House panel passes bill to force TSA to donate spare change

A bill that would require the Transportation Security Administration to donate money left behind at airport security checkpoints by airline passengers to benefit military members has been approved by a House committee.

The measure, H.R. 2179, was sponsored by Florida Rep. Jeff Miller (R). It was approved by the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Transportation Security during a hearing Wednesday.

The approval was the first successful vote for the legislation, which was introduced in 2009. Miller praised the vote as a step toward fairness for airline passengers.

"The TSA has been keeping the money from your change purse to pay for their bloated bureaucracy,” Miller said in a statement released by his office. “If TSA representatives get to play ‘finders keepers’ with your hard-earned cash, what’s the incentive to try to get the loose change to its rightful owners?"

TSA has reported that it found more than $400,000 in 2011 that was left behind by passengers at airport security checkpoints. Historically, if no one comes back to get the leftover money, it stays with the TSA.

Miller is chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. He has argued against the tradition of TSA keep the leftover money long before Wednesday's hearing for his bill, which would require TSA to donate the spare change to United Service Organizations.

"I would much rather see unclaimed change go to help military personnel on their way to and from the battlefield,” he said Wednesday.  “The lost change should be put to good use, and I know the USO will make those thousands of coins have a positive impact on millions of our nation’s warriors.  

House Transportation Security Subcommittee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) agreed.

“It would be a positive change to see that money spent each year on providing a welcoming and comfortable atmosphere at airports for our dedicated men and women of the Armed Services," he said at the beginning of Wednesday's hearing.

Rodgers added that the spare change bill would mark "the second time a bill in this Congress…would improve the nation’s airports to better accommodate and support our military personnel."

TSA has said its policy is not to comment on legislation that pending that affects its agency.
 
The spare change bill goes now to the full House Homeland Security Committee.

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