The Transportation Security Administration's decision earlier this month to take small scissors and small tools off the prohibited items list for airline passengers' carry-on bags was motivated by security reasons, not concerns about resources or line speed, according to TSA Administrator Kip Hawley.

"Shifting attention from low security risks to address markedly higher security risks is a plus, not a minus, to security," Hawley told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Dec. 12.

Keeping the scissors and tools on the banned list "might make people feel better, but it will not improve security or measurably reduce the risk that a terrorist will gain control of an airplane," he said.

The TSA's decision, announced Dec. 2 and effective Dec. 22, was a rational one based on risk analysis and risk management, said James May, president and CEO of the Air Transport Association, which represents major U.S. carriers. "The airline industry firmly supports this methodology for determining appropriate responses to terrorist threats," May told the committee.

But Patricia Friend, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, told the committee that the changes to the prohibited items list "will further endanger the lives of all flight attendants and the passengers we work so hard to keep safe and secure."

She urged senators to co-sponsor the Senate companion bill to H.R.4452 that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) plans to introduce next week. That legislation, Friend said, "would freeze the current list of prohibited items into place." Under the bill, TSA would not be allowed to remove items from the list but could add items in the future.

As of Dec. 22, the TSA will allow scissors with blades less than four inches long and tools like screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers that are less than seven inches long. Still prohibited are tools with cutting edges, bludgeons, crowbars, hammers and saws, along with any tool that is more than seven inches long.