Have U.S. Travelers Been Price Gouged on Their Passports?
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 11.06.07 | 4:19 PM ET
Big time, according to U.S. Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Chuck Shumer (D-NY). They have released the results of a study by the Government Accountability Office that reveals travelers have been charged double on certain fees involved in the handling of passport applications by the State Department and the Postal Service. From the AP:
At issue is a $30 portion of the fee intended to cover the cost of clerks examining and accepting passport applications.
Congressional investigators found that the fee was roughly double the actual cost when it was imposed in 2002.
A press release from Sen. Dorgan’s office put the overcharge in 2002 alone at $112 million. “The fee for accepting passport applications isn’t supposed to be a profit making venture,” Dorgan said. “It’s supposed to cover their costs. Period. Yet the overcharges total in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It adds insult to injury for those whose summer travel plans were disrupted by long delays. Now we know they were being price gouged, as well.”
Sen. Dorgan and Sen. Schumer have asked “the Bush administration for an accounting of where the passport profits go,” according to the AP.
Maybe the profits paid for this.
Related on World Hum:
* U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee on National Passport Month
* Our Long National Passport Nightmare is Over
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
Diana Twitty 11.06.07 | 10:57 PM ET
Interesting comments from Senator Dorgan. However, requesting that the administration account for the fees collected only shows the ignorance of our legislators. The fee in question is retained by the acceptance facility (courthouses, libraries, colleges, U.S. Postal Service, municipalities, etc.) or when applications are taken at a passport agency is ingested into the general federal fund by the U.S. Treasury. So in no way or fashion is the administration going to be able to account for every penny. Further, the study fails to directly indicate that the Passport Office was overcharging instead it goes to manifest a displeasure with the methodology used by their contractor to determine what the fee should be. What Mr. Dorgan and Mr. Shumer are doing is grandstanding for their constituents in an election year.