Nevada woman bears some blame in passport fiasco

WASHINGTON -- Henrietta Holsman Fore, a top State Department official who is a businesswoman from Nevada, told Congress on Tuesday she bears some of the blame for the government's passport fiasco.

Fore said that as State Department undersecretary for management, she was among the federal officials, consultants and travel industry executives who underestimated the demand for passports following rule changes that took effect in January.

A homeland security law passed in 2004 by Congress requires more Americans to shows passports to re-enter the country from air travel to Mexico, Canada, and Central and South America.

Fore said the department planned for a 33 percent increase in passport applications, but was swamped when applications came in "at double the rate that had been anticipated."

"It was unprecedented in history and just was not seen," she said before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I can't tell you how hard we are working to overcome it."

In the first three months of the year, 5.5 million Americans applied for passports. At the beginning of the summer, more than 2 million were waiting for their travel documents, with about 500,000 waiting for more than three months.

The delays forced travelers to cancel trips, overseas weddings and vacations. Normally passport requests are fulfilled within six weeks.

Maura Harty, an assistant secretary of state, told Congress last week she accepted "complete responsibility" for the mess.

On Tuesday, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., asked Fore whether she also should share blame as Harty's boss.

"Yes," Fore said. "I think we all bear responsibility when we are not able to meet the expectations of the American people."

Senators were considering Fore's nomination to another top State Department post. She has been nominated to become head of the Agency for International Development, which manages the distribution of some $22 billion in foreign aid.

Before joining the State Department in 2005, Fore was director of the U.S. Mint for four years. She is a successful entrepreneur whose family owns Stockton Products, a wire and metal products company with offices in North Las Vegas and factories in Nevada, California and Arizona.

Reaction among senators was mixed, with several decidedly unenthusiastic.

"I do believe there are many questions that remain that have not been satisfactorily answered," Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said after the hearing. "At this point I do not think there will be any rush."

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, a Democrat running for president, was absent. Obama previously said he wanted to quiz Fore about minority hiring at the State Department, where she has been the top human resources manager.

Menendez brought up the topic instead, and said he was not happy.

He said minority hiring among the senior executives at the State Department increased 2.7 percent in the six years before Fore joined the department, but then dropped 2 percent in the two years she was there.

"This is the worst department in the federal government in the reflection of minorities," Menendez said. "It's got to change."

"We are really reaching out," Fore responded. "Sometimes these things take time."

Fore's business record on minorities first came under scrutiny two years ago. She ran into trouble when Obama resurrected 1987 news accounts in which Fore was reported to have made remarks to a Wellesley College class about the work ethics of blacks and Hispanics.

Fore said the reports misrepresented her remarks and took them out of context.