Christopher Shays: “Mr. Speaker, we are at war. We are at war with terrorists that annihilated 6,000 Americans. We have a responsibility to…”

“Mr. Speaker, we are at war. We are at war with terrorists that annihilated 6,000 Americans. We have a responsibility to work together to solve this problem. For me it is not an issue of whether they are Federal employees or non-Federal employees. Under the bill being presented on this side of the aisle, they can be either. We can have Federal employees in some instances, and non-Federal employees in others. The argument that suggests we are going to hire the same people that failed in the past is simply not true. The new employees will have to meet requirements that some of the people who now do this work cannot meet. Mr. Speaker, I weep for what we have gone through in the last few weeks, but this is not about Federal employees. It is about airport security. What I particularly like about the Young-Mica bill is that for the first time, we are going to require that the baggage that goes in the belly of an aircraft be inspected by a date certain. By the year 2003, all baggage in the belly of a plane will be inspected for explosives and weapons.”