[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10927-10931]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1215
                         THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Russell) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of discussion as we gather 
to talk about the role of government and almost everything that we do 
day to day. I think most Americans, as they go to work and they look at 
how the government's role is in their lives, they don't really give the 
government a lot of thought. They want to be left alone.
  They are willing to pay some measure of taxes to have things that we 
all agree on, like schools, roads, bridges, stoplights, national 
defense, other things. We like to see efficient government. We like to 
see it small. We like to see it without waste.
  If there are things that other services can provide without it being 
done by government, we like choices. We like privatization. We like the 
private sector.
  But there are certain things, Mr. Speaker, that the government does 
have a role in. This was recognized by perhaps the finest American we 
ever produced, Abraham Lincoln, when he said: ``The legitimate object 
of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which 
they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for 
themselves.''
  Mr. Speaker, there are three sectors in which the government does 
have a role; and we as conservatives might want limited government, 
efficiency, and lack of waste, and our colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle would want similar things, but they might approach it a 
different way. We all, as Americans, have a moral obligation to protect 
the security of the United States of America. We have just seen that 
with the passage of the National Defense Authorization. But what I 
would like to address today is a breach in one of our pillars of 
national security with a proposal with our aerospace.
  The three areas that we must safeguard and protect are our national 
defense, our national intelligence, and our national aerospace.
  We are considering now an AIRR Act, H.R. 2997, which would take the 
Federal Aviation Administration's reauthorization, which we have to do, 
and it will pretty much remove Federal control of air traffic 
controllers and the control of our aerospace and put it into private 
industry. Many of us, in a bipartisan fashion, have grave concerns with 
this. I am one of them.
  If you look at H.R. 2997, what you will find is that the President 
has diminished authority. In the 1980s, when air traffic controllers, 
through their unions, went on strike and they said, ``We are not going 
to play; we are going to picket,'' and it put the United States at 
risk, Ronald Reagan warned them by saying, ``If you do that, you are 
fired.''
  They said, ``Oh, he is not going to do that. How is he going to 
control the skies?''
  The President, acting on his constitutional responsibilities, fired 
them. He took control, as he should have, and air traffic controllers, 
by the thousands, were removed, and others were put in their place.
  H.R. 2997 would remove this type of authority that the President of 
the United States would have. If this bill were to become law, 
President Reagan would not have been able to do what he did in the 
1980s.
  It also removes title 31 authority. What is that? Well, title 31 
authority is how we, through the appropriations process and through the 
power of the purse, control and oversee government so that we, the 
people, and their duly-elected representatives are able to control the 
aspects and agencies of government; because without this, without this 
power of the purse and without this powerful oversight tool, you might 
have bureaucracies become an entity unto themselves.
  So title I authority is vital that we have those hearings, controls, 
measures, and prohibitions so that even if something is decided on, 
money is not authorized, and, therefore, it gets shut down. Title 31 
authority in H.R. 2997 would be removed.
  There are also no other oversight provisions that would be put in its 
place. Why? Because what it is doing is it will take the Federal 
Aviation Administration's air traffic control system and it will put it 
into the hands of a private company.
  Now, I am all about privatization in business and choices, and there 
are a lot of things. But going back to the

[[Page 10928]]

Lincoln quote, there are certain collective things that we cannot do as 
individuals and that the government has a role.
  If waste, inability to procure, inability to modernize, or 
inefficiencies were a condemnation to privatize everything, then why 
don't we just privatize national defense? They waste money. They have 
trouble procuring. They have trouble modernizing. Why don't we just 
turn over national defense to the private sector?
  We would never do such a thing because it would place all of us at 
risk. Yet we are going to take the national aerospace control of the 
skies, and as it stacks up--and there is a lot that goes on up there, 
as I will illustrate--we are going to put that into the hands of a 
private company.
  This private company would have a board, but it will not have title I 
authority oversight, and under its current form, the President will 
have diminished authority only in time of war to take control of the 
aerospace system.
  This is a bad idea.
  It also transfers all DOD intelligence agencies, the Department of 
Defense intelligence agencies, Homeland Security support to this 
private entity.
  Today, the FAA does a lot of things with their air traffic 
controllers. What do they do? At any given moment, and as many of you 
flew into Washington, D.C., to come and see your government at work, 
you flew on an airline. Sometimes there are delays. You get it. There 
is weather. There are different things. Other times, you are sitting 
there and it is clear as a bell and you are wondering what is the 
holdup.
  Part of the reason, unknown to even the pilots on the tarmac, is that 
there are missions that our military performs. There are national 
intelligence missions that are being performed and surveillance 
missions that are being performed. There are homeland security and 
border security missions that are being performed.
  When they take priority, they also take priority for air traffic 
control and the clearances, and many times things will have to be 
rerouted to accommodate it. The American public and even the pilots on 
the planes are none the wiser.
  Now, under H.R. 2997, the problem that you will have is that all of 
this authority will now be coordinated with a private entity. I will 
explain why this is a problem in a moment.
  As a conservative, I am all about privatization where it makes sense, 
but when it comes to national security, as a combat infantryman, a 
veteran of three wars, someone who served my country in uniform for 21 
years, we must protect this great Republic, and there is a role for the 
United States Government when it comes to our national security.
  When we have strayed from this and tried to privatize certain 
sectors, our greatest embarrassments with national intelligence have 
been when we have contracted to private entities for that collection. 
Think Edward Snowden. Think leaks in government with classified 
information getting out.
  Where is that occurring? It is occurring with subcontractors and 
private entities who we were assured when we passed these laws: Oh, 
they will be under the same agencies, under the same systems, and 
everything will be fine. Trust us.
  And then we in Congress have authorized that. And then what? We sit 
at our hearings and our committees with our bony fingers and our red 
faces, saying: Mr. Secretary or Mr. Agency Head, how did you let this 
happen?
  All we have to do is look in the mirror. When we take these controls 
away on things that we must have a government role in--defense, 
intelligence, and aerospace--we are creating the very construct that 
causes these problems.
  Our alliances were shaken. Our country was embarrassed. Our 
intelligence was placed at risk. Operators in the field were exposed, 
some even harmed, because contractors let it get out of hand.
  Look at national defense. We see some of the same things. Some of the 
most embarrassing episodes that we have had have been with security 
contractors in national defense. We were told: Hey, you don't have time 
for that; we don't have the budget for that; we can do this more 
efficiently; you don't need to do this. Yet some of the most black-eyed 
moments have been with contractors.
  Well, what about on the administrative side? That would make sense.
  I see my colleague, Representative Ted Lieu here. He and I have been 
very frustrated in seeing some of these types of decisions being made 
with contracting. The Office of Personnel Management: Hey, let's take 
this away from the Department of Defense, and let's move all of these 
classified personnel records, and we will have a clearinghouse, and we 
can contract that. Everything will be good. You don't have to devote 
time and treasure to do this.
  Yet 25 million exposed records later of those that held security 
clearances--Mr. Lieu and I both receiving a letter in the mail saying 
that we had been exposed because we held top secret clearances in the 
military. And yet when we made these decisions, we said this will be 
really good if we move this to contracting. It will be more efficient. 
It will save us money, and it will be just as good. Well, that was not 
the case.
  So now that takes us to national aerospace. What are we talking about 
here? Tens of thousands of aircraft in the air in flights every single 
day.
  And if it is so broken a system, when was the last time a major, 
fatal airline crash happened? Can't remember? You would have to go back 
a ways, which I will cover in a moment. But let's stick with these 
national security concerns.
  H.R. 2997 diminishes the power of the President, takes away title I 
authority, does not replace it with any other congressional controls. 
Sure, it has congressional review for fee changes or rulemaking, but 
nothing else.
  It transfers Department of Defense, Intelligence, Homeland Security, 
Border Security, all of these things, and it places them under a 
coordination with a private entity. And they assure us, oh, it will be 
the same system we have now; everything is going to be just fine.
  But the problem is that a private entity, unlike today--did you know 
every air traffic controller in an air traffic control tower takes an 
oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United 
States?
  Most people didn't even know that, to include those that crafted H.R. 
2997.
  They take an oath of office. They have to be a United States citizen. 
Why? Because it is vital to our national security.
  Now we want to change that because it is efficient, and it is a 
broken, archaic system.
  Well, we are all about modernizing. That is common ground we can all 
agree on. We need to modernize. But we do not need to go the direction 
that H.R. 2997 has, this AIRR Act.
  My issues with the bill are purely on policy.
  There are excellent people that have worked this issue for a number 
of years. They have the right motives and the right reasons for 
approaching this issue. But when it comes to national security, we also 
have a constitutional and moral requirement to support and defend our 
great Republic, and here is where some of that is put at risk. Let me 
enumerate a few of them for you.
  Air traffic controllers and managers who work in air traffic control 
facilities across the country are routinely involved in operations that 
deal directly with the national security of the United States. How so? 
Well, most Americans, to include Members of Congress, are not even 
aware of this facet of their work.
  For instance, prior to the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom--
this is a true story--an FAA supervisor placed a number of flight plans 
in front of an air traffic controller in Kansas City. Those flight 
plans were for B-2 Stealth bombers that were about to depart from 
Whiteman Air Force Base, fly across the Atlantic and drop their bombs 
in Afghanistan, opening the rounds of our response to 9/11, and then 
they would come back to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

                              {time}  1230

  Now, if you and I were sitting on the tarmac in the Kansas City 
airport and

[[Page 10929]]

looking outside, we would say, ``Wow, what is the holdup?'' totally 
oblivious.
  Yet this is important work. And their mission was obviously 
classified at that time, but it was FAA U.S. Government air traffic 
controllers--not private contractors, not private company citizens--
controllers and managers working these aircraft in U.S. airspace many 
hours prior to the start of the armed conflict.
  Every time Air Force One takes off from Joint Base Andrews outside 
Washington, D.C., carrying very important people, to include the 
President of the United States, it is an FAA U.S. Government air 
traffic controller clearing that aircraft for takeoff. Not just 
clearing it, then it is an FAA U.S. Government air traffic controller 
and manager who ensure the security of the airspace flown by the 
world's most famous symbol of freedom, the shiny blue and white Boeing 
747 used by Air Force One and Two as a secure way to transport our 
President, our Vice President, other officials, as they are called and 
closely monitored by the FAA and other air traffic controllers and 
managers anytime Air Force One or Marine One aircraft are airborne.
  These are operations that go unseen. Many of them and the aspects of 
them are obviously classified and we could never go into here. But they 
are vital to our security. They should not be put in a private 
corporation's hands where there is no oversight and no control.
  The FAA air traffic controllers and managers routinely provide 
airspace security, sometimes for hours on end, at locations across the 
country as the FBI or State and local law enforcement perform 
classified missions using government aircraft. In some cases, not even 
other aircraft know about those missions or what it is that they are 
conducting, depending upon the sensitivity of what it is that they are 
doing or is being performed.
  U.S. air traffic controllers, government employees, and managers also 
participate in drug interdiction operations with the Drug Enforcement 
Administration as well as Customs and Border Protection. This might 
involve providing intercept vectors due to drug aircraft, drug lords 
trying to sneak things in or whatever it might be, and that has to 
alter flight plans and do very complicated things.
  It might also involve protecting the airspace for drone operations. 
Many people are unaware that the FAA U.S. Government-Employed air 
traffic controllers and managers are also responsible for military 
flights, not just the kind that I described at our bases and airports, 
but this includes special-use airspace that maybe has been delegated to 
the United States in other countries, or to do flight training, 
refueling, attack and bombing missions. And these same government-
employed air traffic controllers and managers are responsible for 
military aircraft on secret missions, to include drones and drone 
killers.
  They are responsible for the aircraft of military uses to communicate 
with our nuclear infrastructure so that if we have to, God forbid, 
defend the Republic in that manner, they are right there in that loop 
of that system, not some private company.
  They are also responsible for the airspace above the areas where our 
missile defense capacities occur and the testing systems that go on 
with that. You can see why handing these coordinations over to a 
private company might be a little problematic.
  And then let's look at September 11, 2001. It was FAA U.S. Government 
air traffic controllers and managers who were responsible for putting 
over 4,000 aircraft on the ground almost immediately, in very short 
order, after America was attacked by terrorists using planes as 
weapons, killing 3,000 of our fellow citizens. But it was the rapidity 
of response because of the way the network is that they were able to 
make instant decisions, not having to coordinate through some private 
corporation, that they were able to do so. And I will speak more about 
that.
  The airspace above this very Capitol and above the White House, the 
Supreme Court, and all the monuments that you have enjoyed as you have 
come to Washington, D.C., or as you work here, the symbols of our 
Republic, are closely watched over by the FAA, and they are air traffic 
controllers and managers who have sworn an oath, unlike people in 
private companies. They don't swear oaths. Employees of private 
corporations do not take oaths, nor do they promise to defend against 
all enemies, foreign and domestic.
  Privatizing the U.S. air traffic control system will not enhance our 
country's national security.
  Unfortunately, the national security role that FAA controllers and 
managers perform every day is not well known, even among Members here. 
But one could list a number of functions that our government performs 
where we do have a vested interest, the people, in saying we give this 
authority, we the people, to the government because we can't do this as 
individuals. The Federal Government does have a role.
  So is it about modernization or is it about privatization? We are all 
in agreement on modernization, but privatization, I am afraid, Mr. 
Speaker, that a lot of us are like a pack of dogs lapping up 
antifreeze. It smells good, it might even taste good, but it is not 
without drastic consequence.
  Just this week, we narrowly missed having to vote on this bill in its 
current form next week. This is why I am bringing these points out, so 
that we do not make this grave mistake that will breach our national 
security. Well-meaning people, friends, colleagues, people with just as 
much passion as I may have, but yet we the people have to take a step 
back and protect our national security.
  There are also, in H.R. 2997, no provisions to prohibit in this 
private corporation foreign nationals working in it. Today, if you are 
going to be an air traffic controller, you have to be a United States 
citizen. You have to take an oath of office. Under a private 
corporation or whom they subcontract with for air traffic control, this 
bill, were it to become law--and it cannot, we must prevent it--what 
would happen is there are no prohibitions in that law against foreign 
nationals guiding your skies or taking an oath of office where they are 
as committed to our Republic, Mr. Speaker, as any of us with the oaths 
that we have to take.
  The national security concerns are paramount. Until we address them, 
we should not rush in. We want modernization.
  I applaud the President of the United States for wanting to bring 
this issue to the light of the public. We need modernization. We agree 
with that. In fact, just knowing that we have his support to move 
towards a modernized plan gives us great comfort because we need that 
backing from the Executive.
  But we have to address these national security issues, and right now, 
this bill does not do that. Even if it did address all of these, there 
is still a question that remains: Has the government demonstrated that 
it cannot control the skies and that the FAA's air traffic control 
system and its controllers are incapable of keeping us safe?
  I can see if it is something that is broken and we have to intervene 
as government and make sure it is more efficient and we have to do the 
right thing, but in this case, where is all of this brokenness that we 
are hearing about? Sure, archaic equipment--been there and done that 
serving in the military. As you heard Chairman Thornberry say today, 
half of the Air Force's aircraft would qualify for antique license if 
they were civilian aircraft and registered in Virginia.
  As a soldier, I live by the motto, ``I will fight with what I have, 
and I will win where I fight.'' Whether it is with flintlocks, 
hatchets, modern rifles, or modern technology, poor is the workman who 
blames his tools. And our FAA air traffic controllers do a marvelous 
job with the systems they have.
  That is why almost a decade ago we worked towards the next-generation 
system to modernize, and it is on track with procured funding like NASA 
has because it is expensive stuff and it takes time. You don't want 
that subject to funding problems.
  The FAA, as a whole, has those funding problems. You have a 
continuing resolution or a government shutdown

[[Page 10930]]

like in 2013, wow, that creates ripples. But if it is about 
modernization of our control towers, it is on track for the pilots that 
we might have.
  And I know, Mr. Speaker, you have put yourself at the wheel of 
planes, and in this case there are a lot of things that we can see 
where the FAA does a marvelous job. It doesn't mean that we have to 
privatize it.
  On 9/11, over 4,000 planes were grounded immediately and safely. What 
a lot of Americans don't know, Mr. Speaker, is that the FAA's national 
operations manager who made that unprecedented gutsy call, he was a 
government employee, you know, one of those bloated government 
employees we have got to fire and move out. His name was Ben Sliney. 
And guess what? That was his first day on the job as the FAA's national 
operations manager. Wow, what a first day.
  But he was good. He had taken an oath to the Republic. He made a 
gutsy call; 4,000 planes put on the ground, and it helped keep our 
Republic safer, because it could have been worse.
  The FAA has clearly demonstrated through its air traffic control 
system that it can handle the job. When was the last time we can 
remember a fatal accident with a major carrier? 2009, and that was a 
regional carrier.
  But also in 2009 there was something else that happened. On the 15th 
of January, 1 month before the fatal accident in February in Buffalo, 
New York, with the regional carrier, which was the last time we had a 
major fatal accident, that was US Air Flight 1549, piloted by Captain 
Chesley Sullenberger and copiloted by Jeff Skiles.
  So what we have seen and what we all know is that the heroism of 
those two pilots that day put the plane down in the Hudson, saving all 
onboard. And we saw air traffic controllers doing everything with an 
emergency at one of the busiest airports, providing so many options.
  Well, Mr. Sullenberger, like so many of us, has grave concerns with 
H.R. 2997. This is not a man that has any government interest or 
privatization this or that or is up here lobbying or doing anything, 
yet he is somebody America trusts.
  You might be interested in some of his comments, and I am quoting 
Captain Sully here.
  He says: ``My real issue, and I think for many people, is that we 
have a wonderful and unique freedom in this country, this unfettered, 
wonderful aviation system that anyone can participate in safely and 
efficiently. In most countries, it's either too restrictive or too 
expensive for an average person to fly, and the only way you can go is 
on an airliner or military flight,'' meaning other nations. ``It's just 
prohibitively restrictive or expensive to do it any other way. That's 
something that we need to protect and preserve, and so why in the world 
would we give the keys of the kingdom to the largest airlines?''--under 
this H.R. 2997 he is referring to. ``Because they definitely have their 
own agenda to lower their costs. Commercial aviation, airline aviation, 
has become an extraordinarily cost-competitive industry globally, and 
it becomes more so day by day.''
  ``By removing oversight of the air traffic control system from the 
FAA and much of the oversight that Congress currently has,'' Mr. 
Sullenberger goes on to state, ``and giving it to a group of people, 
stakeholders basically controlled by the largest airlines, to control 
access to and pricing of access to the air traffic control system. That 
is an extreme solution to what's really a political budget problem.''
  Captain Sully goes on to say, ``It means bad things for everyone who 
flies, but especially for people who fly in non-airline ways,'' meaning 
general aviation.

                              {time}  1245

  ``That is a big part of the system,'' he says. To continue his quote: 
``I am worried about access. I am worried about equitability. I am 
worried about safety.'' Okay, to pause in his quotations here, Captain 
Sully was the guy on safety. He would go around and this was his job in 
the airlines. No man was better when it came to safety standards. And 
then he demonstrated it that day, that he knew what he was talking 
about.
  For him to make these kinds of comments, I think we need to take 
pause, and take a step back, and listen. To continue his quote: ``There 
are other, better ways to solve this political budget problem--by 
giving the FAA, in running the air traffic control system and making 
capital improvements to the air traffic control system, more 
predictable multiyear funding--without giving away the keys to the 
kingdom to the largest airlines to control access and fees and pricing 
too.''
  Mr. Speaker, I agree with Captain Sully. I think he knows something 
about it. Modernization. That is an area we can all agree on. American 
aviation would suffer terribly without the benefit of the public 
structure of the air traffic control system, including its 
accountability to Congress, and the FAA.
  Establishing a private air traffic control company, corporation, 
board, outside the purview of Congress, with the unilateral power to 
collect fees without controls from the government, and distribute 
service, would threaten our national security--as I have spoken to 
already--accessibility and affordability of flights, not maybe 
immediately in the transition, but, as you read H.R. 2997, it goes on 
to say that they can do a lot of things in a couple of years.
  Pilot generation. Look at general aviation in the examples that they 
use for comparisons. Many of the proponents of this bill say: Look at 
Canada. Look at Europe.
  I love the Canadian people. I have traveled through most of Europe. I 
even lived in Germany as an exchange student.
  Yes, in Germany today, a pilot can go from 35,000 feet in Lufthansa 
or an airliner, and he can glide all the way down to Tempelhof Airport 
in Berlin. Why? Because he doesn't have Steve Russell, Mr. Speaker, out 
there in his Cessna 140 in the way. Guess what? In the United States, I 
have as much right to airspace as a U.S. citizen flying as that 
Lufthansa pilot, who is, by the way, just coming here to deliver 
passengers, or any other airline pilot.
  That is the beauty of our system. What you won't find in Germany is 
general aviation. You won't find access. And as Captain Sully correctly 
stated, it is a wonderful thing. We have access to that. It is one of 
our hallmark freedoms in the United States.
  Now, when he says that we will be handing over the keys to the 
kingdom, what he means is that it goes to this private corporation, 
this board, and then they will, for commercial interests, set up--what 
does that board look like? Well, here it is, right out of the bill.
  It will have six of its board members who will be on the commercial 
side of aviation. Now, I have nothing against commercial aviation. 
American Airlines, love them, they brought me home from three wars. I 
will always have those memories.
  Regional carriers probably brought many folks listening to this 
today. But they have commercial interests, as Captain Sully correctly 
stated. They will be concerned about those issues. That's fine. They 
run businesses. They don't have to protect our national security. They 
fly.
  And so what we see with this board is six of them in the commercial 
side--commercial, regional jets. And then you have got one general 
aviation, and then one on the business side, which could support 
general aviation or not. But that clearly, as you lay out the board, 
two that will be appointed by the Secretary of Transportation--kind of 
his only say in a lot of this process--and then two that will be 
appointed by the board itself.
  So what you will have is a two-thirds lopsided board that will favor 
the commercial interests rather than aviation as a whole. This is why 
Captain Sullenberger, and so many others, have had grave concerns about 
what it does to our freedoms for flying.
  Now, much of my protest against this bill will have been because of 
the national security pieces. We could lay all of this other stuff 
aside. We have to solve these national security pieces in the bill, and 
right now, they are not there.

[[Page 10931]]

  With modernization, we can get to some of that, but we have the 
safest airspace in the world. Where is this broken, archaic system that 
we hear people saying? Canada, love the Canadians. I have driven the 
Alcan twice. I have been through so much of the country, driven 1,200, 
1,300 miles on a dirt road in Canada, a wonderful place. I have 
lectured in many of their cities in a former life.
  But Canada has the population of Texas, and if you were to look at 
the number of flights it handles each day, probably less flights than 
Texas. Yes, they have a modern system. We are having a modern system 
with NextGen. What we need to do is solve the acquisition pieces, the 
modernization pieces--not the privatization pieces.
  Why? We all know that much of North America's security is secured by 
the United States of America. They don't have to face the same things. 
That is why they can get away with such a small military. It is not an 
indictment. It is just the truth.
  The bill in question, H.R. 2997, strips oversight authority of our 
national airspace from the President, the Congress, and gives it to 
this unelected board of individuals, an action that would threaten the 
United States' ability to maintain the integrity of our airspace, as I 
spoke to earlier, Mr. Speaker, on what goes on at altitudes and in 
missions that most of us really have no clue.
  It puts at risk thousands of missions that our military conducts in 
just training and safety in our skies every day. It gives private 
contractors access to classified data.
  Let's go back to what we were talking about with Edward Snowden with 
the leaks that we are seeing out of the intelligence services these 
days. Where is that coming from? It is coming from the private 
contractors. It goes lateral.
  Do you think it is going to be any different because we here in 
Congress say: Oh, no, no, no? Hey, it is going to be great. This is 
going to be--rest assured, and I can already predict what is going to 
happen, Mr. Speaker. The disasters will strike. We will sit in 
Oversight and Government Reform with bony fingers and red faces going: 
How did you let this happen? And all we have to do is look in the 
mirror, because we are much like dogs lapping up antifreeze, to lick up 
something that smells good, tastes good, with drastic consequences.
  If we want to maintain the safest and best airspace in the world, we 
have to prevent the passage of H.R. 2997. Now, this is hard for me to 
do. Why? Because I don't like opposing my own party. I don't like 
opposing my friends. I have done some terrible things in my life as a 
soldier. I don't like conflict anymore. I try to stay as far away from 
that as I can, and there are two veterans over here giving me thumbs 
up--combat veterans themselves.
  But I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the 
United States. I am not saying if you support this bill you are 
unconstitutional, or that you don't love your country, or that you 
don't want to protect the Republic. I am not suggesting that at all. I 
have too many friends who have a counterview to mine. But it is my 
responsibility to expose what is in this bill and why it is dangerous, 
and why we can't do it.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to call on the American public and have them 
contact their Members of Congress and tell them to oppose H.R. 2997, to 
not let privatization of our air traffic control system happen; to keep 
it into the role that, like Abraham Lincoln said, sometimes things that 
we can't do ourselves, we need to do collectively, and the government 
has a role in that. Mr. Lincoln obviously knew what he was talking 
about.
  Modernization, we can all agree on that. Let's work on that. I 
applaud the President for bringing this issue to the fore. We need to 
deliver that win for him.
  But breaching national security of our airspace and risking our 
safety on an unproven system is not a win. Mr. Speaker, it is not 
something that we need to support.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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