Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois is set to try again on a bill to make air travel easier for breastfeeding parents that has gotten bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress and has passed the U.S. Senate. 

Duckworth on Monday is reintroducing The BABES Enhancement Act with Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, a Democrat, and Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Steve Daines of Montana. The bill aims to ensure that breastfeeding parents can bring breast milk and breastfeeding supplies through airport security without delays or risks of contamination. 

The proposed legislation would add to existing regulations by requiring the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to issue further guidance promoting the safe and hygienic handling of breast milk and breastfeeding supplies, to consult with leading maternal health organizations on the guidelines and to update those guidelines every five years.   

“Far too often, traveling moms are mistreated and wrongfully denied access to their breast milk and the breastfeeding equipment they need to pump and feed their babies,” Duckworth said in a statement to The 19th. “Ensuring that the TSA keeps its employees up to speed on their own policies and updates those policies as necessary is the least we can do to help parents travel through airports with the dignity and respect they deserve. After our bipartisan legislation passed the Senate by unanimous consent last Congress, I’m proud to work with Senators Daines, Cruz and Hirono to reintroduce this bipartisan legislation and I’ll continue to do everything I can to get this done for traveling moms everywhere.”

The legislation passed the Senate by unanimous consent in September 2024, during the last session of Congress, but it wasn’t taken up by the Republican-controlled U.S. House, meaning lawmakers have to start the process over again. 

The House version of the bill, which was introduced by former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter of California and had five Republican cosponsors, unanimously passed in the House Homeland Security Committee in September 2024, but didn’t make it to a vote on the House floor. 

Breast milk, baby formula and other forms of infant nutrition like water and juice are exempt from regulations limiting the amount of liquid that passengers can bring on board. The original BABES Act, passed and signed into law in 2016, required the TSA to notify security screeners and air carriers of those exemptions and to conduct comprehensive training. 

But in years since, parents traveling with breast milk and pumping supplies have still reported uneven enforcement of those rules by TSA. Forcing a passenger to check pumping supplies and equipment can increase the risk of contamination and for nursing parents, delaying pumping can even lead to mastitis, a painful infection of the breast tissue.  

The actor Keke Palmer said in 2023 that she experienced “breast milk discrimination” as she went through security at a Houston airport, including “threats” to throw out over 16 ounces of breast milk. 

The current legislative effort was sparked over two years ago by the engineer, author and science TV host Emily Calandrelli. Calandrelli, the host of “Emily’s Wonder Lab” on Netflix,  said she was “humiliated” by her experience going through security when flying out of Los Angeles International Airport for a work trip to Washington, D.C., her first away from her then-10-week-old son. 

Calandrelli was traveling with her breast pump and ice packs and planned to pump after going through security and before her flight. But she said she was escorted out of line by TSA agents and forced to check her cold packs, making her unable to pump before the flight because she would have had no safe way to store the breast milk. Her experience was contrary to TSA policies, which classify ice packs, cooling gel and other cooling accessories for transporting breast milk as medically necessary — even if they’re not fully frozen.

When Calandrelli shared her story on social media, she said that parents “flooded” her direct messages with their similar accounts. Her story gained nationwide media attention, prompting TSA to say, in a statement, that the agency would “re-double our training to ensure our screening procedures are being consistently applied.” Calandrelli reached out to Porter, her representative in Congress at the time, to work on a more permanent legislative fix. In August 2022, only three months after Calandrelli went public with her experience, Porter introduced the BABES Enhancement Act for the first time in the House.