STSAC Meeting Announcement – 07-11-19

Yesterday the DHS Transportation Security Administration (TSA) published a meeting notice in the Federal Register (84 FR 27795) for a meeting of the newly established Surface Transportation Security Advisory Committee (STSAC) on July 11^th, 2019 at TSA Headquarters in Arlington, VA.

The agenda includes:

• Unclassified Surface Transportation Intelligence Briefing

• TSA Organizational Structure

• Surface Transportation Rulemaking

• Organization of STSAC

• Public Comments

Public participation is welcomed, but advanced registration (for the purpose of clearing people for access to the TSA HQ) is required. Oral or written comments may be submitted, but advanced notice is required. That notification should be made by June 30^th, 2019. Apparently there are no provisions for webcasting the meeting.

Commentary

This is the initial meeting of STSAC so it is way too early to tell how effective this Advisory Committee will be. Some agencies (DOT in particular) have made their advisory committees an integral part of the regulatory development process. The broad membership of this Committee should make for a reasonable level of expertise that should be of benefit to the understaffed and underfunded surface transportation folks at TSA. Yet to be determined, however, is how well the Committee and its inevitable subcommittees work together and how much attention TSA pays to their recommendations.

On the later, I hope that the lack of a meeting webcast or even teleconference monitoring is not an indication of lack of support from TSA management for this congressionally mandated Advisory Committee.