[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 20015]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



    AIRLINE SECURITY CAN BE ACHIEVED WITHOUT FEDERALIZING WORKFORCE

  (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join this debate over 
airline security today on the floor of the House, and set aside the 
remarks that I came to make.
  My friends on the other side of the aisle would have us believe that 
this is a choice between one party that is interested in airline 
security and another party that is not. But Mr. Speaker, that is simply 
and plainly and baldly not the case.
  The reality is that the proposal that has been passed in the other 
Chamber, the proposal that my Democrat friends support, would create 
28,000 new Federal employees. Our proposal is to do what the President, 
Mr. Speaker, has called for from the very beginning; that is, new and 
higher standards, new Federal resources.
  But let us not create a new class of Federal employees. Let us not 
have the people who run the post office or who run our immigration and 
naturalization and border services providing the security at our 
airports. It has been tried in Europe. It was rejected and failed. What 
we need is to strengthen our private security system, create 
accountability, provide resources.
  This Republican will fight to give President Bush the airline 
security program that he so richly deserves.

                          ____________________