State Department: Expect to wait longer for passport

? For people seeking U.S. passports, faster service is getting slower.

The summer’s maddening backlog in passport applications has forced officials to abandon the old standard of a week’s wait for people willing to pay $60 extra for speedy service.

People can expect to wait about three weeks for expedited service, and the government indicated Thursday they should get used to it. A regular application now takes 10 to 12 weeks.

The State Department announced the policy change a day after officials offered a new estimate of the burgeoning cost of processing the mountain of passport applications. It will cost nearly $1 billion over three years to handle the surge in applications created by post-Sept. 11 security rules for travel.

Because of the backlog, officials said they will no longer offer assurances that an expedited application will be processed within three business days of receipt. Instead, people will have to check the State Department Web site to see how fast expedited is.

That processing time is 10 business days. Factoring in shipping time, expedited service usually takes about three weeks.

Critics saw the announcement as fresh evidence of mismanagement.

“What color is the sky in their world?” said Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio. “I can’t believe they’re proposing a rule where they want to charge you the same amount and in return you’re virtually guaranteed to get worse service.”

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the agency changed its rules “to ensure that the department can continue to offer this expedited service consistent with its regulations despite increases in demand for expedited passport processing.”

Asked if a longer wait was still worth the same $60 fee, McCormack joked: “I’ll ask people. Maybe we could have like sort of first class and business class and economy class.”

The new government rule leaves open the possibility that expedited service someday may become a one-week affair again. But consular affairs spokesman Steve Roister contended that even under the old system, applicants were told to expect it would take two weeks to receive expedited passports.

The surge in demand stems from rules that went into effect in January requiring U.S. travelers to carry passports when flying to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. A similar requirement is to go into effect for all land and sea crossings next year.