Political Quotes

“I rise this morning to introduce legislation. The legislation is entitled the ``Dependable Air Service Act.'' It is a very simple, straightforward solution to the issue of the furloughs of air traffic controllers, and I would like to take just a few minutes to describe it. This is bipartisan legislation. I would like to start out by thanking my cosponsors. The lead cosponsor is Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, but other cosponsors are Senator John Cornyn of Texas, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, Senator Kelly Ayotte, Senator Risch of Idaho, and also Senator Jean Shaheen of New Hampshire. As one can see, it is bipartisan legislation. These are original cosponsors on the bill with me, and we will have more, as we are talking to others. As I said, this is a very simple, straightforward solution to the issue we face of delays in our airports across the country because of the furloughs to air traffic controllers. What the bill does is to say to the Administrator of the FAA--the Federal Aviation Administration, Administrator Huerta--that he can use dollars within his budget, move them around as he needs to move them around, and that is what he needs to do--to move dollars around within his budget so he does not have to take $206 million out of the salary line of the air traffic controllers.…”