Thank you, Alan.
Mr. Chairman and committee members, thank you for the opportunity.
In response to the events of September 11, 2001, the U.S. Congress passed legislation requiring all transport workers who wanted to haul dangerous goods to undergo a security threat assessment. The security assessment conducted by the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration, TSA, required jurisdictions to collect and submit biographical and fingerprint data on transport workers to determine their eligibility to transport dangerous goods.
In the United States, as Alan said, the act is called the HAZMAT program, and we are the contractor for TSA. They selected us in November 2004 to run the program, and the following components are included in the program that very much relates to your legislation that we are seeing here today. The components include a fingerprint-based, background-check program on all transport workers who want to haul hazardous materials, hazardous goods. The fingerprints are collected on a nationwide electronic fingerprint network and submitted to the FBI for them to run a criminal background search. The FBI, in turn, sends the fingerprint results of the criminal history search to the TSA, to allow them to conduct their security threat assessment. It also includes an electronic hazardous materials application in which biographical data are collected on all transport workers and submitted to the TSA. This biographical data includes citizenship documentation as well as employment background.
The program also includes a toll-free service centre, where transport workers can call in between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m., eastern time, and talk to a live operator and get their questions answered about the program. It includes a website that is operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, where transport workers can log in on their own and enrol for the security clearance program. It includes fee collection.
In the United States the fee to conduct the security threat assessment is paid by either the transport workers themselves or their employer, and the fee is $89.25. This fee includes the FBI criminal history fingerprint search. It includes the TSA's threat assessment fee for all the work they're doing to conduct the security assessment on each applicant, and it includes the contractor's fee to collect the fingerprints, the application, and to do all of the entire network around the United States. It also includes this very important thing, and that is network security. In order to ensure the privacy of data on every transport worker and to help prevent identity theft, our network includes data encryption for all data, whether at rest or in transit.
Of all the keys to implementing this program, one of the most important was to eliminate or prevent unintended consequences. And with that in mind, TSA instructed us as a contractor to consult with the industry, with all state jurisdictions, and with the trucking industry, such as the federal motor carriers that Stephanie mentioned, the American trucking associations, and each state jurisdiction to make sure that the program met all the needs of each jurisdiction in enrolling their transport workers in the security program.
To date, we have enrolled over 800,000 truck drivers who are hauling hazardous materials in the United States. To date, our information is that maybe only about 5% or 10% of these individuals have been prevented from transporting hazardous materials from the criminal history search because of their backgrounds. But in the words of the TSA themselves, this is maybe 40,000 transport workers who will not be allowed to transport because of their backgrounds, and it is protecting Americans and the families that we serve through the transportation system.