Steve Rothman: “under current Transportation Security Administration restrictions, no general aviation aircraft can fly within 15 miles…”

“under current Transportation Security Administration restrictions, no general aviation aircraft can fly within 15 miles of the Washington Monument. So why, then, does New York City, the other target of the worst terrorist attack in the history of the United States, not have the very same safeguard being provided to it by the Transportation Security Administration against general aviation aircraft within 15 miles of New York City? Before I continue, I want to make it clear to my colleagues that I am not talking about commercial aircraft, the 737s, 767s, and so forth that so many Americans depend on each day for travel into our Nation's major airports. What I am talking about are the smaller private aircraft that primarily operate out of smaller, general aviation airports such as Teterboro Airport in my congressional district in New Jersey. Those airports do not have the same Transportation Security Administration security procedures that the major airports have. While these general aviation aircraft by themselves, because of their size, may not seem to be able to inflict a great deal of damage even if they were diverted into a building, if they were filled with chemical or biological agents they could potentially cause a tragedy greater than the one we had on September 11.”