Bud Shuster: “I just want to again stand up in support of what my colleagues from Wisconsin and from Florida have said over and over…”

“I just want to again stand up in support of what my colleagues from Wisconsin and from Florida have said over and over again. This is about sovereignty as well as doing what's right for the American traveling public. Mr. Waxman from California, he represents Los Angeles, folks from that part of the country, as my colleague from Florida said, will probably see direct flights no longer exist because if you start off from Los Angeles and fly to Paris, it's going to cost you more money. So I can see the airlines trying to save money by stopping in Philadelphia or stopping in New York so that they can decrease the tax that's going to be imposed upon them. As Mr. Petri has said, they're imposing it on the air over America. If they want to impose a tax in Europe on people doing business in Europe, they have the ability to do that. But to do it and start it over American airspace, over American departure, it's the wrong thing to do. And the Europeans know it. You already have the Italians and the Dutch already questioning the wisdom of doing this. So I think you're going to see people in Europe starting to change their attitude. And tonight is going to send a very, very strong signal to Europe that America is not going to allow the Europeans to impose a tax on us on our sovereign airspace.”