Political Quotes

“I thank both Ranking Member Brown of the Rail Subcommittee, who's leading this legislation on the floor tonight, and Chairman Petri, the chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee, for their leadership and also directing in a bipartisan manner this legislation that we brought forth from our committee with very, very strong support, Members, again, from both sides of the aisle. I know that there are some folks that have raised some concerns, and I'll address them; but very simply, what is taking place here is that the European Union is trying to impose, in January, an air emissions tax. And they're going to start the clock running, they want to start it running January 1, the meter will start, and American airlines will get the bill in 2013. Now, you heard some comments here that we don't want folks to follow the law or operating in--there was an example of double-hull ships operating in U.S. waters. Well, we're not talking about, again, anything that's even similar to what's being proposed here. What they're proposing is, say, from Los Angeles or Chicago or New York, anywhere in the United States to anywhere in the European Union, to tax. And the meter starts running the minute the plane departs from any point in the United States until it reaches Europe, and the same thing when it departs Europe back to the United States. Not only does this violate international treaties, the Chicago Convention; we've never had anything like this imposed or proposed before. It is not flexible.…”