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WASHINGTON — The days of frantically chugging drinks at airport security gates may soon be over.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested Wednesday that she is pushing for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to ease up on its liquids, aerosols, and gels rule now that the airport security agency has ditched its dreaded shoes-off policy.
“The day I walked in the door, I started questioning everything TSA does,” Noem told NewsNation chief Washington correspondent Blake Burman at the inaugural Hill Nation Summit.
“I will tell you, I mean, the liquids [rule] I am questioning. So that may be the next big announcement is what size your liquids need to be. We’re looking at it.”
Currently, the TSA mandates that carry-on luggage can only have containers with 3.4 ounces of liquid or fewer, though there are a few exemptions for medication and infant nourishment.
Passengers who want to fly with higher-volume liquid containers have to transport them in their checked luggage.
DHS and TSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Post.
Last week, DHS announced that it was ending its notorious policy in which flyers were forced to remove their footwear while going through airport security.
“Did you all get to leave your shoes on?” Noem asked her audience on Wednesday. “I always feel like I have to follow up and say, ‘OK, are they doing it?’”
The shoes-off policy had been in place for more than two decades after Al Qaeda terrorist Richard Reid tried to sneak explosives onto an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami just over three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Noem also teased that she is working on other ways to make flights less of a hassle for everyday Americans.
“TSA is working on the technology that we have available to us, if we deploy it correctly, so that … if you’ve got a carry-on bag, you should be able just to walk through their screeners, their scanners, and go right to your flight.
“Fingers crossed. We’re working on it.”
The DHS boss also claimed that her goal is to make the airport security process take about 60 seconds for every passenger.
“We have put in place in TSA [a] multi-layered screening process that allows us to change some of how we do security screening so it’s still a safe … process that is protecting people who are traveling on our airlines,” she said.
“But it has to make sense. It has to actually do something to make you safer. I don’t think that was questioned under the Biden administration. I kept wondering if we were doing things just to slow people down.”
