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TheWeekInCongress.com (TM) Week Ending July 13, 2007
S.966 A bill to enable the Department of State to respond to a critical shortage of passport processing personnel, and for other purposes.
The bill addresses a provision in a terrorism prevention bill passed by the 108th Congress in 2004 (Public Law 108-458) requiring the development and implementation of a plan that requires all US Citizens traveling into the US to have a passport. The provision, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative concerns itself with those Americans reentering the US from Canada and other Western Hemisphere countries such as Mexico and some Caribbean countries when proof of citizenship was all that was required for reentry.
The plan went into effect on January 23, 2007 affecting those who returned by air carrier. In January of 2008 but no later than June 1, 2009 the plan is to be implemented for travelers returning through land and sea entry points.
The plan has increased the demand for passports by 33% over the previous year and the Department of State was not prepared to handle the increase leaving some Americans with the prospect of delaying or canceling travel plans.
The bill enables State to recruit and hire Foreign Service retirees with the necessary clearances and who are already trained to process passports to fill the gap quickly. The retirees, if they work only 6 months per year, can retain their pensions based on a salary cap after which the pension is relinquished or they stop working. The Secretary of State can waive the cap if need be to employ the retiree up to one year. The waiver authority would expire in 2010.
Those retirees would man consular posts with a passport and visa backlog.
Sponsor: Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) Vote: Passed Senate by Unanimous Consent June 29, 2007 Cost to the taxpayers: Waiting for CBO report. Earmark Certification: Not applicable to this bill. ## All Rights Reserved. © 2007 TheWeekInCongress.com(TM) No reproduction, language translation or distribution without written permission from TheWeekInCongress.com.(TM)
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