Hopefully You Have a Passport

Coming off our last email we received some great feedback on what might make The Weekend Word better.  This one might not hit any of those buttons, but it is a topic that effects many of our readers.

Starting January 30th 2017 PA driver’s licenses will no longer count as a federal ID.  At first this is probably not going to be that large of an inconvenience to most of us as it only prohibits us from entering federal buildings.   A year later is where things start to get a little hairy; in 2018 PA license’s will no longer be to be used to board a domestic commercial flight.  That’s right, you would need a passport to fly within the USA.

Per the Department of Homeland Security, the REAL ID Act, passed in 2005 “established minimum security standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards and prohibits Federal agencies from accepting for official purposes licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards.” The act mandates that licenses issued by states comply with anti-counterfeiting provisions and store photographs and other information in a database that federal officials can utilize.

As of now Pennsylvania has made some changes to meet the standards required by the act but a 2011 state law prohibits Penn DOT from complying with other provisions.  Unfortunately, Homeland Security has claimed that it will not offer any more extensions to Pennsylvania or the other states (Kentucky, Maine, Oklahoma and South Carolina) unless they make significant progress towards complying with the act.

This obviously less than ideal for those located in the affected states.  The best thing we can do now is to make sure we have a passport ready for what is surely going to be a mess.