is going to be reviewing applications for grant money and for research and development options, and they'll have to make judgments as to what the most promising uses of that $500 million are.

Question: On cockpit doors again, you've got 4,000 aircraft with 10 different cockpit designs. It seems to me that those are some real logistical hurdles to get over in retrofitting. What is the -- overseas carriers? Will they be required to have fortified doors to enter American air space?

Senior Administration Official: Right now the President's proposal is focusing on the domestic air carriers. It's exactly right that one of the logistical challenges is that there are many different aircraft models with many different structural designs; each one presents different design challenges, which is why the President has decided to use this grant program that makes the money available so that airlines can quickly get to work on designing the best approaches, most effective, most efficient approaches for their particular aircraft, rather than mandating a one-size-fits-all solutions which may not take into consideration particular design concerns.

Question: About the federal agency, at what point did you determine -- that the FAA --

Senior Administration Official: I'm not sure any final determinations have been made as to where this responsibility will be lodged. There have been concerns raised by members on the Hill that maybe the FAA is not the most appropriate agency, but I'm not prepared to say that --

Question:Aren't you guys calling for a different agency, quasi-agency to handle security management and oversee that? Why do that and not use the existing structures under the FAA? What's wrong with the FAA?

Senior Administration Official: There's not anything wrong with the FAA. We're moving into -- this isn't to suggest there's anything wrong with the FAA. We're moving to a new type of security arrangement in the United States, one that hadn't been contemplated before and is not contemplated by the current organizational structure of the FAA, or of its current capacity. Again, I'm not here to tell you that any particular agency has been ruled in or ruled out for this function, but it will, at the end of the day, have a law enforcement function as there will be uniform law enforcement personnel in the airports.

Question: Just to follow up on that, because we keep tossing around some words -- you're actually talking about creating an office that would be within some other department or agency, right? You're not really talking about creating a new agency?

Senior Administration Official: The determination of where this authority is going to be lodged has not been finally decided. And I think --

Question: Well, what would you like? You would like it to be an office within some existing authority, right?

Senior Administration Official: By some existing authority, one of the Cabinet departments, it will be lodged under one of the Cabinet departments.

Question: -- to be lodged under one of the Cabinet departments as a separate agency?

Senior Administration Official: Not necessarily as a separate agency. The authority may go with an agency that's currently established. It may be a new authority within an existing department. These are the things we're going to need to talk about, and the President and the administration are continuing to discuss with the members of Congress and taking their input on that. It's obviously an important question and one that we'll be focusing on over the next few days.

Question: Two questions. First, a follow-up on the agency question. Will this agency have then authority to make policy decisions in terms of passenger profiling? And secondly, I'm wondering about the National Guard. Did you say 4,000-5,000?

Senior Administration Official: Between 4,000 and 5,000.

Question: There are 420 airports. That averages out to about 10 per airport. How many National Guardsmen are you expecting to be at airports like O'Hare?

Senior Administration Official: Well, it's going to depend on the size of the airport and the type of security mechanisms that they currently have. The FAA has done analysis and determined what's the appropriate presence for these National Guardsmen at security checkpoints -- basically, where screening takes place.

Question:They're not going to be at gates, or anything like that?

Senior Administration Official: The current plan is that they will be stationed at the screening checkpoints. And for the vast majority of airports, that's very small, and many airports in the United States are very small and will be able to be serviced by a smaller number of Guardsmen. The bigger airports obviously will have more people stationed there and they'll have more shifts, so they'll have more people over the course of the 24-hour period, as well.

Question: And on the passenger profiling?

Question: -- you mean a checkpoint where you have the mags and where you go through and you put your bag on -- that's where they're going to be?

Senior Administration Official: Yes, sir. They're going to be at the screening checkpoints where the passengers and the bags go through.

Question: -- on passenger profiling, will the agency have that type of regulatory authority --

Senior Administration Official: The agency will be tasked with setting the standards, doing screening and background and providing for airport security. To the extent that that requires access to certain information, that may be in the plan. That will be -- those are the details that will be worked out when the agency is designed, or the function of the agency is designed. But the expectation is that this agency will be responsible for and will be able to provide for security for the nation's airports.

Thank you.