Congress
House Republicans seek to block new TSA fee for those without REAL ID
House Republican appropriators are taking aim at TSA’s new $45 fee for air travelers who don’t have a REAL ID or other accepted form of identification, inserting language into their annual Homeland Security spending bill seeking to stop its collection.
The fiscal 2027 legislation, which is poised for an Appropriations Committee markup Tuesday, includes a prohibition on TSA charging or collecting any fee for “a program vetting travelers arriving without acceptable identification for admission through security screenings at airports.”
In an accompanying report released Monday offering details about the bill, the House GOP said there’s “no valid statutory authority for TSA to collect” the new fee, known as ConfirmID, which launched in February.
“Previously, identity verification was a function that TSA performed for free when passengers were unable to present acceptable IDs, which frequently happens after natural disasters or personal property theft,” the report says. “ConfirmID is over an order of magnitude more expensive than the system it replaced on a per passenger basis.”
The bill would require a TSA congressional briefing on the program.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its fee collection process. The agency had initially proposed an $18 fee.
Adam Stahl, TSA’s acting deputy administrator, said in a December announcement: “The vast majority of travelers present acceptable identification like REAL IDs and passports, but we must ensure everyone who flies is who they say they are,” adding: “This fee ensures the cost to cover verification of an insufficient ID will come from the traveler, not the taxpayer.” The agency said at the time that more than 94 percent of passengers have REAL ID or other acceptable forms of identification.
Separately, Republican appropriators note in the report that TSA would be required to conduct an agency-wide review to “identify spending reductions and savings achievable through expanded use of public-private partnerships.” In doing so, the agency, among other things, would need to consider “increasing the use of private sector security screening and remote screening.”
That’s far from what the Trump administration was seeking: mandating the Screening Partnership Program, or SPP, at smaller airports. Through the program, private companies staff security checkpoints under TSA oversight.
By the numbers: The House GOP wants to give TSA $11.2 billion total in discretionary spending — a $347 million cut year-over-year. (This amount would be offset by $3.6 billion in revenue from the 9/11 passenger fee and vetting fees, like for PreCheck.)
Additionally, TSA would receive $255.3 million in mandatory spending, which is similar to what it got in fiscal 2026.
The bill would boost the SPP, with an increase of $41 million for the program year-over-year.
At the same time, Republicans aim to reduce spending on screening personnel, compensation and benefits by $32.9 million compared to fiscal 2026.
Screening technology maintenance would experience an increase, meanwhile, of $192 million.
Federal Air Marshals would see a year-over-year reduction of $290.4 million.
In the committee report, when listing vetting fees, the House GOP doesn’t account for any dollars from ConfirmID — illustrating how they want to stop it from being imposed.
The Republican Study Committee convened a meeting Monday evening with CBO Director Phillip Swagel and Tom Barthold, chief of staff for the Joint Committee on Taxation, to discuss the process for estimating program costs and savings as part of a possible third budget reconciliation bill, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the private gathering.
RSC Chair August Pfluger of Texas, as well Budget Chair Jodey Arrington of Texas and House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman of Alabama, were at the meeting. Reps. Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania and Gary Palmer of Alabama were also in attendance, according to one of the people.
“We had a dialogue and talked about their methodologies on the Big, Beautiful Bill,” Westerman said leaving the meeting — referring to last summer’s tax and spending megabill — of conversations with Swagel and Barthold. “I think it’s good to have feedback like that, and have them explain themselves, and hopefully correct, so they can make better scores on the next reconciliation package.”
Plunger’s group has been laying the groundwork for a sweeping partisan policy package since last year, and laid out a menu of policy options back in January designed to reduce costs of housing, health care and energy. He and others are pushing an aggressive timeline for Congress to pass such legislation before the August recess.
House Republicans are now discussing several components of another party-line policy package to follow up on last summer’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” and the immigration enforcement measure that could be cleared for President Donald Trump’s signature as soon as Tuesday night.
They are aiming to center a third party-line reconciliation bill around affordability, and will also be seeking to root out alleged fraud in social programs that conservatives claim could amount to tens of billions of dollars in savings for the federal government.
Provisions currently under consideration, according to three other people, include cracking down on “fraud” in Medicaid, Medicare and other social programs; affordable housing initiatives; funding for the military and the ongoing conflict in Iran; an overhaul of federal energy permitting laws; and potentially a suite of changes to the tax code like indexing capital gains on homes.
Republicans are counting on recouping cost savings from identifying and eliminating fraud in safety net programs to pay for Iran war funding, but many GOP lawmakers are keenly aware that CBO isn’t likely to find savings of that desired magnitude. Speaker Mike Johnson also raised eyebrows Monday when he told a local radio station that Republicans have plans to adjust and fix spending in Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security “next year.”
Representatives from the Heritage Foundation, the Foundation for Government Accountability and Fiscal Lab also participated in the Monday meeting with Swagel and Barthold, according to two people granted anonymity to describe attendance.
President Donald Trump officially nominated acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to hold the role on a permanent basis Monday.
The White House notified the Senate of the nomination days after Trump said he would tap Blanche for the job at a private Rose Garden dinner last week.
Blanche’s path to confirmation remains uncertain. Republican senators, fresh off their opposition to the administration’s proposed Justice Department “anti-weaponization” fund, appear to be hesitant to offer their wholehearted support for Trump’s pick.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who Trump has repeatedly attacked, previously told POLITICO he would weigh the anti-weaponization fund when considering attorney general nominees.
Opposition from any single Republican on the committee could bring Blanche’s nomination to a halt.
And Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who also sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and who lost a primary to a Trump-endorsed opponent last month, told Blue Light News last week his support for Blanche “depends on his answers to questions that I intend to ask him at the Judiciary Committee.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) signaled his support for the president’s pick, saying in a statement Monday that Blanche is “well-qualified and has shown his dedication to restoring law and order across our country.”
If confirmed, Blanche would succeed former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was forced out of the administration following the botched handling of the Epstein files and Trump’s frustrations that she wasn’t prosecuting his political rivals.
Bondi told Congress in a closed-door interview last month that Blanche was responsible for the Justice Department’s handling of the files, according to a transcript of the interview released last week.
The first bill of a House Democratic majority will concentrate on lowering costs, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters at a news conference Monday.
“We believe, every single one of us, that the cost of living in this country is far too high, and that we need to make life more affordable,” the New Yorker told reporters in response to a question from Blue Light News.
With fewer than five months left before the midterms, Democrats are beginning to plot their agenda in the event they win back control of the chamber.
His comments come with fewer than five months left before the midterms, and as Democrats have been meeting for months to plot their legislative agenda in the event they win back control of the chamber in November. Jeffries is expected to be named speaker in that scenario.
His remarks also came on the heels of a new “Dear Colleague” letter from Jeffries to all House Democrats, announcing the creation of five working groups to develop different components of affordability legislation: on housing, gas and utilities, groceries and goods, caregiving and health care.
Each of the working groups will meet this week to begin discussions about what will go into Democrats’ H.R. 1 — shorthand for a majority party’s signature bill.
While Jeffries said he will seek input from “every part of the caucus” to hammer out the specifics of an affordability package, he added that “it’s fair to say that when we look at the legislation that we’re going to lean into — including but not limited to H.R. 1 — it will be hyper focused on driving down the high cost of living and of course fixing our broken health care system as a part of that.”
Separately, the centrist House New Democrat Coalition and Congressional Progressive Caucus unveiled their affordability platforms earlier this year.
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