Political Quotes

“I share the gentlelady's concern of this implication that these are law enforcement officers. It is something that anyone who has ever dealt with law enforcement officers should be worried about, so I thank her for working with us and for explaining to us her concerns. I don't want anyone to be out there fooling the public, having people think they're trained law enforcement officers when they're not. I think that's an important thing at every level of law enforcement. Representative Blackburn brought this to my attention and to the attention of the committee last year. We appreciate her staying on top of these issues. In fact, I asked the staff to look into this matter earlier this year. As a result, as she has described, this bill cuts the screeners' uniforms by $18 million, which is about a 20 percent decrease. In fact, this bill calls for a net decrease of $387.5 million to TSA, or 8 percent below the FY13 enacted levels. Finally, the committee has directed TSA to provide a report describing in detail how TSA is complying with the Buy American Act and to provide Congress with the total number of uniforms and screener consumables purchased in fiscal years '12 and '13. Moving forward, we will continue to work with the gentlewoman from Tennessee to ensure TSA screeners are not abusing the perception that they are officers of the law. We credit her for shedding light on this issue, and I thank her for bringing it to the attention of the committee.…”