WASHINGTON -- Republican and Democratic senators alike railed Thursday against the cost and potential privacy problems of the Real ID Act, but a Homeland Security official insisted that the department has borne much of the expense for new driver's license standards.

"It is, as I see it, the worst kind of Washington, D.C., boondoggle," Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said at a hearing of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs oversight subcommittee.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, who chairs the subcommittee, said the Real ID program could increase the problem of identity theft and pose significant challenges to the economy and the travel industry. "We cannot spend billions of dollars to erode Americans' privacy protections," Akaka said.

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, the top Republican on the subcommittee, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, both criticized the significant costs to states and other potential flaws of the program.

The government has estimated that the Real ID program will cost $10 billion to implement, with states picking up $4 billion of that tab. But Stewart Baker, an assistant secretary at the Homeland Security Department, said those figures were based on rough estimates from the states and that the actual amounts may be lower.

Baker said the department has received $90 million for grants to states and asked for $110 million for 2009 and an additional $50 million for information technology costs. But he added that the department may put grant money toward a computer database system that needs to be available to all states.

He said the federal government should provide money to states, but added, "We are bearing a substantial part of the financial burden. How much more this will cost is actually still to be determined."

Tester said $100 million is a lot of money but not for a $10 billion program. Baker replied that the federal government has substantially reduced the cost to states by giving them more time to get the new IDs to everyone, especially to people over 50.

The new IDs will not be required of everyone until 2017.

"That's 16 years after the attack of Sept. 11," Tester noted.

Baker said that "obviously we'd love to be able to wave a magic wand" and have it done sooner, but the cost was too high for states to bring everyone in for new IDs sooner.

He noted that 18 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 had government-issued IDs. The Sept. 11 commission called for the federal government to set standards for issuing IDs and in response Congress passed the Real ID Act.

Akaka, Tester, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and two Republicans together sponsored legislation that would repeal the Real ID requirements and establish a negotiated rule-making process before the Homeland Security Department could create standards for driver's licenses.

Akaka said the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the American Civil Liberties Union support his legislation.

Tester said so much time has been spent on Real ID that it has become a distraction from the country's serious border security problems. He said it's incredibly expensive, burdensome and "implemented in a style that makes ordinary folks cringe."

Montana's attorney general sent a letter earlier this year to the Homeland Security Department saying that he could not authorize implementation of the Real ID Act. Homeland Security officials replied that they would interpret the letter to mean that Montana had asked for an extension of a May deadline to comply.

Tester said he's glad that Montanans were not penalized but that he failed to see what the exchange accomplished except leaving the problem to the next administration.

"This legal bobbing and weaving has done nothing to improve our homeland security," he said.

A national ID card would open countless opportunities for information to be stolen, Tester said. As for the computer networks to connect state motor vehicle departments, Baker said, federal privacy laws would apply.

Tester asked whether data on the ID card would be encrypted for security. Baker said law enforcement officials said they wanted to be able to quickly read the cards without encryption.

Tester said that if the information is not encrypted, bars and clubs could keep the electronic data off the card. Baker replied that the information on the machine-readable card would be the same as currently on the front of driver's licenses.

"That's information that's very hard to hide in an Internet age," Baker said.

Privacy advocates such as the ACLU and officials from the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures also outlined objections to the Real ID Act and called for fixes.

The Homeland Security Department will require states to use databases to verify applicants' information before issuing the new IDs, but Voinovich noted that the systems are not ready yet. "Those databases aren't even up." he said. "When are they going to be up?"

Baker said nothing is required of states until 2010 that would require them to use the databases that are still under construction.