State says Real ID plan will cost $150m

The Patrick administration says a federal law that would tighten drivers' license regulations would cost the state more than $150 million and overwhelm agencies that would have to process millions of new documents and to verify the identity and immigration status of every Massachusetts driver.

In a strongly worded letter to the Department of Homeland Security, Anne L. Collins, registrar of motor vehicles, criticized the law's "excessive demands on state funds, impractical time line, potential harm to citizens' privacy and possible deleterious effects on public safety."

Patrick and his administration have previously voiced disapproval of the Real ID Act, which requires states to verify the identities of people who apply for or renew drivers licenses, starting next spring, and to make sure they are American citizens or US residents. But the May 7 letter is the most pointed criticism yet, registering a host of objections as federal officials sought feedback in a 60-day comment period that ended May 8.

In the letter, Collins said implementing the stricter federal regulations would cost the Registry an extra $100 million in the first year, and $40 million each year after that, three times the current funding level. The Registry of Vital Records and Statistics would have to come up with an extra $19 million in the first year and $360,000 above its usual budget every year thereafter. That would be more than five times the current funds commanded by the agency.

"You can't find anybody who wants this thing," said Juliette Kayyam, homeland security adviser to Patrick. "We think it has negligible security benefits."

Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the department would review all of the comments that had been received on the regulations, which by the end of the comment period had numbered 12,000. He said that the comments would "potentially be reflected in the final regulations" but that the regulations would probably go forward.

Verifying the identities of residents, along with their immigration status, is necessary to help the government spot potential terrorists, he said.

"We have a choice," he said. "We can do nothing and sit back and hope we get lucky, or we can take steps today. Admittedly some [of the regulations] are a little burdensome, but we have to shut down a known vulnerability before it comes back to haunt us."

But Kayyam said the new require ments will drain precious resources from more effective security initiatives, that the federal act will result in a mish-mash of 50 different state-based identity verification systems, that privacy concerns have not been addressed, and that state agencies will have to make radical changes in the way they do business while receiving little in the way of extra funding.

"These are expensive changes," Kayyam said. "It's not just computer changes; it's personnel, too. And everything our registrars have been doing in the last 10 years for you and me, making it easier to renew licenses online, it's gone. Now you have to show up in person and wait in line, like before."

In an interview, Collins said the impact of the new law would be "staggering."

"Essentially, it's a re-enrollment of everybody who has a driver's license," she said. "We're adding millions of customers to every branch of the RMV."

Registrars would be required to verify individuals' dates of birth, a process that they say will require that millions of state birth records, currently on paper, be converted to electronic files that are easily accessible from a computer terminal. That would be an expensive and time-consuming task, Collins said.

Knocke said state and local governments, in addition to private companies, should bear some of the costs for strengthening national security.

"Local governments and state governments have an inherent role to play in public safety," he said. "Particularly in a post-9/11 world, where the phenomenon of radicalization is far more likely to be detected at the local level."

If states are unable to meet the federal law's requirement by the 2008 deadline, they may request extensions through 2009, Knocke said. Every driver in the United States must carry a driver's license that complies with the Real ID Act by 2013.

Kayyam said the law puts Massa chusetts and other states into an impossible position: pour resources into satisfying an unfunded law that does little to enhance security or risk limiting the movements of the state's residents because they do not hold licenses that comply.

The release of the federal regulations in March prompted torrents of criticism from state governments across the country. Montana and Washington have enacted laws saying they won't comply with the regulations. Other states have passed resolutions opposing the new law. The National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators officially object to its provisions.

(Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in yesterday's City & Region section about a federal law that would tighten driver's license regulations misspelled the name of Governor Deval Patrick's homeland security adviser, Juliette Kayyem.)