The Coast Guard is proposing a three-year delay in requiring the deployment of transportation worker credentials in certain facilities and is taking the next month to accept comments on the plan.
“This proposed delay is to consider industry input asking us to reconsider the scope of the TWIC Reader final rule and to re-evaluate the underlying methodology used to determine the facilities subject to the electronic TWIC inspection requirements,” says Capt. Ryan Manning, chief of the Coast Guard’s Office of Port and Facility Compliance.
The Transportation Worker Identification Credential program, called TWIC, was mandated by Congress more than a decade ago to bolster security in secure areas on vessels and port facilities. Mariners and port workers go through background checks before receiving their TWIC smart credentials, which are used to gain unescorted access to areas of ports and vessels.
The Coast Guard uses handheld biometric readers to check TWIC cardholders and in some areas of ports fixed biometric readers are used to validate credentials. In some cases, the electronic readers are used to control access to secure areas of ports and vessels.
According to the Coast Guard’s new proposal in the June 22 Federal Register, it wants to delay the date for TWIC readers by three years for two categories of facilities, including those that “handle certain dangerous cargoes in bulk, but do not transfer these cargoes to or from a vessel,” and “facilities that receive vessels carrying certain dangerous cargoes in bulk, but do not, during that vessel-to-facility interface, transfer these bulk cargoes to or from those vessels.” The proposed delay would be until Aug. 23, 2021, and comments on the notice of proposed rulemaking will be accepted until July 23, 2018.
The notice says that facilities that receive large passenger vessels and those that receive certain dangerous cargoes in bulk and transfer it to or from a vessel are still required to comply with the TWIC reader rule by this Aug. 23.