Noem teases big change to another hated TSA policy

Airline passengers may soon be able to say goodbye to another screening requirement as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem hinted at a policy change.

Noem was speaking at the Hill Nation Summit when she said she was “questioning” the restrictions on liquid containers for airline passengers by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

“The day I walked in the door, I started questioning everything TSA does,” the former governor of South Dakota told NewsNation host Blake Burman on Wednesday.

“But I will tell you — I mean the liquids — I’m questioning. So that may be the next big announcement is what size your liquids need to be,” she added. “We’re looking at it.”

(Video Credit: Hill Nation Summit)

“We’re looking at, you know, our scanners,” the DHS secretary said.

Her comments come after a recent major announcement that ended the decades-long TSA policy of passengers being required to remove their shoes in the airport screening.

@Sec_Noem: “TSA will no longer require travelers to remove their shoes when they go through our security checkpoints.” pic.twitter.com/mfs9wxizHO

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 8, 2025

TSA rules currently state that passengers are “allowed to bring a quart-sized bag of liquids, aerosols, gels, creams and pastes in your carry-on bag and through the checkpoint.”

The travel-sized containers must each be 3.4 ounces or less, while larger items are required to be placed in luggage that must be checked in before a flight.

“We have put in place in TSA a multilayered screening process that allows us to change some of how we do security and screening so it’s still as safe,” Noem said Wednesday.

“It is still a process that is protecting people who are traveling on our airlines. But it has to make sense. It has to actually do something to make you safer,” she added. “I don’t think that was questioned under the Biden administration. It was — I kept wondering if we were doing things just to slow people down, or what it was, but TSA is working on the technology that we have available to us if we deploy it correctly.”

The DHS chief spoke about the future of travel and efforts being made to streamline the experience.

“Well, hopefully the future of an airport where I’m looking to go is that you walk in the door with your carry-on suitcase, you walk through a scanner, and go right to your flight,” she told Burman.

She added that she is “working with several different companies with technologies to give us competitive bids on what they actually do. You will see us pilot this at a couple of airports before it gets implemented nationwide.”

After the event, Noem told The Hill, “So … it’s not certainly anything we’ll be announcing in the next week or two, but we’re working to see what we can do to make the traveling experience much better and more hospitable for individuals, but also still keep safety standards.”