Robert Torricelli: “I am sensitive to the desire of Members of the Senate to avoid extraneous issues in this debate. The need for airline…”

“I am sensitive to the desire of Members of the Senate to avoid extraneous issues in this debate. The need for airline security is self-evident. The failure of confidence in our Nation's airlines is having a devastating economic impact on the country and its economy. I am certain Members of the Senate will understand that to those I represent, indeed to millions of other Americans around the country, railroad or bus or other modes of transportation safety are not only not extraneous, they are central. Three hundred thousand residents of New York and New Jersey cross the Hudson and East Rivers every day to their homes and places of business. Indeed, a significant multiple of the number of people who fly on airplanes every day is on these commuter trains. I cannot suggest to them that somehow their lives or their fortunes are less important than those who are on airplanes. It appears to me the debate in the Senate to concentrate exclusively on airplane safety is based on the assumption that terrorists will accommodate us by choosing the same means, employing the same strategy to strike our country that they used previously. Why is it that I doubt they will be so accommodating? There is nothing about an airplane that somehow makes it more vulnerable than a bus or a train or, for that matter, a powerplant or a reservoir.”