Without legislative action, Maine residents will likely be unable to use their driver’s licenses to board commercial airplanes starting next January because the state has yet to implement the stronger security standards. On Thursday, the Maine Senate voted 31-4 in support of a bill that directs the Secretary of State’s office to issue new driver’s license that comply with the federal Real ID rules.
The bill, L.D. 306, is now headed to the House for consideration.
“If you want to see disruption and chaos back home because we didn’t act – not just this year but for the past 10 years knowing full well that the deadline was before us – then we will see that and we all will hear that. And we should,” said bill sponsor Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, a former secretary of state.
Maine is one of a handful of states that have refused to comply with the Real ID law and not received extended waivers from the federal government. Federal officials insist that the additional requirements – including digitized images of the card holder as well as federal access to a database of birth certificates and photographs – are necessary to help thwart terrorism.
Opponents of Real ID, including current Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, have warned that the federal mandates could violate Mainers’ privacy without enhancing security.
Sen. Shenna Bellows, a Manchester Democrat who formerly headed the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, said it was “madness for our state to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to set up what will be a treasure trove for identity thieves.”
“With any centralized database, particularly when there are not enough resources to keep pace with the technology developed by hackers and thieves, it is not a question of if the data will be breached, but when and to what consequences,” Bellows said.
Both Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn, and Sen. Ben Chipman, D-Portland, called Real ID “a giant unfunded mandate” because Dunlap’s office has estimated it would cost $2 million to $3 million to implement.
Instead, opponents said that Mainers can use passports or passport cards to get through airport security or gain access to federal facilities.
But lawmakers are under increasing pressure to adopt the Real ID requirements because some people are already being impacted. Several hundred veterans have been turned away from a Department of Veterans Affairs health clinic on the former Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire while other workers have been denied access to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and other federal facilities.
Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, recently vetoed a bill that would have provided $15,000 to help low-income veterans obtain passport cards so that they can access the New Hampshire VA clinic. LePage, instead, called on the Legislature to pass Diamond’s bill rather than “provide case-by-case carve-outs for groups being affected by Real ID.”
An attempt to override LePage’s veto failed in the Maine House earlier this week.
©2017 the Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
