Still Twic'ed

Petty Officer 1st Class Robert Fairchild of Coast Guard Sector Honolulu, verifies a TWIC card at Young Brothers in Honolulu.

By Pamela Glass, Correspondent

The Transportation Worker Identification Credential program continues to make waves through the maritime industry. Another regulatory deadline looms in August and mariners have been urging the Trump administration to curtail or abolish TWIC as part of the president’s plan to trim federal regulations throughout government.

TWIC was created as a security enhancement program after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It requires workers to pass background checks and be issued a biometric credential in order to have unescorted access to certain secure areas of the transportation system, including ports, maritime facilities and vessels. Almost every mariner must carry a TWIC, and many have complained since its creation that the card is a costly and unnecessary burden with little or no security value.

The program includes two parts — the credential issued to mariners and the electronic readers used to inspect TWIC cards. While the credentialing is largely complete, and renewals are already underway, the readers are just now coming into compliance.

CARD READERS

For the past several years, the Coast Guard has been formulating the reader regulation by assessing security risks to three categories of vessels

and facilities and working closely with the marine industry to understand implications of new regulations on their operations. Along the way, the Coast Guard exempted vessels with fewer than 20 crewmembers and certain shoreside facilities from the readers, including most of the inland tug and barge industry and almost all passenger vessels, after industry groups argued that their operations were not security risks.

On Aug. 23, 2016, the Coast Guard published a final rule that preserved many of the exemptions but expanded the scope of areas subject to the reader rule beyond the original proposed rulemaking. It required high-risk vessels and facilities that handle certain dangerous cargoes (CDC), including barge fleeting areas that service barges carrying CDC and have a secure access area with access points for reader inspectors, and terminals that receive passenger vessels carrying more than 1,000 people, to install the readers. The industry was given two years to comply, with a deadline of Aug. 23, 2018.

But the rule caused widespread confusion over the definition of “handling” CDC, and it wasn’t clear who had to comply. Industry groups representing a wide range of interests, including maritime shipping, chemical manufacturers and the oil industry, complained to the Coast Guard and Congress. A coalition of stakeholders filed a lawsuit a few months ago to force an extension of the August deadline and revisit the methodology used in assigning readers. Meanwhile, two bills are making their way through Congress that would prevent the Coast Guard from implementing any electronic reader rule until after an assessment of the effectiveness of TWICs is submitted to Congress.

On June 22, the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of the Coast Guard, announced a new rulemaking to delay implementation for three years, until Aug. 23, 2021, for two categories of facilities: those that handle CDC in bulk by non-maritime transportation modes such as rail or truck, and those that receive vessels carrying CDC but don’t unload the cargo.

Facilities that receive high-capacity passenger vessels or engage in bulk transfers of CDC must install readers by Aug. 23. “We believe that, unlike situations where CDC is not transferred to or from a vessel, these two categories of facilities present a clear risk of a transportation security incident,” said Coast Guard spokeswoman Lt. Amy Midgett.

A delay in implementation will allow the Coast Guard to review industry concerns about the scope of the final rule and re-evaluate the methodology used for the reader requirements, said Ryan Manning, chief of the Office of Port and Facility Compliance. “The Coast Guard views public participation as essential to effective rulemaking and encourages comments to be submitted” until July 23, he said.

The Passenger Vessel Association was disappointed that terminals receiving vessels carrying more than 1,000 passengers were not included in the delay and must comply on schedule. “The risk analysis model used by the Coast Guard in making this decision is unfortunately not available to the public and, as a result, PVA has no meaningful ability to comment on the risk assigned to this group,” said Gus Gaspardo, PVA president and president of Padelford

Packet Boat Co., St. Paul, Minn. He said vendors who sell the electronic readers have told several terminal operators that they cannot supply the readers by the Aug. 23 deadline. Midgett said that the Coast Guard is aware of these difficulties and that captains of the port are “well engaged with their affected facilities and are working to provide maximum flexibility” under current regulations.

ROLLBACK TWIC?

Meanwhile, TWIC is a hot topic among those writing to federal agencies that are reviewing regulations considered to be burdensome, costly and unnecessary.

A look at the public docket for the Office of Management and Budget’s request for comments on “Maritime Regulatory Reform” reveals just how deeply mariners dislike TWIC. One anonymous commenter called it “a laughable waste of time and money for seafarers,” while others questioned TWIC’s security value and the quality of the background checks, asserting that requirements are so loose that “almost anyone can obtain one.”

“Basically, the entire (TWIC) program is completely useless, a waste of time and resources, and they do not make the ports any safer,” wrote John Nelson, who did not provide his company or group. “A simple driver’s license, or existing Merchant Mariner Document which already is issued by the Coast Guard, should suffice. The MMD is also a photo ID, and alone should satisfy identification needs for employees by any port. A TWIC is a duplicate form of identification. I have had a card since they were mandated ... and I am still yet to have my card read at any place I work. Please get rid of the TWIC card program.”

Stephen Banet, vice president of regulatory compliance and safety at Wepfer Marine Inc., Memphis, Tenn., which offers harbor and fleeting services along the Mississippi River, also wants to see the program scrapped.

“This device has cost the transportation industry a tremendous amount of money and adds no value whatsoever,” he wrote. “Created and issued by the TSA, yet it is not accepted by the TSA as a valid identification to board an aircraft at an airport. I ask, what good has it done?”