Political Quotes

“the bill we hope to start legislating on after the caucuses today is an important piece of legislation, FAA reauthorization. Last Thursday, I met in my office with representatives of various unions that deal with the airline industry--flight attendants, mechanics, and air traffic controllers. They had some opinions as to what was going on. An hour or two later, I met with the chief executive officers of the major airlines in our country today. They were terribly concerned about what goes on. The fuel costs for these airlines is now approaching 50 percent of their overall cost. I may be a few cents wrong in my illustration, but they said: We can't compete. We pay $1.20 for a gallon of aviation fuel. In Europe they pay 70 cents. You cannot compete because the dollar has become so low in value around the world. This is an extremely important bill. If there were ever a time we had to work in a bipartisan basis in order to approve legislation necessary to give the airline industry a chance to survive, then we must do it on this piece of legislation.”