must go beyond its traditional regulatory role and become an active partner of the airlines in security.

We have four specific recommendations to offer. In making these recommendations we do not mean to suggest that it is solely the Government's responsibility to improve security. The airlines must do their part, and we can assure you that they will.

The first recommendation is that the Federal Aviation Administration should concentrate its own security resources where they are needed most. Congress substantially increased FAA's budget for security following the terrorist hijacking of a TWA jetliner three and a half years ago. FAA subsequently hired more Air Marshals and security inspectors. This morning we heard about additional increases in the FAA's security workforce.

But these resources must be deployed in areas where the threat of terrorism is the greatest, specifically to Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East. We are not suggesting that the FAA abandon its domestic responsibilities, but we are suggesting that it must assign more of its security people to ground duty in support of airline security activities at high-risk airports overseas.

The second recommendation we have is that the Government must speed the development and the commercial availability of emerging new technologies that detect hidden explosives. FAA has achieved promising results in recent tests designed to detect vapors emitted by explosives. It also has achieved significant breakthroughs in the development of thermal neutron analysis, a technique which appears capable of detecting all known explosives in the quantities that are of concern to commercial aviation.

The FAA recently announced that it will buy six thermal neutron analysis machines this year, and will do all that it can to bring this new technology on line quickly. We believe that the FAA should increase that purchase order, and that the new machinesas well as the two existing units that the FAA has been using for tests here in the United States-be airlifted to Europe as soon as possible.

In addition, the Government should help nurture these new screening technologies to maturity by providing seed money for the first industry buy of state-of-the-art equipment. FAA provided funds to the airlines in the early 1970s to speed the deployment of effective metal detectors at U.S. airports. Financial assistance now is even more appropriate and urgently needed in meeting today's far more dangerous threat of terrorism.

The Air Transport Association has developed a preliminary estimate of the explosives detection equipment requirements needed to support U.S. airline operations at high-threat foreign airports, as well as a preliminary estimate of the costs that would be involved. A detailed breakdown of these estimates is attached to our formal statement.

In summary, the preliminary estimate is that 66 thermal neutron analysis units and 171 vapor detection units are needed to meet the security requirements of eight U.S. airlines at 45 highthreat airports in Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East. The costs are estimated at $49.5 million for the thermal neutron analysis units, and $17.1 million for the vapor detection units, for a total preliminary cost estimate of $66.6 million.

We believe that Federal funding for this equipment is justified and warranted, and that that Federal funding could be provided by means of a special appropriation from the Aviation Trust Fund for this purpose.

Our third recommendation is that the United States accelerate efforts to strengthen international standards on security. The ICAO has made considerable progress in that direction in recent years, but more needs to be done. ICAO should lay out tougher security standards for all nations and, importantly, it should be given the resources it needs to evaluate security programs around the world and the authority it needs to impose sanctions against nations that fail to live up to established standards.

Our last recommendation is one that help ensure protection that U.S. travelers deserve until the tougher international standards are in place. That is that the FAA impose the same stringent security requirements on foreign air carriers serving the United States as it imposes on U.S. carriers.

On December 29, FAA mandated heightened security measures for U.S. airlines serving Western Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East. Those same security steps were not required of foreign airlines serving the United States from the same airports, even though some 50 percent of U.S. citizens who travel abroad travel on those foreign carriers.

We think that omission, the coverage of security requirements for foreign air carriers, is a significant gap in the security program of the FAA.

On the domestic scene I would just like to report that in the 15 years since passenger screening began, there has only been one U.S. hijacking of a major airline involving a real firearm smuggled through the screening system. The U.S. airlines screened more than 1 billion people last year, four times the population of the United States, and the system detected some 3,000 firearms, leading to the arrest of about 1,500 people. By FAA estimates, 118 hijackings have been prevented since the passenger screening system became mandatory.

In other words, the passenger screening system in the United States is working well. It is accomplishing what it was designed to do, which is to prevent hijackings. However, meeting the new threat of international terrorism clearly requires new strategies calling for greater Government involvement in airline security and greater focus on airports and airline operations overseas. Government must share the burden of security. It must help the airlines shore up their defenses. With that kind of help, and if Government can target its resources where the threat is the greatest, I think we can go a long way toward shielding travelers against the scourge of terrorism in the years ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Lally. We greatly appreciate your testimony. As I said earlier, the written statement in its entirety will appear in full in the record.

Do any of your associates have remarks to make at this time? Mr. LALLY. I think they do not, sir, but they may have some comments to contribute in the executive session.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I particularly appreciate your reference to the passenger screening system. I think it should be emphasized that this has proven to be a very effective deterrent. As I mentioned at the outset of the hearings, we tend to forget that from 1969 through about 1973 or 1974, we were experiencing one hijacking every two weeks. Then came the magnetometers and the other detection systems and the careful screening of baggage, and in the years since 1969 we have screened at American airports alone 9.5 billion pieces of luggage, some 9 billion passengers, and collected 41,000 firearms and thousands of bombs or incendiary devices, and made 14,000 arrests. People are still in prison for violating domestic security.

I think the record has to be cited, the enormity of it and the immense numbers of people and equipment and baggage processed through this system so that people understand that a very significant measure of security has been provided at domestic airports and that we are doing as fine a job as the state-of-the-art permits to be done. That's not to say that it can't be improved. The FAA has imposed two waves of significant fines on airlines for failure to achieve desired levels of detection. We're talking about levels above 95 percent. We think that kind of check system is necessary.

But at the very time that we were perfecting the passenger screening systems in the United States and abroad, the terrorists were moving on to more sinister means of, as you put it well, "making their point" on international policy for or against a particular cause. We need to be a step ahead of the game. Your point is again well taken about the FAA concentrating its resources where they are needed the most. The FAA is not an intelligencegathering agency. It is an agency configured to respond to intelligence gathered by other sources.

I would like you to be a little more specific, though, on what you think are the most appropriate roles for the FAA. Surely research and development is appropriate, but what are the other appropriate roles for the FAA? And how do those responsibilities mesh with the role of the private sector?

Mr. LALLY. I think the United States Civil Aviation Security Program is the one that, as you indicated, has been extremely successful. It is a program that involves FAA as the lead Government agency. It is FAA that defines the security threat and prescribes the measures that need to be taken to combat that threat. They assist and coordinate in the implementation of those measures. As a bottom line, they have the regulatory authority to enforce the requirements.

In addition, they serve a most important role in being the interface for aviation with the national and international intelligence community. The intelligence factor is an extremely important one. The system we have in place is very, very comprehensive and one that can be refined and tailored in response to intelligence to react to various changes in the nature and level of the threat.

We believe that FAA performs that job-that is their role and they do it rather well. The airlines, on the other hand, are primarily responsible for their aircraft, for the people and things that go on it, and for maintaining a secure inflight environment.

The airport operator, the other key player in the United States system, is responsible for establishing and maintaining a secure ground environment into which the aircraft come and go, and they are also responsible for arranging for the presence of local law enforcement to put some muscle behind the programs as needed. So I think that arrangement has worked well.

When we are talking about today's threat, though, I think it is important to note that the major threat is sabotage, and the major threat is overseas. That's where we need the additional help of our Government in the form of FAA security inspectors, who are very, very talented and can really be of major assistance. We're not talking about the FAA inspector performing the duties of the airline in terms of conducting screening and baggage inspection, but the airlines operate overseas in a foreign environment. They operate at the pleasure of host governments and airport authorities. The FAA presence at those locations can provide a great service in dealing with the host governments and making sure that the security programs at that airport are adequate and proper so that that chore is not left to the individual airlines to do one-on-one with the foreign governments.

The mere fact that the FAA is there will communicate a very, very significant deterrent. It will communicate to those nations, and hopefully to terrorists, that where U.S. flag carriers fly they fly with the full protection of the United States Government. So their presence is a significant deterrent and their activities can be of great benefit to oversee the adequacy of and necessity for security programs to protect U.S. airline operations.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Then in the overseas role you would see the intelligence-gathering agencies and the FAA together as a front line of defense, providing information and guidance for the airline companies and the airport operators overseas who can act on that information?

Mr. LALLY. Yes, sir, but I think it can go beyond that. Again, it's not to assume the airlines' responsibilities, but if we have a threat that is identified and a threat that is being responded to, then if there is a "hit," so to speak, in responding to that threat where something is found, something is suspicious, I think that the presence of the FAA people can help in responding to that specific threat not only individually as FAA inspectors, but jointly with the airlines and with the host governments.

I see more of not only technical assistance, not only intelligence, not only international liaison, but I see some hands on, shoulder-toshoulder kind of activities that can be conducted with the airlines. Mr. OBERSTAR. Very good.

How much of investment are the carriers making in security? And how much of an investment-if the Airport Operators Council could tell us this are the airports themselves making in security? I know that each has a unique role, each fits into the security picture in a different way, that each is making substantial investments.

Mr. LALLY. I can only give you an industry estimate that is based, really, on two figures. One, the costs associated with the passenger screening process in the United States alone is estimated at approximately $250 million. If were to add the costs beyond passen

ger screening, particularly with the extraordinary measures being conducted abroad, I would estimate that the cost is at least in the $500 million range. I can't provide a more precise estimate and I doubt that anyone could provide it.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Do the airport operators have a separate comment?

Mr. JACKSON. The airport operators also have a considerable amount involved in airport security. Although we do not become involved with passenger screening per se, we are responsible for supplying and furnishing the location for that screening. The overall airport security program belongs to the airport operator and costs many thousands of dollars per year to operate, as well as the initial cost of implementation and facilities.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Do the airport operators and the airline companies play a role with the FAA in developing technology to deal with the security threats, such as magnetometers and the thermal neutron analysis and vapor detection systems and others? Are you called in for counsel or in some kind of advisory role with the FAA in this respect?

Mr. FITZGERALD. I could speak to that for the situation at Kennedy Airport.

We have established our own Airport Security Council that addresses these issues on a monthly basis. It brings together all of the interested agencies on the airport, the FAA included, the airlines, and the Port Authority, and we address issues of security.

I think in terms of the R&D effort, however, we do rely on the FAA to spend the bulk of the funds to develop the product, but I feel we have had a very adequate opportunity to comment on those and to offer our opinions as to what we think the airport operating problems would be as those kinds of products are developed.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. I think that's very important.
My time has expired.

At this point, as I indicated at the outset of the hearing, we will take testimony from our colleague, Congressman Burton, who is here after breaking other committee responsibilities. We would like you to take your place at the witness table.

We thank you very much for being with us today and for interrupting your schedule to rejoin the committee. We welcome your testimony. We know that you have introduced legislation dealing with this matter, and this is your opportunity to discuss it with us.

TESTIMONY OF HON. DAN BURTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM INDIANA

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank you and the committee very much for giving me an opportunity to discuss my legislation and the reasons for it.

Mr. Chairman, terrorist attacks against civilian airlines have increased dramatically in the last decade. Plastic explosives have become the weapon of choice for international terrorists in the 1980s. The horrible explosion that killed 273 passengers on Pan Am Flight 103 last December over Scotland was widely believed to be caused by plastic explosives concealed in a radio.