On the recordMarch 31, 2011
To close on the manager's amendment which I have offered today, first of all, let me just say that the two objections that have been raised again by the minority--and I appreciate their concerns--as to the safety reporting, which we put in some years ago, has actually resulted in probably the safest system that we've had in the world and the safest safety record in history. If you stop and think about it--I chaired the Aviation Subcommittee--the last large commercial aircraft that we had that went down, unfortunately, was near Veterans Day of 2001, after 9/11. Safety reporting is so important and is done on a voluntary basis, and it's so important that the people who collect this data are not held liable. They're collecting the data that benefits us to make this safe. This has worked. It's kept us safe. And we want to ensure, again, that this continues. Some will say we had commuter. Yes, we did have commuter. We also passed commuter safety legislation to deal with problems we had there. So we have a safe system. We don't want to stop that. We don't want the recording of the data to stop or those held liable that are collecting the data. That's the first point. The second point: lithium batteries. This is a lithium battery. This has a lithium battery. This is a pacemaker. This keeps your heart going. This has a lithium battery. Laptops have lithium batteries. Almost everything has lithium batteries.…
