U.S. Senator Susan Collins, Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, today released the following statement on the Department of Homeland Security’s release of regulations related to the REAL ID program:
“I am pleased that the Department has addressed one of my primary concerns by giving states more time to implement the REAL ID requirements,” noted Senator Collins. “However, expecting states to use already limited homeland security grant funds to implement REAL ID is an unacceptable means of mitigating the high cost of this program. The Department also did not fully address privacy concerns that many of us have raised. Until these issues are addressed, states are going to have to assess the feasibility of implementing the program within the constraints of their own privacy laws and their own budgets. If these constraints prove too difficult to overcome, the Department will need to consider just how much security REAL ID actually provides if several states are not participating in it.”