Peter King: “I stand here today, first, to commend the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Thompson, for the bipartisanship he has…”

“I stand here today, first, to commend the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Thompson, for the bipartisanship he has shown, the level of cooperation he has demonstrated in bringing this bill through the committee process and to the House floor today. This was work that was begun in the last Congress, and now it has been brought to its fruition, and I commend the gentleman for that. As Mr. Diaz-Balart indicated, there were serious rail attacks in Britain in 2005, in Spain in 2004 and, of course, in India. And there is no doubt that terrorists certainly would be considering to use rail and transit as a base for future attacks here in this country. So this legislation is needed. It is constructive and on balance, it is very positive. For instance, it authorized the use of VIPER teams. It does base funding on threat and risk. And it addresses very, very key areas of vulnerability. Having said that, I wish the same spirit of bipartisanship that had prevailed at the committee level had prevailed in the Rules Committee, because there are a number of amendments which were not ruled in order.”