Sherwood Boehlert: “I am honored to bring this bill back to the House so we can pass it and send it on to the President for his signature.…”

“I am honored to bring this bill back to the House so we can pass it and send it on to the President for his signature. Last week the Members of the House, like citizens throughout our Nation, set aside time to remember the events and heroes and victims of last September 11. We re-experienced the shock and horror of that day, and we gave thanks for our liberties and the way our Nation spontaneously came together to provide emergency, emotional and financial support to those people and places that needed it. But that is not enough. Our responses to September 11 cannot be limited to sentiment. We have to learn from what happened that day, and apply those lessons. Most of the lessons, of course, relate to foreign policy and domestic security, and it is often difficult to discern exactly what those lessons ought to be once one goes beyond enhanced vigilance, but there are also lessons related to building safety, and at least the immediate lessons in that area are crystal clear. The collapse of the Twin Towers, and especially the emergency response and evacuation procedures in response to the attack on the Towers, indicates that we need to know more about skyscraper safety.”