Kevin Roberts: “I rise today to join my colleagues in support of this bipartisan agreement. Yes, there is a bipartisan agreement in…”

“I rise today to join my colleagues in support of this bipartisan agreement. Yes, there is a bipartisan agreement in regard to this bill. It can be done. It has been reached by the Senate Finance and Commerce Committees on the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration and Airport and Airway Trust Fund; i.e., the Rockefeller substitute amendment No. 3452. I thank Chairman Rockefeller for his leadership. He is right; we need to move this bill. He referred to the 11 times it has been delayed. I have been working on this bill for 4 years. I know he has been working very hard, very diligently, and we do have a workable compromise. I think it represents the true meaning of that word. It shows what is possible when we roll up our sleeves and go to work together. So special thanks to Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley and to Senator Rockefeller and all of his staff and all of Senator Baucus's staff, everybody's people who have been working on this. In 2006, at my invitation, then-Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters joined me and Congressman Tiahrt from the fourth district of Kansas, local officials, all sorts of representatives from the aviation businesses in Wichita, for a roundtable discussion about the importance of aviation to Kansas and to the country.”