[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 148 (Wednesday, October 31, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H7565-H7573]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AIRLINE SECURITY
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, the topic I want to talk about tonight, and
I am pleased very much to be joined by several of my colleagues,
including the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass), the gentleman
from South Dakota (Mr. Thune), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk),
and the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart), is the topic that we
will be debating on the floor tomorrow, and it is a topic of great
concern for every single American, and that is the security of our
airline system and our air travel system here in this country.
Tomorrow we will debate airline security legislation, and it is very
important that we do that because we are
[[Page H7566]]
being urged by some to rush to judgment and pass the bill that the
Senate has already passed.
{time} 1830
I do not think it is appropriate to ever rush to judgment when you
are legislating. Legislation becomes permanent, it becomes the law of
the land, and it is binding and cannot be changed until the Congress
meets again to change it. And so I think we have a duty to do that
conscientiously and thoughtfully.
I want to begin by talking about what this debate is really about and
what it is not about. First of all and most importantly, for the people
of America, for American families who vacation by taking an airplane
someplace and for American businesswomen and businessmen who have to
travel on our Nation's airlines to do the business of this Nation, the
issue is, how do we create the absolute safest, most secure airline
system and air passenger system in the world?
As is sadly often the case in these debates on the floor, a lot of
people try to hide the ball and not focus on what really is the issue.
I think it is very, very important to understand that both sides in
this debate believe passionately that we need to create the safest
system. One side says, the Senate bill has already done that; the other
side is saying, ``No, wait a minute, let's take a look at that
legislation.''
But I want it understood that, although people may have heard that
this is a partisan debate, I and my colleagues who will speak tonight
on this issue do not believe that this is a partisan issue. We believe
that this is an issue solely about the safety of our airline system,
aviation safety in America and how to create the best possible system
and the safest possible system. There is not a Republican way to do
that or a Democrat way to do that, and this is not about somebody's
motives. This is about how do we do it best, how do we create the best
and the safest system.
Those of us who will be arguing for the House bill tomorrow and
arguing it for tonight genuinely believe that it is a better piece of
legislation, that it will go further and do more to protect the
American people, and that there are serious problems with the Senate
bill. I do not question the motives of the Senators who wrote the
Senate bill. I do not question that they intended to make some mistakes
in that bill; they did not intend to make mistakes. But as this
discussion tonight, I think, will illustrate, there are some serious
flaws in that legislation that deserve to be debated and scrutinized
and analyzed; and if, in fact, they are flaws, then they ought to be
corrected in the process. That is what we are trying to do.
Secondly, having said that this is about creating the safest aviation
system in the world, I want to make it very, very clear that this is
not about the current system. I want to put up a chart here that shows
that system.
A few moments ago on this floor, one of my colleagues stood up and
said that the proponents of the House bill want to, and this is a
direct quote, he said, perpetuate that system, referring to the current
system of aviation security; and he said they wanted to do that because
it is profitable for the companies, and he said we want to keep the
same companies that are currently doing the job.
I want it understood in the clearest possible terms that every one of
my colleagues in this Congress and every American can download the
House bill and can discover for themselves what I am about to tell you,
and that is that those statements that the House bill perpetuate the
current system, that we are doing so because it is profitable for those
companies and that we would keep the same companies are absolutely,
totally, abjectly false and no honest debate can go forward on
untruthful information.
The current system in America which that Member of Congress was
referring to requires the airlines of America, American Airlines in my
home State, America West, United, you pick it, to hire the guards that
perform the screening of passengers as they board airplanes. They are
hired by the airlines and they are private companies. I want to refer
to this chart over here. Under the current system, the airlines hire
private companies and there is absolutely no Federal supervision, no
Federal law enforcement supervision of the personnel that do those
jobs.
Let me make this point clear; I want to drive it home over and over
again in this debate. No one is proposing that we keep that system. No
one is proposing that we continue to rely on the existing airlines to
hire the current private companies. So all the anecdotal information
that you heard here on the floor about those companies are being
indicted, those companies have hired felons, those companies underpay,
those companies have perhaps even lied or perjured themselves, none of
that is relevant to this debate because the current system is gone. It
is absolutely, totally gone.
The airlines, following the effective date of this legislation, will
not hire or be responsible for hiring or paying for the individuals who
do the screening. Under the House committee bill, the Transportation
Committee bill, the bill that I believe is a more thoughtful and better
product, responsibility for airline security, aviation security, is
handed over to the Federal Government and it is performed by Federal
law enforcement personnel at every single site. Let me just put up a
little chart that shows that.
This is a schematic of the system that would be in existence
following the passage of this legislation. If you see this little green
man down here, he is a passenger. When they come on board, that
passenger's baggage, carry-on baggage is screened, right here. Federal
personnel are at that gate, are at that checkpoint to screen that
carry-on baggage. His checked baggage goes through, and as the
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) was just explaining, that
checked baggage will be screened by personnel who are either Federal
employees or who are being currently supervised at that site, at that
moment, by Federal employees.
You go on through the system and there are other personnel, there is
camera surveillance, there are Federal marshals. Every little blue man
that you see on this screen is Federal Government law enforcement
personnel or is somebody trained and currently being supervised right
on site, at that location, by a Federal Government employee who is a
law enforcement officer.
The difference, and we will go into this in greater detail as we
continue this discussion, between the House bill and the Senate bill,
which I believe is flawed, and we will walk through the flaws in the
Senate bill, is that they say in the Senate bill, every single employee
on this screen, indeed perhaps the food handlers, perhaps the people
who clean the planes, perhaps the mechanics, would have to be a Federal
employee or at least they would have to be screened by a Federal
employee; and we say it can be a mix. We support that mix because that
is in fact the system that is used throughout Europe and in Israel by
El Al, the airline that is the most targeted of any airline in the
world.
I just want to make this point one more time. You are going to hear
all day tomorrow that this is terrible. I just want to read these
points again because they are so important. The gentleman actually
accused Members on this side of the aisle and some of the leadership on
this side of the aisle of wanting to perpetuate the current system
because it is profitable to the current companies, and they want to
keep those same companies.
That is abjectly false. The current system is gone. No longer will
airlines hire the screening personnel, no longer will they be the
employees of Argenbright or the other companies, they will in fact be
private contractors, contracted to the Federal Government and overseen
by Federal Government employees on site, law enforcement personnel.
I want to turn to one more point before I defer to some of my
colleagues. We talked a little bit about the Senate bill, and I want to
just lay the groundwork for the key problems with that Senate bill
which we are being urged to just adopt, go ahead and adopt it, and
tomorrow it will be here on the floor as either a substitute or it will
be here on the floor as a motion to recommit. Let us talk about some of
the problems with that Senate bill just in outline form before I turn
to some of my colleagues.
[[Page H7567]]
Number one, one of the most critical problems on September 11 was
that some of the terrorists penetrated our system, although there is no
evidence that there was a failure by the screening personnel at any
airport because the weapons they carried on board were legal at the
time, but they penetrated the system by going to small airports and
flying from those small airports to bigger airports. At least it is
clear they tried to do it in that fashion.
One of the incredible things about the Senate bill is, it treats
small airports and big airports differently. It assigns the
responsibility for large airports to the Attorney General and says that
will be Federal. But it says, on the other hand, if it is a small
airport, well, he, the Attorney General, can decide to hand that
responsibility over to local law enforcement.
I would suggest that if local law enforcement is good enough for
small airports, it is good enough for large airports, and if it is not
good enough for large airports, it is not good enough for small
airports. We cannot have a separate standard.
In my State of Arizona, we have a couple of very, very large
airports. If you go through those, you would go through one standard.
But if you get on at one of the smaller airports in a small town like
Yuma or Flagstaff or Prescott or Page, when you land in Phoenix, you
are inside the security perimeter. You do not get checked again.
Why in the world would we have an unequal standard, an unequal set of
responsibilities, for those different size airports under this
legislation? I think it is a serious flaw. I do not think the drafters
of the Senate bill intended it, but it is there.
There is another problem with regard to that, and that is the
fairness of the fees. The Senate legislation says, if you are lucky
enough to fly from a big airport to another big airport, you are going
to pay one fee. If you are not lucky enough to do that, because you
live in a small State or in a small town and you have to fly a small
commuter plane from your small town to a big city, you pay at least
double the fee of anyone who lives in a large city. That seems to me to
be unfair.
Another issue in the Senate bill, and I just want to touch on these
briefly in outline form and we can go into greater detail later, there
is a clear question about the accountability of the Federal employees
that are mandated in this Senate bill, which creates a straitjacket and
says every single employee must be a Federal employee because by
getting their paycheck from the Federal Government, somehow that would
make the airlines safe.
The problem with that language is detailed, and I will go into it
later, but fundamentally it is not clear that those employees do not
have civil service protection. Nowhere in the bill does it say that
they do not have the civil service protection created by title 5. It
does not say that they are at-will employees, though I know that some
of the sponsors of the Senate bill believe they are at-will employees,
and it does not exempt them from civil service in the same fashion as
we have done in the past.
I want to touch briefly on the House bill, just to make sure that
everybody understands that legislation and understands it clearly, as
contrasted with the current system which is a flawed system and which,
although my colleague attacked it earlier and said that is what we were
trying to have, that is not at all what we are trying to have.
The current House bill, created by the Committee on Transportation
and Infrastructure, the bill of the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young)
and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) says, number one, there will
be Federal supervision of screening personnel at every single security
gate, at every single baggage check location. You will all be screened
at a location where there are federally trained people present,
including law enforcement officers or military personnel, with the
capability and the ability to question someone trying to board a plane
and, if necessary, to make an arrest of that person.
Second, it says that there will be Federal personnel at every
checkpoint.
Third, it sets Federal standards.
And, fourth, it requires that they be either Federal law enforcement
personnel or, as is happening in the case right now, military
personnel. I could go on talking about these issues, but I know there
are many of my colleagues that would like to get in on this discussion.
Let me first start with the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass).
{time} 1845
Mr. BASS. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I was glad to
yield to my friend from New York to make it possible to bring this
important piece of legislation to the floor tomorrow. It is important.
It is important because Americans demand, expect and will get aviation
safety with the passage of the bill we are going to consider tomorrow.
My good friend from Arizona has talked at some length about the
differences between the Senate and the House bill, and they are
significant, and they are important, and it is critical that this body
adopt the Mica-Young version of the bill, because it does what it needs
to do, it does it quickly, and it does it effectively.
There are four aspects of this bill that are important to understand.
Number one, the Republican bill provides for real safety. It has
enhanced security screening by creating Federal standards, Federal
control, Federal supervision, but it does it quickly and it does it
without months and possibly years of training that it would take to get
personnel in place under the bill passed by the Senate.
It also provides for accountability. It provides for a zero tolerance
policy for every federally certified baggage screener.
It provides for quality, incorporating the very best manager
practices by hiring qualified baggage screeners and going through
thorough background checks and investigation. We have heard a lot of
rhetoric about how the status quo will continue under the Republican
plan. Well, my friend from Arizona from the very beginning has pointed
out the system will be different, the system will be reliable, and the
system we are proposing will work.
Let me give Members some observations about where I see airport
security at this point. As one who myself, and I think almost everybody
else in this body, we are frequent fliers and we fly back and forth to
our districts every week. The reality of it is that airport security
today, in my opinion, is dysfunctional. You have huge lines for
checking bags, and little or no baggage screening. You have enormous
lines in some concourses for security screening.
I was up at an airport in the area the other day, I paced it off,
there was a 1,000-foot line to get through two security screening
areas. There were three available, but only two were running.
The airlines need to get the business customer back. Otherwise, this
body and this government is going to be subsidizing the airline
industry indefinitely. If we want exactly what we have to do, 1,000-
foot lines, dysfunctional airports, vote for the substitute motion,
vote for the Senate bill, because what it does is it institutes a
system which is totally federally employed that will not be flexible,
will not be able to reflect the realities of having to provide
efficient, quick, but effective safety procedures at airports, and we
will have what we have today indefinitely. We will wait for 4 or 5
years for new rules to come to make minor changes that will make
airline systems run better.
Under the Republican plan, or under the plan that I support, there is
Federal supervision, Federal rule making, Federal standards, but the
airport authorities can adjust the system to reflect for the size of
the airport or the type of system or the way the building is
constructed. The employees can be trained where they qualify from the
existing workforce, and it happens quickly.
But what is most important about this is that the airlines will have
some input in being able to attract the business customer back by
offering innovative ways for frequent fliers to get from one side of
the airport to the other.
Let me give an example. If you fly two or three times a week and you
are willing to undergo a complete background check, maybe a retinal
scan and other things, maybe you can get to your gate more quickly than
somebody who does not fly very much at all or somebody that does not
want to divulge any personal information.
[[Page H7568]]
This kind of a concept, which could easily be implemented under the
Republican plan, is unlikely to be practical under the Senate plan
because the Senate plan is a one-size-fits-all approach to a problem
that differs in every single airport.
I hope that Americans understand that Democrats, Republicans, the
Senate, the House, liberals, conservatives, we all share the same
objective, and that objective is moving forward in a productive manner
to provide real, serious, effective and quick airport safety. I would
suggest to my friend from Arizona and to the Speaker that our plan will
do it, and it will do it right.
Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for his participation. I know he
has thoughtfully studied this legislation and cares very much, as we
all do, about airline security, about making sure we have the safest
system, and not about doing a quick and easy fix of just saying well,
if we make them Federal employees, that will solve the problem.
There are serious problems with the Senate bill, beginning with this
issue of should we have a different set of responsibilities for small
airports and should people who live in small towns pay a different
price?
The gentleman is from New Hampshire. I wonder if he has given the
question any thought of why should we have different responsibility at
those smaller airports than we have at the larger airports and how fair
is it to say to people who live in small towns, you are going to pay
more than people who live in large towns?
Mr. BASS. If the gentleman will yield further briefly, when you have
a system that applies a block standard at this point and a block
standard at that point, you tend to get situations that do not work in
some instances.
Let me give one example. I note with some dismay that airport parking
lots now that are within 300 yards, I believe, of the terminal, are
blocked off. In some instances, in the Manchester Airport in New
Hampshire, that means that two-thirds of the entire parking area is
blocked off and cannot be used and you cannot go around. I can go
through the details.
But the fact is that if we continue with the system that has been
implemented now, these airports are going to continue to be
dysfunctional. We need to have a system that applies the same standards
to all the airports, big or small, so we do not have the situation
discussed earlier where we do not have people properly checked getting
into a properly screened area, but, secondly, these airport authorities
need to get waivers and be able to make the airports work.
Mr. SHADEGG. We are joined by my colleague the gentleman from South
Dakota (Mr. Thune). I know he has concerns about this disparate
treatment of small versus large airports.
Mr. THUNE. I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding, and I
would simply echo some of what my colleague from New Hampshire said,
that those of us who represent more rural areas of the country, this
creates enormous problems.
I again would harken back to what the gentleman from Arizona said in
his opening remarks, and that is the overriding concern here ought to
be safety. We have got a lot of discussion and debate that will go on
the floor tomorrow, there already has been in the buildup to this
debate, and there has been a lot of talk about who ought to do this
checking, and there has been some argument whether it ought to be
Federal employees, whether it ought to be private contractors.
I think the bottom line is, it ought to be the best system put in
place that will enable us to provide the highest level of security and
safety for people who travel.
Frankly, the bill that we will debate tomorrow, the Mica-Young bill
that came out of the committee, and I serve on the Subcommittee on
Aviation of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, does
not in fact preclude the use of Federal employees. In fact, it steps up
Federal standards, Federal supervision, Federal enforcement, and in
many cases there will be Federal employees who are employed for the
specific purpose of providing security and safety to air travelers as
they travel through the airports in this country and get from their
origin to their destination.
But the bottom line, again, Mr. Speaker, and I would say harkening
back to what the gentleman said earlier, is this really is about
safety. What is the best system? How do we achieve the objective of
making sure that people in this country who travel are protected and
are safe and secure until they get to their destination, without
respect to the argument about whether or not they should be or should
not be Federal employees. That is an issue which, frankly, the
discretion is provided to the administration. The President has asked
for this authority in this particular legislation for him to decide,
for the FAA, the DOT, the Justice Department, to decide if in fact
these ought to be Federal employees.
Now, there are circumstances in which it might make sense to come up
with another practice which would achieve the same level of safety, be
more efficient and more cost-effective, and that is a decision that,
frankly, our legislation allows, that basically puts it under the
auspices of the administration. That is what the President has
requested, and it gives him the flexibility and the discretion, and I
think that is an approach that makes a lot of sense.
Now, let me speak specifically, if I might, again, to the points
raised earlier about the impact of the Senate legislation, if it
becomes the final law of the land, on smaller, more rural airports.
I come from a state that has 77,000 square miles and 730,000 people.
Under the Senate legislation, as I read it, as I understand it, there
is only one airport of the seven in my State of South Dakota that would
be covered under the 142 airport standard in the Senate bill, which
essentially relegates the other six airports in South Dakota to the
status of second class airports.
We are going to have different standards of safety and security for
people who travel and board airplanes in Watertown and Aberdeen and
Huron and Pierre and Rapid City than those who board planes in L.A. and
San Francisco and Chicago and Boston and places like that.
So I do not think, Mr. Speaker, that that makes a lot of sense. I do
not think we want to create a two-tiered system, a two-class system, in
effect, which will essentially treat travelers in rural areas of the
country better than those who board airplanes at the more populated
areas in the urban areas of this country.
The second thing that has already been noted is not only does it
provide or apply a different level of safety and security to people who
board at rural airports, it also assesses them a higher fee. They are
going to in effect subsidize people who fly from larger airports for
levels of safety and security that they are not going to have the same
level set for rural airports.
So I think for a lot of reasons, one, it applies a different level, a
different standard, to people who board at airports in smaller rural
airports in this country, and secondly, it charges passengers a higher
fee, because it imposes the fee on each leg of the flight.
I can tell you, there are no places in South Dakota that get direct
service. There are no direct flights from Washington, D.C. to any
destinations in South Dakota. We always connect through Minneapolis,
through Chicago or St. Louis, and we think we are fortunate to have the
air service that we have in my area of the country. But, nevertheless,
we do not believe we ought to pay more for that service than people in
other parts of the country, and that is in effect what the Senate bill
does.
For that reason, it is inherently unfair. I think if one looks at the
legislation that we are going to consider tomorrow and how that treats
people all around the country, again, it emphasizes and puts in
specific priority on making sure that we have a new system in place.
I think the gentleman from Arizona noted in his opening remarks as
well that there is not anything about this legislation that accepts as
a premise that anything in the current system will stay in place. It is
just flatly not true.
We have had our colleagues on the other side of the aisle get up and
say that the Republicans want to lock in and their leadership wants to
lock in the failed system that we have today. That is patently, flatly
untrue, because
[[Page H7569]]
the system we have today, as the gentleman from Arizona noted, is the
airlines who hire those companies. This requires new Federal standards,
new Federal supervision, new enforcement. It creates a new, entirely
new, system.
So trying to make this a debate about whether we retain the old
system is irrelevant. It is not a valid part of this debate. It ought
to be discarded. People who are listening to this debate should just
tune it out. But that is what we will hear tomorrow.
I also think that the whole issue of whether or not it ought to be
Federal employees or not Federal employees, as politically
controversial as that may be in the course of the debate, is not the
fundamental issue. The fundamental issue is how can we put the safest
system in place in the most efficient and cost-effective way that
serves the traveling public in this country and treats passengers all
across the United States in an equal and fair way?
My concern, as I come to this debate and I look at the legislation
that came out of the Senate, is it does create a two-class system. It
does create a system that treats unequally people who board from
airports in more rural areas of this country, smaller airports, and
those in the more populated urban areas, and it also penalizes them by
forcing them to pay a higher fee. I find that to be incredibly unfair.
I do not think it makes sense.
I think, frankly, that the legislation that we will act on here
tomorrow, that the Young-Mica bill puts those safeguards in place, air
marshals, strengthens our cockpits, makes sure we have highly screened
carry-on and checked baggage through the highest of inspection
equipment, well-positioned, multilayered security forces at all the
points throughout the airport, and again we are not excluding or saying
that they these should not be Federal employees. We are simply saying
that the experts who understand this ought to be making the decisions
and that they have a different idea about what works in Rapid City,
South Dakota, than what works in Buffalo New York, and that that ought
to be a decision they have the flexibility to make.
That is what the President has requested, I think it makes sense, and
as we are going to have this discussion tomorrow, it is important that
we debunk all the myths that will be put out by the other side who
really want to convert this into a political debate rather than a
debate about the safety of the traveling public.
So I appreciate the gentleman taking time this evening to discuss
this issue. I yield back to him.
Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman. Let me comment. I want to thank
the gentleman for bringing out some of the points that I think are so
important to this debate.
As the chart here shows, the current system, which is what was
attacked by our colleagues on the other side yesterday and today, just
before we started, no doubt if there is an hour special order after
ours it will be attacked later, that the current system does not work
and that the companies operating it are corrupt.
That system is gone, and I appreciate the gentleman pointing out that
the House bill is very, very difficult different from that.
I also think it is important that the gentleman has brought out the
fine point, and it is an important distinction, that the House bill,
the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure bill that some
of us believe is the more thoughtful legislation, is being supported by
editorials by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the L.A.
Times, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Times, the
Arizona Republic and USA Today. That legislation importantly does not
say that they cannot be Federal employees or that they must be Federal
employees.
{time} 1900
What it says, as the gentleman accurately points out, is that that is
the kind of technical decision on the implementation of the legislation
that should not be made by Federal mandate, should not be proscribed
and commanded by the Congress as saying, we want the safest skies, but
the only way to get there is this way.
I think the gentleman made an excellent point in saying that the
Secretary of Transportation under the House bill could, in fact, choose
to make them all Federal employees, make some of them Federal
employees. Many of them will be Federal employees, but the discretion
is left there.
I would quote from the Washington Post in its editorial. They said,
referring to this issue of all-Federal or a mix of Federal and private
that ``Security could work either way, as long as there is a government
agency in charge dedicated to safety only and insisting on overseeing
high standards in hiring and training.'' That is in the House bill.
That is what we have. It goes on to point out that a number of European
countries and Israel use a mix of private and public.
But I think the gentleman dealt very well with this issue in pointing
out that in the House bill, we simply choose not to create a
straightjacket saying we want a safe air system and oh, by the way, we,
the Congress, know how to do that. Rather, we just say, we want a safe
air system; you figure out the right mix and the right way to do that.
I thank the gentleman for his comments. I particularly appreciate his
comments about the idiocy of charging people in small towns who have to
fly multiple segments more money for the system and having, quite
frankly, a different set of responsibilities for those.
If the gentleman wants to add anything further, please do.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more. I think the gentleman
is exactly right in his assessment in how this impacts different people
in different parts of the country. Again, the debate will be shifted
tomorrow, as the gentleman has noted, by the other side to try and make
this about somehow codifying a failed system that is currently in
place. That is absolutely untrue.
This is a system which creates the strongest standards, but I do not
think, again, the gentleman made the point, that we as a Congress ought
to be making that determination. Frankly, there are people who are a
lot better equipped to make those decisions than we are.
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let me yield to the
gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I know the gentleman has a lot of
transportation experts here, and unfortunately, I have an engagement I
want to go to. But one of the central questions here is, do we want to
support the President of the United States or not. It is that basic.
It amazes me, as I watch television on Sundays, that every week
across the aisle, there is a new Senator born who is an expert on
security. Yet, I do not recall them being named to any key security
committee. They are not in charge on the homeland security. They have
not been the foremost experts on terrorism. Yet, suddenly, there are
100 experts on terrorism in the United States Senate, and they want to
second-guess the President's team.
I think at this time it is important for us to be supportive of the
President and his team of experts, and nonpartisan because this is a
nonpartisan issue. I am just appalled that every week there is a new
Senator who seems to think he has a lock on all of the intelligence
that we need to fight terrorism.
I feel real strongly that this House bill gives the President and
future presidents, Democrat or Republican, the flexibility they need to
secure not just the airways, but all modes of transportation in
America. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for participating. I
think he makes an excellent point.
The President has said that the Senate bill has problems in it, and
we have been talking about some of those problems. One of the problems
is, it says there is just one way to do this. The President has said,
no, he thinks there are multiple ways to do it. No less than the
Washington Post, not exactly an arch right-wing organization, has said,
yes, the House bill is a reasonable bill and it would do the job. We
just need to get it passed.
I also commend the gentleman for pointing out that as sad as the
debate tomorrow will be on the issue of partisanship and one side
attacking the other side, saying that because we do not support the
Senate bill it is because we are partisan or we are Republican or we
love the companies that are
[[Page H7570]]
currently doing the job, which is rather ridiculous, this really is not
a partisan issue. This is about how we make our skies as safe as
possible.
On that point, one of the arguments that has been made over here is
that we really cannot ever delegate this kind of responsibility to
anything other than Federal law enforcement personnel. Well, I came to
the United States Congress having in a past life been a member of the
Arizona attorney general's office. I spent my life in law enforcement,
and my dad was a deputy sheriff before that.
I will tell my colleagues that I do not know many law enforcement
personnel who believe standing in front of a screen looking at whether
the image inside there reflects a knife or a gun or something is
necessarily a law enforcement function, and certainly they do not think
that as law enforcement officers, they want to spend their days saying,
would you please empty your pockets of change and will you take your
laptop out of your briefcase and put it on the shelf, the notion that
every person at a checkpoint who says to you, will you please take out
your laptop or the change out of your pockets has to be a law
enforcement officer.
But on this point of whether or not some of these functions could be
performed by a mix of law enforcement personnel and contract personnel
who are not Federal law enforcement personnel, I think there is some
precedence. I am glad we are joined by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Kirk), and I would like to yield to him to address that specific issue.
Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I would also like to
thank the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune) for pointing out the
difference between the House bill and the Senate bill in treating
airports differently.
I represent a district which largely uses O'Hare. We are going to
have the highest technical level of security. But we are a feeder
airport, and if passengers arriving at O'Hare are coming from rural
airports that are not protected, then we are not protected. So his
point is exactly right, that the Senate bill does not offer the level
of protection that the House bill does.
We want to federalize airport security, but not rigidly nationalize
the system. I must note that all 19 hijackers of the September 11
attack were admitted to the United States by Federal workers. While
most Federal workers are hard-working, idealistic Americans, their
status as civil servants does not guarantee safety in our skies. We
must do better. We need an airport security bill in this Congress; we
cannot accept the current status quo.
I would note that 90 percent of the screeners at Dulles Airport were
not American citizens. Some of the screeners in our country who let
terrorists aboard were illegal aliens.
Our bill would replace those screeners with American citizens, and we
stand for the basic principle that U.S. citizens should protect U.S.
citizens at U.S. airports.
Our bill also requires that all screeners be deputized, Federal
transportation security agents. They will have a common uniform, badge,
and arrest powers. Their mission will be clear: As Federal
transportation security agents, they will ensure that when we fly, we
fly safe.
We want these agents to have arrest powers under rules in which they
are highly paid and trained. Our models for such security arrangements
are two: Israel's El Al Airlines and the U.S. Marshals' Court Security
Officer Program.
With regard to El Al, El Al Airlines has operated under a 30-year
threat from terrorism. The combined El Al team has defeated attempts by
the PLO, the PFLB, Black September and Hezbollah to hijack Israeli
airlines. El Al has evolved into a public-private partnership, and its
partners in the Israeli Government, as well as its contractors, Israeli
Security Agency and Mossad, have formed a team that has defeated all
terrorist attacks in the past. I will note that Mossad regularly tries
to screen weapons and explosives aboard Israeli aircraft to test the
screeners, and if those screeners fail, they are discharged.
Similarly, let us look at a U.S. program, the U.S. Marshals' Court
Security Officer Program. This program started in 1983 and currently
employs over 3,000 court security officers. They are privately
contracted employees, but they are recruited exclusively with 3 years'
minimum police experience. Unlike the current airport screeners that
failed us, these court security officers are paid $16 to $24 an hour.
Their mission is to protect judges, witnesses, juries, prosecutors, and
courthouses.
In the courtrooms they face a daunting security threat, a much higher
threat, I would note, than what screeners face at airports, and we can
think of who would come to a Federal courtroom: mobsters, terrorists,
drug gangs, mass murderers. But these court security officers perform
their function and perform it well with one key difference between them
and civil servants. Court security officers can be discharged
immediately for allowing weapons and explosives into a courtroom.
We provide for all screeners in our bill to be U.S. citizens and to
be deputized Federal transportation security agents. We give them
standards, supervision, and training, but we do not protect them from
their own criminal activity or incompetence. Worse than having no
screener is a screener who has job protection that would allow him to
permit weapons to kill more Americans aboard an aircraft.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I wanted to
insert into his remarks actually a direct quote from Frank Durinckx,
the director of the Belgium Aviation Inspec- torate, and he is the guy
in Belgium who oversees their security. He says, ``It is harder to do
quality control on our own government people.'' And the reason he said
that is, government agencies do not like to criticize themselves or one
another, and civil servants are hard to get rid of if they are not
performing.
He goes on to say, ``If we give the work to a private contractor, we
have control over them. If we are not pleased with the screener, we can
withdraw his license. If we are not pleased with a company, we can get
rid of a company.''
That is exactly what the gentleman is saying. It gives the United
States far more flexibility, and this is security we are talking about.
This is not politics, this is not creating jobs; this is a security
program.
So I appreciate the gentleman for letting me stick that into his
comments, but I thought it was very relevant.
Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
I will note that European security officials have started out
exclusively with public employees, but they have modified their
structure into a public-private partnership, so that now 31 of 35
European airports are this public-private partnership, to ensure the
quality of the screening personnel. This was a mixture that allowed
them to defeat terrorist threats from the Bader-Meinhof Gang, the Red
Brigades, the ELP and the IRA, and it has been a very effective tool
used by both our European and Israeli allies.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, what
is so relevant to this is that we are not alone in this. We do not have
to go out and invent something, we just need to follow the model in
Europe and in Israel and in Ireland, because they have been living with
terrorist threats for 20, maybe, years, or even 30 years. So we have a
tried and true method. It is not speculation. They do know because they
have experimented.
Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I will note that it has
been 25 years since an Israeli aircraft has been successfully attacked.
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time just a moment, if I
might, maybe the gentleman would want to refer to these charts, because
they make the point he is making.
This is the private-public partnership that is in place in Europe. If
we look at this chart, we will see that it shows the countries that
have switched to, instead of a 100 percent government employee
operation, to a mix of government supervision and training, but with
some private-sector employees actually doing some of the work. It began
in, I believe, 1982, and if we look at the dates on here, it shows the
dates on which all of these countries switched to that private-public
partnership.
This is a second chart that kind of follows on to that, and it shows
the
[[Page H7571]]
mix of what we have. That is, for example, this is the number of
private-sector employees and the number of public-sector employees in
each of those locations. So we look at this and we see that in Norway
necessity has 150 private-sector employees supervised by 20 public-
sector employees, and in various other countries, across the map we can
look at that in Brussels, it is 700 private-sector employees supervised
by 50 public-sector employees. It illustrates precisely the points that
the gentleman has been making.
Then I think he was just about to talk about what the effect of that
was going to be. This shows the trend beginning in 1982 of how they
went to this private mix, and I think the last point, maybe I will let
the gentleman discuss this chart, which I hope he has seen, which shows
what is happening. The gentleman was about to say it has been quite
some time since there has been a hijacking in Israel which uses this
kind of mix.
Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, it is. I was very honored to be able to
contact Israel's Ambassador David Ivry who dispatched a team from
Israel to brief the Congress and the Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure in particular on this.
{time} 1915
We had six to nine Members there, about 70 staffers. We looked at not
just the screening problem, but they took the airport security problem
as layers of an onion. Each layer had to work. Transportation security,
El Al, had to be able to task Mossad with tasks to collect foreign
intelligence. We had to take care of the tarmac, the ramp, the gates,
and then the aircraft itself.
Mr. Speaker, this is a life or death function. We need to be able to
discharge screeners who allow weapons aboard the aircraft. We have the
models. We have looked at El Al. We looked at the Marshal Court
Security Officer Program, and we have learned the lessons of security
that have worked well against Hezbollah, the PFLP, the El Rukin drug
gangs and the Mafia.
Our bill ensures highly trained professionals with a badge will
protect us, but also that their supervisor will have the power to be
able to replace screeners who fail us in this life or death mission.
I will also note that our bill makes one other change. In the
chairman's amendment we have a deadline that by December, 2003, all
baggage will be screened. The Secretary of Transportation has focused
particular attention on the government's deployment of the CTx 550
machines that will enable us to reach our goal of having all the
baggage entering not just the passenger compartment but also the cargo
hold to be screened for weapons and explosives. That gives us the
critical edge in security that this bill would provide.
I thank the gentleman for organizing this special order.
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, let me just ask the gentleman a couple
different points to make sure I understand this.
This screening requirement for baggage says all baggage must be
screened by December 2003. That is currently not being done. I heard
our colleagues on the other side railing about the fact that that is
not currently being done, but if I am not correct, and I would yield to
the gentleman to answer this, that requirement that 100 percent be
screened by December 2003 is nowhere in the Senate bill whatsoever, is
it?
Mr. KIRK. Correct. In fact, this bill will give us a security system
that is even stronger than Israel's. Even El Al at this time does not
screen all baggage that enters the cargo hold for weapons and
explosives. But under the House Republican bill, we have a deadline of
December 2003 that, when using the CTx 550 and other technologies, all
bags will be screened. That will give us the world's highest level of
security standard.
Mr. SHADEGG. That requirement is not in the Senate bill, which we are
going to be urged to pass?
Mr. KIRK. It is not.
Mr. SHADEGG. The gentleman referred to the requirement that all
screeners be U.S. citizens. Is that in the Senate bill we are going to
be asked to pass tomorrow?
Mr. KIRK. That is, but that is a critical difference from the current
status quo, which we are against. Over half of all the screeners in the
United States are not American citizens. Over 90 percent of the
screeners at Dulles were not American citizens. In fact, prior to the
September 11 attack, the Department of Transportation Inspector General
was leading an investigation of illegal aliens who were serving as
airport screeners.
All of this will come to a stop under our bill.
Mr. SHADEGG. So when somebody attacks the current system in the
debate later tonight or tomorrow and says, well, the other side, our
side, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure majority
side wants to retain the current system, on that point they would
be dead wrong and that argument would be unfair, would it not?
Mr. KIRK. No. Well over half of the 20,000 screeners, by the terms of
our bill, would automatically be discharged from their duties because
they are not American citizens. We would have to upgrade to the new
system under regulations and supervision by the Department of
Transportation under the Secretary for Security, and these people would
be badged Federal transportation security officers with full arrest
powers at the screening site.
Mr. SHADEGG. My understanding is that also there is no requirement in
the Senate bill that they have to speak English. Is that correct?
Mr. KIRK. That is correct, as well. We stand for a key principle:
that U.S. citizens should protect U.S. citizens at U.S. airports.
There is a critical danger here in the war on terrorism which will
take quite some time. The al-Qaeda organization, with its vast network
and resources, is able to put sleeper agents into countries who could
then take jobs as airport security agents. But I will note of the
hijackers, none were American citizens. We would give the flying public
that extra level of security by making sure that only people with a
U.S. passport can even apply for these jobs.
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman made an interesting point. He
said none of the hijackers were U.S. citizens. That means that all of
the people who got here made it through some government employee,
through some government process to get here in the first place. And if
mistakes were made, those mistakes were made by government employees.
Now I am a fan of government employees. I have a lot of great
government employees who are personal friends. I do not think because
one works for the government one is better or worse. I do not think if
one's paycheck comes from the government, as mine does, one is somehow
bestowed with special powers or less than special powers. I think we
are all human beings.
But the notion that government employees cannot make mistakes is kind
of belied by the fact that a number of the hijackers were here in
violation of their visas or had obtained visas falsely, or had
otherwise slipped through a system run by government employees already.
Everybody makes mistakes; I certainly do. That is why I think the
requirement that we just say, oh, well, everything must be done by a
government employee and that is the sine qua non really kind of misses
the boat.
To that point, I just want to reemphasize something the gentleman
said. This Marshals Court Service or Court Security Program, those
individuals are in fact private sector employees; is that what I
understand the gentleman to say?
Mr. KIRK. Yes. They are badged, uniformed, armed deputized U.S.
Marshals.
Mr. SHADEGG. So the notion that we have never delegated this kind of
authority to anyone other than a Federal employee is simply wrong?
Mr. KIRK. Correct. And there is another thing. In the current airport
security program, turnover can reach 400 percent, but in the U.S.
Marshal Court Security Officer Program, turnover is less than any
normal civilian, 4 percent. So we have a stable, highly-trained force
with law enforcement experience that protects that critical Federal
courtroom where many criminals are asked to come. That is delegated to
deputized Federal agents.
Mr. SHADEGG. An even perhaps more dangerous environment than
otherwise.
We are joined by our colleague, the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania
(Ms.
[[Page H7572]]
Hart). I would hope she would join in this debate and express her
concerns on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart).
Ms. HART. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. It is an honor to
be here.
I want to add something that the gentleman from Illinois had said
regarding the issue of technology. The fact that currently not all
baggage is screened is a serious problem, but it is the way it is now.
The fact that the House bill would require all baggage to be screened
by a date certain is extremely important.
But beyond that, one of the reasons that I think it is important that
we maintain this mix of public and private involvement in the actual
security is that we will encourage competition among those firms that
wish to participate.
I had a discussion in my district just last week with a gentleman who
is the chairman of a company that produces high-technology optical
devices and x-ray devices. I had spoken with him about what they use
those x-ray devices for now. He said that some of it is comparable to
the kinds of things we will need in baggage screening down the road.
The more advanced optics of a company like this, every time we have
competition and opportunity for a better product, it is going to only
make us safer and everyone who flies safer.
So I am pleased to join in the discussion with my colleagues, and I
am pleased that the gentleman allowed me some time.
I did want to shed some light on some of the issue of really why we
are here in the first place. I am from Pittsburgh. The area that I
represent is a hub. We have a lot of people who not only work for the
airlines, but who live there because they fly often as a matter of
their daily life, for their living, to support their families.
This issue is, yes, about the things we have been discussing tonight.
It is about why our plan is better. But the ultimate concern and what
we are looking to address is the safety of the American public.
Our interest, and the reason that we have spent this hour with
America tonight, is to explain why what we are doing is better. It
would certainly be much easier for us to take the path of least
resistance and to support the bill that passed the Senate, but we know
it is not the best we can do.
That is why we are here. It has to do with safety, it has to do with
concern for those people who fly every day as a matter of their living,
for their families; and those people who want to take a vacation and
fly on a plane; and also those on the ground who, as we saw on
September 11, could all too easily be harmed or killed as a result of
bad screening and bad safety precautions.
Mr. Speaker, one of the things I want to talk about regarding that
that is so much superior in the bill that the House has produced is the
mobilization of the new security system. We all know as Federal
Government employees how long it takes to get a new system up and
running. If the Federal Government wants to start a new system that is
completely federalized, it will take a while.
Our goal is efficiency. Our goal is delivering that safety, conveying
that safety to the public as soon as possible and have it be as safe as
possible.
Having a new Federal bureaucracy put into place and forcing that
whole thing, with every employee to be a Federal employee, will take
much longer than mobilizing a brand new system, yes, a brand new
system, but with people who are highly trained, a combination of
Federal, law enforcement people, Federal security people, and people in
the private sector who do this, who compete with each other to do the
best job. Otherwise they will not get the contract. That can be put
into place much more quickly.
In my opinion, the mobilization of the system is paramount, and we
need to support the House bill, because it will get us there sooner.
The House bill is also very organized. The way the system will work
is so much better. It creates a new Transportation Security
Administration within the Department of Transportation, because this is
all about transportation. It is not just airplanes, it is also trains,
it is other public modes of transportation that we need to keep safe.
So there will be within the Federal Government under our bill, but
not under the Senate bill, this center, this brain center of security.
It is important for us to have that, because that will provide for us
someone to go to, the accountability that we need to be secure that we
will be safe.
Mr. SHADEGG. Reclaiming my time for just a moment on that point, Mr.
Speaker, as I am sure the gentlewoman is aware, the Senate bill is very
confusing on that issue. It says that overall transportation safety
goes to a Deputy Secretary of Transportation, but says that airline
safety or airline security goes to the Attorney General, and it fails
to sort out who has the ultimate authority.
It seems to me that is a serious problem with the Senate bill, and I
think the gentlewoman has said it quite well, that the Senate bill,
although a good bill and well-intended with some good provisions, is
not the best we can do. We can improve upon it in this body.
I would be happy to continue to yield.
Ms. HART. I think that is why we have a bicameral legislature. The
Senate did a very good job and did it first, and usually, doing it
first, you take a risk that someone will look at the bill and find
things that can be done better. That is what we have done.
The gentleman's point about the Department of Justice having some
authority and the Department of Transportation having some authority is
actually extremely important, because if we do not know who to go to to
be ultimately accountable for the security on our transportation
system, on our planes, on our trains, then we will not be able to
enforce it, and enforcement is going to be extremely important.
The other issue I wanted to touch on quickly was that we do get the
best of both worlds by having a system. I mentioned earlier about
competition. When we have the opportunity to bring in specialists from
the private sector and have them offer their professionalism to us as a
Federal agency, I think we will get the best of both worlds.
Again, as I said, our concern is ultimately the safety of every
passenger. In order to get that, I think we need to bring in a mix of
the finest we have to offer: Federal agents and private specialists.
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for
participating. We are about down to the last minute-and-a-half. I would
kind of like to summarize.
I think she makes the point very, very well. The reality, as the
gentlewoman said, is that at the end of the day this is not a partisan
debate. This is not Republican and it is not Democrat. There is not a
Republican or Democrat way to make our skies safe.
But it is a very, very serious debate. I think the gentlewoman has
said it well, and I appreciate her and all of my other colleagues who
have joined us tonight. Our number one concern and the challenge before
us in this debate is to create the safest and most secure aviation
system in the world, and we can do that.
There are many, many good things in the Senate bill. It has many good
pieces, and I commend the people who wrote it. I think they did a great
job, and much of it is in the House bill. If we go to conference, much
of it can be put into the House bill.
But the question tomorrow is, should we just pass the Senate bill, or
should we look at where it is flawed? And sadly, I am afraid that the
debate tomorrow is going to sink into some partisanship, with some
people saying, well, it is just House leaders that do not want a new
system.
As we said earlier, and we began this debate and I want to end this
debate by making this point, the demagoguery and the rhetoric we will
hear on this debate on the floor here tomorrow saying that the current
system is what we are trying to perpetuate could not be further from
wrong. It is absolutely wrong.
Under that current system, airlines hire private companies to do the
job. Under the House bill, the Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure bill, that authority is given to the Federal Government,
to Federal law enforcement officials who are at every single gate and
every single checkpoint and who have total responsibility.
[[Page H7573]]
{time} 1930
But there are serious, very, very serious flaws in the Senate bill.
It gives different responsibilities to two different airports and says
we are going to treat the big and the small differently. It has vague
language on accountability.
We owe it to the American people to conscientiously legislate and to
create the best possible legislation. That is what we will be arguing
for here tomorrow.
____________________