In an official response to the GAO report, a DHS official concurred with the findings but gave no indication that the agency plans to delay the project so it can do the additional testing suggested by the GAO. To address the scalability issue, the DHS said it is planning to use a contractor with experience handling large projects to roll out cards to a large number of workers. The DHS has qualified eight vendors from which one will be selected by December. The DHS also noted that it has introduced a two-phase implementation plan under which port facility and vessel owners and operators will be given more time to install biometric readers and other access control components.