The same day bomb blasts in an unsecured part of Brussels' airport and transit system left dozens dead, the administration was set to miss a deadline mandating that the TSA answer whether U.S. airports are equipped to respond to a similar attack.

Last fall, Congress enacted a law ordering that TSA must ensure that individual airports with a TSA presence have a plan in place to handle security incidents, including active shooters and terrorist attacks. The law was in response to a TSA officer who was gunned down at Los Angeles International Airport in 2013.

A report on those plans was due in lawmakers' hands Tuesday, the same day as the Brussels horror — a deadline TSA will not make.

TSA refused to give any details to POLITICO about when the report will be submitted, but staffers for House lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said Tuesday they haven't heard from TSA on the issue.

In Brussels, terrorists set off bombs in a public area of the Zaventem airport, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than 100 others, exactly the kind of "soft target" scenario at an airport that Congress ordered TSA to study.

The law that ordered the study, named after slain TSA officer Gerardo Hernandez, requires the security agency to verify that airports have a plan in place to deal with terrorist attacks that occur anywhere within the airport perimeter, including non-secure areas such as where passengers check in, say goodbye to loved ones and check departure and arrival times.

But some lawmakers think a top-to-bottom TSA examination isn't enough. Sen. Chuck Schumer vowed Tuesday that Democrats would push legislation to tighten security at airport perimeters — and to provide ample funding to do so — as part of a long-term reauthorization bill for the FAA.

"We're going to learn more about what happened in the coming days," Schumer said. "When we do, it's going to be critically important that we look again at the safety and security of our transit systems to ensure this type of attack doesn't occur on American soil."

Some lawmakers acknowledged that tackling the security concerns of public spaces around and inside airports is much more difficult in practice.

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