Security's price tag

Missourians got their first taste of the REAL ID Act's impact on driver's license renewals last month. The Department of Revenue began requiring anyone obtaining or renewing a driver's license to submit proof -- birth certificate, passport, Social Security card, utility bill, voter-registration card, immigration documents -- of citizenship or legal immigration.

While some motorists have complained that getting the required documentation in hand before going to the license bureau is more hassle than the old system -- when you only had to present your old license -- others say the extra effort is no big deal, especially when you consider that the aim of the new requirement is national security.

For now, Missouri license bureaus are managing to cope with the REAL ID requirements. But all states will be required, in 2008, to step up the identification process by verifying the authenticity of the documents being presented. That is something no state is prepared to do, and most states wonder how much the extra verification will cost and how long it will take. Some state officials say it will be impossible to provide same-day service for license renewals under those conditions.

It's interesting that the worry over the impact of REAL ID comes just as Missourians are learning more about the Missouri Department of Revenue's failure to implement a new computer system -- one that could help in the verification process -- even though millions of dollars have already been spent.,

And taxpayers across the nation may be wondering why governors, in a national meeting last month in Iowa, are so concerned about the cost of fully implementing REAL ID when millions of dollars of federal funding for homeland security remain unspent or have been spent on items that appear to have little to do with state or national security.

Someone in the Department of Homeland Security needs to act quickly to review this situation and reassure governors, state legislators and taxpayers that REAL ID is practical and useful -- and affordable. An accounting of the massive homeland-security funding already sent to all 50 states appears to be in order. After that, the issue of funding for REAL ID might no longer be a big problem.