In January 2025, the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners voted to spend $35.8 million on new screening equipment for Miami International Airport. The county is not seeking federal reimbursement. It is procuring the equipment, having it installed, and transferring ownership to TSA.
That arrangement has a name. TSA calls it the Capability Acceptance Process. It has been in place for years, it is publicly documented, and it is increasingly how airport security technology is being modernized across the United States.
The Program
TSA's acting deputy administrator described the Capability Acceptance Process at a public industry event in 2020.
Under the program, an airport, airline, or private entity procures TSA-approved screening equipment, funds the installation, covers four years of maintenance, and transfers ownership to TSA. TSA evaluates each request on a business case basis, including whether it has the staffing to operate the donated equipment.
The Miami-Dade staff memo prepared for the county commission explained the program's context directly: the passenger security fee established after September 11 has not kept pace with inflation and is today insufficient to fund most of TSA's activities, including technology modernization. Airports are funding the gap.
The Port of Portland made the same observation in its own commission records when it approved an equipment procurement contract for Portland International Airport in January 2023. The Port's staff memo stated that due to budget constraints, TSA cannot provide the newest checkpoint equipment to every airport, and that the Capability Acceptance Process allows airports to provide the approved equipment and transfer ownership to TSA at no charge. The Port approved approximately $8.5 million for eight checkpoint screening lanes for the PDX terminal redevelopment project.
Congressional Awareness
Congress has been aware of the Capability Acceptance Process for some time. In its report accompanying the FY2020 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee noted its awareness of TSA's efforts to pursue the program and raised a specific concern.
At the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security hearing on April 10, 2024, TSA Administrator David Pekoske addressed the program directly in response to questions from Representative Ashley Hinson. Pekoske confirmed that one airport had recently donated $30 million worth of technology and a brand-new checkpoint, describing the result as spectacular. He noted, however, that the Capability Acceptance Process is a really good process, but it is not the full solution.
Pekoske also told the subcommittee that at current investment rates, TSA's CT scanner acquisition would not be completed until 2042 and its identity verification technology acquisition until 2049. Both hearings were conducted under the prior administration.
The Market Response
Screening technology manufacturers have built dedicated marketing programs around the Capability Acceptance Process. Analogic Corporation, one of TSA's approved screening equipment manufacturers, maintains a public-facing CAP page listing major airports that have partnered with them through the program. SeeTrue, an AI screening company whose software integrates with equipment from multiple approved manufacturers, maintains a similar page marketing its technology to airports considering CAP participation.
Former TSA Deputy Administrator John Halinski published a piece this spring calling for a phased approach to checkpoint modernization beginning with expanded SPP, followed by airport-led pilot programs for technology procurement, supported by open architecture standards. A former senior advisor in TSA's Strategy, Policy Coordination, and Innovation Office, now employed by Smiths Detection, one of the program's approved equipment manufacturers, published a public article this week advising airports on how to prepare for TSA Gold+ adoption, describing the program as no longer theoretical.
The Unanswered Questions
The Capability Acceptance Process is a documented, publicly available program that has been operating for years with congressional awareness. The bifurcated security concern the Senate Appropriations Committee raised in 2019 has not been publicly resolved. The briefing the committee directed TSA to provide before full implementation has not been publicly confirmed as delivered.
What Has Not Been Disclosed
TSA has not disclosed in any of its four FY2026 congressional appearances whether any Gold+ related capability requests have been submitted through the program, or how the Capability Acceptance Process relates to the broader privatization architecture the agency has been developing. The program that is currently funding checkpoint technology at major airports across the country has not been discussed in the context of Gold+ in any public congressional forum.The facts in this record are drawn entirely from public documents: county commission records, congressional hearing transcripts, Senate appropriations committee reports, and TSA's own published program materials. They describe a program that is operating, that has bipartisan congressional awareness, and that raises documented questions about equity, fiscal responsibility, and the future of the federal screening workforce that have not been answered on the public record.
What This Means for TSA Officers
The officers who staff checkpoints at airports like MIA and PDX did not participate in the decisions their counties and port authorities made to fund new screening equipment. When the Miami-Dade commission approved its contract, a commissioner asked whether TSA had the staffing to operate the donated equipment. The federal security director at MIA provided assurances that staff would be ready.
The Senate Appropriations Committee identified in 2019 that a program in which checkpoint technology depends on an airport's ability and willingness to pay creates unequal security infrastructure across the system. That observation applies equally to the workforce that operates it. Airports that participate in the program get new equipment. The officers assigned to those checkpoints operate in a modernized environment. Airports that do not participate do not.