Congress orders study on paying TSA workers for airport commutes

What it does

This bill directs the Transportation Security Administration to study whether TSA employees at airports should be paid for their commute time between parking lots/transit stops and their actual work locations. The study must examine commute times at different airport sizes, costs of paying for this time, and technical feasibility of tracking arrivals/departures. No immediate change to pay occurs—only a feasibility study is mandated.

Why we flagged it

The bill's sole operative mechanism is a mandate for a study; it does not change law, create new rights, or appropriate funds. It is a procedural directive to examine a potential policy change for federal employees.

What the text implies

• If the study concludes paid commute time is feasible, it may create political pressure for similar benefits across other federal agencies, expanding the fiscal footprint beyond TSA.
• The study's focus on 'location data' and mobile phone tracking to verify arrivals/departures raises privacy and surveillance concerns for TSA employees, even though the bill frames this as a feasibility question.
• A positive feasibility finding could increase TSA's operating budget significantly if commute time is credited toward retirement benefits, potentially affecting airport security staffing or other TSA priorities.

Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.

Who it affects

The bill creates a potential benefit for TSA employees (paid commute time could improve their compensation and work-life balance), but it is purely exploratory with no guaranteed outcome. The study may reveal that implementation is infeasible or prohibitively expensive, leaving employees with no actual gain. Citizens benefit indirectly if TSA employee morale and retention improve, but the bill itself creates no enforceable entitlement.

Who stands to gain

• TSA employees (potential future compensation increase)

Named in the bill

Transportation Security Administration (TSA), House Committee on Homeland Security, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Small hub airports, Medium hub airports, Large hub airports

Where it stands

8 cosponsors: 5 Democrats, 3 Republicans.

• Jan 31, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
• Jan 31, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Homeland Security and Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security”
• Mar 10, 2025 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection”
• Mar 10, 2025 — Floor vote scheduled · Congress.gov: “Mr. Green (TN) moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $840,426 in lobbying spend. A filing names 44 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.

Timothy Kennedy, the sponsor, reported $590,800 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.

• American Fed of Government Employees AFL-CIO — $840,426 on 2 filings

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.