Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman. And I want to associate myself with his very detailed and well-stated opening statement on this legislation. I think the premise should be that all of us agree on the importance of the FAA. I have served as the chairwoman of the Transportation Security Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee and now serve as its ranking member. Through that timeframe, I have seen the overlapping need to view particularly FAA's work and particularly air traffic controller work as part of both the safety and security of this Nation. I remind my colleagues of the activist role that air traffic controllers in particular took during 9/11. During the massiveness of confusion and the loss of the destination or the placing of three of our major airlines and planes that were flying in, airplanes, the air traffic controller was really a team that was on the first response, if you will. So their work is enormously important. And my colleague mentioned some numbers that I think are extremely important: $1.3 trillion is what we find as the revenue in the airline industry, 11\1/2\ million jobs, a 75 percent increase in employees within 20 years and 1 billion in the next decade. I want to say that this means that we have a great obligation to protect the American traveling public. I also want to associate myself with the idea of not protecting our small airports and disadvantaging those airports by this legislation.…”