State motor vehicle divisions, faced with implementing the Real ID Act passed in 2005, are calling the measure a “nightmare” to implement, and saying it will be “impossible” to meet the 2008 deadline.

While a 2005 Congressional Budget Office analysis projected it would cost states $100 million to implement Real ID’s provisions, the states, now faced with actually implementing the onerous requirements, say that that number is far too low. For instance, Pennsylvania expects to need $85 million. And there are 49 other states.

The Real ID Act was passed as an amendment to an Iraq war funding bill last May. Among other things, it requires that states check several databases to confirm the identity of applicants, to keep copies of documents for several years, to show the person’s principal residence and full legal name on the license, and to perform background checks on motor vehicle department employees. Each of these provisions is expected to cost millions of dollars per state.

“It is just flat out impossible and unrealistic to meet the prescriptive provisions of this law by 2008,” Betty Serian, a deputy secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, said in an interview.

Nebraska’s motor vehicles director, responding to the survey by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, said that to comply with Real ID her state “may have to consider extreme measures and possibly a complete reorganization.”

And a new record-sharing provision of Real ID was described by an Illinois official as “a nightmare for all states.”

“Can we go home now??” the official wrote. — Associated Press

You can never go home again.

Update: Security expert Bruce Schneier finally weighed in, and said about what I expected: “Remember, security is a trade-off. REAL ID is a bad idea primarily because the security gained is not worth the enormous expense.”