[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 147 (Tuesday, October 30, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H7400-H7406]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


        AIRLINE AND AIRPORT SECURITY: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk tonight about an issue that 
was discussed in the last hour and will be discussed in this country 
and in this Chamber tomorrow and the day after. Indeed, it is a topic 
that all Americans have been focused on if they are watching the great 
debate here in this city. That topic is a critical one for this 
country; it is airline and airport security.
  This country's economy depends on our national air system, on our air 
travel system, on the security of people who decide to take a flight, 
whether it is for recreation or business, from their home to some other 
location to conduct business or to go on a vacation.
  We heard a discussion in the last hour about the bill that will be 
before us, and I think it is important for all Americans to understand 
the issues presented by this legislation. It is vitally important that 
we make America's airports and America's airlines and America's air 
travel system absolutely safe. However, it is also important in doing 
that that we have an informed debate, a debate about what needs to 
occur and a debate about what is wrong with the current system, and a 
debate about what the alternatives are for the future.
  Unfortunately, a lot of the debate that we have had and that we heard 
in the last hour focused on the past and not accurately on the future 
or the issue that is presented for the future. We heard a lot of 
discussion in the last hour about the flaws in the current system and 
about what is wrong with the current system.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to make it absolutely clear that no one is 
proposing that the current system be retained. No one is proposing 
that. I want to make it also clear that while a lot of the discussion 
in the last hour focused on this issue of a Republican versus a 
Democrat solution of philosophy or ideology, those really are not the 
issues. The issue which all Americans need to understand as the issue 
is the safety of our airlines, the safety of our airports, and the 
safety of air travel in America. On that issue, I and my Republican 
colleagues do not see it as partisan and do not see any benefit in 
discussing a partisan divide. We see it as one issue: how do we make 
the skies of America safe for every single American, black, white, 
Republican, Democrat, brown, red; every American needs and deserves the 
best possible protection system for our Federal aviation system to 
ensure that we are all safe.
  I want to say that I think it is sad, absolutely sad when the debate 
on this kind of issue, which ought not to be partisan, sinks to a level 
of partisanship where one side is saying the other side is driven by 
ideology or bipartisan gain. This issue is about the safety of the 
American traveling public, and it is about how we make our airports and 
our airlines safe, the securist and the best it can be in the world. 
How do we create that system? It is not by creating a one-size-fits-all 
piece of legislation.
  I would like to go down to the easel and walk through some of these 
points, because I think they are extremely important for all Americans 
to understand, and I have some graphics that I think will help make 
those points.
  As I said just a moment ago, this is not about partisanship. And 
importantly, although we have heard a lot of discussion about what is 
wrong with the current system, it is not about the current system. Let 
me say it again. Let me make sure nobody misses this point. Nobody is 
debating the merits of the current system. The current system, whether 
it could have succeeded or not, has, in fact, failed. The current 
system has not provided the American people with the safety they 
deserve. So all the anecdotal stories we heard in the last hour, all 
the anecdotal stories we are going to hear tomorrow and the next day 
about the failures of the current system, about how the airlines are 
not doing security correctly; about the corruption, for example, of 
some of the current security providers, that is really not an issue, 
because the issue is not the current system. Nobody, again, is 
proposing the current system. Let us talk a little bit about that 
current system.
  Under the current system, airlines hire private companies to 
supervise airline security. That is not in the Republican bill. That is 
not in the Democrat bill. That is not in the President's bill. That is 
not in any legislation. Nobody is proposing that we retain the current 
system where the airlines have responsibility for security and where 
private companies are hired by airlines to provide that security. Why 
discuss it? Why debate it? I was in a debate on this topic with one of 
my colleagues the other day who recounted to me over and over again the 
failings of the current security companies. Guess what? Nobody is 
proposing that we keep those systems. Under the current system there is 
no federalized and no law enforcement supervision of any kind. There is 
none. Right now, the Federal Government has no responsibility because 
we hand it over to airlines who hire private companies, and that system 
has failed.
  So make no mistake about it, in the debate we are going to hear in 
the next few days, when we hear Republicans talk about the idea of 
having a mix of Federal Government employees and Federal supervisors 
and Federal training and Federal law enforcement personnel at every 
gate and at every site to supervise, but not requiring that every 
single employee as a mandate of Federal statute, which cannot be 
changed until this Congress meets again; when they talk about that, 
they are not talking about the current system, because that does not 
exist in the current system. Under the current system, airlines hire 
private companies. Let me make it clear. That does not exist anymore. 
It is gone, absolutely, totally gone.
  So although the stories about what is going wrong today or what is 
going right today about the checks that Americans may have experienced 
or may not have experienced when Americans have been through airport 
security in the last few days, all of that is a part of the past. 
Indeed, we will talk a little bit later about one of the dangers about 
one of the bills, the Senate bill, which says what we should do is make 
sure that every single employee responsible for any aspect of screening 
is a Federal Government employee. One of the dangers is that they will 
go out and simply hire the people that do the job now and make them 
Federal employees.
  I want to make another point here: the issue is not where the 
paycheck comes from. I have never had a single constituent come up to 
me and say, you know, Congressman, I think I would feel more secure 
when I fly in an airplane if I knew that when I got on the airplane the 
person who checked me through got a paycheck from the Federal 
Government. I have never had somebody say to me, Congressman, I think I 
would feel more secure if when I went through the security gate, I knew 
the person got a paycheck from a private company. Nobody has ever said 
that is the issue. Indeed, that is not the issue. The issue is and the 
issue that all of us need to focus on is how do we create the best 
system to make sure that Americans are safe and secure.
  The question we have to ask ourselves is what are the constituent 
elements of that? Well, I can tell my colleagues that one is, we have 
decided not to have the airlines continue to hire private companies. We 
have decided that the Federal Government should take over the 
responsibility of making our skies safe for the traveling public.

                              {time}  2030

  And both the Republican bill and the Democrat bill will provide that. 
The airlines no longer hire private companies. The airlines indeed no 
longer have the responsibility for this task. It becomes a Federal 
Government responsibility.
  That is a decision that has been made. That is a debate that no 
longer will even occur, although some are trying to get Members not to 
watch the ball, and they may talk about that. They may say that private 
companies mean we are going to keep the old system. Please understand 
that is not correct.
  There is another point. Right now there are no federalized standards, 
no federalized law enforcement present,

[[Page H7401]]

no federalized supervision at the gates. That is gone. That will not be 
part of any legislation that is before us tomorrow. But we need to talk 
about what is before us tomorrow and about the two different 
alternatives that are here.
  One, quite frankly, is an approach by people who I think are genuine 
and sincere and are concerned about the safety of the traveling public, 
as I am, who think that the way we have to do that is to prescribe in 
Federal statute, locking it in forever and ever, until this Congress 
meets again and the Senate meets again and changes that, that the issue 
really is, where does the paycheck come from, and that the way to make 
our skies safe is to have those paychecks come from the Federal 
Government, because of course if they come from the Federal Government, 
our skies will be safer.
  So the Senate bill, which will be offered here on the floor and which 
one of my colleagues just a moment ago called upon us to pass 
immediately, says that all screening of personnel and property must be 
done by Federal employees. It actually uses those words. It says it 
must be done by Federal employees, as if making them Federal employees 
would somehow accomplish the task.
  I want to make it clear, I have a lot of friends who are Federal 
employees. I have great respect for Federal employees. I think they are 
sincere and hard-working people. I think this job could well be done by 
Federal employees.
  But I do not think that it will be done by Federal employees 
correctly just because they were Federal employees. I think it could be 
done by Federal employees; I think it can be done by properly 
supervised private people, private employees, as well.
  Again, the issue is not where their paycheck comes from. The issue is 
the standards and the training and the supervision, and, yes, the pay 
and the competence of the people who do these jobs.
  The issues are: Are we intelligently thinking through the process; 
have we correctly assessed the threat; have we set proper security 
standards; are we training the personnel correctly to do the job; are 
we supervising them; are there law enforcement personnel present to 
supervise them; are there law enforcement personnel present to make 
arrests or to question people, if that needs to occur?
  All of those things are true under the House Republican bill and, 
quite frankly, they are also true under the House Democrat bill, except 
the Democrat bill offers this premise: unless their paycheck comes from 
the Federal Government, they will not do it correctly. I simply reject 
that.
  Now, the House Republican bill, and I regret using those terms, but 
those are the kinds of issues that we have here, and we will be 
discussing tomorrow a Republican and a Democrat bill, the House 
Republican bill says that the Secretary of Transportation can do this 
through either Federal employees, or a mix of Federal employees who are 
law enforcement-trained and who are screened and trained and 
supervised, all the personnel. But it says that if the Secretary 
determines that some of those employees should be private rather than 
get a Federal Government check, then that is okay. We give that 
discretion.
  I think it is important to understand that this is really not a fight 
about anything other than should we legislate the Department of 
Transportation into a strait-jacket where one must have Federal 
Government employees and Federal Government employees only; or should 
we give that discretion, so somebody could make a judgment?
  If it should be, on their determination, the Secretary's 
determination, all Federal employees, so be it, but if it should be a 
mix, we can make that decision, as well.
  There are problems with the Senate bill beyond this that I think are 
worth some attention and worth talking about; and I also want to talk 
about the facts behind this debate, because there are facts in this 
debate.
  First, however, before we get to those facts, which include how this 
is done in Europe and how this is done for El Al, the airline that 
flies in and out of Israel, probably the most-attacked airline in the 
world, let us talk a little bit about the Senate bill.
  In the last hour, we heard people call for, why do we not just pass 
the Senate bill, and why did we not do it a long time ago, and what in 
the world could be wrong with this? How could we have such a partisan 
debate? Why have some Members not just rushed to pass the Senate bill?
  First of all, we have this building, we have this Congress, to debate 
these issues. We have them to educate ourselves and to study these 
issues. We do not just pass the other body's piece of legislation 
because it is done. We have a duty. I have a duty to my constituents to 
read it. I have a duty to study it. I have a duty to think about it. I 
have a duty to inform myself about it, and I have a duty to consider 
whether or not it does the job right.
  I commend those who wrote the Senate bill for doing a competent job. 
They addressed a number of these issues. They moved very quickly. They 
are entitled to credit for that effort. But I do not believe it strikes 
the right balance. That is why I hope that my colleagues here in this 
body and all of the people across America will take a careful look and 
carefully listen to this debate, because the Senate bill is not 
flawless. Let us talk about it.
  One of the first things that is kind of surprising to me about the 
Senate bill is that it perpetuates a flaw in the current system. The 
current system has a different mechanism, a different level of security 
at smaller airports than at larger airports.
  Now, maybe if, when we flew from a smaller airport to a larger 
airport, we had to in every case go back through security, there might 
be some rationale for drawing a distinction between small and big 
airports.
  But that is not the way the system works. In my State of Arizona, we 
have two very, very large airports. We have Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, 
and I fly in and out of that airport every single week. Let me assure 
the Members, I am part of the traveling public. I live in Phoenix every 
weekend, and I live in Washington during the week every week.
  I have flown countless times since September 11. I have been through 
Reagan Airport, BWI, Dulles, and I have been through Orange County 
Airport, I have been through John F. Kennedy Airport, I have been 
through LaGuardia, and I have been through O'Hare and D-FW, all of 
those since September 11. So I am part of the traveling public, and 
this issue is of grave concern to me, not only for my safety but my 
family's safety and that of all the traveling public.
  But I want to make this point: in Arizona we have two large airports, 
Phoenix Sky Harbor and Tucson International. But we also have multiple 
small airports at Flagstaff and at Page and at Prescott and at Yuma.
  People should understand that if I get on an airline at a small 
airport in Flagstaff, Arizona, let us say it is the hometown airline, 
America West, and I fly out of Flagstaff, Arizona, and land in Phoenix, 
I am in the secure area at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. I do not have to 
go back through any security screening. I go straight from my arriving 
gate to my departing gate; and my departing gate can take me to any 
airport in the country, and indeed, to many airports around the world. 
It can certainly take me to LaGuardia and to Washington National, 
Reagan National. It can take me to Dulles and all the major airports of 
this country.
  But if I got on at a small airport, I am in the system. The hijackers 
used that very advantage when they got on, when some of them got on for 
the attacks, the unspeakable horrors of September 11.
  Yet the Senate bill allows different responsibilities for different 
airports. It says that the Secretary has the right to delegate the 
authority for certain smaller airports, but not for larger airports. So 
we have different levels of responsibility or different responsibility 
at different airports.
  Explain that to me. As a Congressman, do I not have a duty to look at 
the facts, to look at what happened on September 11 and to say, well, 
why would the Senate bill say, well, we are going to have one level of 
security for the 100 or so largest airports in America, but we are 
going to have a separate and different responsibility at smaller 
airports, when that was one of the very loopholes that was either used 
or tried to be used by the hijackers on September 11?
  For that reason alone, we should reject the Senate bill and reexamine 
it

[[Page H7402]]

and rewrite it. I hope we will do that. I hope Americans across the 
country will understand that that is a critical flaw in the Senate 
bill.
  Now, that is not a partisan flaw. It is not that I think that the 
authors of that bill were insincere. It is not that I think that they 
intended to leave a loophole in the Senate bill.
  It is, however, that in their effort rather quickly to write a piece 
of legislation to address this very, very, very important topic, they 
thought, well, maybe we should have the Secretary have different 
authority for different airports, and maybe we should allow him to set 
different authority for different airports.

  I would argue that that is a serious flaw, and a flaw that was 
exposed by the hijackers on September 11. That is the first part of the 
Senate bill, and that would be my response to my colleagues who were 
here on the floor an hour ago urging us to instantaneously pass the 
Senate bill.
  Interestingly, I had a debate with the ranking member of the 
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, or I guess one member 
below him, an expert in this field who has done some very, very good 
work in this field. He said he thought the Senate bill was not perfect; 
and, indeed, he thought the House Democrat alternative was better than 
that. I commend him for at least acknowledging there are some problems 
with the Senate bill.
  Let us talk about the second problem in the Senate bill, because I 
think it is also a very, very severe problem with that bill. I do not 
see this issue, again, as where the paycheck comes from. I see it as 
the competency, the training, the supervision, and the professionalism 
of the people who do this job. I do not see it as being solved by a 
quick and dirty, ``well, we will just make them all Federal employees'' 
solution.
  But if we go down that road, we have to look at this. Even proponents 
of that solution say, well, what about the issue of the accountability 
of Federal employees? What about the issue of accountability of 
government employees? What about the accountability of the people who 
will be doing this? What laws should they be governed by?
  In the Senate bill, they try to address that issue. In the Senate 
bill, they have written a sentence which says, notwithstanding any 
other law, the Attorney General may hire, discipline, and I think fire 
or terminate these employees. I think their goal there was to make sure 
that these employees would be accountable, so that is why I talk about 
accountability.
  Right now, the authors of the Senate bill have apparently said, we do 
not want the same civil service protections for these new Federal 
airport screening personnel as we have for other Federal employees. 
They actually, I think, conceded that point and wrote the bill this way 
because there has been discussion across the country, and indeed, 
discussion in Europe, about the question of whether or not government 
employees with full civil service protection can be fired or 
disciplined as rapidly and as easily as they need to be.
  I do not know if they can or not, but I know there was an effort on 
the Senate bill to say that we ought to do it differently, except that 
I think they did not do it right.
  If we read their bill, we will see it says, as I said, 
``Notwithstanding any other law, the Attorney General may do these 
things.'' But in discussing that issue with one of the authors of the 
bill, he said he thought that made those employees at-will employees, 
meaning that if the Attorney General, who has the responsibility under 
the Senate bill, decided they ought to be fired or disciplined, he 
could just do it and there would be no civil service protection, no 
hearings, no nothing; it could just be done. Unfortunately, they do not 
use the words ``at-will employees.''
  But more importantly, and this is a second key problem with the 
Senate bill, they do not cross-reference or refer the current civil 
service statute. What I mean by that is the current law gives civil 
service protection to all Federal Government employees, and there is a 
statute that gives that protection.
  The U.S. Supreme Court, in a series of cases, has said that with that 
civil service protection, an employee may not be fired and may not be 
disciplined without certain due process rights.
  The Supreme Court has said, Congress could choose not to extend those 
rights to either all Federal employees or some subset of Federal 
employees; and I think that is what the Senate was trying to do when 
they wrote this bill, but they did not. They did not cross-reference 
the Federal statute that gives government employees, Federal Government 
employees, civil service protection.
  So I think, quite frankly, they have done nothing to ensure that the 
Attorney General, who has the authority under their bill to hire such 
employees or fire them or discipline them, in fact has that authority 
without civil service protection. So I think that is a very serious 
drafting problem with that bill.
  When we hear people tomorrow and the next day urge people on the 
floor, just vote for the Senate bill, the Senate bill is perfect, the 
Senate bill is flawless, I hope Members will remember this. Because we 
can log on and find, all Americans and all my colleagues can find, this 
legislation and can look up these flaws. They can look up the fact that 
the Senate bill, which will be urged here on the floor, has different 
standards or allocates different responsibility for the security of 
airports that are large and those that are small; and it has this 
language which tries to make these new Federal employees accountable. 
But I think fails to do that, because, as we will see, there is no 
cross-reference to the title IX, section 5, statute that gives these 
employees civil service protection.

                              {time}  2045

  So can they be disciplined? Who knows? Can they be disciplined 
without a hearing? Who knows? Can they be fired? Who knows? Can they be 
fired without a hearing or do they have these civil service rights? 
That issue, unfortunately, under the Senate bill will have to be 
litigated.
  Now there are other issues that I think are worth discussing and 
worth people understanding on this very, very important topic; and it 
is not just that I am against the Senate bill. I want to make that 
clear. I am for the Senate or the House bill, whichever will make 
America's airlines and America's airports as secure and safe as is 
humanly possible.
  I give no quarter, absolutely no quarter to claims that this debate 
is about somebody who wants to protect or preserve the current system, 
because that is not true. We talked about that a minute ago. The 
current system of airlines employing security companies is gone. That 
is not in the House committee bill. It is not in any Democrat 
substitute that will be here.
  I give no quarter to anybody who says Republicans do not care about 
security or about safe skies. Come on. Give me a break. As if I do not 
fly and my family members do not fly. I give no quarter to anybody who 
says this is about partisan divide or philosophy or some dislike of 
government employees. That is outrageous and unfair.
  The question is, is the Senate bill written correctly, or should we 
pass an alternative that fixes a couple of these problems, and do that 
and go to conference committee and try to write a good piece of 
legislation that will provide the American people with the securest and 
safest airline and airplane passenger and air traffic system in the 
world? And the answer is we have to do the latter. We cannot do the 
rush to judgment. We cannot just pass the Senate bill when we know it 
has these kinds of problems in it.
  Let us talk about another issue. The Senate bill says that all 
passengers and property shall be screened by Federal employees. I have 
already expressed my concern about whether just having them be Federal 
employees is the answer, but let us talk about all passengers and 
property. Here is the interesting issue there. The Senate bill does not 
define, or at least does not define very clearly, about the question of 
property. What do we do about property?
  We understand and I understand and the House bill supports the fact 
that every single carry-on piece of luggage needs to be screened and 
screened carefully. It needs to be screened by people who are competent 
and people who are trained. I think they ought to be certified by the 
Federal Government to do their jobs. They ought to be supervised by 
Federal law enforcement personnel

[[Page H7403]]

with the ability to question people and the ability to even make 
arrests on sight. That is what the House committee bill, the Committee 
on Transportation and Infrastructure bill does. But there are other 
issues besides that metal detector that we go through and carry our 
briefcases through, as I did this morning when I left Phoenix.
  The other issues are what about our baggage? I think every single 
piece of checked baggage needs to be screened. It needs to be screened 
by personnel who are competent, by personnel who are trained, by 
personnel who know what they are doing and are paid well and are 
professionals. And they need the equipment to do that job right. That 
is in the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure bill. 
All of that is in the Committee on Transportation Infrastructure bill.
  But when we use the word property we are raising the question of what 
about the employees who prepare the food that comes on to the airplane? 
Do they need to be Federal employees? Is that what the Senate bill is 
saying? What about the question of people who come on to the airplanes 
to clean them? Do they need to be Federal employees? Maybe they should 
be supervised by Federal employees. Maybe they should be screened by 
Federal employees. But do they need to be Federal employees?
  One of things that we still do not know the answer to is in the 
tragic events of September 11 we know that those who carried out the 
attacks brought on board so-called box cutters. I first heard that term 
and I did not know what it was until I figured out it is the kind of 
razor knife that I use to cut open a box at home or to cut a piece of 
cardboard. It has a blade, it is in fact a razor blade, but the blade 
is exposed only about an inch.
  Some of the speculation about September 11 and the attacks that 
occurred that day is that maybe those knives were not brought on board 
by the hijackers themselves, maybe they were brought on board by the 
cleaning crews. Maybe they were brought on board by the people who 
prepare the food. Maybe they were smuggled on board by mechanics. We do 
not know. But again it raises the question and I think the House bill 
address this, that we need a comprehensive system to ensure all 
security on those planes. And the idea of let us just make them Federal 
employees, we have to ask ourselves, where does that end?

  Do all the people who cook the food have to be Federal employees? Do 
all the people who clean the planes have to be Federal employees? Do 
all the people who bring on boxes of Kleenex or rolls of toilet paper 
or big stacks of paper towels that we use to dry our hands, do they 
have to be Federal employees? What about the mechanics? What about the 
pilots? What about the stewardesses or flight attendants themselves? Do 
they all have to be Federal employees? That does not make any sense. 
But under the Senate bill where we have this broad definition of 
property and this definition of Federal employees, we raise this very 
serious issue. Are we going to make all of those people, the cooks and 
the caterers and the cleaners and the mechanics and whoever else might 
bring something on board, some property on board the plane, a Federal 
employee?
  I think that highlights that the Senate bill, though well intended, I 
think it has huge sections that are very well written and thoughtfully 
written out, made a mistake in that vague definition. I think we have a 
duty, all of us here in this Congress have a duty to read that bill 
carefully and to reflect on it and not just to rush to pass it, as was 
mentioned in the debate earlier here tonight. Why can we not pass the 
Senate bill? We have a good bill in front of us. What is wrong with it?
  That is why I get really sad and disgusted. And I would hope that all 
people of good will in the debate that will come tomorrow and the next 
day would be saddened and disgusted when the attack comes that says, 
oh, the only reason that they do not want to pass the Senate bill is 
because of partisanship; the only reason they do not want to pass the 
Senate bill is because Republicans do not like it; the only reason they 
do not want to pass it is ideology or philosophy or refusal to 
compromise.
  These points that I have just made, different airports having 
different levels of responsibility, accountability being unclear, the 
vague definition of what is property and what is not property and who 
would have to be a Federal employee, all raise serious questions on the 
merits, substantive questions, that I challenge my opponents, opponents 
of the House bill whether they be on that side of the aisle or this 
side of the aisle, to address, deal with and talk with. Explain why 
these are not serious problems in the Senate bill and explain why the 
debate that will occur here on what we ought to pass to make America's 
skies as safe as humanly possible is not a meritorious debate.
  That kind of leads me to the last point, and maybe the camera can 
look at it here, and that is the word strait-jacket. I would argue in 
crafting the Senate bill, its authors were, I think, genuine and 
sincere and did their best to write a good piece of legislation, have 
simply made a mistake by creating a strait-jacket, a strait-jacket 
written into Federal statute that says here is how we do it.
  It does not say, we want safe skies and we are going to give the 
authority to some Federal law enforcement officials to create safe 
skies. No. It says, we want safe skies and we, the United States 
Congress, know the only way to make safe skies and so we are going to 
write into law forever and ever, or at least forever and ever until we 
pass some other piece of legislation, that way to make the skies safe. 
And by the way, that is to dictate that all of this be done by Federal 
employees.
  Again, I do not criticize Federal employees. I have great respect for 
them. It is not about Federal employees or private sector employees. It 
is about professionalism. It is about training. It is about pay. And 
the critics who say the current people who do that job are underpaid 
are dead right. But, again, like I stated earlier, nobody is defending 
the current system. The House Committee on Transportation and 
Infrastructure bill drafted by the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) 
does not preserve the current system. It changes that system, as I 
outlined before. But what the Senate bill does is create a strait-
jacket.
  Now I want to talk just for a moment for people who understand the 
problem when you do that in Federal statute. All of us want clean air 
in America and all of us think that that is an important goal for us to 
have. We need the cleanest possible air for Americans to breathe. A few 
years back, the United States Congress wrote a law and said we will 
create clean air. And that was the right thing to do. But unfortunately 
the Congress went a step beyond that. And what we said was the way and 
the only way to create clean air is to mandate by Federal statute that 
we oxygenate the fuels. Guess what? It turns out in California that 
oxygenating the fuel is not the best way to create clean air. And out 
of this mess we have created TCE, which is in our water supply.
  This raises a fundamental question about the debate that will go on 
here tomorrow. That is, when we as a Congress identify a problem, 
should we solve that problem by prescribing a standard and giving the 
authority to people who achieve that standard, or should we tell them 
how to do the job? Because the Senate bill says the only way to make 
the skies safe is already known, and it is known by the United States 
Congress. And it is to require everybody, though it is not clear who 
everybody is, who screens passengers and property to be a Federal 
employee. Well, that kind of strait-jacket did not work for clean air 
because we now have problems with clean air.
  The answer is science moves faster than the United States Congress. 
The answer is scientists in the energy field have already figured out 
how to make cleaner air without using oxygenates. But the Federal 
Government knew the right answer, so it did not prescribe that we ought 
to have clean air. It said we ought to have clean air and this is how 
to do it. That is the problem with the Senate bill. The Senate bill 
creates a legislative strait-jacket. It does not say we want the safest 
skies in the world. It says we want the safest skies in the world and 
we, the Congress, in our arrogance, know the right way to do that. I 
want to say that that is just dead wrong. We do not know the right way 
to do it.

[[Page H7404]]

  Let us talk for just a moment about the House bill and then the other 
experiences around the world and the facts. Here is the House bill. It 
probably is not perfect either, and if we pass the House Committee on 
Transportation and Infrastructure bill tomorrow we will go to 
conference and we can take the best of both pieces of legislation. But 
if we pass the Senate bill, it will be done and it will go to the 
President.
  First of all, as I said, the House bill does not preserve the current 
system of airlines hiring private sector companies at the lowest bid, 
by the way, to provide the screening of passenger and baggage at 
airports. No. It says that all screening shall be done under the 
supervision of Federal Government employees. And it says that there 
will be Federal personnel at every single check point.
  It is not a question of returning to the current system where we get 
to the gate and there is some private sector security person that was 
hired and they are the only one there. It is not that at all. It says 
that at every single check point in America there will be a presence of 
Federal Government supervisory personnel. And, by the way, they will 
either be law enforcement personnel or military personnel, and they 
will ensure that the screening is done properly. There will be Federal 
training, there will be Federal supervision, and there will be Federal 
standards, and there will be a law enforcement or military presence at 
every single check point. That is not the current system.
  But to this key question of whether they have to be government 
employees every single one down to the last person, it leaves that open 
to the Secretary of Transportation. It says that we will let that job 
be done by the Secretary of Transportation to decide what is the proper 
mix.
  I have said there are facts in this debate and there are facts in 
this debate. And I think it is important to talk about those facts. 
That dovetails into the way of House Committee on Transportation and 
Infrastructure wrote their bill because the system elsewhere in the 
world that is working does not follow the model of the Senate bill.
  The system around the rest of the world that is working follows the 
model similar to the House bill, that is, national government 
supervision, a national government law enforcement presence at every 
check point, national government in those countries, national 
government standards and law enforcement presence; but it does not say 
that everyone shall be an employee of the Federal Government. Why? 
Because the issue, again, is not where their pay check came from. The 
issue is competence, training, supervision, pay, and professionalism.
  Let us talk about the experience around the world. Again, I have 
charts that show this.
  This chart, and it is maybe a little bit hard to see, is a chart of 
Europe. It shows, and I do not know how well it can be read, but it 
shows the various countries of Europe and it shows a trend. Beginning 
20 or 25 years ago in all of those countries, there was one system. The 
system was the national government ran security at virtually every 
airport, indeed, so far as I know, every airport in those countries. 
But beginning in the 1980s they discovered that that system was not the 
best system. And so they began to move to a mix of private and public 
personnel at these airports.
  Now let us just take a look at them. Belgium went partially private 
in 1982. They still have a federal government, federal Belgium 
Government presence at the airports, but they have some private 
contractors. Supervised, trained, overseen by government employees, but 
not every single person is a government employee.

                              {time}  2100

  The map goes on, I just want to make this point over and over and 
over again. You may have heard that security is much better in Europe 
than it is here in the United States and, indeed, that may be, although 
the first flight I took after September 11, a gentleman in line in 
front of me had just come from Europe and he said he had gotten on an 
airplane in Milan, Italy, and he had not been asked a single question 
or gone through any security screening whatsoever.
  But, nonetheless, the argument goes that in Europe, and this is a 
false argument but it is an argument that has been raised at the outset 
of this debate, that in Europe they all use government employees. Well, 
that simply is not true. Belgium went partially private, partially 
government in 1982. In 1983, the Netherlands, a mix of private and 
public. In 1987, England had a mix of government supervision and 
private sector employees. In 1990, a number of countries, Sweden, 
Norway, Finland, all went to a mix of Federal Government employees of 
those countries supervising private contractors.
  I will not go through the entire chart, but Ireland in 1998, Portugal 
in 1999, Spain in 1999, France in 1993, Switzerland in 1999, Italy in 
1999, Germany in 1992, Austria, I believe in 1994, it is almost 
impossible for me to read so it has to be hard for you to read, Poland 
in 1998. Virtually every country in Europe, indeed a grand total of at 
least 16 of them, has moved to a mix of private sector employees on 
contract with standards and supervision and training done by the 
government. That is the system that they have found that has worked the 
best.
  Now, I have tried to describe that mix by saying that it is a mix of 
personnel, and this is another chart which shows that mix of personnel. 
It shows what the ratio of private employees to public employees is at 
each of these European airports. And I can pick any one of them and 
perhaps read it. For example, in Oslo, Norway, there are 150 private 
sector employees supervised by 20 public sector employees. In 
Amsterdam, there are 2,000 private sector employees supervised by a 
total of 200 government employees. And the ratios are shown all through 
this map. In Brussels, for example, they use 50 government supervisors 
to oversee a total of 700 private sector contract employees. In, for 
example, Helsinki, Finland, over there, you can see the ratio is 20 
government employees, supervisors, trainers, law enforcement personnel 
supervising 150 private sector employees.
  Pick any one of these airports and it is, as you can see, a mix. In 
Geneva, we see it is 50 private sector employees to 250 government 
employees. So they flipped the chart there. But it is still a mix, and 
I think that makes the point very clear. The average ratio, as the 
chart says, is 85 percent private sector employees supervised or 
overseen by 15 percent government sector employees.
  I think it is very important to understand, then, that when we hear 
people tomorrow on the floor say, look, anyone who opposes the Senate 
bill is just being stubborn or just being rigid or just being anti-
government employee or just being partisan, I hope that these facts, 
and I assume they will come out again over and over in the course of 
this debate, will help us understand that at least in Europe there is a 
mix similar to what would be possible under the House bill.
  Now, I think it is very important to understand because under the 
language of the House bill, the Secretary of Transportation is not 
placed in a straitjacket. He or she is not told they must all be 
private sector. Indeed, they are told they cannot all be private 
sector. But they are also not told they must be all government 
employees. That discretion is given.
  If the Secretary were to decide they must all be, for his or her 
satisfaction to do the job properly, government employees, then that 
would be permissible under the House bill. If the Secretary decides it 
ought to be a mix, as is the case throughout Europe, then that would be 
possible under the House bill. But, again, under the straitjacket of 
the Senate bill, that simply is not permitted. That discretion is not 
given. The Federal Government decides that issue. They decide once and 
for all, by gosh, it is going to be Federal employees no matter what. 
That is it. That will assure safe skies, and we the Congress know the 
right answer. The heck with giving anybody any discretion. The heck 
with assuring professionalism by training.
  They have no more training in the Senate bill than the House bill. 
Pay. They have no higher standards for pay in the Senate bill than the 
House bill. Supervision. They have no more supervision of the actual 
screeners in the Senate bill than in the House bill. Certification of 
compliance with training. That is not done any differently or any 
better or any more stringently in the Senate bill than the House bill. 
It is just that they think that what matters

[[Page H7405]]

is where the paycheck comes from, and they think that what matters is 
that Congress ought to decide. I think that is wrong.
  I think it is important to understand two more things in this trend 
while looking at Europe. Number of European airports with private 
security. I mentioned that there are 16 airports throughout Europe that 
have private security. Here is the trend. As I mentioned, it began in 
1982 with one airport, it climbed in 1983 and all the way on up, and we 
can see by 1999 it had risen to 16 airports in Europe, I think the 
majority of airports in Europe who are a mix of government employees 
supervising private sector employees.
  I also said that there were facts in this debate, and there are facts 
in this debate. It is not just bias or prejudice or philosophy or pro-
union or anti-union, because I do not think those are the issues. 
Again, the issue is competence. And on the issue of competence, on the 
issue of what will best protect the American people, there are at least 
some facts that strongly support this structure, a structure where 
there is a mix of private employees supervised by government law 
enforcement personnel, as the House bill requires, and that is 
demonstrated by this chart.
  This chart is a chart of the number of hijackings in Europe and 
Israel over time, beginning back in 1968, and it shows there were 8, I 
believe, in 1970, there were 4 in 1973, and on across. If we look at 
the red line, we will see that in Europe and in Israel, and I will talk 
about Israel in just a moment, in Europe and in Israel, as they have 
moved, beginning in about 1982, from a total government controlled 
system to a mix of government law enforcement supervision and 
professionalism and training and standards of private sector employees 
and away from mandating all government employees, the number of 
incidents has declined.
  So the one really hard fact in this debate, what will make the skies 
of America the safest, is the fact that shows that at least in Europe 
and also Israel, where we have an airline that is probably the most 
targeted airline in the world, El Al, the airline that serves Israel, 
as we have moved from all government employees in the 1970s to a mix of 
contract employees supervised by government employees, the number of 
incidents has gone down.
  Now, in this debate there was some discussion about Israel, and I 
mentioned Israel a few moments ago. I think it is extremely important 
to know that Israel has followed the same model as Europe. And that is 
to say in Israel there was a point in time when no private contractor 
was involved at all. The entire process was done by government 
employees. That system has been abandoned. The system in use now in 
Israel is a system which includes a mix of private sector contract 
employees supervised by government employees with law enforcement 
training.
  It seems to me that when we look at the hard facts, when we look at 
the real issues here, it is fair to see that this is an honest debate. 
It is a debate which ought to go forward on the floor of the House, and 
it is a debate in which I hope my sincere and earnest colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle will understand there is no room for 
partisanship. There is no room for political attacks of who gets a 
political advantage or who loses a political advantage.
  Indeed, I would hope the American people become enraged at anyone who 
attacks, one side or the other, saying, well, they are just doing this 
for philosophy or for political gain. I would hope the Members of this 
body have enough conscience and conscientiousness to put aside 
partisanship at this critical point in our country's history and ask 
themselves, what is the right way to do this job? How do we provide the 
American people, how do we provide my son and my daughter, or your wife 
and your husband, or your son or your daughter, or your sister or your 
brother the safest, most secure system?

  I would argue to the depth of my soul that there is not just one 
answer. I would argue that anybody who says that there is just one 
answer and that just one answer is in one bill is wrong, whether they 
said that about the House bill or the Senate bill. The truth is at this 
critical point in America's history, if for no other reason than to 
honor the people who died on September 11 in the unspeakable horrors of 
those attacks, that we have a duty to look at these issues 
conscientiously, that we have a duty to analyze the facts, that we have 
a duty to actually read the legislation.
  These are pretty short bills. They are not that hard to read. It is 
not that difficult to pick them up and leaf through them. The American 
people have the possibility and the ability to get on the Internet and 
to read every one of the bills that we will debate here on the floor of 
the House in the next few days. They can read the Senate bill that has 
been out for the past few days. They can see the good provisions in 
that bill on making cockpit doors more secure, on looking at the entire 
airport and trying to make it more secure. They can look at the House 
bill and see that we do in the House bill many of those same things. We 
make the cockpit doors more secure and more safe. We make airline 
travel safer. We provide for Federal air marshals.
  But on this critical issue that seems to be dividing this body, I 
hope the American people will look, and I hope my colleagues will look 
at the key points of the legislation, and those key points are worth 
remembering. Number one, this debate is not about the current system or 
the current contractors.
  I know that many of the contractors out there are doing a pathetic 
job. At my own airport at Sky Harbor Airport, there is a private 
contractor that has been fired because of their incompetence; not doing 
the job. Nobody, nobody is defending the current system or arguing that 
we should keep it. The current system says airlines hire private 
companies.
  Now, maybe that system could have worked, maybe it never could work, 
but it certainly did not work. Although it is fair to point out, and I 
have a column here by John Stossel, who says he does not think the 
right answer is to give this entire function over to the Federal 
Government. But it is fair to point out that as flawed as the current 
system is, give it to the low bidder, do not pay them competent wages, 
do not screen them, and he says it is important to note are we closing 
the barn door after the horse got out or are we just simply whistling 
past this whole issue?
  The reality is there is no evidence, not one shred of evidence, that 
the attacks of September 11 occurred because the screeners at the 
airports let them get by, let the hijackers get by with something they 
were not allowed to bring on the plane. Indeed, the Federal standards 
which did exist at the time for what you could carry on the plane made 
a box cutter legal to carry onto a plane because it had such a short 
little blade.
  So it is important to note that as bad as this current system is, and 
as certain that we are going to replace it that we are, it is gone, we 
will not keep that system, there is no evidence that it was that system 
that let those hijackers get on to the plane. The box cutter knives 
they carried on board were allowed, and they were allowed to bring them 
on board.
  Now, it is also important to understand that it is not true that only 
these lousy private contractors make mistakes and only private 
contractors hire incompetent people or indeed criminals. Because John 
Stossel points out in his column, a recent column that appeared, that 
there was a recent government study which found that 150 IRS, Internal 
Revenue Service, that is Federal Government, seasonal workers had 
criminal records.

                              {time}  2115

  Now, I do not defend the private security companies who have done a 
terrible job of screening their employees. I do not defend them when 
they have underpaid their employees. I do not defend them or their 
records, and I think they should be gone. I will vote for either of 
these bills because they are going to get rid of this terrible system.
  But do not make the mistake that only private companies and only 
these private companies make tragic errors. Here is the IRS of the 
United States, government employees, who hired IRS workers, also 
government employees, 150 of them, seasonal workers who had criminal 
records.
  What about the issue of the government never makes a mistake. How 
about in my State where a National Guardsman was allowed to carry a gun 
in the airport, turned out to be a felon.

[[Page H7406]]

 He was allowed to carry a gun. The question is not that the Federal 
Government or the private sector cannot make mistakes; the question is 
how do we ensure that the standards are set and enforced.
  Again, we owe it to every American and every American business to 
create a system that will indeed protect all Americans. My daughter, my 
son, your daughter and your son, and your wife and your husband.
  That system, I do not believe, is in the Senate bill. I urge my 
colleagues to log on and read it. There are problems in that bill.
  Number one, the hijackers tried to slip into this country by using 
small airports. The Federal bill lets the Secretary delegate the 
responsibility for small airports to local law enforcement, but says he 
cannot do that for big airports. If it is not right in all locations, 
it should not happen in any location. But that is a flaw. Different 
responsibility at different size airports is a flaw in the Senate bill.
  Accountability. The question of accountability is extremely 
important. We need professionalism, and people who do the jobs as 
professional. We need people who are trained and paid well. We need 
people who are supervised well and who are given the tools to do the 
job, not just at the metal detector gate that I went through today, but 
downstairs where bags go through.
  The Senate bill and its defenders will be here tomorrow, and you have 
heard them say it can only be partisanship that causes people not to 
vote for that bill. The Federal bill leaves the accountability question 
of whether they have civil service protection, whether they can be 
hired or fired without a hearing and under what conditions unclear.
  I do not accuse the Senate authors of that bill of having 
intentionally made either of these mistakes. I think they were sincere 
and doing their best; but it is the job of this body as well as the job 
of the other body to carefully scrutinize the words in these bills and 
to try to make them right.
  The vague definition that I mentioned earlier, the question of does 
this new requirement of Federal employment extend to the people that 
clean the planes and bring food on the planes, to the mechanics or 
pilots, if the only way to make something safe is to be done by Federal 
employees, do we have to nationalize the airlines? I think the issue is 
professionalism and training and supervision, and indeed pay and 
competence. These are the issues that we ought to be looking at in this 
debate. On one there is a clear answer. I think giving a pure strait-
jacket for the United States Congress in its arrogance to say not only 
do we want the safest skies, of course we should say that. But to say 
there is one way and one way only and that is by making them Federal 
employees is simply wrong.
  The head of airport security in Belgium, who is the head of a 
European task force on the issue of airport security, said as Europe 
privatized, he said as Europe moved from an all government employee 
system to a mix of private sector employees supervised by government 
employees, said that they had better luck and better success in having 
responsive employees under the mixed system.
  Maybe that is not always true, but I think it is important that this 
is a gentleman who is responsible for airport security in Belgium; and 
it is a gentleman who headed up the task force that oversaw that. It is 
important to understand the one immutable fact in this debate, and that 
is that when Europe moved from an all-government employee system, and 
this is true of Israel as well, from an all-national government 
employee system to a mixed system of private sector employees and 
public sector employees, the number of hijackings declined.
  Mr. Speaker, to conclude, I do not think there is any one right 
answer, but we have a duty to debate these matters objectively. We owe 
it to the American people, to the victims of September 11, and we owe 
it to our families.

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