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Prepared Statement of Administrator Kip Hawley

Assistant Secretary of the Transportation Security Administration

Before the U.S. Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
January 18, 2007

Good morning Chairman Lautenberg, Vice Chairman Stevens and Members of the Committee.

I am pleased to appear before you today to talk about TSA's efforts in reducing terrorist risk to surface transportation.

It's also a pleasure to join my colleagues as well. To save time for discussion, I will summarize my testimony to make four (4) major points.

1. At TSA, we look at the transportation system as a network -- and aviation, rail, highway, transit, pipeline, ferries are all parts of the network. We have efforts tailored for each one, but it is important to recognize that America needs a functioning transportation network as an end in itself so we also look at overall system security.
2. As we discussed yesterday, our security strategy is based on connecting multiple flexible layers. Many of them apply to the entire transportation system.

   A plot broken up at its early stages, especially before it comes to this country, is the best rail security as well as aviation, etc.

   So, efforts directed at supporting and connecting to others in our government and with foreign partners help all parts of the transportation network.

3. We take advantage of all the work that was done before 9/11, even if it wasn't originally done for security. This panel represents that point.

   TSA isn't reinventing the wheel. DoT has been working transportation safety issues for a long time. Many of those measures form a very solid security foundation. Our job is to link with the safety activities and add value on top of that where there are particular security-specific needs. Intelligence sharing, vulnerability analysis, technology sharing, and our VIPER teams are examples of that value-add.

4. Secretary Chertoff has a risk-based strategy for DHS and we follow that at TSA and apply here in surface transportation. We have completed risk assessments of surface transportation and identified our top priorities based on threat vulnerability and consequence.

   They are:

   1. high density passenger transit systems in urban areas with underwater or underground tunnels; and
   2. Highly toxic chemicals in rail cars that are standing unattended in high risk urban areas.

Our mitigation measures include federal grant priority for the passenger systems and an innovative -- and immediate -- risk reduction approach to freight rail with quantifiable and verifiable performance standards.

I will be happy to discuss this in further depth. Thank you.