Christopher Shays: “I rise in support of H.R. 4687, the National Construction Safety Team Act. The reason why I think this bill is so well…”

“I rise in support of H.R. 4687, the National Construction Safety Team Act. The reason why I think this bill is so well drafted and so well thought out is because of the work of both the chairman and the ranking member, along with the extraordinary Science Committee staff. When we first began these hearings, I thought, ``Wait a second, we had two gigantic, wide-body planes filled with fuel imploding in these buildings? What would Members expect?'' But as we began this investigation, we realized there were a lot of things we could learn from the collapse of these buildings. It is sad and unfortunate that no one was in charge of this investigation. Because no one was empowered to be in charge, we could not gain access to some of this material right away to understand how this building, for instance, imploded. It was fascinating for me to review the fire escape options. Had they not all been concentrated in one place, maybe more people could have gotten out. We learned that materials and building construction made a difference. Studying building No. 7, a building over 40 stories tall, while it burned indefinitely and then basically collapsed was an incredible opportunity for us to discover a number of things about building materials. The collapse of the World Trade Center forever changed the landscape in New York City.”