Senators question security on mass transit

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. senators challenged on
Wednesday a Bush administration official’s claim that security
on American mass transit systems was “outstanding” as they
called for more focus on subway and bus security to thwart a
London-style attack.

“I must say, I don’t know how you could make that judgment,
when the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has not
made a risk assessment” of the mass transit systems, Sen. Susan
Collins told the official, Kip Hawley.

“In light of the attacks on mass transit systems in other
countries, shouldn’t we be beefing up?” said Collins, a Maine
Republican and chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs. “Clearly more could be done.”

Hawley is the assistant secretary of homeland security for
the Transportation Security Administration, a job he has held
since the end of July. Both the Department of Homeland Security
and TSA were created following the attacks of September 11,
2001.

Hawley said he judged security on U.S. mass transit systems
to be “outstanding” because they were able to quickly go on
alert after the suicide bomb attacks on the London Underground
on July 7, which took 52 lives.

But Sen. Joseph Lieberman said at least $15 billion had
been spent on aviation security in the United States since the
September 11 attacks, which were carried out with airliners,
while only $300 million had been spent on mass transit
security.

“That can’t go on. We’re inviting trouble if it does go
on,” Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, said. He said 14
million Americans used mass transit systems every day, compared
to 2 million who were air passengers.

In July, one week after the London attacks, the Senate
defeated an effort to significantly increase funding for mass
transit security amid a battle over security priorities, with
large metropolitan areas claiming they were being shortchanged
compared to rural districts.

BUREAUCRATIC HURDLES

The chief of Washington, D.C.’s transit police, Polly
Hanson, complained to senators Wednesday that only a tiny
fraction, three-tenths of one percent, of Homeland Security’s
budget was devoted to grants to protect transit infrastructure
and the department erected bureaucratic hurdles to spending the
money.

The transit system in the nation’s capital still had not
gotten the green light from Homeland Security to spend its
grant funds for fiscal year 2005, which began last October 1,
Hanson said. Hawley, asked by senators to explain, said he
would tell Hanson “privately” the reason for the delay.

Hawley assured the committee that the Department of
Homeland Security took mass transit security “very seriously”
and had taken steps to improve it since the London attacks. For
example, the department made 30 teams of explosive-detecting
dog teams available to 10 large cities, he said.

Asked if there should be investment in closed-circuit
television cameras, which London used to identify the suicide
bombers and arrest perpetrators of a subsequent, failed attack,
Hawley pointed out the cameras had not prevented the attacks.

“It is a cautionary tale that even with that level (of
security), those attacks occurred. No system is invulnerable no
matter what the investment is,” he said. “You can’t take the
risk away.”

London Underground meanwhile plans to double its number of
CCTV cameras from 6,000 to 12,000 over the next five years,
chief operating officer Mike Brown told the committee.