[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 10009]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                OVERSIGHT OVER CORPORATE MERGERS NEEDED

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, there are many issues that we 
must address in this august body, but it is tragic to note that we have 
been here for 24 weeks since the GOP took responsibility and control of 
this House and we have done nothing to create jobs. In fact, the 
majority leader has indicated the Republicans have no plans to do 
anything on jobs through this summer.
  Why does this pose a crisis? Because in the midst of all of this, a 
number of mergers are coming into fruition, in particular the United-
Continental merger. We have already had an announcement that Houston 
will lose 1,500 jobs, and no response from United or Continental. In 
addition, United had a recent collapse of its database, or its system, 
which caused massive shutdowns and clogging of the system, where 
passengers were stuck in airports because they couldn't get their 
planes off the ground.
  When we have mergers with no restraint and no oversight, we have a 
problem. So jobs are necessary to be created, and there needs to be 
oversight over mergers like Continental and United so that communities 
like Houston and elsewhere won't be losing jobs with no response.

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