Lawmaker rips into State Department for passport delays

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A lawmaker ripped into the State Department Wednesday for widespread delays in issuing passports, calling them "a travesty" and "a national embarrassment" reminiscent of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina.

"The U.S. passport system is broken and Americans are paying a painful price," Rep. Tom Lantos, D-California, said in a statement prepared for a hearing Wednesday.

"Our constituents have been reduced to begging and pleading, waiting for months on end, simply for the right to travel abroad," said Lantos, who is chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

"We have heard the message," Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Maura Harty said in a statement.

"The current situation is untenable and we are committed to turning it around," she said. "We are taking the steps necessary to correct the current situation and re-establish passport service that is reliable, predictable and secure."

The government underestimated the impact of post-9/11 security laws that require all Americans wishing to travel into or out of the country to have passports.

In June, the State Department eased some of the planned requirements. For example, Americans who don't have a passport but can show they have applied for one can return through September by air from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda or countries in the Caribbean. And passport requirements for sea and land travelers from the region were delayed until 2009.

Harty spelled out for the committee a list of steps the State Department has taken to dig out from underneath the passport backlog: Hundreds of employees have been dispatched to work in passport centers in New Orleans and New Hampshire; more than 1,000 new staff have been recruited; State Department employees are volunteering; and some Foreign Service Officers have been called back from overseas assignments or pulled out of language courses to help.

"We are tapping talent and resources from every part of the State Department to meet this need," said Harty.

But Lantos was not mollified. Hiring "has proceeded at a snail's pace," Lantos said, and he doesn't believe State Department predictions that the waiting time for a passport will be down to eight weeks by September and six weeks by the end of the year.

"Every objective observer seems to think the State Department's projections are wildly unrealistic," he said. E-mail to a friend

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