Steven Holt: “Mr. Speaker, this bill should not be coming up now. It is not ready. It does not deal with the fundamental problem. Yes…”

“Mr. Speaker, this bill should not be coming up now. It is not ready. It does not deal with the fundamental problem. Yes, there is an urgent need to strengthen the airline industry. We need to do this in a bipartisan way. We need to do it urgently. There is much in this bill, $15 billion in direct aid and loan guarantees, and that is good. You will hear about perspective liability and retrospective liability. I will not talk about that. It does not include, however, anything, about the needs of working families--the baggage handlers, the flight attendants, the pilots, the agents, the clerks--unless you consider executive salary packages of $13 million as dealing with the needs of working families. But let us face facts. What is the real problem now? People are not flying. Why are they not flying? They are concerned about airline security. This bill has two sentences about airline security. One sentence says that last week we said we were going to do something. The other sentence says that in the future we are going to do something. If we want to revitalize the airline industry, we have to get people back in the planes. How are we going to get them back in the planes? Certainly we cannot do it unless we reassure them about the security of the airlines.”