California Senator Takes Aim at CLEAR Airport Security

A bipartisan California state senator is pushing a bill that would dramatically alter how CLEAR operates in that state’s airports.

POLITICO reported on Monday morning that Democratic State Senator Josh Newman is backing a bill that would require CLEAR to either get its own security lane at California airports or risk dropping its California operations altogether.

Newman cited a level of unfairness with CLEAR, which allows travelers to pay $189 a year to have their identities digitally verified and then cut to the front of security lines, as the reason for their support.

While CLEAR users who travel through California regularly might be panicking with the news, there are big questions about the proposal’s realistic path to passing.

Several airlines have already come out in opposition to the bill, writing in a letter to the California State Senate Transportation Committee Chair that cutting CLEAR would increase fees on carriers and make it more difficult for airports to manage their security lines.

According to that letter, CLEAR was used over 5 million times in 2023 alone, and frequent travelers who drive those who travel frequently have “come to rely on CLEAR and the choice it provides them for a touchless airport security experience at the airport.”

However, while airlines are supporting CLEAR, flight attendants and TSA workers are not—the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) and the Northern California branch of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) are both supporting Newman’s bill.

The TSA union, in a letter supporting the bill, said that CLEAR’s biometric technology, which allows customers to cut the line because TSA officers don’t need to validate their ID, “has never been found by the TSA to improve aviation security.”

The bill will come up before the Senate Transportation Committee on Tuesday.

This is not the first time that CLEAR has been the subject of criticism either from the TSA or from governments. The TSA, in 2023, pushed to screen CLEAR members when a man using CLEAR got through security lines at Reagan National Airport near Washington D.C. before a scan detected ammunition in his possession. When police were called to investigate the man, they discovered that he had managed to get through the CLEAR lines using a false identity.