More lawmakers object to TSA’s knife policy

Three House members on Monday joined a growing chorus of lawmakers raising objections to the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) decision to begin allowing certain knives and other previously banned items on airplanes.

Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Michael Grimm (R-NY) said they would send  a letter to  TSA Administrator John S. Pistole to make ktheir case against the policy change, which they suggested was hastily made.

“This decision appears to have been made without formal engagement with stakeholders impacted by this policy, including those most likely to come into contact with someone possessing a knife on a plane – flight crewmembers and air marshals,” the group said in a written statement issued ahead of the letter.

The group is urging TSA to hold off on enforcing the new regulations allowing knives in carry-on baggage as long as they do not lock, have blades longer than 6 centimeters and are less than a half inch in width.

The new rules – which also allow toy baseball bats, pool cues, ski poles, hockey sticks and golf clubs – are set to take effect on April 25.

TSA maintains the new change would allow officers to concentrate on more serious risks, including explosives. But the lawmakers argued groups with a direct stake in the policy, including Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC), should have been consulted.

“Developing policies in a vacuum that will impact millions of passengers and thousands of front-line workers is a disservice to the American public,” said Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Earlier Monday, Rep. Edward Markey (D_Mass.) expressed his own discontent over the policy change, saying that it “needlessly places the lives of airline passengers and flight attendants at risk."