Ports & Infrastructure

TWIC or Treat

Five reasons why you shouldn’t wait to enroll

By Peter Hull

 
Soon thousands of local port and other transportation workers will be denied unescorted access to their job sites — if they don’t have a new ID card issued by the federal government.

After years of consideration, debate and rescheduling, the Department of Homeland Security has set the national compliance deadline for the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program, or TWIC.

April or earlier

That all-important date is April 15, 2009. Earlier deadlines have been announced for many individual ports. For example, at the ports of Charleston, Long Island Sound, Jacksonville and Savannah, the program takes effect Dec. 1.

Under the program, thousands of truckers, stevedores and longshoremen, rail and airport employees and other transit and port workers at more than 300 ports and 3,700 cargo and passenger terminals nationwide will require a TWIC. Without one, these workers won’t be allowed to enter their job sites at sea, air and land transportation facilities.

  In addition to an extensive background check, each card, good for five years, will cost the worker, or their employer, $132.50 a pop. Why so expensive? The technology embedded in the smart cards has a lot to do with it. It includes three computer chips; two bar codes; a magnetic stripe; a digital photograph; and biometric data — in this case, fingerprints.

Don’t delay

Cargo Business News sat down with Eli A. Poliakoff, an administrative and maritime law attorney with Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP in Charleston, S.C., to discuss why waiting until the last minute is a bad idea.

Foreseeable delays

Many applicants are waiting to the last second to apply. Since enrollment opened in October 2007, about 426,000 applicants have enrolled, according to Transportation Security Administration data. In contrast, the remaining 1 million or so people who need a TWIC have less than eight months to enroll. The combination of high enrollment numbers and a shorter time to process the applications will likely overwhelm the application system and lead to delays.

Unforeseeable delays

The TWIC enrollment program has been hampered by a string of delays, including the breakdown of eight of the 12 machines that print TWIC badges, software glitches and difficulty scanning maritime workers’ fingerprints. The DHS recently denied a request from Lockheed Martin, the federal contractor responsible for TWIC processing, for additional funds to manage the program.

Compliance deadline will probably not be delayed (again)

It is unlikely that Congress or public opinion would support further delays of such a high profile, security-related initiative, Poliakoff says. Legislation that mandated a federal port access credential passed in 2002, was refined in 2006 and outlined in detail in January 2007. The original enrollment deadline of September 2008 was pushed back to April 2009. Applicants holding out hope for a later compliance deadline likely will face “No Entry” signs when they show up for work on April 16, 2009, Poliakoff says.

Local authorities have no choice

Port facilities must implement TWIC. Federal laws and regulations implementing the program do not permit local port facilities to wiggle out of the program’s requirements or substitute other, less stringent licenses. In other words, TWIC trumps all local security measures.

Allow time to pursue appeals and waivers

The TWIC appeals system is a new, relatively untested legal process that can stretch out for months. TSA can delay or temporarily disqualify an applicant for many reasons or require the applicant to track down long-lost court filings, records or other information, Poliakoff says. Applying early helps ensure an applicant has enough time to resolve post-application issues before the compliance deadline arrives.


On the Web

To learn more about TWIC, visit the Transportation Security Administration’s website at: www.tsa.gov/twic