Jay Inslee

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let me tell you, I represent Boeing Company. We make the airplanes. If the airlines do not have passengers, we do not sell airplanes. The majority party is bringing up a stimulus package tomorrow that basically is a tax bill out for some corporate interests, which is okay. That is a legitimate issue at least to vote on. But the fact of the matter is you could do the biggest stimulus package in this known universe; and if they take down a couple more of our airplanes, the U.S. economy is going in the tank. Boeing is going to have major problems; I will tell you that. This is an economic and safety issue. To me, it is just absolutely stunning, when we would pass this bill, airline security, that passed 100 to zip in the Senate; and it would pass with overwhelming bipartisan support. If we had a vote on this, Republicans and Democrats would link hands and say we need some modicum of airline safety. This would not be a partisan issue. But the leadership, which wants to hand out these special goods to special interests, is blocking a bipartisan majority in this House to keep planes from being blown up in the sky. I think it is ridiculous. We have had some good bipartisan cooperation, sending a message to the world that we are united in dealing with this menace. But when it comes time to stand up to the special interests, the majority leadership is not allowing us to do it. And it is wrong; and we are going to talk on this floor, until this gets done, every night.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, the American people are justifiably disappointed in this House that, over 1 month after the attack of September 11, this House has not done a stitch, not a stitch to improve airline safety. When we get on our planes to go back to our districts tomorrow or tonight, we are going to go there with the knowledge that over 90 percent of the bags that go into the belly of our jets are not screened for explosive devices. That does not help give confidence to the American people. We now for a month have been asking the majority leadership to schedule a vote on airline safety so we can assure that screeners are well-trained and decently paid and know how to do the job, and so that we put screening devices to make sure they do not put bombs in our luggage that go in the belly of the aircraft. The Republican leadership has not scheduled a vote for over a month. It is just wrong. I must say that I am disappointed that we are adjourning today for the safety of Congress and our employees, and perhaps that is the right thing to do, I do not know, but it is not the right thing to do when we have not done anything to protect Americans while they are on the airlines.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. I want to thank my colleagues for this safety hour. We hope that the U.S. House listens to the American people and give them what they want, which is 100 percent screening. It will be a good day for the House if we do that.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, 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. The reason we need to act is that the airlines themselves have not provided a comprehensive 100 percent screening by any measure, any technology, even a visual inspection of the bags that go into the luggage compartment of our airlines. It is a glaring omission, and Congress needs to act. We believe that we ought to this week include in our airline security package a provision that, by law, requires 100 percent of the bags, not just the carry-on bags, which are currently screened, but in fact the bags that go down the conveyer belt and go into the belly of our aircraft, to be screened. Right now only a small percentage, only a small percentage of those bags are screened by x-ray or other technology for explosive devices. Mr. Speaker, I have to tell the Members, it is clear to me that the American public has an expectation that bombs are going to be kept out of the baggage that goes on the airplanes with them. That is a reasonable expectation, it is a commonsense expectation, but it is not being met by the airline industry. So the U.S. House of Representatives this week needs to pass a bill and a statute that will require that we use the technology to in fact do that screening. The good news is that we have excellent technology that can do this. We have several types of machines that, with a very high degree of confidence, can determine whether there is an explosive device in the baggage before it gets on the airplane. We simply need a law that will in fact require that those machines be used universally. We have 100 percent coverage in this regard. We have introduced or the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Strickland) and about 30 others of us have introduced a bill, the Baggage Screening Act, which will accomplish that. We hope that this bill, or the fundamentals of it, will be included in the airline security bill when it comes to the floor this week. But there are a host of airline security issues, and I would like to yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), who has been showing leadership on this issue, for his comments.

Mr. INSLEE. We should assure the American people, too, that we can give 100 percent screening to make sure bombs are not in the belly of our airplanes and not increase the time it takes to get on an airplane. The reason I know that is when you think about this, we screen carry- on baggage already. When you go through your little arched magnometer, you put your briefcase or your purse or whatever on the machine, it goes through; and it is x-rayed. That screens, it depends on what airport you are in, maybe 400, 600 passengers an hour. We x-ray hand- carried baggage already. What we need to do is to have screening for the baggage at the same rate, the same number of passengers per hour; and if we build that capacity, we are not going to slow down people getting on planes for 5 minutes. Americans have an expectation of security and convenience. In this case, we can have those both as long as we can compel the Federal Government to take over decision-making about these systems to assure 100 percent screening. It takes this House to act; because, unfortunately, the airline industry for one reason or another has been incapable of that. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, that is what is disappointing about the current state of affairs. The House has been remarkably united. The Speaker has done a good job in trying to find a unified position in dealing with the international conflict. Now we are in a situation where some of the folks in the majority leadership know we are going to pass this bill if it comes to a vote; and for that reason they will not allow a vote on it. There is no other reason to bring this for a vote. Certainly the American people's attention is focused on the issue of security. The only reason to not bring it to a vote is we are going to pass it on a bipartisan basis. Unfortunately, folks have let ideology stand in the way of common sense. There is an ideology in some parts of this Chamber that says the Federal Government is evil and should not assume more responsibility. This is a responsibility that the Federal Government needs to assume for the benefit of its citizens. The failure of the current model, which is the airlines running the system, speaks volumes. The other thing that I want to say is that we have to have Federal decisionmaking on this because if we are going to have a system that does not delay passengers, we have to have a consistent system. We cannot have one airline doing it one way, and a second airline doing it a different way. When we have connections, we have to have a consistent system. We cannot have a balkanized system. The airlines do some things good, but they do not get together and decide things very well. They cannot even decide, after 10 years, what size of carry-on should be the maximum side. That is why the Federal Government needs to act. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, the low pay and lack of training has resulted in 300 and 400 percent turnover in the folks that do the job. What expectation can one have when the business has 400 percent turnover of its employees. I was talking to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott). He said when he got on the plane yesterday, he took his metallic objects, his phone and watch, and he tried to put them in a little cup while he walked through the Magnometer, but there was no cup. So he walked through holding his metallic objects. Of course the Magnometer went off like it is supposed to do. The gentleman from Washington went back to go through the Magnometer again and the person said, go ahead, I see that you are holding the metal, and that is what set it off. But the fellow who was doing the screening did not realize that he could have had a grenade and a .45 caliber Smith & Wesson, and he did not send this passenger back through the Magnometer. That is the lack of attention, precision, acuity that makes this a poor system at the front end much less at the back end. And the gentleman mentioned that not all of the bags are screened. Almost 90 percent of the bags are not screened. This is a huge, huge failure. Right now we are paying attention to the front door where the passengers walk on, and we have a back door that is totally open in the baggage hold.

Mr. INSLEE. I will yield to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Shows) in a second, but that is a very important point. Basically, what we have seen is what happens when you try to do security on the cheap. And we have had this porous system, and I want to tell my colleagues how porous it is. I will read one thing, and perhaps the gentleman from Mississippi will want to comment on it. This is from the New York Times of October 12, a month after the tragedy. It says, ``The security company that was fined $1.2 million last year and put on probation for hiring convicted felons to screen passengers at Philadelphia National Airport has continued to hire screeners without checking whether they have criminal records, the United States attorney says. Prosecutors also said the company,'' and I will leave out its name just for the moment, ``had failed to fire the felons it had already hired and lied to the government about the background checks it was supposed to be conducting.'' That is an experiment that we had when we did not have a federalized system of dealing with airline security. That has failed and we need to move forward. It is regrettable that the leadership of this Chamber has not allowed the majority will to fix this problem. With that I wish to yield to a great leader both on this issue and others, and the star of our class in 1998, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Shows).

Mr. INSLEE. Yes.

Mr. INSLEE. Certainly.

Mr. INSLEE. Well, the gentlewoman is correct. It was 100 to zero, unanimous, in the Senate; yet we still have not had a chance to vote on a security bill. And that is incredible, because if this bill was brought to the floor, we are confident it would pass with overwhelming bipartisan support. This bill has bipartisan support, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella), who is a leader on this subject, has supported this concept. We will pass this bill with bipartisan support. The problem is that, unfortunately, some of the leadership in this Chamber, in the majority party, does not want this bill and the potential federalization of this issue to occur, to even have a vote on it. And I think that is most unfortunate because we would pass this bill if we had a chance to do it. I have to tell my colleagues that the people I talk to want to see the Federal Government assure the flying public that they have security. And just like we have Federal employees running the FBI, just like we have Federal employees running the FDA, we ought to have Federal assurance and Federal officers who are certified and trained and paid so that they do not have a 400 percent turnover, like the people do now running the airports, so they have a high level of security. We have police officers work for us that work for the city, we have fire department people that work for the city, and these people ought to work for us so that we do not have this private enterprise in the mix. Now, there is nothing wrong with private enterprise; but when it comes to security, this is not a theoretical experiment. We had an experiment and it ended on September 11. It failed that model.

Mr. INSLEE. I may note, too, that we hope, particularly for smaller airports, that there is Federal assistance in financing this thing. These machines are not inexpensive. They are extremely effective, but they are not inexpensive. And particularly for our airports that have limited revenues, we hope the Federal Government will help in the acquisition. We are going to have a stimulus bill to help stimulate the economy. We need to stimulate some safety and create some jobs building these machines. And to those people in the airline industry that say it will take too long to build these, we built 12,000 B-24s in 3\1/2\ to 4 years during World War II. We can build a few hundred of these machines in the next several months to a year, and we ought to be doing that right away. I want to thank the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson), and I now want to yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) for her comments.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. INSLEE. I will yield to the gentleman.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for that eloquent comment. I agree, we have no genius here. This is a commonsense idea, and we will try to be persistent. I have got to note, I think the question if the House fails in this charge to do this, people are going to ask why are we spending millions of dollars to make sure people have the nail clippers taken away from them when they go through the passenger screening system. And then we have a big barn door that is open that allows people to put 40 pounds of C4 explosive in their bags and take down the plane. The does not make any sense whatsoever. The reason the people need to know this sort of dirty little secret here, the reason this has not happened to date is the airlines have not wanted to spend a buck to do this. We are talking about maybe $2 a passenger to do this. That security is worth $2 a passenger. Believe me, I think I can state that I have 600,000 constituents, and I think every one of them agrees with this proposition. We need to make sure that voice is heard.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), always a good voice for common sense; and this is basically common sense. When I have talked to people about this, they say, of course they should be screened, there is absolutely no reason not to screen this; and I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I just want to share one piece of good news on this issue. The good news is that through American genius of developing technology, we have machines that work tremendously. They can screen somewhere between 500 and 800 bags an hour. They have an extremely high rate of success in finding explosive materials. All we have to do is make sure they are in the airports and they are turned on. Several years ago, the Federal Government gave the airlines about $400 million worth of these machines, about 100 plus of these machines. Unfortunately, many of them sat there and have not been used. So incredibly, the Federal Government has given the airlines these machines and they have sat there in a corner and people are not using them. The good news is that the FAA has ordered people to start using those as close to 100 percent as they can now, but we need to get more of these wonderful machines. Put American technology to work. There is good news here if we will do our jobs. Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson). I want to note too that Connecticut is the home of our insurance industry. There is an aspect of the economic security for the whole country in making sure we do not let bombs get into baggage, that is, if another plane or two goes down, not only will we have insurance claims, we will have a loss of the whole airline industry. We need the airline industry to get behind this bill to say that all of us should be participating in the screening. A man from the insurance industry I know understands that. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson).

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for sharing those ideas. If people heard the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin) talking about the tragedy and some of the folks lost September 11, it seems to me that it is incumbent on us to get ahead of the wave of terrorism to prevent this from occurring. We are confident that in the airline security bill that the House will pass we are going to deal effectively with the manner of this horrendous attack; namely, someone getting into the cockpit. We have already started to introduce into the industry some measures to keep people out of the cockpit. On the flight I was on from Seattle to Dulles yesterday, there was a bar, a new bar that they have put across the door that United is putting on to keep people from bashing down the door. So we think we are going to be successful in preventing people from intruding in the cockpit, getting ahold of these planes and turning them into missiles, but what we are concerned about, we are concerned if the U.S. House does not act about the next type of strategy and tactic that the terrorists could use, which potentially could be to put a bomb in an airplane, and unless we have a hundred percent screening of baggage that goes into the luggage compartment, we are not going to have a degree of confidence that we need to make sure that airlines are safe. So we need to get ahead of the terrorists, not be one step behind them. We need to be one step ahead of them, and we have certainly learned since the Lockerbie bombing that this is a necessary step. I would like to yield to the cosponsor of the Baggage Screening Act and leader on this issue, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. I thank the gentleman from Illinois. It is a very important point, it seems to me, that I think we are going to be successful without too much debate improving cockpit security in response to the last tragedy. There seems to be momentum here in Congress to do that. But we cannot just fight the last battle, the last act of terrorism. We have got to be thinking ahead of the terrorists. We have got to be ahead of the wave of terrorism. We have got to think about the next potential act. And if we are going to take away nail clippers from passengers, we certainly ought to be getting the bombs out of the baggage in the belly of the jets. That is what this bill will do. I really appreciate the gentleman from Illinois joining us tonight. I now want to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett). I want to note something before the Representative speaks. We did a $15 billion assistance, or bailout, depending on your perspective, of the airline industry a couple of weeks ago, and the gentleman from Texas asked some very, very good, salient questions about the use of that taxpayer money. It concerned many of us, because in that assistance package to the airline industry, and I believed some was appropriate given the nature of the need for this infrastructure, critical infrastructure, we did not require the airlines to do anything, to provide additional security. So now we are 30 days past this terrible attack on America, we are almost 2 weeks past a $15 billion package of taxpayer money to the airlines and we have not required one single additional security measure for the airlines yet. This Congress, this House, they have not allowed us a vote, the leadership, who schedules the agenda, unfortunately we are not setting the agenda at the moment, have not allowed a vote on these security measures. I really appreciate the gentleman from Texas' leadership on this to insist that the Congress act for safety when the airlines will not, because the airlines have not because they have not wanted to spend a buck to do this. That has been a big, big mistake. It is penny-wise and pound foolish.

Mr. INSLEE. I appreciate the gentleman's statement. His sentiment is shared in a lot of different places. In my flight back to Seattle, a flight attendant came up and said, ``Are you Congressman Inslee?'' And you never know when people ask you, you think they might bite your head off when they ask this question. But she said, ``I just kind of bless your efforts, because we have got to have this. We just have to have this.'' This is an expert talking. This is a person who spends her working life in the air. I am hearing that sentiment all across America. I appreciate the support of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) for this bill. I want to leave this discussion on an upbeat and confident note. I believe if we get this word out to Americans and Americans contact their Representatives and their Senators, justice is going to prevail here. We are going to adopt or we are going to use these technologies, we are going to fund them so airports do not go bankrupt in doing it, we are going to have the Federal Government help local airports do this, and we are going to use the industrial and technological might of this country to put these machines in. We are going to hire qualified, certified, well-trained, stable employees to make sure they are operated right. I believe this is in our ability to do, and I believe we are going to do it, and this is going to help us, that the American people know what is at stake here. So I am very appreciative. Did the gentleman have a final comment?

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's remarks. I hope people understand, this is not the only security issue that we are concerned about; it is one of many. Perhaps it is the most glaring omission in our entire security system, but there are many that we need to make sure of. That is a package that we should have been voting on tonight. Instead of just talking about it, we should have been talking about a security package to increase security at our borders. We have had a porous border, both north and south. We now are trying to improve it, and as a result, we have lines that are 5 hours long for honest citizens to try to get across the Canadian border. This is killing the economics both of Canada and the State of Washington. Instead of putting on additional security personnel and funding that out of our general funds, we are arguing about all these other things here instead of security. We need to talk about border security. It should be part of our stimulus package; not just $60 billion as a tax cut for corporations, but let us talk about security. Public health. We know, and this is hardly a secret, that we are not where we should be and can be in dealing with biological and chemical threats in the United States. Our people are concerned about that. We do not want to be overly concerned. We want to respond in a rational, confident way of developing a public health system that can give Americans confidence that we can deal with this type of threat. We are not there yet. But instead of proposing and giving us a vote on a security measure that will significantly increase our ability to respond to bioterrorism and chemical threats, we are going to see a stimulus package with $60 to $120 billion more tax cuts. I have to tell the Members, when I go home to Edmonds and Bainbridge, Washington, people are coming up to me and saying, ``Jay, what are you going to do about bioterrorism and making sure my airplane does not get blown out of the sky?'' That is what they are asking me to do. That is what we should be doing. We have been here for 30 days since this terrible attack and we have not had a chance to vote. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) and myself, we have not had a chance to vote. This is our job. The Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who has done I think a great job trying to help us find unity in the first several weeks since this tragedy, I think he has been very sincere in trying to find bipartisan consensus, and we have had other Republicans support us on this security effort. But somewhere in there somebody is blocking bipartisanship here. We are very hopeful that the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) will be successful in an effort to free these security measures for a vote on this floor. We need to have a bipartisan vote, because I think we are going to pass these things. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the gentlewoman's comments, because our message tonight is not one of fear, but of confidence and of belief in ourselves. We believe we can screen 100 percent of these bags and the cost is about 1 percent of the stimulus package that we are going to adopt, about 1 percent, that is all we are talking about, about the billions of dollars that will be invested in this stimulus package. We are talking about 1 percent to make sure a plane does not get blown out of the sky. We do not think that is unreasonable. The good news, the confident news, the positive news is we can do this. We have the technology and ability to do it. We just have to get the vote. We have to get some of the bipartisan spirit that we have seen over in the Senate, where John McCain has agreed to this airline security bill, not this specific one but another one. But that has been blocked here in the House. We need some of that bipartisanship here, because Republicans and Democrats are going to vote for this, if we get a vote on this. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson).

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, several of us have come to the well of the House to address what is the most pressing national issue of the moment that unfortunately the U.S. Congress has not dealt with adequately, and that is the security of our families and our communities. We just heard the President of the United States talking about the existence of threats in this regard, that it is appropriate to be on high alert for these particular threats. We have come to the House tonight with a message that basically the House needs to act and act quickly on measures designed to enhance our national security in our homeland. Unfortunately, although we are now a month past this terrible attack, this Chamber has not had a significant vote on bringing a security package for adoption by the U.S. Congress. We are very disappointed by that. We think that the threat is real, that we have the ability to respond to these threats, but to date we have not had the House deal with these issues in a satisfactory fashion. We would like to talk about a few of those issues tonight. First, an issue that was brought to my attention about a week and a half ago, Americans realize the threat we are under with airlines. We Americans have an expectation, for instance, that the luggage that goes into airlines will be screened for explosive devices. We in America have the technology, fortunately, and this is good news, we have very, very good technology that is available to screen 100 percent of the luggage that goes into the belly of our airplanes. Unfortunately, that is not happening. In fact, the truth is the vast majority of bags that go into the luggage compartment of jets is not screened, is not screened by X-ray, CAT scan, sniffing, human eye or otherwise. A small percentage is. Clearly, given the nature of the threat, this Chamber needs to adopt a law that will require 100 percent screening of our baggage that goes into the baggage compartment of airplanes. We do this now fortunately for carry-on baggage and we do it relatively effectively. But we have equipment that will screen very, very effectively for the baggage that goes into our aircraft. We need to make sure those are used with 100 percent of the baggage that goes into the aircraft. I have introduced the Baggage Screening Act, with others, some of whom are here tonight to address this issue. Unfortunately, we have not had a vote on this. We have had votes on birth control issues, we have had votes on gay partners' rights, but we have not had a vote on security issues. We have come here tonight to urge the leadership of the House to bring to the floor, amongst others, the Baggage Screening Act so hopefully we can increase the security. With that, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), a cosponsor of the Baggage Screening Act who has been very active in this regard.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the aggressive advocacy of the gentleman from Texas in the Committee on Ways and Means, and we are going to need that. Because, unfortunately, the proposals we have seen are $60 to $120 billion worth of tax cuts, largely for corporate interests, and not a dollar to screen luggage from bombs in aircraft. So we need this message, and I appreciate the gentleman coming this evening to do that. One other note and then I will yield to the gentlewoman from Texas. It is important that when we talk about security that we say we are not blaming the airlines for this tragedy. These evil, rank, low-lifes with no respect for human life are responsible for this tragedy. But it is incumbent on us to act reasonably as stewards for the safety of our people. Right now, until we get votes on these bills, we are not able to do that. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

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