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Overall Description of Deadline: Section 4012 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) (Pub. L. 108-458; Dec. 17, 2004) requires that not later than January 1, 2005, TSA commence testing of an advanced passenger prescreening system; and that not later than 180 days after completion of testing, TSA begin to assume the performance of the passenger prescreening function.

Statement of Need: The Secure Flight program will fulfill the requirement of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) (Pub. L. 108-458) that TSA begin to assume the pre-flight watch list matching function currently carried out by air carriers. The rule would establish the regulatory basis for initiation of the Secure Flight program.

Anticipated Costs and Benefits: Secure Flight operational testing would exercise and validate TSA’s ability to connect with the aircraft operators and the Terrorist Screening Center, receive passenger and non-traveler information, conduct watch list matching, and transmit watch list results back to the aircraft operators using live passenger data. Once the testing results achieve the program’s desired efficacy levels, Secure Flight would be implemented and TSA would receive the primary responsibility for airline passenger watch list matching. Benefits could include more accurate, timely, and comprehensive screening, and a reduction in false positives. This would occur because Secure Flight would have access to more data than airlines with which to distinguish passengers from records in the watch lists. Further, the airlines would be relieved of watch list matching responsibilities, and once the program is fully implemented, TSA would be relieved of distributing the watch lists. Other benefits would include increased security due to the watch list matching of non-traveling individuals who request access to a sterile area. TSA estimated the discounted 10-year costs of this rulemaking discounted at 7 percent would total from $2.074 billion to $3.5281 billion. Air carriers would incur total costs of $345.3 million to $1,422 million, and travel agents would incur costs of $170.8 to $256.6 million. TSA projected Federal Government costs would be from $943.9 to $1,155.7 million. The total cost of outlays would be from $2,074.4 billion to $3,581.1 billion. Additionally, the cost to individuals (value of time) would be between $602.1 and $726.3 million.