[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 126 (Tuesday, September 25, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1716]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         AIR TRANSPORTATION SAFETY AND SYSTEM STABILIZATION ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                       HON. C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER

                                of Idaho

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 21, 2001

  Mr. OTTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with my colleagues and 
constituents my reasons for voting against H.R. 2926, the Air 
Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act. I believe it is important 
for every member to make known their thinking behind such an important 
vote.
  The terrorist attacks on Sep. 11 devastated the American aviation 
industry. Hundreds of passengers, dozens of airline employees and 
thousands of innocent people on the ground died in the fiery crashes of 
the four airliners. America's commercial airlines were grounded for 3 
days. Most of general aviation was grounded for more than a week, and 
some components of the general aviation industry remain grounded today. 
Insurers of aviation airlines are canceling their policies, and banks 
are refusing to extend loans to keep the system intact. Under these 
circumstances some form of assistance to the airline industry is 
essential for our economy and national security.
  H.R. 2926, however, is the wrong form of relief. What should have 
been immediate relief from the effects of the attacks has become a 
golden parachute for the aviation industry, indemnifying many airlines 
from the effects of calamitous business decisions made long before Sep 
11. In a time of tragedy for our nation and the world this Congress has 
failed to closely examine this bill.
  The airline industry takes in at most $400 million a day. With a 
grounding of 3 days, and the continued closure of Reagan National 
Airport, the direct losses to the industry by government action can be 
calculated at roughly $2 billion. This act makes available cash in the 
amount of $4.5 billion for the passenger airlines, more than twice the 
direct losses of the airlines. Furthermore, this cash will be 
apportioned among the airlines, not according to how much revenue they 
lost because of the attacks, but how much capacity they had. This 
preference for available seat miles over revenue passenger miles can 
only benefit those carriers whose own bad business decisions before 
September 11 had left them with too much capacity and too little sales.
  H.R. 2926 supposedly contained extra funding for security. The $3 
billion authorized for security measures, however, has already been 
appropriated by Congress from the $40 billion emergency spending 
package, which I supported. To claim that this bill had any new funding 
for security is simply not true. Without needed security improvements 
it is impossible to see how airline traffic can return to normal 
levels. The bailout legislation should have waited for a security 
package in order to comprehensively deal with this situation.
  H.R. 2926 would have been constitutional if it had been drafted as a 
focused bill to keep our airlines flying in the wake of the devastating 
attacks on our country. The creation of an entitlement fund, the 
overcompensation of the airlines, rewards for inefficient carriers, and 
lack of new funding for airline security all combined to make this a 
deeply flawed bill. For all of these reasons and more I voted against 
H.R. 2926 and urged my colleagues to do the same.

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