John Thune: “the whole objective of this discussion and debate is how do we make the skies as safe as is humanly possible. Now, under…”

“the whole objective of this discussion and debate is how do we make the skies as safe as is humanly possible. Now, under the logic that has been employed by the other side tonight, those who are favoring the Democrat substitute, there is only one way to do that, with Federal employees. And yet the Democrat substitute only applies that logic to 142 airports. Mr. Chairman, do you know, there are 461 commercial airports in this country? That means almost 70 percent of the airports in this country are not going to have Federal employees working there, which, under the logic that has been employed here this evening by the other side, means that those airports are going to have a substandard level of safety applied. I do not think that is what you mean to do here, but that is in fact what is implied by the Democrat substitute; 142 airports would have Federal employees, the remaining 319 would have local law enforcement. Now, the police chief in Pierre, South Dakota, is pretty busy. I do not know that he has time to go stand at the airport. But what you have essentially said this evening is it is Federal employees or not. This legislation, the Mica-Young bill, makes it possible for the administration to use their discretion to determine whether Federal employees are the best way to keep the skies safe, or whether there is another way to do it.”