Nick Lampson: “I am thrilled to be able to join the gentleman and so many other cosponsors as an original cosponsor on this bill, the…”

“I am thrilled to be able to join the gentleman and so many other cosponsors as an original cosponsor on this bill, the Municipal Preparations Strategic Response Act of 2001. It is a critical piece of legislation, obviously; and the reason is that we all know that our cities and our local governments are the ones that are indeed on the front line of homeland security. I have been conducting meetings at the local level with airport officials, port officials, petrochemical people that run refineries and other facilities in southeast Texas; and each of these groups is committed to doing everything that they can possibly do to ensure the safety of their facilities and the people that work in them and live around them. After all of those meetings, it is abundantly clear to me that we must take a bottom-up approach. We can look at our airports. Everybody sees those at home. We have police departments, sheriffs' departments, local people that local funds, local tax dollars are paying for being absolutely strapped in an effort to try to provide an adequate number of personnel to protect those airports.”