Review - Bills Introduced – 11-5-25

Yesterday with just the Senate in Washington, and the House still on extended vacation, there were 13 bills introduced. One of those bills may receive additional coverage in this blog:

S 3109 A bill to amend titles 46 and 49, United States Code, to require that individuals who commit human trafficking violations be permanently disqualified from obtaining certain licenses issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation, and for other purposes. Blackburn, Marsha [Sen.-R-TN]

 

For more information on these bills, including legislative history for similar bills in the 118^th Congress, including a mention in passing of adding political speech to special circumstances for the federal death penalty, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/bills-introduced-11-5-25 - subscription required.

S 3959 Passed in House – TWIC-HME Applications

This afternoon the House took up  S 3959 [removed from paywall], the Transportation Security Screening Modernization Act, under the suspension of the rules process. After nine minutes of debate, the House passed the bill by a voice vote. The legislation now goes to the President; Biden is expected to sign the bill, almost certainly before Christmas.

The bill would require the TSA to take actions (potentially including issuing an interim final rule) to streamline the procedures for individuals applying for or renewing enrollment in more than one TSA security threat assessment program, in particular, the TWIC and HAZMAT Endorsement programs. No new funding is authorized by the legislation.

Review - TSA Publishes HME Fee Change Notice

Today, the TSA published a notice in the Federal Register (89 FR 70201-70202) on “Hazardous Materials Endorsement (HME) Threat Assessment Program Security Threat Assessment Fees for Non-Agent States”. The notice announces an increase in the assessment fee collected by TSA from Non-Agent States for conducting HME threat assessments.

TSA conducted an assessment of the cost of processing applicant information provided by Non-Agent States and determined that the current fees did not cover the cost of processing of those STA’s. The table below shows the increases set forth in this notice. The fee charged for processing applications from Agent States (taken from the TSA website) is provided for comparison.

Note: The ‘Reduced Fee’ application is for STAs in which the applicant has already completed a comparable STA and does not need to undergo the full standard STA and the applicant is filing in a Non-Agent State. Applicants in an Agent State would pay $41.00 for a reduced fee application.

 

For more information about the HME fees, including a description of the differences between Agent States and Non-Agent States, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/tsa-publishes-hme-fee-change-notice - subscription required.

Review - HR 5840 Introduced – Streamlining TSA Threat Assessments

Last month, Rep Graves (R,LA) introduced HR 5840, the Transportation Security Screening Modernization Act. The bill would require the TSA to take actions (potentially including issuing an interim final rule) to streamline the procedures for individuals applying for or renewing enrollment in more than one TSA security threat assessment program, in particular, the TWIC and HAZMAT Endorsement programs. No new funding is authorized by the legislation.

Moving Forward

Graves and two of his cosponsors {Rep Titus (D,NV) and Rep Green (R,TN)} are members of the House Homeland Security Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I see nothing in this bill that would engender any organized opposition. I suspect that there would be sufficient bipartisan support for the bill for it to be considered on the floor of the House under the suspension of the rules process.

Commentary

TSA has already implemented some of the streamlining actions. If a TWIC applicant already has an HME (or a Free and Secure Trade card) they are eligible for a reduced fee TWIC ($93 vs $125.25) and the expiration of the two will be the same (the date for the earlier assessment).

 

For more information about the provisions of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-5840-introduced - subscription required.

Review - OMB Approves TSA ICR Revision for HME Vetting Program – 8-28-23

Yesterday, OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had approved an information collection request (ICR) revision/update from the TSA for the “Security Threat Assessment for Individuals Applying for a Hazardous Materials Endorsement for a Commercial Driver's License”. The revision was needed because the introduction of an on-line renewal program reduced the time necessary to collect the information and the cost of renewing the HME vetting.

Commentary

I do not know why I am so prone to digging into the TSA’s ICR Notices. I ignored the 60-day and 30-day notices for this ICR when they were published in the Federal Register. From a quick review of the data presented in those documents, it did not seem that there was going to be anything of interest beyond the decrease in the reported burden estimates due to the online renewal process. But, as has almost always been the case, digging into the approved ICR provides some interesting information.

 

For more details about the information presented in the ICR data, including a reported decline in the number of HME’s and an explanation for the increase in the number of estimated responses, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/omb-approves-tsa-icr-revision-for - subscription required.

TSA Publishes HME/TWIC Fee Changes

Today, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) published a notice in the Federal Register (87 FR 66721-66723) for “Hazardous Materials Endorsement (HME) Threat Assessment Program  and Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) Program Fees.” The new fees, effective today, are:

 

HME/TWIC Fees	Current	New
TWIC Online Renewal	$125.25	$117.25
TWIC In-person	$125.25	$125.25
TWIC Reduced Fee Program	$105.25	$93.00
TWIC Replacement	$60.00	$60.00
HME Enrollment	$67.00	$41.00
HME Renewal	$86.50	$86.50

TSA Publishes Temporary HME Renewal Exemption

Yesterday, the Transportation Security Administration published a notice in the Federal Register (87 FR 56692-56693) concerning “Exemption From Renewal of the Hazardous Materials Endorsement Security Threat Assessment for Certain Individuals”. This is a temporary renewal exemption for HME’s expiring before December 27^th, 2022.

According to the notice Summary:

“TSA has determined it is in the public interest to grant the exemption at this time to ensure that the HME renewal process does not exacerbate the current difficulties with the transfer and movement of cargo nationwide and at the ports. TSA may extend this exemption depending on HME enrollment volumes and supply chain challenges.”

TSA notes that enrollments for HMEs have increased from approximately 15,000 per month to 20,000 per month in calendar years 2021 and 2022. “The increased demand for HMEs, as well as other credentialling requiring STAs conducted by TSA, has increased processing times for some individuals with potential disqualifying factors. Some applications require 60 days for TSA to complete the adjudication of potential disqualifying factors and make an eligibility determination.”

TSA explains that: “This exemption permits states to extend the expiration date for an HME for up to 180 days for eligible individuals with an HME that expires between July 1, 2022 and December 27, 2022, even if the individual did not initiate or complete submission of required information for an STA at least 60 days before expiration of the HME.”

Review - HR 6571 Introduced – TSA Enrollments

Last week Rep Smith (D,WA) introduced HR 6571, the TSA Security Threat Assessment Application Modernization Act. The bill would require TSA to standardize the enrollment and renewal processes for the TWIC, HAZMAT endorsement and the TSA PreCheck program. No funding is authorized by this bill.

Moving Forward

While Smith is not a member of the House Homeland Security Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration, two of his cosponsors {Rep Katko (R,NY) and Rep Luria (D,VA)} are members of the Committee. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I suspect that the bill would receive bipartisan support. The bill would probably be considered under the suspension of the rules process if it were adopted in Committee.

Commentary

In early stages of these three TSA security threat assessment programs there were certainly problems that holders of one of the credentials had when applying for one of the other credentials. Those problems have been reduced in recent years. According to the TSA’s HAZMAT Endorsement web site, States are already authorized “to issue an HME on a state-issued CDL to a driver who holds a valid” TWIC. Similarly, TSA announced in 2020 that: “TWIC® and HME holders can obtain TSA PreCheck expedited screening by entering the identification numbers printed on their TWIC® card or state-issued CDL during the airline reservation process.”

All of this does not mean that there is a centralized location (real or virtual) where there is one stop shopping for all three credentials. One thing that this bill does not address is the fact that there are still eight states (Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin) where CDL holders must apply at a State DMV office to apply for their HME.

For more details about this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-6571-introduced - subscription required.

TSA Extends HME Renewal Exemption – 10-28-20

Today the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) published a notice in the Federal Register (85 FR 68357-68358) providing a further exemption for States to allow holders of a Hazardous Material Endorsement (HME) for a commercial drivers license to extend that HME for 180-days without requiring a new security threat assessment. The exemption would be extended through December 31^st, 2020. This exemption was initiated in March and earlier renewed in July. This extension, like the earlier TSA revision of surface transportation security training compliance dates, has been undertaken due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The extension would allow States to provide a 180-day renewal extension without requiring a new security threat assessment for HME’s that expire after March 1^st, 2020. The new termination date for that authority would be December 31^st, 2020. HME holders would still be required to begin the security threat assessment process 60-days before the end of the State granted exemption.

The notice does make it clear that individuals “who were eligible for an extension of their HMEs during the initial exemption may continue to be eligible under this notice of extension of the exemption.” However, HME holders that were granted extensions in April and May of this year would have been required to have already begun the security threat assessment process to meet the 60-day deadline, so they may not need the new extension.

TSA to Allow COVID-19 HME Extensions

Today the Transportation Security Administration published a notice in the Federal Register (85 FR 19767-19769) providing for an “Exemption From Renewal of the Hazardous Materials Endorsement

Security Threat Assessment for Certain Individuals”. This would clear the way for States to provide up to 180-day extensions of current Hazardous Material Endorsements (HME) for commercial driver’s licenses.

Today’s notice states that:

“TSA has determined that it is in the public interest to grant an exemption from certain process requirements in 49 CFR part 1572 related to STAs for HMEs, given the need for commercial drivers with an HME to continue to work without interruption during the current COVID-19 crisis. This action would not compromise the current level of transportation security resulting from the HME requirements because TSA maintains the ability to conduct recurrent security threat checks on HME holders and take action to revoke an HME if derogatory information becomes available, regardless of expiration date.”

The notice makes it clear that: “The exemption permits, but does not require, States to extend the expiration date for HMEs.”

The following conditions apply to the exemption:

• The extensions will only be available with respect to eligible individuals, ensuring that TSA has relatively current information on the individual based on their last STA (No Determination of Security Threat) and can continue to conduct recurrent-vetting;

• The extensions will be for a set, limited time, dependent on the duration and scope of the COVID-19 crisis, and subject to possible modification by TSA before the closure of the effective period; and

• TSA will continue to recurrently vet these individuals against Federal terrorism and national security-related watch lists and databases during the period of the extensions and retain its full authority to immediately revoke or suspend an individual's STA (Determination of No Security Threat) and to order a State to revoke an individual's HME.

This exemption would run through July 31^st, 2020.

There is nothing in this notice that would indicate that TSA is considering a similar extension of the expiration of Transportation Workers Identification Credentials (TWIC).

TSA Revises STA System of Records

The DHS Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is publishing a notice in Monday’s Federal Register (79 FR 46862-46866) concerning changes being made to the DHS Privacy Act System of Records for the Security Threat Assessment (STA) program. This is the system of records that TSA uses to collect and maintain information on STA’s and employment investigations for programs like the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) and the Hazardous Materials Endorsement (HME) for State commercial driver’s licenses.

TSA is modifying the “Purposes” portion of the system of records description to update the actual uses TSA and DHS make of the information collected in the STA program. One interesting change is moving two categories of records (‘known or suspected terrorists’ and personnel requesting redress actions) from the “Categories of individuals” to the “Categories of Records” section of the description.

Interestingly, there is still no mention in this revised description of the STA system of records for use by the Chemical Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program’s personnel surety program (PSP). The OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) still has not approved the CFATS program’s personnel surety program (an very likely will not until it Congress acts or fails to act on the CFATS bill (HR 4007) now pending in the Senate.

TSA Publishes Final Rule on STA Fees

Today the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) published a final rule in the Federal Register (78 FR 24353-24360) removing from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) the specific amount of fees collected for the processing of security threat assessments (STA) for both the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) and the Hazardous Material Endorsement (HME) for the State administered Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) program. This change will make it easier for the TSA to adjust the fee to cover actual program costs as required by 6 USC 469.

The final rule amends 49 CFR §1572.403, §1572.405(a) and §1572.501(b) to “to remove references to specific fee amounts, continue to use the existing fees to support the programs, and publish as a Notice any revisions to fee schedules in the Federal Register”. No changes were made in the adoption of this final rule from the notice of proposed rulemaking from June 2012.

This rule has an effective date of May 28^th, 2013. 

TSA Publishes 30-day ICR Renewal Notice for HME-STA

Today the TSA published a 30-day information collection request (ICR) renewal notice in the Federal Register (78 FR 13367-13368) to support the collection of information from personnel applying for a Hazardous Materials Endorsement to their State Commercial Driver’s License. The TSA uses the collected information to conduct a Security Threat Assessment (STA) required under 49 USC 5103a.

As I noted in my blog post concerning the 60-day notice for this ICR renewal, TSA is forecasting a continuing decline in the number of applications for new and renewed HME. Other than the change in burden hours and cost associated with this declining enrollment, there are no changes being made from the currently approved ICR.

Public comments on this ICR renewal may be submitted to OMB via email (oira_submission@omb.eop.gov). Such comments should be received by March 29^th, 2013.

TSA Publishes HME ICR 60-Day Notice

The Monday Federal Register (available on line yesterday) includes a 60-day notice (77 FR 64533) from the Transportations Security Administration of their intent to submit to OMB a renewal of the information collection request supporting the Hazardous Material Endorsement (HME) credential program. Readers might remember that a short-term renewal of the HME ICR had been granted in July of this year, but OMB requested updated burden information to provide a longer term renewal.

ICR Information

This ICR notice provides the updated information requested by OMB. The table below shows the new data and the data provided in the previously approved request. Both sets of data are provided on an annual basis

	New Data	Previous Data
Applications	295,000	300,905
Burden (hours)	960,000	994,096
Burden (Million $)	$25.0	$27.4

While this ICR notice goes into great detail why there was a change in the information being collected (and this was covered in the previously approved request) there is no indication why TSA expects the number of HME applications to continue to decline. There are also some unexplained decreases in the expected number of hours/application (3.25 vs 3.30 hours per application; minor to be sure) and burden cost per hour ($26.04/hr vs $27.52/hr; this may be partially due to rounding of the burden cost in the notice).

Industry Impact

I’m not sure where TSA gets its information to calculate the annualized number of applicants. It could be something as simple as extrapolating from the current rate of new and renewal applications (probably the most likely as this would be all internal data) or the TSA could be using some sort of survey data provided by the trucking industry or some sort of consultant. In any case an almost 2% decline in the annual number of HME applicants bodes ill for the HAZMAT transportation industry.

 

Unless there is an off-setting increase in the rate of application approvals (and I have not seen any TSA data on their rate of application approvals) or decrease in the number of HME revocations (no data seen there either) this means that there will be a continually shrinking pool of drivers qualified to haul HAZMAT loads. This can only lead to increased shipping costs.

OMB Approves Changes to HME ICR

On Thursday the Office of Management and Budget announced that it had approved the extension of the information collection request (ICR) for the TSA’s Security Threat Assessment program supporting the Hazardous Material Endorsement program for the Commercial Driver’s License.

The extension request was initially published in the Federal Register in 2010 (75 FR 52961-52962) to support changes in questions being asked on the questionnaire. That notice estimated that the ICR would annually require 300,000 respondents to spend 975,000 hours providing the requested data at a cost of $27 million. The 30-day notice published in 2011 (76 FR 36560) noted that the same 300,000 respondents would spend 978,000 hours with no cost estimate provided. The approved collection notice published this week approves a collection from 300,905 respondents spending 994,096 hours at a cost of $27.4 million. There is no explanation for the change in data.

The OMB did note that “the supporting statement currently shows estimates from 2009-2011”. This explains why they only approved the current revised ICR until the end of February next year, noting that the “next submission should estimate burden hours and cost for years 2012, 2013, and 2014”.

Interestingly the ICR approval notice notes that the Agency (TSA) received public comments on the ICR. There was no indication in the 30-day ICR notice that there had been any public comments received; which also meant that there was no TSA response to those comments. The whole purpose of the ‘publish and comment’ process is to ensure that there is some form of public input into the regulatory process and that the government agencies take that input into account.

TSA TWIC and HME Fees NPRM

Today the Transportation Security Administration published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register (77 FR 35343-35349) concerning the establishment of fees for the security threat assessments (STAs) that serve as the basis for the fees for such identification credentials as the Transportations Workers Identification Credential (TWIC) and the Hazardous Materials Endorsement (HME).

Currently the TSA is required to collect fees for the issuance of TWICs and HMEs that cover the cost of the STAs. These fees are currently written into the appropriate regulations; 49 CFR §1572.403, §1572.405, and §1572.501. TSA is proposing to remove the fee amount listing from the CFR and establish a requirement to publish changes to the fee schedule in the Federal Register.

TSA explains the reason for making this change in this way:

“Absent the ability to amend fees through notice rather than rulemaking, TSA is less likely to make timely changes to fees when associated costs change, such as contracts or vendor pricing, and when such changes are made, there is an increased likelihood that they would be more dramatic. Amending fees through notice would allow for more incremental changes and reduce the risk of TSA suspending issuance of credentials to meet HME or TWIC program requirements or decreasing services until a rule change is completed to reflect the new fee amount.” (77 FR 35347)

No Significant Economic Impact

TSA further explains that because this is an ‘administrative’ change making no changes in the procedures that private entities will be following that they certify “that this rulemaking would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. However, TSA invites comments from members of the public who believe there would be a significant impact” (77 FR 35348).

Of course this does not address the potential for more frequent fee changes. Since most of these changes will be increases (Has a government agency ever reduced fees?) in fees and many employers actually pay the TWIC and HME fees, this could result in a ‘significant’ increase in costs.

Public Comment

TSA is soliciting public comment on this NPRM. Comments must be filed by July 30^th. Comments can be filed via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket Number TSA-2004-19605).

TWIC-HME Compatibility

A blog post yesterday by Laurie Thomas, a frequent reader of this blog and one of my go-to sources for MTSA information, on her MTSA News blog points out that the TSA is making some efforts to harmonize some of the various background checks that it is responsible for, in this case the Transportation Workers Identification Credential (TWIC) and the Hazardous Material Endorsement (HME) to be issued with State Commercial Drivers Licenses (CDL).

Laurie points us at the ‘Latest News’ section of the TSA TWIC web site for the available information on this new program for Comparable HME’s.

(Oops… Did you know that the term ‘TWIC’ is a registered trademark? According to this web site it is, so we are in violation of trademark law unless we include the ‘®’ when we use the word ‘TWIC’. Too bad TSA, I don’t think anyone will follow this rule; you have wasted the time, effort and money. Failure to enforce trademark enfringement invalidates the registration)

I don’t get to this site often so I don’t know when this news item was posted (and TSA isn’t helpful in this regard, they don’t date entries the way the ISCD folks do over at the CFATS Knowledge Center do), but from the wording it looks like it was probably sometime last month. It says that this program will start in ‘January 2012’ and more information will be provided as the implementation date approaches.

Basically what TSA is doing is that it will use the existing TWIC background check data for the approval of an HME. This should reduce their time and cost. The cost savings will be passed on to the applicant in reduced fees; no information yet available on how much reduction there will be. Of course this requires a State to accept the Comparable HME check. The TSA site promises a list of the States that do accept it, but it’s not there yet.

It would seem to me, though, that there should be an even easier way to accomplish this. If an HME applicant (new or renewal) presents a TWIC at the State DMV office when they apply for an HME, all the DMV officials should have to do is to verify the TWIC is current and the identity matches and no TSA Security Threat Assessment (STA) fee should be required. Of course, the biometric identity verification can’t really be done until the TWIC Reader Rule is adopted in 2010 (oops, the NPRM hasn’t even been submitted to OMB yet).

Oh well, if and when this actually happens it will save drivers some money and hassle; that would be a good thing.