Ellen Tauscher: “I reluctantly must rise in opposition to the Oberstar-Menendez amendment. As a Member of the Transportation Committee, I…”

“I reluctantly must rise in opposition to the Oberstar-Menendez amendment. As a Member of the Transportation Committee, I have a great deal of respect for my Ranking Member and Mr. Menendez, but I must oppose their amendment. As a Member of the Aviation Subcommittee, making air travel safer is my highest priority. But I do not believe that forcing arbitrary deadlines on our local airports will actually make air travel any safer. On the contrary, if airports are forced to set up temporary solutions to meet these deadlines, the result will be wasted tax dollars and huge crowds of passengers standing in lines inside and outside airport lobbies, which will create an entirely new security risk. Congress has taken many bold, new steps to respond to the terrorist attacks since September 11th. One of these is the sweeping aviation security reforms we passed last year. As a member of the committee that drafted last year's bill, I can tell you that the deadlines established in the legislation were arbitrary and are unenforceable. The United States had never experienced such an attack. And because Congress' response was swift, the details on how to achieve such sweeping reforms were untested. Our airports, which are responsible for implementing these mandates on the ground, have told us for months that these deadlines are unworkable.”