John Mica: “It is, again, rare that we have the chairmen on both sides of the aisle, the appropriation and authorizing committee…”

“It is, again, rare that we have the chairmen on both sides of the aisle, the appropriation and authorizing committee, all uniformly in opposition to an amendment. But let me tell you, if you want to close down air traffic in the United States indefinitely in the Northeast, adopt this amendment. Now, this isn't something that we just cooked up, that we're going to redesign the air space in the Northeast corridor. We started on this in 1998. We haven't redesigned the air corridor in the northeast United States since 1988. Imagine not expanding the roads or the transportation system in the Northeast since 1998 and the congestion you would have, and that's exactly what we've got. Now, I've been to the districts. I've been to Mr. Garrett's district, Mr. Fossella's district. I've been to Mr. Shays' district. And I continue to work with Members, when I chaired the Aviation Subcommittee, and now as ranking member, and we will work with them, but we have got to redesign the air space. Imagine having no expansion highways. Now, planes are no different than highways; they run in corridors. But we haven't changed it in the Northeast corridor since 1988. We have been working on this redesign since 1998, some 10 years. We have got to make these changes and move forward with them. And we need to listen to the people. We need to make certain that we don't harm their environment, their noise levels, and take into consideration as many of the points that have been raised.”