[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 20976]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       ENFORCING AIRLINE SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, it has been 7 weeks since the attacks, and 
the House of Representatives has yet to consider one bill relating to 
aviation security enhancements. Not one.
  Two weeks ago the Senate passed a bill 100 to zero, nothing passes 
the Senate 100 to zero of any substance, 100 to zero; yet this House 
has failed to take up that or any other measure, because of one item in 
disagreement: Who should provide the critical screening function for 
baggage, carry-on bags and individuals passing into the secure areas of 
the airport? Should it be the private sector, as the majority whip and 
the majority leader say, or should it be a Federal law enforcement-
national security function provided by competent, well-paid, 
professional Federal law enforcement personnel, the same way we do INS, 
Customs, and even agriculture inspection? Those are Federal law 
enforcement agents.
  But somehow, when it comes to the security of the public traveling on 
airplanes, no, they get second-class treatment. They get security on 
the cheap. The majority wants to maintain the status quo, which is 
failing them miserably.
  Guess what? That same majority has not mandated that we put private 
security firms at the doors of the Capitol. If they feel so good about 
this and if they can provide such a great service, why do they not do 
that? Because they are mindful of protecting themselves. But they do 
not care quite so much about the traveling public. They care more about 
their political sponsors.
  Let us look at who the political sponsors are here. There are three 
foreign owned, hear that, foreign owned huge companies that do most of 
the private airport security in the United States; and one of them, 
Securicor of Europe, threatened last week to sue the United States 
Government if we usurp their function at the airports.
  Let us look at how their subsidiary is doing in the U.S. Their 
subsidiary is Argenbright, one of the three largest security firms 
providing airport security to more than 40 major airports in the United 
States of American, including Boston's Logan, Washington's Dulles and 
others.
  Well, they have got a few problems. They were criminally convicted 
just a year ago of hiring known felons, maintaining known felons on 
staff, falsifying documents as to the screening and training of the 
known felons that they had hired. At Dulles Airport, 84 percent of 
their workers are foreign national; but, they assure us, most of them 
are legal immigrants. ``Most.''
  Most? This is extraordinary, and this is the system that the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
DeLay) want to perpetuate under pressure from these generous firms. 
They are generous. Their U.S. subsidiaries can contribute to campaigns, 
and they do, generously.
  Now, let us talk about how they are going to resolve the problems. 
They do admit it is a little bit of a problem that they are hiring and 
maintaining known felons on staff; that FAA inspectors are able to get 
hand grenades, fully assembled guns and other things through the 
security; that many, many other lapses have been noted. Most notably, 
last weekend a gentleman was on a Southwest Airlines plane with a fully 
loaded gun in his briefcase which they had not noticed. They noticed, 
when he got up to altitude and told the pilot. It was nice of him to do 
that. But the security screening people from the private firm did not 
notice the gun.
  Now, so what the majority says is well, look, we will make it better. 
We will have Federal regulations. Well, guess what? We have got Federal 
regulations now. They are ignoring them. They are ignoring them to the 
point where they are about to be criminally convicted, in terms of 
Argenbright, for the second time.

                              {time}  1245

  But not removed. But forbid we would remove them from doing this 
function and fail the American traveling public.
  They say they will also mandate wages, not usually something the 
Republicans want to do. So they say they will mandate wages, they will 
mandate benefits, they will mandate, and the Federal Government will 
conduct background checks since the private firms falsify the documents 
all the time, and then the Federal Government will either directly 
train or supervise the training by these firms because they falsify the 
documents about the training of these people, and the Federal 
Government will provide supervisors but it will be a private 
undertaking.
  Now, wait a minute. Did they just describe a Rube Goldberg device or 
what? So the Federal Government is going to do all of these things, but 
we are going to maintain these private firms, so-called, in place 
because why? They are doing such a good job? No. Why? Why are we going 
to maintain them in place? This system that they are describing is so 
much less efficient than an all-Federal system like we do with Customs, 
INS, agriculture inspection, and like we do here at the United States 
Capitol to provide our screening security. Why do they want to give 
Americans security on the cheap? Change this system. Change it this 
week. Agree to what the Senate did 100 to zero.

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