All posts by : Shamima A

The federal government is set to roll back—yet again—the date by which people must have specially verified driver’s licenses before boarding an airplane or conducting other business with the feds.

But in some ways, the Transportation Security Administration had little choice, faced with the fact that after two decades of prodding and tough talk, only 56% of driver’s licenses in circulation adhere to Real ID standards.    

The TSA unveiled a proposal Thursday that would allow federal agencies to use discretion for two years in how strictly they should enforce the May 7, 2025, deadline for compliance. The open-ended guidance would instruct federal agencies to consider security, operational risk and impact on the public for how they choose to enforce the standards.

“The proposed rule does not extend the Real ID deadline,” the agency said in a press release. “Instead, it would allow TSA to consider a phased enforcement approach to Real ID implementation. Travelers without a Real ID compliant ID or another form of acceptable ID after the May 7, 2025, deadline could face delays at airport security checkpoints.”

In a formal announcement detailing the changes, TSA predicted the May deadline could lead to widespread anxiety and disruptions if agencies didn’t have discretion to enforce the rule as they see fit.

In 34 states, less than 60% of driver’s licenses complied with Real ID at the beginning of the year. For 22 of those states, in fact, fewer than 40% met the standards.

The long history of the Department of Homeland Security setting deadlines for Real ID compliance, only to abandon them as they approached, could make Americans complacent about upgrading their license.

“DHS believes this pattern is likely to delay increased adoption in many states despite best efforts to inform the public, potentially leading to last-minute surges in demand for Real IDs leading up to the deadline,” the agency wrote in a notice of proposed rulemaking. “DHS believes this surge could overwhelm states and result in backlogs and delays in Real ID issuance.”

Not only that, but people would likely show up to federal facilities with noncompliant IDs.

“For some agencies, this scenario may raise serious concerns related to security, agency operations and potential impact to the public,” the department explained. “While these concerns are especially acute in an airport security environment, DHS anticipates that other federal agencies that operate facilities visited frequently by the general public may also face similar concerns.”

Congress passed the Real ID law as part of a massive spending package that lawmakers approved in 2005. The idea came as a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, which wanted states to improve driver’s license security because four of the 19 hijackers in the 2001 terrorist attacks used state-issued driver’s licenses to board the planes they later crashed.

President George W. Bush signed the measure into law in May 2005. It originally gave states three years to roll out systems that would verify that an applicant is in the country legally, using federal databases and original documents, such as birth certificates and Social Security cards. The law also imposed security measures for workers who handle driver’s license information or who produce the physical documents.

But state officials immediately protested the federal mandate. In fact, 17 states passed laws restricting or banning its implementation within their borders. Liberals and conservatives alike objected to the law’s costs, federal preemption of state practices and the potential threat to personal privacy.

Those initial objections softened over time. All states, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories that issue driver’s licenses currently comply with the law, according to DHS.

Now the challenge is getting compliant licenses in the hands of drivers, a task that COVID-19 made significantly harder.

Nearly half of all jurisdictions first started issuing Real ID-compliant licenses since 2018, giving people in those places limited time to get the more secure document. The pandemic then slowed down compliance because it forced most states to close their license facilities or limit hours, which led to fewer people getting Real ID-compliant licenses when it was time for them to renew. In fact, license holders have to be physically present at a license facility to get a Real ID, so many likely chose to get a noncompliant card instead, DHS explained.

“DHS observed widespread decreases in Real ID adoption rates coupled with significant increases in noncompliant card issuance rates during, and immediately after, the pandemic. This trend resulted in reduced adoption rates,” the agency wrote in its notice. Before the pandemic, the adoption rate of Real IDs had been increasing by 2.5 percentage points each month. But that dropped to 0.5 percentage points a month in the early days of the pandemic and never got much higher.

At this rate, DHS estimates that only 61.2% of licenses nationally will be Real ID-compliant by the May deadline.

And the pandemic-era dip “will also likely continue to depress adoption rates for several years,” because people tend to upgrade when their current license expires, which usually happens every three to eight years, DHS wrote.

With about half of its leased office space set to expire in the next five years, the General Services Administration is wagering that workspaces shared by multiple agencies could be how federal employees return to the office. 

But a Government Accountability Office report published Wednesday that examined the GSA’s coworking pilot program said there needs to be better data illustrating its use and potential cost savings before it attempts to scale the practice.  

After emerging from the pandemic and the emergence of telework, GSA’s Public Buildings Service conducted an initiative to tackle the twin goals of developing new workspace configurations to accommodate the future of work and helping reduce the footprint of federal real property.

As part of that initiative in July 2023, GSA launched a pilot program consisting of six coworking locations nationwide that could serve all federal employees and similar coworking spaces in its own Workplace Innovation Lab at its Washington, D.C. headquarters.

GSA officials tailored the coworking spaces around agencies’ needs and other factors like transit access, building amenities, ease of use and privacy and security and continued to engage them to further modify the spaces as needed. 

Because of those efforts, GAO said that GSA properly designed the pilot around some of the leading practices it defines for success. However, the watchdog noted that for GSA hasn’t fully developed practices that would allow the pilot to further scale and track potential cost savings gains. 

While GSA does collect use and user satisfaction data on the coworking sites through surveys, officials told GAO that the data may not accurately capture the extent of the site’s usage. 

“Specifically, GSA officials told us they may be missing data on some users because GSA relies on users to scan a quick response (QR) code to check in to the space when they arrive, and not all users do so,” the report said. “GSA officials told us that while GSA staff at the coworking spaces try to manually enter information for users who have not scanned the QR code so they receive the satisfaction survey, GSA may still not be identifying all users.”

Between May 17, 2023, and Aug. 1, 2024, GSA counted “at least 924 users, from 59 federal entities, have visited federal coworking spaces at least 1,839 times,” but said there could be more unaccounted users because they may not check in with the QR code.  

While GSA officials said they planned to roll out a new reservation system that would automate the booking of coworking space, users may still not check in to it when they arrive. 

The other challenge facing the program is that GSA officials have yet to develop a system to inform how they may scale it beyond the pilot stage to new locations. 

GSA told GAO factors like agency interest could lead it to open new coworking spaces, but the watchdog noted that the agency hasn’t defined a metric to illustrate what adequate interest would be or what factors would result in closing an existing location.

“More broadly, while the pilot thus far has focused on gathering input from coworking space users, GSA has not developed scalability criteria that would enable it to assess whether a coworking service would succeed in a broader, non-pilot setting,” the report said. 

GAO pointed out that while GSA currently doesn’t charge for the use of a coworking site, to scale the program, it would plan to in the future. That would require formal policies from participating agencies on coworking space use, which GSA has yet to evaluate. 

Agency officials told the GAO that hadn’t developed the scalability criteria because they were still focusing on coworking input and cost analysis of running the spaces, but planned to once they understood the cost targets and potential agency appetite for the spaces. 

However, GAO said it would better serve GSA to weigh scalability now to better ensure success. 

“Establishing scalability criteria early in the pilot program, rather than waiting until decisions regarding pricing are complete, will better position GSA to ensure it is gathering the information needed to inform sound decisions moving forward,” the report said. “Moreover, developing well-defined scalability criteria that provide evidence to inform decisions on whether to integrate pilot activities into federal space planning would better position GSA to develop strong, defensible conclusions regarding the future of the pilot.”

Finally, while GSA has targeted cost and space savings as a long-term goal of its coworking plans, and has identified potential challenges, it doesn’t yet have a system in place to track cost savings. 

GSA officials said no system is currently in place because they didn’t expect agencies to make long-term coworking commitments while still in the pilot stage of the program, but planned to ultimately use lease cost avoidance methodology and lessons learned to develop such a system in the future.

GAO offered three recommendations, including that GSA improve its usage data, develop criteria to inform scalability and a system to track potential cost and space savings. GSA officials concurred with the recommendations and said they would create plans to implement them. 

The U.S. Capitol Police are welcoming a special security designation from the Department of Homeland Security for Jan. 6, 2025, when Congress will gather to certify the Electoral College vote count for the winner of the presidential election.

The last time Congress undertook the responsibility, a pro-Trump mob attacked the building, eventually breaking through police barricades, severely injuring officers and disrupting the process.

The rioters were spurred on by false claims from former president and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that he won the 2020 election when he had in fact lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College.

Members of Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence were evacuated or told to shelter in place in their offices as one of the most secure buildings in the country was overrun.

Federal prosecutors have since secured convictions or plea deals for hundreds of the people who attacked law enforcement and obstructed Congress’ responsibility to certify the vote that day.

United States Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger released a written statement Thursday saying the “National Special Security Event designation will further strengthen our work to protect the Members of Congress and the legislative process.”

“The United States Capitol Police has been preparing for the January 6 count, as well as the Inauguration, for several months,” Manger added. “We have made hundreds of changes and improvements over the past three years, and we are confident that the Capitol will be safe and secure.”

National Special Security Events, or NSSEs, are somewhat expected for major events, like State of the Union speeches, presidential inaugurations and the presidential nominating conventions that the Democrats and Republicans hold every four years.

This, however, will be the first time that one has been issued for Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote.

The designation means the U.S. Secret Service will be the lead federal law enforcement agency planning security for the event, despite it being held in the U.S. Capitol, where USCP typically holds the top jurisdiction.

“National Special Security Events are events of the highest national significance,” Eric Ranaghan, special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s Dignitary Protective Division, said in a written statement released Wednesday. “The U.S. Secret Service, in collaboration with our federal, state, and local partners are committed to developing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated security plan to ensure the safety and security of this event and its participants.”

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and X.

If a federal employee is considering filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alternative dispute resolution is a process available to them that could resolve their issue without litigation. But an August EEOC report on the federal government’s use of ADR found that agencies may not be implementing it in a way that makes complainants trust the option. 

Under ADR, a neutral entity helps parties reach agreement through techniques like mediation. It can reduce conflict, cost and delays. 

Since 2000, every agency has been required to provide its employees with access to an ADR program both during the pre-EEO complaint and formal complaint stages. 

“EEOC has always been involved with trying to prevent and resolve discrimination cases, and if conciliation, one of their processes, doesn’t work, then it often or can lead to litigation,” said Stephen Paskoff, who has been involved with EEO issues since 1974 both as a former EEOC litigator and head of a human capital consulting firm. 

A survey EEOC conducted as part of the report found that 46 out of the 72 complainants who responded felt the ADR process was not fair. In contrast, 21 of the 23 manager respondents said the opposite.  

Out of a possible survey size of about two million federal employees, only 217 responded to the survey. So EEOC did not use results to produce findings or recommendations. 

“I want to know more,” Paskoff said. “But the people may have felt that they weren’t fairly heard or fairly represented, or possibly that the mediators were siding with the respondent or government representatives rather than with them. It’s hard to tell.”

Notably, 17 complainants who responded to the survey said that retaliation after participating in ADR had caused them to consider leaving the federal workforce. 

A similar report from EEOC in fiscal 2021 found that approximately 40% of federal agencies in fiscal 2019 had incomplete ADR policies, with failing to state the timeline involved in the process being the most common issue. 

That report also found that:

• A third of agencies did not regularly self-assess their program’s effectiveness. 
• 60% of agencies do not provide ADR for sexual harassment complaints. 
• Almost 19% of agencies permitted the manager accused in the complaint to be the settlement authority and nearly a quarter did not require managers to participate in ADR.

August’s report also found that ADR was offered to and accepted by complainants significantly more during the pre-complaint than the complaint stage. 

Referencing a line in the report, Paskoff said this is “likely because during the pre-complaint phase both parties may still have an opportunity to preserve their relationships and prevent an escalation of conflict.”

EEOC recommended that: 

• Agencies ensure employees and managers receive annual training on ADR. 
• Leaders show support for the process by publicizing the agency’s ADR policy statement. 
• Agencies create a tool to collect feedback after the mediation process. 

Paskoff also pointed out that having EEO rules and guidelines aren’t enough. Agencies actually have to follow them. 

“In the work we do, one of the things that we should say is the best form of alternative dispute resolution is to resolve it before the other forms of dispute resolution are needed,” he said. “Get people to talk about it. If people are doing things that are grossly wrong, that should be called out and raised immediately, which is a cultural standard that is too often said but not embedded into organizational processes in the way things actually work.”