Jay Inslee: “this evening several of us have come to the floor to talk about what many of us believe is the most pressing…”

“this evening several of us have come to the floor to talk about what many of us believe is the most pressing responsibility of the U.S. Congress right now; that is, our security, and particularly our security in our airline industry. We believe that Congress should act very promptly; in fact, the other Chamber has passed a bill. But to date, although we are 30 days past September 11-plus, we still have not had a vote in this Chamber to increase how we deal with safety in our airlines. That is extremely disappointing, because we have had a lot of other votes here in the House in the last month, but we still have not dealt with some very, very huge holes in our airline security provisions. Tonight, we are going to start by talking about perhaps one of the most glaring loopholes in our airline security system, and that is the loophole that unfortunately allows bags with explosive devices to go into the luggage compartments of airplanes. The sad fact is that Congress needs to act and act promptly and aggressively to make sure that baggage that goes into the belly of an airplane is screened for explosive devices.”