An airport compromise.

Byline: The Register-Guard

House and Senate negotiators on airport security legislation proved Thursday that when Republicans and Democrats seek common ground, politics indeed becomes the art of the possible. They also proved that they understand it would have been politically risky for senators and representatives to go home for Thanksgiving without having responded to a pressing problem brought to light by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.

In the end, the compromise greatly improves the current airport screening system and institutes some much-needed security reforms in airports and on commercial airplanes.

The key difference between the two chambers had to do with whether security workers who screen passengers and luggage at the nation's airports should be federal employees or remain in the private sector. The Senate bill proposed to federalize the 28,000 screeners now in service, resulting in background checks, better training and better pay. The House version would have federalized airport security screening, but not necessarily those who do the screening. It would have established strict standards for screeners, but it would have allowed the Bush administration - and, by extension, the airports - the option of using federal employees as scanners or contracting with private screening companies.

The upshot of the negotiations is that the final agreement achieves a bit of both.

Airport screening will now fall under the supervision of a new Transportation Security Administration within the U.S. Department of Transportation. All screeners would have to be federal employees within a year. Airports would have to use federal screeners for a minimum of three years, at which time they could "opt out" of the federal program and contract, as they do now, with private security companies.

The opt-out provision no doubt was included as a face-saving device for House Republicans who opposed federalizing airport screeners. But recent security lapses at airports in Chicago, Boston and Atlanta rendered the issue of private vs. federal screeners pointless. Those lapses - in one case, a man passed through an airport checkpoint carrying seven knives and a stun gun - left advocates of private companies in a politically untenable position.

Other provisions of the compromise bill, which President Bush has pledged to sign, include intensification of the screening of checked bags within 60 days, putting all checked bags through explosive-detection machines by December 2002; installing hidden switches (and possibly video cameras) in cockpits to alert pilots of trouble; creating a "trusted traveler" system, in which passengers who opt to participate would be screened by high-tech devices such as retinal scanners; and adding a $5 surcharge on all airline tickets to help pay the estimated $2.5 billion cost of increased airport security.

Under the legislation, current private screeners would be eligible for the new federal screening positions, but they would have to meet stringent - and needed - requirements such as proficiency in English, a high school diploma, a criminal background check and U.S. citizenship.

The legislation approved Thursday will be an enormous improvement over the current screening system, in which undertrained and underpaid screeners are the norm. It should also reduce the huge turnover rate - up to 400 percent a year in some areas -among today's private screeners.

Most important, the legislation will greatly improve airport and airline passenger security. After Sept. 11, that should - must - be a national priority. With good will and lawmakers' willingness to compromise, the traveling public will be well served.