Political Quotes

“I want to pick up on what the Senator from Arizona said. He is ranking member on the Commerce Committee. They worked diligently on putting together the aviation loan program. One airline has access to the program, and that happens to be America West. There is another airline that is on the brink of bankruptcy that is hemorrhaging money right now, but it has brought in a management team to restructure the airline. Part of this restructuring plan is US Airways' access to this fund. What is in the appropriations bill will deny them access to this fund until the fall of this year, which may be too late for them to be able to get the adequate capital to continue operation. We may be bankrupting an airline that serves the whole northeastern quadrant of the United States for I don't know what reason. I have no idea why this provision is in here, but we are pulling the rug out from under an airline that was probably the airline most affected by 9-11. This is the airline with its hub at Reagan National, which was shut down and flights were restricted. This is an airline that flew out of New York, and it served the area most impacted by 9-11. And now we have an appropriations bill that is going to probably deny them survival. It is the most impacted airline by 9-11 and we have a bill here that is supposed to help us recover from 9-11, and it may be the death knell of the airline. The bottom line is, this bill is not ready for passage.”