Frank Lautenberg: “I rise this morning because issues are brought to mind that somehow or other have slipped into the background. For…”

“I rise this morning because issues are brought to mind that somehow or other have slipped into the background. For example, look at this morning's Washington Post and see there is disturbing news about the impending retirement of air traffic controllers. This is a subject I have dealt with, even in my previous terms, and certainly in my current term in the Senate, sounding the alarm that we are going to be woefully short of people to replace retirees. We have to be certain that in the middle of what is an impending crisis because of the lack of skilled professionals in the towers, we do not turn to the subject of commercializing this. We went through an enormous amount of pain and dislocation when we took the baggage screeners out of commercial hands and put them into Government hands because we knew they would operate more efficiently. Now the conversation goes that we are trying as well to go back with our screeners and put that function into commercial hands.”