Lawmaker wants alternative to passports

Starting Monday, anyone going to Canada or Mexico by plane needed a passport.  Although the new rule was expected to go into effect in January, the deadline was pushed back due to a backlog of passport requests. Now some lawmakers are trying to delay another passport rule.

By the first of the new year, you’ll need a passport if you’re returning home to the United States from Canada, but Representative Tom Reynolds says that might not be fair to families who will have to pay big bucks for the I.D.’s. He says there’s a more “workable solution.”

“My hope is that the enhanced driver's I.D. is still something we can work through the federal government and the state government as an alternative,” he said.

It would be an alternative to a passport but require some of the same criteria.

“(The I.D. should be) simple, economical and accessible,” Reynolds said. “I think that a hundred dollars per person for a U.S. passport is not that.”

He says even a proposed Pass I.D. card is too much. For a family of four, that could ring up a bill of $200. He says the deadline for passports on land should be pushed back.

“While we're still on the clock to comply with that next year, they haven't even got the equipment or the training established at our border,” he said.

And Reynolds says the border patrol needs plenty of work, but it can be done as seen with air travel. Airport officials say they have had few problems with travelers complying with the new rules.

“A lot of travelers just said, you know what? I'm going to get it whether I need it or not,” said David Demilio, director at the Rochester airport. “I think that's the safe thing to do.”