John Mica: “we all want comprehensive aviation security legislation. Some of the things that have been said may play well on…”

“we all want comprehensive aviation security legislation. Some of the things that have been said may play well on television or with the media. I hope they are not really meant to make the public feel that it is unsafe to fly. I have outlined what this administration has done. The President has put in place directives, and this week almost every major passenger aircraft in the country will have the cockpit doors secured. The President has ordered our air marshals to be trained; they are being trained. Other law enforcement personnel are being assigned to our aircraft. Secretary Mineta has announced a zero tolerance policy. That is why we have had the redundancy in place. Even if we adopted the Senate's plan to employ some 31,000 new Federal employees, it will take 3 to 5 years to train them and get them in place. We need an interim plan. We all agree that the current system does not work. No one is proposing we keep the current system. We are all proposing that the Federal Government take over that responsibility. So this is not the time to demagogue the issue. This is the time to pass comprehensive legislation. We heard some of the speakers just a minute ago talk about taking away rights of citizens or not honoring rights of citizens. That was in the Senate bill, not our bill. We heard people talking about the same private screeners continuing. That is not in our bill.”