Jay Inslee

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I speak vigorously against this bill because it is radically callous toward reform provisions, and let me explain how radical they are. It seems to me that we have given a lot of at least lip service to the value of marriage on this floor in a lot of different debates, but look what this bill does. Take a situation where a wife lost her husband, firefighter in New York City. She has had the destruction of her relationship with her husband, she is a widow, and let us say this bill becomes law. If this bill becomes law, it says that the only value of that husband to that widow was the value of his paycheck. This bill would destroy the ability that is now the case in 50 States in this country that when a widow loses her husband she would be entitled under American law to noneconomic damages. That is a sound policy, because many of us believe that a husband has a value to a wife that is greater than his paycheck. But the Republican proposal here is based on the proposition that the only meaningful value of a husband to a wife is what he brings home at the end of the month, and that the value of the relationship between a husband and wife is zero under the Republican bill. That is wrong. That is wrong. The value of a relationship between a husband and wife is worthy of the respect of us individually and worthy of the respect of the American judicial system. This bill is wrong in eliminating that civil right. I think it is a sad day when terrorists get to destroy the civil right of an American to recognize the value of their spouse, which under the Republican bill my colleagues are doing. Frankly, I do not know if my colleagues intended to do it, but this bill accomplishes that end, and it is wrong. But there is a second reason I speak against this bill, Mr. Speaker. If we pass this bill, it will have been after we passed the airline bailout bill, or airline bill, whatever we want to call it, and did not give a dime to the workers, over 100,000 workers who have been laid off. Yet we now pass a bill to help the insurance industry, which I think is necessary, some bill, to help the insurance industry, but still without helping laid-off workers with a dime or a nickel. I now have in the Puget Sound, or will have, 30,000 laid-off workers from the Boeing company alone as a result of this terrorist activity. And what has the Congress done? Nothing. Why do the big dogs always eat first in Congress? It is time to take care of working people. Defeat this bill.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, this morning I learned of the pending retirement from Congress of a great colleague, Eva Clayton from North Carolina. I just want to note her tremendous service the last decade of not only in North Carolina but the whole country. I met Eva when she became president of our freshman class in 1992, and I think it showed the wisdom of our class in 1992 of having elected her to that position, because in the later 10 years, she has really provided great service, always in a very dignified, quiet manner and very successful for her constituents in North Carolina. I hope during her next 1-minute where she continues her public service talking about our need to deal with the AIDS crisis, we will give her our infinite attention because she has been a great Member for the last decade. I thank Representative Clayton for her public service.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. INSLEE. First, Mr. Chairman, I have not made any points of order today in this regard. But more importantly, what this has done is we have been looking for a way on a bipartisan basis, and I see no reason for ill will on this issue at all, I really think the parties are together on this, to assure that we give the administration enough resources to do this baggage screening that we all want done, and we are all on the same page on that. What we found is there is another probable $250 million that will be available from the stream of revenue through the ticket surcharges that were set forth in the airline security bill. This money will not come out of the airport trust funds. This money will be funded 100 percent by the surcharge on the tickets.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment for the reason that should it fail to be adopted, we will essentially be reneging on a promise we made to the American people 9 days ago. On a bipartisan basis we adopted an airline security bill that, amongst other things, would require that every bag that goes into the belly of an airplane will be screened for an explosive device, something Americans have expected and really thought has been done for a long time. The President signed that bill into law 8 days ago. It is now the law of the United States of America, and a promise has been made to the American people that every bag will be screened for an explosive device within a certain time period, within 1 year by a machine, and within 60 days by either manual inspection, a dog sniffing, or positive bag match. We did that on a bipartisan basis. The President signed it. It is the law of the United States of America. But this morning I open up the Washington Post, and I see that the administration has said they are not going to meet these deadlines. Planes are going to still take off with bags in the belly of an airplane that could have a bomb in them that will not be screened. That is unacceptable to the American people. It should be unacceptable to us. The reason we have been given from the administration is apparently there is some resource inability, a lack of resources, to hire the people or the dogs it takes to get this job done. This amendment will give the administration adequate resources to make sure the commitment we, on a bipartisan basis, made to the American people is fulfilled. If we do not do this, it will not be fulfilled. To me, there are going to be a lot of disappointed folks who thought we were making sure their bags were screened for explosives. Then apparently we do not give the administration enough money to hire the people to do it. People are going to be very, very disappointed. This amendment will allow additional expenses. We ought to pass this and fulfill this statutory commitment we made to the American people.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, first off, we are not a monolithic group on our side of the aisle, so I will not address the concern of any other Members. Members must understand that this will be funded through a stream of revenue that has been set up, and there is a $2.50 charge. I want to make sure that Members understand that I think there is a bipartisan desire to get this job done. I compliment the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), although I disagree with his assertion of my demagoguery on his work in increasing the appropriation in the airline security bill to have a 100 percent baggage screening requirement. That is the right thing to do. We have now a fund for making sure that gets done, and I thank the gentleman for accepting this amendment.

Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. INSLEE. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I can assure the gentleman that it will be as expedited as humanly possible, given those good tidings. This amendment, offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and myself, is an effort to ensure that we fulfill the obligations set forth in the airline security bill we passed and the President signed just a week ago. It is precipitated by concerns that have been expressed by the Secretary of Transportation that we will not meet some deadlines that were established in that bill to assure that 100 percent of the bags that go into the belly of an airplane are screened. Just 1 week after the President of the United States signed this bill, assuring Americans that we are going to have 100 percent screening of baggage, to say we give up and we are not going to fulfill this equipment does not respect the needs of the American public for safety in flying. So this amendment we offer would increase the appropriation by $250 million so that we can be assured that no excuse is allowed; that there was a lack of resources to do the positive bag matching that is required by the bill, to do the visual inspection that is required by the bill, and to use perhaps dog sniffers, which are euphemistically called ``canine explosive detection units'' in our bill. We want to make sure resources are not an issue. We think we should do this on a bipartisan basis.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, on November 18 the President signed a law promising the American people that every bag that goes into the belly of the airplanes will be checked for explosives, a promise that was long overdue. It is within certain time limits imposed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the President. Therefore, it is most disturbing that the administration has now told us, 9 days later, that they cannot meet the deadline set forth in law just 9 days ago. Mr. Speaker, this is very disappointing because the word ``cannot'' is not in the American lexicon. In a Nation that sent people to the Moon and whose Armed Forces are doing such an exemplary job in Afghanistan, we cannot say we cannot solve this problem. If there are not enough people to do the job, hire them. Get the National Guard to do the job, and come to Congress and tell what us what is needed to get this job done because we will stand with the administration and make sure that it gets done. The American people deserve it.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I wish my colleagues could have been with me in Spokane, Washington, yesterday at the National Congress of American Indians. You would have felt the same honor that I felt when folks walked up and did an introduction of their service to America in virtually every war in the last century, from every tribe in the United States. It took a long time because there were a lot of veterans who gave of themselves individually truly as American patriots in numbers perhaps greater than the rest of our population. It really was a moving experience. I appreciate my colleagues bringing this resolution to the floor to note our respect for this part of the American fabric. But I must tell you, having listened to some of the concerns of those Americans yesterday in Spokane, I am disappointed in the sense of the numerous times where this House in the last 10 months has failed to honor our commitment to these Americans. Let me just mention four ways. Number one, just the other day, the administration issued an edict that it was going to recreate an organizational structure to deal with this trust fund problem without any consultation at all with the people who will be affected by this major change in organization, the people that have these millions of dollars in trust. They never even picked up the phone to talk to tribal leaders about this issue. What type of government-to-government relationship is that? This resolution does not speak to that issue. Secondly, we have tribal members who have land resources that are tremendously affected by our energy policies. I was up in Alaska in the Arctic Village meeting with the Gwich'in people leadership about the Arctic drilling controversy. They pleaded with the U.S. House not to drill in the Arctic because they think it could endanger the caribou runs which their entire tribe depends on for sustenance. So what did the House do? We ignored their rights, we decided to drill anyway, abusing their long, long history of their relationship with the caribou herds. A second transgression. Third, contract support payments. Uncle Sam has a statutory commitment to contribute to the tribes contract support costs to administer health care plans. But have we fulfilled that commitment in the last 10 months? No, we have not. Another unfilled promise after 2 or 3 centuries of abuse of these peoples. Fourth, and this is one that we are going to continue to have debate on in the Committee on Resources, I am afraid. There are efforts in this House that folks now want to intrude on sovereignty on issues regarding taxation. We have already seen efforts now to create an impediment of the working relationship of tribes with States in dealing with taxation issues, rather than allowing tribes to work on a good- faith basis with States. So I must come to the well to applaud the makers and my colleagues for expressing the sentiments and the good feelings and good tidings we have for this part of community, but let us do more than give these people good tidings. Let us give them respect and legislation and solve these problems.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, it truly is an achievement to obtain 100 percent screening of the checked baggage that goes into the belly of our airplanes to assure that there will be no explosives. I want to thank for that achievement the families of the Lockerbie victims who, since 1988, have been urging Congress to take this step, and specifically, Bob Monetti, who lost his son Rick in the Lockerbie bombing; George Williams, who lost his soldier son Geordie, who has done just great advocacy in the halls of this House to finally achieve this step forward. I hope they take satisfaction from that achievement. I also would like to thank the bipartisan group that worked to make sure that we had 100 percent screening: the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) on the Republican side, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn). I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), who have been advocates of this for a long, long period of time. I want to thank the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), who I hope takes some sense of achievement from this. I think he should. He listened to our concerns. I hope we some day have the same bipartisan consensus on oil or pipeline legislation that we can take some success from, as well.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this issue. It is a very difficult position, and the gentleman did an admirable job getting this issue before on your side of the aisle. We appreciate that very much. I would now like to yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), who has been a cosponsor of the bill that started the 100 percent checked baggage requirement going and the amendment.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I would love to listen to the gentleman's presentation, but I have a meeting with an incredible high school teacher named Mary Linquist of the famous Linquist teaching family that I have to keep to tackle educational matters, but I will look at the gentleman's bill and I thank the gentleman for his work on that. Mr. Speaker, with that, I would like to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and others who participated in this. We are going to look forward to good success over the next 2 days. This is good news for the American people.

Mr. INSLEE. I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate all your great work. When we started this dialogue several weeks ago, it was a little bit lonely talking about that checked baggage. But I agree with the gentleman: The American voice was heard. We shared some information with America, namely, that not enough of these bags were being screened. Americans responded, they let their legislators know what they thought, and we have this product. So we want to thank Americans for their part in achieving this end, and we will look forward now to passage of this in the next day or two, and realize that we have a real step forward in airline security.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I have come to the floor this evening to comment on what I believe is a major, major step forward in our national security and, that is, the imminent passage of our airline security bill. Our conferees, we have been told, have been successful in ironing out a bill that I think is a real major step forward in several respects. I would like to talk about two of those ways that this bill is really going to advance Americans' sense of security and hopefully instill a fair measure of confidence in airline travel. The first is that our efforts have been successful to make sure that 100 percent of the checked baggage that goes into the belly of our airplanes in fact will be screened for explosive devices. This is a major step forward to give the traveling public the assurance that any bag that is going to go into the luggage compartment of an airplane, we are going to be assured, does not have an explosive device in it. Given the nature of the threat, it is high time that the U.S. Congress has passed such a measure. We are told now that our conferees in both parties, in the House and Senate, have agreed on a measure that will set a deadline for the actual implementation of 100 percent screening for checked baggage. We also are told that we are going to have interim measures while we get to that 100 percent use by mechanical devices, by some of the sophisticated machinery, to be assured that we cannot see a plane taken down out of the sky. This has been the result of a lot of effort here in Congress, but I want to pay a real congratulatory note to two gentlemen who have been working for over a decade now to achieve that end, and those gentlemen are Bob Monetti and George Williams, two gentlemen each of whom lost a son in the Lockerbie bombing in Scotland in 1988. Bob Monetti, who lost his son Rick, a Syracuse student, in that bombing and Mr. Monetti since then has been working with the community of families that lost members in the Lockerbie bombing to try to get this Chamber, the U.S. House, and the Senate, to pass a provision to assure that that type of tragedy cannot happen again. I have met Mr. Monetti; he is a great leader in this regard and has been a conscience of his community to see to it that the House of Representatives would act. I have also met Mr. George Williams, who lost his son Geordie, an American soldier, Mr. Williams, a proud Marine. I really want to thank Mr. Williams for his efforts to make sure that the U.S. Congress would finally act to see to it that other family members do not have to suffer a loss that they have done. I think it is a real mark of tribute to these families that they have hung in this effort for over 10 years to see to it that the Congress would finally act. Now in the next day or two, we will be voting on a provision that will finally achieve their goal of having 100 percent screening. I want to thank Mr. Monetti and Mr. Williams and all of the Lockerbie families for their efforts to educate us in Congress about the need for this. I hope they take some measure of satisfaction. I know Rick and Geordie would be real proud of their fathers when this bill passes, as we were of them. I also want to thank some of our cosponsors, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), a Democrat, who has insisted on this; the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), a Republican. The gentleman from Connecticut has been a great, great leader on many reform efforts. He has been instrumental in convincing some of the leadership on the Republican side of the aisle in including this measure in the eventual airline security bill. I consider this a bipartisan success through the efforts of the gentleman from Connecticut and several other Republicans, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) and others on our side of the aisle who have gotten this in. We are happy that we have finally achieved this end, that we can now tell Americans that they will be able to have the peace of mind when they get on an airplane that we are not going to have explosives in the belly of the airplane. There are a couple of things we hope that both our conferees, if this has not been totally finalized, and our friends at the FAA and the Department of Transportation need to be attentive to, and, that is, that we need to very quickly evaluate the screening devices for various types of technology to make sure that we use the most effective, the fastest, the most efficient, the most cost-effective means of screening this baggage. We brought to the Cannon House Office Building last week some new technology that we hope that the FAA will look at very closely when we choose which types of screening machines to use. We want the FAA to be very open in its assessment so we have the fair opportunity to assess all of the technologies, and there are several types of machines that use several types of technology to determine whether there is an explosive device in a bag. We are going to be working diligently with the FAA to make sure that they have a fair evaluation process to decide which type of technology to implement throughout our Nation's airports. In doing that, we are going to be very insistent that we fully mobilize the industrialized base of the United States. Some time ago, the FAA talked about getting this done in 10 years or more, to get enough machines in our airports to get this done. We are not going to wait that long. We need to do the same kind of industrialization and mobilization that happened in World War II. We built about 10 or 12,000 B-24s in World War II when we fully mobilized our industrial base. We have got to do the same thing with these machines. We need a couple of thousand of them, and we need to find the licensing and a contractual way to fully engage the manufacturers of this country to get this done right away. We are going to be very insistent on that. We look forward to working with our agencies to make sure we make this decision promptly and in a way that gets the best technology into our airports. The other aspect of this bill that we are very, very pleased about is that it will have a quantum leap forward in the quality of screening of the individuals who screen passengers when they go through these screening gates heading for their airplanes. We have had such a litany of failure. We have had such a disastrous experience with private companies, low-bid contractors, who have allowed these types of failures to occur. Now we have finally agreed and our conferees have agreed to essentially ensure that we will have Federal employees who, in fact, will man these stations in the next 2 years. We are very happy that that assurance will be given to the traveling public. It is time that we have the same level of protection of folks when they get on airplanes as we do when we have folks coming across our borders, namely, we have Federal employees who have been certified and trained, that work for Uncle Sam; the same type of assurance we have with FBI agents; the same type of assurance we have for fire and police personnel who work for the public and are certified and trained appropriately. We are going to require that and that that will happen. As you know, as with any legislative process, there has been some give and take in fashioning that, the give and take as some of the Republican leadership has resisted this idea, and we have been told that in this provision, there will be a provision that 2 years from now, airports that wanted to petition the agency to have a private contractor do this work, if they can convince the agency that that was a good idea, they would at least allow that argument to be made. But with all due respect, we do not think there is going to be any such petitions because the traveling public is going to learn that the best way to get this done is to have Federal employees to do it, and we are confident that that is going to be the case; and we feel good about the strides that have been made. We want to compliment our friends across the aisle who showed some bold leadership to move this effort forward. I see the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) here. I do not know if he wants to join in this colloquy or not, but I would be happy to yield to him if he would like to join me in this regard.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay very special tribute to a truly outstanding individual from Seattle, Washington. On October 8, 2001, Dr. Lee Hartwell, president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2001 for his pioneering work in yeast genetics. Dr. Hartwell's three-decade devotion to the study of and his insight into yeast cells provide the foundation for understanding how normal cells divide and the mechanisms leading to the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells. He has consistently contributed experimental and theoretical insights. Thanks to Dr. Hartwell's groundbreaking efforts, scientists have a fundamental understanding of how cancer cells mutate. This research is allowing the development of approaches that predict, prevent or reverse that mutation so that someday we can develop cancer cures. Today, the yeast related research of Dr. Hartwell and his colleagues is being used at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to develop drugs for use against cancer and other diseases. Dr. Hartwell is a man of great accomplishment. After earning B.S. at the California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he did postdoctoral work at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. In 1968 he joined the University of Washington's faculty and, since 1973, has been a professor of genetics at that institution. He joined the faculty of Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in 1996 and became its president and director in 1997. Dr. Hartwell is the recipient of many honors including the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the Gairdner Foundation International Award and the Alfred P. Sloan Award in cancer research. The 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is the ultimate recognition of his life's work. I ask my colleagues to join me in saluting Dr. Lee Hartwell, a man whose dedication and achievements are a credit to the State of Washington, our country, and indeed the world.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. As always, the gentleman has done it with much more eloquence than I have been able to muster, but that is exactly right. When we have the Border Patrol, we do not contract out the Border Patrol because we do not want to see the contractor's motivations to have low cost, low bid, cutting corners affect the law enforcement security issues that we have. It is the same with firefighters and police. The reason we feel that way in this country is that these jobs are life-and-death jobs. If the job is done well, people live. If the job is not done well, people die. This is why we believe so strongly and Americans believe so strongly all across the country, I am hearing on Main Street, I am reading USA Today, I am reading the Seattle Post Intelligencer, I am reading the New York Times, this bill is a clinker because it does not match Americans' expectations that we have a law enforcement type system. Let us just talk for a moment about this Keystone Kops idea. Since September 11, look at what has happened. Since September 11, when you would think these companies would be telling their employees to be on their best behavior, they would have their best front line people, their most trained people, they would be on their toes and they would have bells and whistles on, since September 11, we have had a test by the FAA at Dulles Airport that serves the Nation's Capital, you think would be the acme of achievement for these private contractors. They went out to Dulles Airport a couple of weeks ago and they tried to run the gate 20 times with weapons that would show up on the magnetometer; guns, knives, I do not know what they used. Out of that 20 times, seven times people went through without being challenged by the security personnel. Almost half the times they failed at the Nation's principal airport. The company that was already fined $1 million for hiring felons we found is hiring felons again. Now just the other day we have heard about this story where the guy ran through the system with multiple knives, stun guns, Mace, the only thing they kept him from taking on the plane was a Stinger missile. That was the only success they had. Yet the Republicans want to continue that status quo arrangement. The status quo has failed. We hope this conference committee sticks by the Senate version which has a Federal responsibility.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, it is very possible, and it is more likely if Americans will let their elected officials know that that is what they want to see happen, that they want certified Federal marshals, Federal officials at these gates to make sure people are not taking bombs and are not hijacking airplanes. And if we do that, we think this conference committee can, should and will adopt a federalized work force. I want to thank the gentleman for helping to get that message out.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, as the gentleman knows, the Senate passed a strong version requiring the Federal Government to assume responsibility for security of Americans in the air. It was 100 to zero. The bill came over to the House. It languished here for weeks and weeks and weeks after September 11. The Republican leadership refused to bring it up, essentially because they could not pass it. They finally brought it up last week and a very, very narrow margin passed a different version that had this giant hole in it, more Swiss cheese than anything; and now it goes to a conference committee where members of the House and Senate will meet to try to reconcile this to come up with a bill. We are just very hopeful that now that America has found out about this bill and people have found out, as Siskel & Ebert would say, it is two thumbs down for America on its failure to federalize this responsibility, that the conferees will, in fact, adopt the Senate version and have the Federal Government have Uncle Sam take over this system like they should have done 10 years ago to prevent guns, knives, sticks, bottles and everything else getting through this poor system. That can happen in conference committee. It can be signed into law by Monday by the President. We are hoping that Americans let their Members of Congress know what they think about it so that that is exactly what will happen.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, it is a symptom of the illness that affects our system, of why we have not had sufficient regulation. But I do not know what the campaign system is in some of these countries, the Netherlands and other places, but I know that they do not have a system like we do; otherwise they would have lousy security. They would have lousy security because the security companies would come in, spread influence around and block any safety or yank in their contracts when they do not do a good job.

Mr. INSLEE. I just want to answer a couple of the questions people have asked about our plan of federalizing these security forces. One of the arguments against this essentially has been you will not be able to layoff incompetent people once they are Federal employees. People should realize that in the Senate bill we have made provisions to give additional flexibility to management to lay people off, to take disciplinary action, consistent with their law enforcement function. We need to treat these people like FBI agents, Border Patrol and Federal Marshals. They should have a similar disciplinary system, that perhaps does have more flexibility for management than a different Federal job. That is a really a red herring, because we have taken care of that, to make sure that if there is incompetence in that workforce, we can take care of it, just like we need to with Federal Marshals and the like. That is taken care of. The second argument people have played is there are some other countries that have different systems. There are some other countries that do have some private contractors under government supervision, which is fine. Other countries have managed in some circumstances to make that work. But those countries are not America. We are 20 times bigger than some of those countries, number one. Number two, those countries have not had a 10-year continued pattern of failure like we have had with this system; and, number three, and most importantly, those countries do not have a sick campaign system that allows these people with tons of money to come into the FAA and Congress and spread influence around and stop safety from being implemented. Mr. Speaker, that is the difference that we have to pay attention to.

Mr. INSLEE. Already been fined $1 million. They got caught again with their hand in the cookie jar, hiring ex-felons. You have to ask yourself another question, how can this system of private contractors under Federal supervision be such a failure? Would one think that if we had a Federal agency supposedly riding herd on these contractors we could accomplish a fair degree of training and certification? One would think. But the problem is this dirty little secret. We knew in 1995 that these companies were giving us a lousy job, they were not providing adequate security; and this Congress passed measures to require the FAA to adopt additional rules. But it never happened in 6 years. The reason is that every time the FAA tried to pass a meaningful safety regulation, those companies and airlines, too, to some degree, sent lobbyists up to Congress and blocked those safety regulations. That is why this experiment is a failure, because our agencies have been under the control of the ones they are supposed to be regulating. And you cannot break that iron cycle unless we get campaign finance reform which we have also not had a vote on. The American people need to know that the reason this has not passed is, we have a sick campaign financing system that needs to be reformed. But until we get that, we need a new system of airline safety.

Mr. INSLEE. To answer the gentleman's question, I am not so much puzzled as I am extremely disappointed because it is pretty obvious to anyone who has followed this with any but the scantiest degree of attention what is happening here. The companies that have failed the American people over and over again, the companies that have allowed sticks, guns, bottles, knives, everything short of a Stinger missile on these airplanes, have run up to their friends in Congress and have tried to save their bacon and their contracts and tried to put a kibosh on this bill that passed the Senate 100 to nothing, totally bipartisan, because they are trying to save their contracts and their potential profits. There is nothing wrong with profit, but the problem is, these companies should lose their contracts. These companies should not be providing this service. We have not seen anything in the Republican bill that will keep these same companies from not winning these same contracts. This same company that had seven knives get through security the other day and seven out of twenty through Dulles who are hiring ex-felons after they have already been fined $1 million, under the Republican bill could come up and they could get the same contract again. That is a pathetic failure of congressional responsibility.