Oral Testimony on TWIC by Maurine Fanguy
Oral Testimony on the SAFE Port Act before the House Homeland Security Committee, Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism
October 30, 2007
Good morning Madame Chairwoman, Ranking Member Souder and distinguished members of the Sub-Committee. My name is Maurine Fanguy and I am the Program Director for the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program, also known as TWIC.
Today, I am here to show you the results of our efforts – the TWIC credential. In all of our previous meetings, we have talked to you about what we needed to do and what we were going to do. Now, I would like to tell you what we have done.
Since I last testified before you in April, I am proud to say we have completed testing and have made significant advances in all aspects of the program.
Most importantly, we began enrollment in Wilmington, Delaware on October 16.
Enrollment is going well to-date. We have enrolled more than 700 people and have more nearly 7,000 pre-enrollments nationwide. Average enrollment time is under 14 minutes and the average wait in Wilmington is about 6 minutes. These are real numbers that demonstrate real progress.
As we speak, our team is preparing to begin enrollment in Corpus Christi this Thursday, November 1.
After we verify successful operations in Corpus Christi, we will issue the specific dates for the next ten ports.
Based on progress to-date, we are on track for mid-November roll-out in Baton Rouge; Beaumont; Honolulu; Oakland; and Tacoma.
This group will be followed in late November by Chicago/Calumet; Houston; Port Arthur; Providence; and Savannah.
TWIC is one of the world's most advanced, interoperable biometric credentialing programs – powered by state-of-the-art technologies. As we continue to roll out across the nation, TSA will vet as many workers in one day as we did in one year of prototype. That is over 5,000 workers a day. This program will impact hundreds of thousands of American workers who represent the backbone of global commerce.
The start-of-enrollment represents a significant milestone in the program and we have taken other critical steps in our multi-layered approach to securing our nation's ports:
First – we added 17 new TWIC enrollment sites based on stakeholder input. We understand the importance of making enrollment as convenient and accessible as possible. The additional sites bring the total number of fixed enrollment centers to 147 nationwide. We have also added a mobile enrollment capability to take TWIC directly to workers.
Second – we reduced the price of a standard TWIC card to $132.50. It is important to us to limit the cost to workers as much as possible.
Third – we published technical specifications for TWIC biometric card readers. This allows industry to enhance the access control technologies used at 3,200 facilities and on 10,000 vessels.
And fourth – we held kick-off meetings with five card reader pilot participants. The Port Authorities of Los Angeles, Long Beach, New York and New Jersey, and Brownsville, as well as Watermark Cruises in Annapolis, were selected to represent a broad range of operating environments. We are continuing to meet with interested stakeholders to identify additional participants.
We are pleased to have started in Wilmington and look forward to the start of enrollment in Corpus Christi later this week.
We will continue to work with our partners – the Coast Guard, maritime stakeholders, and this Committee – to ensure the ongoing success of the TWIC program. We appreciate your support, most recently in sending a staff delegation to Wilmington. We look forward to hosting you at one of our enrollment sites soon. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today and I would be happy to answer any questions.
