Frank Lautenberg: “We are leaving out the contract tower program. We do not touch that at all. Those are special situations, smaller…”

“We are leaving out the contract tower program. We do not touch that at all. Those are special situations, smaller airports where more is demanded from the operation than can be given as part of the FAA. We have no problem with those. The amendment we offer now is smaller in scope than my original bill. It covers only air traffic control, separation functions, system specialists, and flight service station controllers. There is a world far larger than that, that could be included which we have not included. The administration has already changed the designation of air traffic control from 'inherently governmental' to 'commercial.' It is more than a technical change. It opens the door to privatizing the air traffic control system. We currently have the best air traffic control system in the world, with 15,000 dedicated Federal air traffic controllers who guide home safely more than 2 million passengers a day. They are expert professionals who perform under pressure every day to keep our skies safe. Air traffic controllers play a major role in homeland security. When President Bush gave his State of the Union speech this year, it was the flight service station air traffic controllers who sent alerts to pilots around here to avoid the expanded no-fly zone around Washington. We wanted to keep the President safe. We wanted the security to be maintained. It takes a certain skill and dedication and experience to make sure it gets done, that it gets done in a timely fashion.”