Dan Burton: “Mr. Speaker in 1990, we passed the Aviation Security Improvement Act, which was supposed to protect people in airports…”

“Mr. Speaker in 1990, we passed the Aviation Security Improvement Act, which was supposed to protect people in airports getting on their airplanes. It was supposed to deal with the possibility of detecting plastic explosives, which could kill a lot of people like that which happened in New York just a few short days ago. The problem is it did not work. It has not worked and since 1990, nothing really has been done. They said by 1993 we would have devices at every airport, especially the international airports, to detect these plastic explosives. It has not happened, and now we have lost 230 some people over the Atlantic. We need to put dogs at the airports that have the ability to sniff out plastic explosives. We use them in this Chamber, in the Capitol of the United States, and it will work at the airports. The cost is very small compared to the machines we are talking about. Those machines could cost up to $2.2 billion. To put dogs at 50 airports costs about $4 million a year, and we could do it right away. We do not need to mess around. If we are going to protect the flying public in this country, we need to do it now. Mr. Speaker, I have introduced a bill to this effect, and I hope all of my colleagues will cosponsor it.”