Transportation safety chief announces his resignation
Director is third to quit since 2002
WASHINGTON -- There is more turbulence at the agency charged with airport security since the 2001 terrorist attacks: The Transportation Security Administration is losing its third director in as many years.
TSA chief David Stone will leave the job in June, spokesman Mark Hatfield said yesterday. No reason for the move was provided, and no replacement was announced.
The change was made as the new Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, is considering restructuring the entire department, which includes TSA.
Stone, a retired Coast Guard admiral, was preceded by James Loy, former commandant of the Coast Guard, and John Magaw, former head of the Secret Service. Stone's 16-month tenure as TSA chief was the longest.
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, chairwoman of the committee that oversees Homeland Security, said Stone ran TSA during a critical time, ''when the challenges of securing our transportation infrastructure have taken on a great urgency."
''He did a good job," said Representative John Mica, Republican of Florida, chairman of the House aviation subcommittee. ''I worked well with Admiral Stone."
Mica has criticized TSA for being a ''Soviet-style bureaucracy" with too many airport screeners who do not perform well enough detecting explosives and dangerous items on passengers. He said he wants the agency transformed, so that private companies take over airport screening and TSA simply oversees the private companies.
''TSA did a great job in putting an army of 48,000 screeners together, but then when you stand back and look at the results, the performance is just not acceptable," Mica said.
He said he is concerned that it will take time to replace Stone, which will slow efforts to restructure the TSA.
Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon, formerly the ranking Democrat on the aviation subcommittee, said there are not enough screeners and they are hampered by dated equipment. He opposes a return to private screeners, who were widely criticized for their poor performance after the 2001 hijackings.
