By Frank Thomas 

TSA chief Kip Hawley faced questions Tuesday on the agency’s failure to write security regulations for repair shops as Congress ordered nearly four years ago. Hawley is testifying Tuesday before House and Senate panels looking broadly at aviation security.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., sharply criticized Hawley for missing an August 2004 deadline to issue security regulations for nearly 700 overseas repair stations that work on airplanes for U.S. airlines. “I can’t figure out why there is no sense of urgency on foreign repair stations,” McCaskill told Hawley.

She referrred to a “scathing” report written in 2003 by the Department of Transportation’s inspector general outlining security concerns about the repair shops. “It is a disaster waiting to happen,” McCaskill said of the possibility of a terrorist getting into an overseas repair shop to sabotage an airplane.

McCaskill said her staff recently received a copy of security rules for overseas repair shops that TSA officials had drafted in 2005 but never published. The draft was issued under David Stone, who resigned as TSA chief in June 2005. Hawley took over in July 2005. Read more…

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