Yesterday the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced
that it had approved the Coast Guard’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on the
TWIC Reader Rule. The approval was ‘consistent with change’. This NPRM was submitted
to OMB back on November 16th, 2012. This long overdue rule was
supposed to have been completed by August 20th, 2010.
An abstract of the rulemaking
submission to the OMB describes the rule this way:
The Coast Guard is establishing
electronic card reader requirements for maritime facilities and vessels to be
used in combination with TSA's Transportation Worker Identification Credential.
Congress enacted several statutory requirements within the Security and
Accountability For Every (SAFE) Port Act of 2006 to guide regulations
pertaining to TWIC readers, including the need to evaluate TSA's final pilot
program report as part of the TWIC reader rulemaking. During the rulemaking
process, we will take into account the final pilot data and the various
conditions in which TWIC readers may be employed. For example, we will consider
the types of vessels and facilities that will use TWIC readers, locations of
secure and restricted areas, operational constraints, and need for
accessibility. Recordkeeping requirements, amendments to security plans, and
the requirement for data exchanges (i.e., Canceled Card List) between TSA and
vessel or facility owners/operators will also be addressed in this
rulemaking.
With the OMB requiring some sort of relatively minor change
(details not specified on the OMB site) It may be a couple of weeks before we
see the TWIC Reader NPRM in the Federal Register.
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1 comment:
PJ, thanks so much for tracking this for the MTSA community, I reblogged the information with an attribution to you. I wonder if "several weeks" is optimistic. Unfortunately, the program has a long history of missed deadlines. I am/was a supporter of the card but the present trend of funneling renewals over to the 3-year option circumvents the basic card function - making sure that we have some sort of sensibly current look into the backgrounds of those persons granted unescorted access to secure areas in the nation's ports.
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