Eleanor Holmes Norton: “Today, I rise to ask that the House pass my bill, the Banning Smoking on Amtrak Act of 2019. I thank my friends…”

“Today, I rise to ask that the House pass my bill, the Banning Smoking on Amtrak Act of 2019. I thank my friends, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Peter DeFazio and Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee Chair Daniel Lipinski, for marking up my bill in committee and allowing it to move forward to the full House. My bill would codify Amtrak's internal policy prohibiting smoking, including smoking electronic cigarettes, on trains, which, in light of all the evidence of harm, should be codified. This bill is modeled on a bill I got enacted while in the minority as part of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 that clarified that the smoking ban on airplanes includes electronic cigarettes. This bill is not only an outgrowth of my desire to ensure healthy environments on all the Nation's transportation modes, which I strive to carry out as chair of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, but importantly, it is also the result of the advocacy of an 11-year old child who was concerned to see electronic cigarette smoking on an Amtrak train. Although Amtrak should be commended for implementing its own internal policy banning smoking on trains in 1993, that policy could always be repealed. My bill would make the ban a matter of federal law and put Congress on record in support of protecting passengers from secondhand smoke, as it has done in banning e-cigarettes on airplanes.…”