The TSA agents who will eventually decide which knives passengers can bring on planes will get a total of 15 minutes of new training — and won’t even have a ruler to measure the blades, Sen. Chuck Schumer wrote today in a letter to the agency asking that it further delay implementation.
In urging that the delay, Schumer and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ak) insisted that the TSA was also not planning to give its screeners rulers so they could assess what knives are acceptable.
“Based upon those 15 minutes of training, [agents] would be expected to make a judgment on acceptability of knives at the checkpoint,” Schumer wrote in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security’s acting inspector general, Charles Edwards.
“It is our understanding the TSOs would not be provided with measuring tools to quickly determine whether or not a knife is acceptable. Instead, they would simply rely on 15 minutes of training during which they would view pictures of acceptable and unacceptable knives,” Schumer’s letter stated.
Schumer and Murkowski urged that Monday’s TSA announcement temporarily delaying the implementation of the policy to allow knives and other weapons aboard flights be extended until Homeland Security can study the matter more thoroughly.
“Now that the TSA has decided to delay implementation we write to request that your office closely scrutinize TSA’s process on this critical matter going forward and complete a special review before the change is implemented,” the letter by the senators stated.
The lack of planning, the letter adds, had led to a series of questions that remain unanswered, such as what would happen if a screener is unable to determine if a knife is “a reasonable length,” the legislators added.
The Transportation Security Administration announced last month that passengers would be able to carry knives with blades less than 2.36 inches, along with sports equipment like golf clubs — a restriction that was put in place following the Sept. 11 attacks.
In announcing the policy shift, the TSA said the new rule would speed up lines at airports by permitting TSA screeners to focus upon more dangerous weapons that continue to pose a threat to airline safety.
But amid a cry of protests — led by pilots’ and flight attendants’ organizations — and worries sparked by the recent Boston Marathon terrorism bombing, the agency opted to shift gears and put their policy on hold.
In urging that the delay be extended, Schumer and Murkowski argued that airport screening lines would not be shortened, but lengthened.
“The TSA has argued that this new policy will speed up checkpoint screenings and enable TSOs [screeners] to focus on greater security risks,” the letter stated.
“We fear that the exact opposite will occur. We are quite concerned at the prospect that checkpoint screenings slow to a crawl as TSOs and passengers disagree over the length or width of knives or knives which do not meet policy.
The senators also expressed concerns in their letter that the new policy allowing knives might not be uniformly enforced within a single airport, much less between different airports.
“Can we expect vast inconsistencies in how the policy is enforced between checkpoints in a single airport and among airports?” the letter asked.
TSA spokesman said only that the delay in implementing the new policy regarding knives “was temporary and that no new implementation date has been established.”
Philip.Messing@nypost.com