Political Quotes

“We are on the FAA reauthorization bill. I want to comment on the discussion of my colleague from Arkansas, but I will do that briefly. I did want to say before that, however, that we really threaten to lose this bill. We have been on the floor now 5 days. We have a number of amendments. We are going to vote at 2 o'clock today on a couple of amendments that are properly filed, but they have nothing to do with the underlying bill. We have some other amendments still waiting that have nothing to do with the underlying bill. And then we have this issue of slot rules and perimeter rules with National Airport, which is unbelievably complicated. I think we have eight amendments, and my hope is that we can convince people not to offer those amendments. We will try to deal with them in conference because the House has a couple of provisions. But if we do not complete this bill today, after 5 days, then I worry we will never get back to it and once again the issues of aviation safety and airport improvement funds and all of those issues will be left at the starting gate. We have extended this 11 times. Rather than reauthorizing the FAA bill, we have extended it 11 times. Now we finally have legislation that deals with aviation safety, which is so unbelievably important, a passengers' Bill of Rights, AIP improvement funds. Let's get this done today. I urge colleagues, if they have amendments to offer, offer them.…”