Political Quotes

“Madam President, I wish to thank the majority leader for bringing this bill to the floor so promptly--the first bill of this year, the 112th Congress. The Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration. It has been postponed 17 times over the last 4 years, to the consternation of all of us who care about this subject. There are three Commerce Committee members in the Chamber right now, and we are all frustrated about getting it done. So it is the first piece of legislation. The bill which I introduced and which we are considering is the text of the FAA reauthorization bill that was approved by the whole Senate last year by a vote of 93 to nothing. All of the matters of safety and air traffic control systems and all the rest of it that we talk about are all incorporated already in this bill. Although the Senate and the House of Representatives informally conferenced, it was not productive, and we were unable to come to a final resolution, so here we are once again. I thought that beginning this year's consideration of the FAA reauthorization bill with the legislation that did pass unanimously last year would signal a commitment to bringing forward a bill that had broad bipartisan support--at least last year. It wasn't that long ago. There are some new Members, and some issues still stand out. We didn't resolve all of them. I wish to say at the beginning that this is a monumentally important bill.…”