port managers: TWIC needs tweaks

Though the government maintains that its Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program will keep terrorists off the docks without slowing cargo handling or port operations, critics say that claim doesn't hold water.

The TWIC program is designed to limit port access by requiring anyone who works at or conducts business at a port facility to have a TWIC credential—a biometric identification card that includes detailed information about the holder. Only U.S. citizens are eligible for the IDs, which require a background check and fingerprinting.

Though few have any quarrel with the program itself, several port and ocean carrier representatives who spoke at an American Association of Port Authorities seminar in Boston last month raised some concerns about the program's implementation. Here are just a few of their objections:

• TWIC program staffers know little or nothing about port and carrier operations yet are issuing instructions affecting those operations.
• Ports (like Los Angeles, Miami, and New York) with a high percentage of foreign-born drayage drivers could face a severe driver shortage if it turns out that many of those drivers are not U.S. citizens. A possible scenario: Trucks idling on city streets as eligible and ineligible drivers switch off outside the gates.
• Cards must be scanned and cardholders must enter a personal ID number prior to entering port facilities. What will you get when 1,500 longshoremen arrive for their 7 a.m. shift at LA/Long Beach? A ship that isn't being worked and a lot of hourly workers who are getting paid while they wait in line.
• The government has vastly underestimated the number of cards to be issued. For example, the Transportation Safety Administration estimated that about 60,000 people at the Port of New York/New Jersey would need cards, but a port-sponsored survey found that 150,000 was a more realistic figure.