Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. First, Mr. Petri, I want to personally thank you as our ranking member; Mr. Costello, the chair of the Aviation Subcommittee; Mr. Oberstar, my partner on the full committee. {time} 2310 The hour is late, both for passage of this extension of our Federal Aviation Administration authorization, and the hour is late for passage of a Federal aviation airline safety bill, commuter safety legislation that we should have passed months and months ago. First I have to address the airline safety provisions that have been rolled into this extension. I must apologize to those families who have waited so long, those families who experienced personal tragedy beyond what any of us could imagine, the loss of loved ones, the loss of life, and from that tragedy, they went forward and tried to change our Federal laws and our airline safety. The United States of America is fortunate because we have probably the safest aviation system in the world. Large commercial aircraft, since November of 2001, we have not lost a single aircraft; every day it's a miracle, given all the human elements and possibilities of an accident. However, in our service on the committee, we can't just be concerned about safety with large aircraft. Millions of Americans who fly every day and every week cross the land on commuter aircraft. The fatalities in commuter aircraft travel, as we have seen, have been too many, and we have not acted.…”