Senate Democrats last week unveiled their proposed budget for the Department of Homeland Security in fiscal year 2022, including the requested $104.9 million for the Transportation Security Administration’s checkpoint computed tomography (CT) program, an amount well below what the agency actually desires to accelerate deployments of the advanced scanning systems.
The House has already approved its version of the FY ’22 appropriations bill for DHS and also fully funded the $104.9 million request for checkpoint CT. The bill introduced by Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee must still be cleared by the full committee although Republicans have already stated their opposition to the measure due to differences over border security and immigration funding.
The $105 million Congress looks likely to provide for checkpoint CT is nearly $250 million short of the amount TSA Administrator David Pekoske said earlier this month is needed annually to accelerate and complete acquisition and deployment of more than 2,400 of the scanning systems in about five years. At the current funding levels, it will take about 10 years to complete the CT purchases.
TSA through a contract with Smiths Detection acquired and deployed the first 300 checkpoint CT systems and recently awarded Analogic a contract for 314 more of the systems. Analogic is expected to begin delivering its units next year.
Through development and evaluation contract with these companies and two other competitors, Integrated Defense and Security Solutions, and Leidos [LDOS], TSA also has at least a dozen additional checkpoint CT systems in operations.
The systems TSA acquired from Smiths Detection under a contract valued at around $98 million have been installed in traditional checkpoint security lanes. The $198 million contract with Analogic is for Checkpoint Property Screening System Mid-Size, which includes the company’s ConneCT CT systems, powered conveyors for CT ingress and egress, an automatic divert capability to send suspect bags to a secondary screening area, primary and alternate viewing stations, and the bins.
Competitors have already submitted bids for the next CT purchase by TSA, which is looking to purchase the CPSS Base-Size and Full-Size systems. Once the agency has evaluated the submissions, and the FY ’22 appropriations have been finalized and signed into law, TSA will be in a position to award the next contracts.
But with just over $100 million available in FY ‘22, the numbers of units the agency can afford would seem relatively small, especially if it acquires Full-Size systems. The Full-Size systems included the CT units, viewing stations, three divestment stations per lane to allow more travelers to divest their belongings simultaneously, powered ingress and egress conveyors, auto-divert for suspect bags, automatic tray return, and a threat containment unit for potential bombs.
The Base-Size systems include the CT systems, viewing stations, divest and revest roller tables, ingress and egress conveyors, a manual divert subsystem, and bins.