Ed Markey: “I thank the gentlelady. I rise in opposition to this legislation. If it were to pass the House, we lawmakers would be…”

“I thank the gentlelady. I rise in opposition to this legislation. If it were to pass the House, we lawmakers would be directing the Secretary of Transportation to tell U.S. airlines not to follow the law. If we prohibit our companies from complying with the laws in other countries, we should expect other countries to do the same when it comes to their companies complying with U.S. law. In an effort to protect U.S. airlines, this bill might actually undermine airline security. The U.S. currently requires international airlines to comply with a wide range of U.S. laws when it comes to passenger, baggage, and cargo security in order to do business in our country. If we legislate our companies out of Europe's environmental laws, our homeland security could be adversely impacted if European countries decided to withhold their cooperation in response with regard to screening of baggage for bombs on planes flying into the United States. When it comes to pollution from the transportation sector, the United States was the first to pass a law requiring anyone in the world interested in coming to our shores to follow our environmental regulations. In 1990, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In order to reduce the risk of an oil spill, it required all tankers operating in U.S. waters to be double-hulled by 2015.…”