Obama will inherit a real mess on Real ID

As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office, it's unclear how his administration will proceed on the technology-heavy Real ID program, the three-year-old effort to impose identification-card standards on state governments. Obama has made virtually no public comments about the initiative, which calls for driver's licenses and other state-issued IDs to include digital photos and be readable by scanning devices. In addition, the one time that the Senate considered a Real ID funding issue during Obama's tenure there, he didn't cast a vote. Meanwhile, Gov. Janet Napolitano (D-AZ), Obama's choice to be secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, signed a bill in June barring her state from participating in the program. And during a Senate committee hearing last year, she said that complying with the rules would cost state governments a total of $11 billion. The DHS is responsible for implementing the Real ID rules.