Jim Sensenbrenner: “I am a bit puzzled hearing my colleague on the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), say…”

“I am a bit puzzled hearing my colleague on the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), say that this bill ought to be delayed so that the Committee on the Judiciary can consider contingent liability issues. We have heard from the other side again and again that we ought to send the substitute amendment to the President tonight so that the people can have protection, and yet my colleague from the Committee on the Judiciary wants us to spend some time looking at contingent liability provisions. The manager's amendment is important to complete the job we failed to do in passing the airline liability bill. That bill capped air carriers' liability at the limit of their insurance, so we have protected United Airlines and American Airlines and the security firms that screened the passengers that got on the planes that were hijacked, which have been included in the definition of air carriers by two Federal Court decisions; but we did not give the same type of contingent liability protection to Boeing, the manufacturer of the plane, to Pratt and Whitney and General Electric, the manufacturers of the engines, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is a quasi-public corporation, the lessee of the World Trade Center, the fire department and police departments of the City of New York, and anybody else that might have contingent liability. What the manager's amendment provision does is to close the loop.…”