Thank you, mister chairman. I was looking at the line and noticed eight minutes ago the Trump Administration reversed obamas policies with respect to cuba. Were you aware of that. It is going to scale back tremendously, i would appreciate you getting back to us what that means for travel in cuba. As i mentioned in a previous setting i got back from the resident delegation not long ago to western europe, jordan, to look at airports and Airport Security among other things was one thing we heard from people in germany and amsterdam and jordan, Security Officials think many airports that technically meet standards are not living up to those standards or adhering to standards even though they are approved. Have you heard that . I was in montreal in september, good standards, what i said in my keynote address is as a Global Community we need to implement these standards across the globe and with a sense of urgency. How do we do that . From my perspective we have a quad for, the United States, the european commission, canada and australia and we are completely aligned to aggressively implement the standards and we represent most of the traffic in the world and we will press that with our partners and leadership and i had the opportunity to sit down with the secretarygeneral when i was there and it is greatly improving priority security in the organization. A significant responsibility, i was heartened by and being aggressive about it. There was a disconnect somewhere. European counterparts, absolutely expressing concerns about many countries flying to their airports adhering to these standards. It was a minimum standard thing, these standards are shocking. I dont agree with you the standards are robust, you see a lot of airports in the caribbean and the middle east that may be meeting standards that are jawdropping. I will spend part of the day with my european counterpart on that trip to europe so i will have a discussion with him. Another thing that i think is correct, the European Union airports mandate 100 employee screening and even in a country of jordan they mandate 100 screening, we saw firsthand, separate entrances, doesnt seem to be a huge burden to enter a secure area and go through a checkpoint. You have the difference in the us which is amazing. I want to know your opinion, is it that much more difficult to have 100 employee screens, the rest of the world is doing it okay . I share your concern. That is one of the more significant challenges facing us as an overall community, that and personal Electronic Devices we discussed earlier. I want to get more information as to what is in the art of the possible in United States airports with respect to the threat, there are some studies that say if you randomly squeeze screen x you are as effective as screening 100 , but dont have the effect on the throughput of employees, i want to take a look at that but havent had a chance but i have been in secure areas of airports on the tarmac, an area we need to take a look at. Largest airport in the world, atlanta is not missing a beat. Since i have been in office since 2015 we have had guns being smuggled from atlanta to new york, major Drug Trafficking cases all over the country involving insiders, flight attendants carrying drugs to the checkpoints, and an employee checking manifest where federal air marshals are flying, and the ringleader for Drug Trafficking in which he offered to bring anything on board including bonds so i dont subscribe to your fact that the screening is working because in that case in dallasfort worth they knew where the screeners were, and the counterparts went to areas that were more secure. I respectfully asked you respond within 10 days or so what your thoughts are when you have more time is to whether this is something we should pursue. Chair recognizes gentlelady from new york. Thank you. I would like to align myself with the comments of my colleagues. New york has one of the most extensive Transportation Systems in the world and i am glad to hear that surface transportation is a priority for you and i would like to join with my colleague to speak with you Going Forward as to the results of your analysis you are presently doing. I think the other thing you are doing well is placing focus on the morale of the employees. The short time i have been here, a persistent problem with regards to the system, who is holding position. They seem to get fewer resources, that kind of stuff. Glad to hear you are focusing on the morale. One thing, if you speak to employees, you have their back and a lot of that has to do with our human a position, do you feel you can tell the president or anyone in the administration that you need certain things policies put in place are maybe not best for the National Security, domestic security of our country and to that end, i dont know if this is something everyone who has to go through, appointed, has to go through a confirmation process. Were you required to take any loyalty oath to the president or administration . I did go through a confirmation process with two senate committees. What would you tell employees, if you are doing this analysis, looking at the other issues, if something came up short do you feel you had the ability to say that publicly and asking for more resources from congress or the administration through administrative action . My job is advocate for our employees having the right tools, the right number of people in training to do their jobs. I advocate for that as budgets are built so we are working on the fiscal 19 budget. My job is to be their strongest advocate to make sure we get the resources we need to do our jobs. However, i am never going to get all the resources, any Agency Leader would say that is the case, there are tradeoffs made within budget limits so my job working with the secretary is to make sure those tradeoffs if they need to be made are made considering urgency of the requirements they had. Your workforce is the first line of defense so im glad you recognize that. Final question, how long have you been in this position . Almost 3 months. You feel like it is a lifetime . No. What would you say are your Biggest Challenges as you see them in the short time you have been there . That is a great question. The Biggest Challenges, the first is bringing more technology. It is clear that needs to be done. I dont think anyone disputes that needs to be done, we are trying to do it as urgently as we can. If i were transportation Security Officer working on the frontline, i have been with many of them the last several weeks, if you are more confident, that reinforces that your agency and your government is willing to invest in the tools you are being asked to do, technology into the system through innovation and the other focus is on the workforce, that workforce is the last line of defense, the workforce consists of folks at the checkpoint. A good number of people do vetting for passengers before they can get to the airport around the world. The alliance with regulations and federal air marshals. That whole system of employees to me, make sure they have the tools, training and support they need and do that by my goal as administrator is to be in dc as often as im in dc so had a 50 50 balance, i wanted to introduce myself, when i get in the field which is once a week or more i do both town halls with employees and i want to hear their points of view and what their concerns are, once they raise a point of view or in issue to get back with resolution. Your predecessor had a big focus on trying to increase morale among the workforce. Dont know if you have spoken to him, he put focus on training, giving additional ongoing training. I dont know if you continued that or chose to change the training of the workforce. Not in the instance because he was right and what he did was instituted the academy where all employees went to this academy for two weeks of introductory training, absolutely continued that. We have mapped out a career path for employees at the check lanes that shows the training they received to make them eligible for promotion at Different Levels in the checkpoint. That hasnt been done in the past. One of the challenges of trying to think about it and map it forward and publish it so we intend to publish this so that our new employees and folks that have been seasoned employees can look at this is my career path from entrylevel to becoming a supervisor at the checkpoint and here is resident and nonresident training to be ready for those positions. Thank you, i yield back. The chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana, mister hagans. Thank you for appearing before us, thank you for your service to our country. Screening technology, computed tomography utilizes 3d imaging and through the noncheck line they are checked in this manner and in the nonprecheck line, the human being removing their shoes, checked in a similar manner. And if a threat is detected in bags it goes to the screening and that bag is physically checked by tsa operators and in a similar manner as the human being, some sort of threat is detected on that human, that person is checked in a similar manner. That is correct. For the precheck passengers are they required to remove their shoes . They are not. The bag is checked in a similar manner. The difference is precheck passengers dont divest themselves of Electronic Devices. Project passenger goes through a metal detector. The metal detector ceramic or composite plastic knife . Metal detectors are designed to be optical so they wont detect some object. Will a metal detector detect and all plastic component of pepper spray or mace device . Likely not. The 9 11 hijackers used knives and mace and pepper spray, correct . Correct. Would you agree based on what we just discussed, the final line of defense regarding protecting our citizenry from inflight hijacking threat is the federal air Marshals Service, the flight deck officer program. Would you concur that is the final line of defense . Yes, sir but i also say theres a frontline for that overall posture and that is the vetting process that gets folks into precheck in the first place. Our assumption based on vetting of those passengers is they represent less risk. Understood but we just determined there is the possibility given Current Technology that is in use across the country, many millions of precheck passengers could potentially pose a threat. You agree . There is never a 100 guarantee. The final line of defense being federal air Marshals Service and flight deck officer program. Federal air Marshals Service has not hired any new air marshaler supervisor since 2011, correct . They have hired in the last couple years. Do you know what those numbers are . I do not. Can you provide that please . I also advised the federal air Marshals Service does not have a complete timely data report to the extent to which air marshals have completed their recurrent training. Do you have data to what extent the current air marshals maintain their annual training . We do track currency with annual training but i dont know how we i dont know if theres a database that does it. Are you satisfied the federal air Marshals Service as well, let us not overlook the flight that officer program which allows pilots and other crew members to take part in special federal air marshal training courses in self defense, close range target instruction . Are you satisfied with that level of training or share with the committee what your plans are to be set up . The federal i have been through part of the training that is provided and that training is excellent overall. The number of people enrolled has grown over the course of time. It is a very Beneficial Program coupled with our federal air marshals who are there is a reasonable possibility they will be on a flight. Thank you for your attention to that matter. I believe it is urgent. I will yield back. Chair recognizes the gentleman from california. I thank you for holding this most important hearing. I want to thank David Pekoske for your comments and testimony. I reached out to John Wayne Airport which is the only International Airport in orange county, california, my hometown. Pleased to learn the airport enjoys a productive relationship with tsa and i thank you and tsa for committing to the security of our passengers in orange county. I wanted to also follow up ms. Rice and miss watson specifically on tsa personnel and more our. The more i learn about the job tsa is entrusted with the more i think of them as First Responders really, Police Officers, firefighters, the job they have is a very serious one, the burden is a tremendous one, failure is unacceptable and so concerned about retention rates, morale, what is your retention rate like . Retention rate for fulltime employees varies by airport based on cost of living, airport size and things like that but average across the enterprise is 12 . I agree with you. 12 stand 88 move on . 12 attrition rate. But like i said it varies by airport. You talked about a two week academy training. Is that enough given we continue to face threats that are always evolving technologically in every other way, you have continuing training for these individuals so they are up to par for what is going on . There is continuing Training Provided at the airport as onthejob training and instructor training at the airport coupled with tsa academy. As we build up the roadmap for our transportation Security Officers there will be other opportunities for them to go back to georgia for training. How long does the average tsa employees day . I dont know off the top of my head. I have seen the reason i ask is if you get the morale up which i think is appreciating and having folks recognize the importance of tsa personnel which is a function of ongoing training and salary and other things, the longer they are there more expert they become at recognizing things that are not normal and being able to investigate. I would like to work with you, the committee would like to work in making sure your personnel are more professional so they are looked upon and feel like a Police Officer would feel or firefighter which is our job is an important one, we have got to take it that way, just cant have folks showing up to work and say here i go another 8 hours, i have an important job to do. Couldnt agree more. I yield the remainder of my time. The genitals of the lady from california. Thank you. My district is home to the port of los angeles, americas port. We just had a hearing out there. I think the chairman and Ranking Member for doing that. The port of la manages highvolume traffic and features passenger and cargo terminals. Last week when we had the field hearing, one of the witnesses we had from that area expressed concern over the transportation worker identification program, he described it as a measure that was ineffective and expensive and posed significant hardship on americans, he had problems with enrollment delays, due process concerns for employees who have to appeal at intern denial. He mentioned workers who obtained Police Records in order to prove no disqualifying convictions. Is evaluating this ways to improve the program a priority for you . The program has been in place for a number of years. I had a card myself. Recently looked at the throughput data for enrollment and enrollment proceeds relatively quickly as quickly as most of the other prudential and programs unless there is an anomaly that needs further investigation so that is perhaps what you are talking about or someone talked to you about. I will look at how long it takes to resolve those issues but most of the burden to provide documentation to support a potential enrollee to support their contention if they should have one falls on them. There are greater problems and the enrollment process and we can talk about that. And 114 to congress they enacted a bill, the worker identification assessment act requiring ths commission an outside organization to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the benefits, do you know what the status of that is and do you expect the assessment to be completed in a timeline established by the legislation which is in march 2018 . I dont know what the assessment is but i will be happy to get back to you with that information. If we could get something in writing that would be fantastic and i want to act of the concerns of my colleagues about what we had this morning, i was able to come to part of it. I had a markup morning and i had an experience a month ago, flying home to california, and was in an airport that was pretty empty. I dont think we saw a passenger go through for 20 minutes and it allowed me to stand there and talk to some of the tsa agents. They said would you take one issue to congress, here we are with people tasked with stopping explosives from going through to a plane which could prevent a terrorist attack yet the morale is low and we havent had an increase in pay. I want to mention that because i promised the tsa agent that i ran into i would bring this back and ask about it and i wonder if that would help what we are seeing to improve not just morale but make sure we are getting people in these positions who are being very thorough and making sure we are not missing any possible threatening situations from coming to the airport. I think it would help. Part of the roadmap for Career Development shows what you are paid is not adjusted because it will change by what the basic pay is and what your pay increase gaetz would be because that is a common issue i have heard as well, you join tsa and havent had a pay raise where most other employees in privatesector or government get some longevity along the