Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, today my friend, Congressman Peter King and I rise to introduce on a bipartisan basis the Cigarette Fire Safety Act of 2004. This legislation will set a reasonable ignition standard for cigarettes and help to prevent an estimated 800 deaths, 2,200 injuries and nearly $560 million dollars in damages caused by cigarette ignited fires every year. We are joined today by 38 of our colleagues to begin what we hope is the last leg of a very long journey. It is common knowledge that smoking is considered one of the nation's leading causes of preventable death, but it's less widely known that cigarettes are also the leading cause of fatal fires. Every year thousands of innocent people are killed, maimed or permanently disfigured by carelessly discarded cigarettes. The real tragedy is that many of these fires could be prevented by making a few small adjustments to the design of the cigarette at a cost of only pennies. Over twenty years ago, our former colleague and friend, Joe Moakley, became involved with this issue when a family of seven perished in a fire ignited by a cigarette in his Congressional District. Five children--all under the age of ten--were burned to death along with their parents on Memorial Day Weekend in 1979. Through Joe's relentless work on this issue, Congress passed two technical bills into law that laid the foundation for this legislation. The first bill, the Federal Cigarette Safety Act of 1984, formed a Technical Study Group, which established that it was, contrary to the tobacco industry's assertions, technically and economically feasible to manufacture a cigarette that is less likely to ignite a fire without increasing the risk of health consequences. The second bill, the Federal Safe Cigarette Act of 1990, established the methodology for testing the ignition propensity of cigarettes. Recently we have made great steps forward in reducing risk of cigarette ignited fires. Phillip Morris has launched Merit cigarettes-- their brand of less fire prone cigarettes. Merit cigarettes have proved that less fire prone cigarettes are both technically and commercially feasible. Last year in a historic move, the state of New York passed the very first cigarette fire safety standard. By the end of this June, New York will require that all tobacco companies that sell cigarettes certify that no more than 25 percent of the cigarettes sold fail the ignition propensity test established by the American Society of Testing and Materials (``ASTM''). That means that cigarettes are far less likely to start a fire if they are left unattended. This law will make great strides towards preventing the all too frequent devastating cigarette ignited fires in New York. Taking the lead from New York State and using their standard, two days ago Canada became the first nation to pass a cigarette fire safety standard. However, New Yorkers and Canadians should not be the only ones who are protected from these little torches. Everyone in the United States deserves the same level of protection from fires caused by cigarettes. That is why today I am proposing a bill that requires that the CPSC adopt the New York cigarette fire safety standard as the national standard. We can no longer tolerate losing one more innocent child or putting one more firefighter at risk in a fire that could have been prevented at the cost of pennies by making a couple simple changes to the construction of a cigarette. Together we can save thousands of lives and prevent the tremendous pain of thousands more burn victims. I urge you to support this bill.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, the Bush administration refuses to jawbone or pressure OPEC to increase oil production while the American consumer at the gas pump is being tipped upside down and money is being shaken out of their pockets every single day. This is wrong. The President should jawbone OPEC to increase oil production, not to lower the production of oil. Here is what the President said to Bill Clinton 4 years ago. He said, ``What I think President Clinton ought to do is to get on the phone with OPEC and to say we expect you to open your spigots. One reason why the price is so high is because the price of crude oil has been driven up. OPEC has gotten its supply act together and is driving up the price like it did in the past. And the President of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price.'' That is the advice George Bush as candidate gave to Bill Clinton. Now that he is President, he says he cannot jawbone OPEC, that it would be wrong; but the price is being paid by the consumer at the gas pump every single day.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Ladies and gentlemen, America now has the highest gasoline prices in history. OPEC is meeting once again to cut the amount of oil it is providing to the United States even as we have 130,000 young men and women over in the Middle East. That is a disgrace. President Bush must insist that OPEC increase its production of oil. We should not suffer. The Christians had a better chance against the lions than the American consumer has against the OPEC cartel. We need a President who is not going to allow OPEC to tip us upside down and shake money out of the pockets of the American consumer. President Bush must insist that OPEC give to the United States what it deserves, an economy which is not harmed by OPEC with these rising oil prices which make it impossible for consumers to pay their bills or businesses to invest in any other service or product with the exception of their oil bill. Tomorrow is the day, Mr. President. Let us have some relief for the American consumer and for the American businessman so our economy can grow.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, there is a moral dimension to these huge tax cuts the Republicans give to the upper two percentiles. In this budget, they cut research that would cover Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease, diabetes, by $553 million, the research dollars that will help every American family to avoid the tragedy of these diseases which would ravage their families. Tax cuts should not come before an increase in the budget for the NIH, but worse than that, they also cut $23.6 billion out of Medicaid, which is the budget which is used for Grandma and Grandpa in nursing homes across our country with Alzheimer's, with Parkinson's, with heart disease and every other illness that afflicts our country. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot not fund increases in NIH research to cure diseases and not have the funding then when they do not cure it in order to take care of Grandma and Grandpa in nursing homes. Watch out, Grandma. Watch out, Grandpa. GOP used to stand for Grand Old Party. Now it stands for Get Old People, for Got Our Pensions, and that is exactly what is happening in this Republican budget. The tax cuts for the wealthiest are sacrosanct, and as a result, programs that will help every American family deal with the ravages of disease has to be cut, whether it be in research or in nursing homes. GOP, get-old-people.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, if all we were doing here on the floor today on the House was commending our troops for their valor, there would be no debate. There would be no disagreement and there would be no opposition. This resolution, however, says something more than that we honor our troops. What this resolution says is that we, the House of Representatives, affirm that ``the United States and the world have been made safer with the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime from power in Iraq.'' There is not a Member of this body that mourns the fact that Saddam Hussein and his regime have been removed from power. We all agree that Saddam was a brutal thug. The problem is that America was told before the war that we would be made safer by fighting to find and destroy Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. We now know that those weapons either did not exist, in which case we fought a war based on flawed intelligence, or that there really were weapons of mass destruction, in which case they are now in the hands of Saddam's Baathist henchmen or al Qaeda terrorists or some other party, and that would put us in greater peril than we were before the war started. Moreover, if we switch our TV from C-SPAN to CNN, we will see that another bomb has gone off in Baghdad today, killing more than 25 and wounding nearly 50 innocent people. We will see that two American missionaries have been assassinated in Iraq. We will see reports of more and more targeted assassinations of civilian employees of the Coalition Authority, as well as continued attacks on our military forces in Iraq. Meanwhile, the real terrorist threat to America, al Qaeda, continues to organize and plan future terrorist attacks against our country. Osama bin Laden and some of his top lieutenants remain at large. Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, remains at large. What is happening on the House floor today is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with the Bush administration and Republican leaders in Washington. Instead of working together in a bipartisan fashion to congratulate the troops for the wonderful job which they did, they seek to divide this House by forcing us to vote on something which, in fact, is not an accurate representation of what has happened across this world.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding me this time. I rise to commemorate this great anniversary. I was elected to Congress in 1976 just as the great Tip O'Neill was rising to become the Speaker of this great House. And there was a debate that raged in Congress over whether or not television should be allowed into this Chamber, and it was a debate that went on and on behind closed doors catalyzed by Brian Lamb, who had this idea that he could bring the United States House of Representatives to the American people. And of course the younger Members felt that that was a great idea because we had all grown up watching television. But the older Members, they were not quite so sure that that was a great idea, that the cameras would roam around and look for a Member who is nodding off, look for a Member reading a newspaper on the floor. And so this debate continued until a compromise was reached that the cameras would just focus upon the locations where the Members were speaking. And it was an incredible discussion. But going back that 25 years, it is now clear that C-SPAN has long served the American people by opening the House of Representatives, the Senate, and thousands of congressional hearings and public safety discussions around the U.S. and the globe for the American public to see and to hear. And it is all because of this decision made by Tip O'Neill, Massachusetts' great man of the House, that all of this was made possible. As we honor Brian Lamb and C-SPAN for 25 years of televised coverage of the House floor proceedings, we must also honor the memory of Tip O'Neill, whose singular decision it was to begin televising House proceedings, bringing the House of Representatives into the television age. Tip took an enormous risk in opening the House floor to the cameras. Television coverage had been debated for years; and many of, as I said, the more senior Members of the House were vehemently against it. The discussions raged in the well of the House for months on end over whether or not it was a good decision. There were those who preferred the status quo and resisted opening the House floor proceedings to television. But one of Tip's first decisions after he assumed the House Chair was to turn on the cameras. Tip intuitively knew it was an idea whose time had come. And when Brian Lamb went to Tip with his idea to take the television feed and send it across the Nation, gavel to gavel, and Tip agreed, neither of them quite knew what they had wrought. Jack Farrell and his great biography, ``Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century,'' has Brian Lamb tell his story of his visit with the Speaker: ``I was a nervous wreck. I was shaking.'' He said, ``I don't think to this day that'' Tip ``understood what was going to happen, and I'll never understand why he did what he did. He had nothing to win in the process except a little openness.'' I would say that Tip achieved a world of openness and brought great credit to this institution by allowing the American public to see for the first time what had previously been restricted to those who travel to Washington and come to visit us in the visitors' gallery. Tip let the people all across our country get a chance to see the people's House at work. Why did he do it? I would say it was his instinct kicking in about what was the right thing to do. And we could always trust Tip's instinct. He was right to let C-SPAN in 25 years ago, and today we join in expressing our appreciation for Tip's decision and our appreciation to Brian Lamb and C-SPAN for asking Tip to create this huge revelation which has brought democracy into the homes of every single American as well as people around the world. And I think that much of the revolution that has happened over the last 25 years in the world relates to their ability to see how we create our laws and our country. And Tip O'Neill and Brian Lamb deserve the credit.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. I would like to say that this is a good amendment. It has been crafted on a bipartisan basis. We have worked very closely together, Democrat and Republican, on this issue right from the beginning; and this amendment reflects that continuing level of cooperation. I just want any of the Members who are listening to this debate to understand that that consensus has been reached.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I have no other Members seeking recognition, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, if there is no one seeking recognition in opposition, I ask unanimous consent to control the time in opposition, even though I support the amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano). (Mr. SERRANO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, could the Chair tell me how much time is remaining on either side?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price). (Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. I just wanted to point out that I have requested that the television industry increase its public service advertisements about the television rating system, and I am happy to report that many in the industry have agreed to provide much more public education about this technology in TV sets so it is easier for parents to be able to figure out how to program it and to provide just the level of protection which they want for the children in their home, at whatever particular age they may be. I also challenged the television networks to consider a couple of suggestions with respect to the broadcast of the ratings icon on the screen. I requested that the TV ratings icon appear not only at the top of a show but also after commercial breaks when the show resumes. That is because a lot of times people turn on the show after it has already started and they have no idea what the rating is. So I have asked them to actually put on the rating at each commercial break as well so that parents can see what the level of the rating is and make an adjustment for their own particular families. I also requested that the networks add a voice-over when the ratings appear to also better alert parents. The ABC television network readily agreed to both suggestions, as did Bud Paxon on behalf of his PAX network. The other three major networks, Fox, NBC and CBS, have indicated that they are considering it but have not yet committed to doing so. I hope that they join ABC in doing it because I think it is helpful, quite frankly, to give parents this kind of additional information. It does not detract from any network's ability to be able to put any programming on that they want. It just gives parents the information they need in order to shield their children from material which they believe may be inappropriate. I also challenged the cable industry, in addition to increasing their public service advertisements, to increase consumer awareness of the provisions of the 1992 Cable Act that permits any cable subscriber in America to request that the cable company block any one of the cable programs that they believe is inappropriate for their family. It is a right that every American has in terms of their relationship with their cable company, but no more than 1 percent of all Americans even know they have the right to have any one of these individual cable channels blocked from coming into their home, even if they have bought the whole other part of the cable package. I believe that if the cable industry made it clear in their bills, the information they give to consumers, that millions of American families would be much happier if they could take the whole cable package and then delete a couple of channels that they believe were too offensive for their young children and their family. I think it can be a real step forward, and I have received some very encouraging information from some of these cable networks that they will provide that option. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Chicago, Illinois (Mr. Rush).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), who is the ranking member of the full committee. (Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Los Angeles, California (Ms. Watson).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn), who added two very important amendments to this legislation.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 7 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this legislation. This is a bipartisan bill that the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, led by the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Upton) and the Chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), have put together, working in conjunction with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and myself and the other members of the minority on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, working in a bipartisan fashion, in order to craft a bill related to the broadcast radio and television obscenity and decency and profanity issues. Mr. Chairman, at the outset, I would like to note that this legislation was introduced before the Super Bowl this year, not after. It was an issue that had already percolated up to the attention of the American public and to our subcommittee, and we had already decided that extra attention needed to be paid to the Federal Communications Commission and its lack of enforcement of these very important provisions. The Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held three hearings on this issue, and from our hearings we confirmed a number of things. We have learned that although the Federal Communications Commission is charged with ensuring that licensees serve the public interest and that the stations do not air obscene, indecent or profane content in violation of the law and Commission rules, that until very recently, the Commission has not been an aggressive enforcer of the rules. Testimony from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell indicates that cases are still languishing from 2 to 3 years ago. We also learned that although the Federal Communications Commission has numerous enforcement tools, including the ability to revoke a station license, it appears as though the industry has largely concluded that the Federal Communications Commission is a paper tiger. The rare and paltry fines the Commission assesses have become nothing more than a joke within the broadcast industry, and the Commission never raises license revocation as a consequence for repeated indecency violations, even in the most egregious cases of these repeat violators. This legislation will help us to address the serious enforcement shortcomings at the Federal Communications Commission that we have identified. Finally, we have also learned that the industry needs to do a better job in educating parents about the tools that already may be in their hands that parents can utilize to address the myriad concerns they raise with us about what is on television. Parents can use the television rating system and the V-Chip, which stems from legislation which I authored as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. However, we have a huge educational challenge with the TV ratings system and how parents can use it in conjunction with the V-Chip. Studies indicate that if a parent of a child 12 and under has a V-Chip- ready TV and knows this, that some 47 percent of such parents use the V-Chip, and they like it, because it allows them to program their TV set for their children 12 and under. Almost all of these parents who know about it are enthused about it. The problem is with the qualifiers. Almost half of those who have bought the approximately 100 million V-Chip capable televisions since 2000 are not aware that they possess a television set with a V-Chip in it. In addition, many of these parents express confusion over the TV rating system itself, and one major network, NBC, still does not use the comprehensive rating system utilized by everyone else in the television industry. The industry did a good job with much fanfare after the TV rating system was initially finalized, in doing public service announcements and other educational messages regarding the ratings. Yet those efforts have waned in recent years. In my view, we need a comprehensive, industry-wide campaign to address this issue. The TV set manufacturers and the electronic retailers need to do a better job in alerting television buyers to the V-Chip, in part because many retail employees at these stores who sell TV sets are apparently unaware that the TV sets have a V-Chip in it. In addition, print media ought to include the television ratings of programs in the television guide so that parents see them when they look up what is on television that day or that evening. Finally, I believe the broadcast industry should renew its educational efforts on the television ratings system and also consider a number of other ideas to better assist parents, which I will address to our television networks on an ongoing basis, in order to ensure that they know that this is an issue that Americans care about. At our recent hearings, I challenged the industry to do several things to better help parents understand the TV rating system: First, use the V-Chip and utilize available per-channel blocking technologies on cable television. I requested that the television industry increase its public service advertisements about the television rating system and the V-Chip. I am happy to report that many, many industry participants on the networks and cable operators have agreed to do so, with some, such as Fox Television, including print advertising in their campaign as well. I will come back in a while and outline what is happening in the rest of the television and cable industry, but I think it is important for the Congress to pass this legislation, and then to keep up the pressure so that parents are given the tools that they need in order to protect the sights and the sounds which their children are exposed to.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, more than two and one-half years after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, dangerous gaps still persist in the Nation's aviation security system. Today, I am introducing the Secure Existing Aviation Loopholes (SEAL) Act to address the pressing security problems that continue to threaten the safety of airline passengers and crew members. Inspection of Cargo Carried Aboard Passenger Aircraft Twenty-two percent of all the cargo that is shipped by air in the United States is transported aboard passenger aircraft, amounting to about 2.8 million tons of cargo loaded aboard passenger airplanes each year. The Department of Homeland Security does not routinely inspect cargo transported on passenger planes. Instead, the Department relies on paperwork checks of manifests as part of the Department's flawed Known Shipper Program and random physical inspections that are randomly verified by the Department. This cargo loophole in aviation security has been repeatedly exploited. For example, in September 2003, a shipping clerk packed himself inside a wooden crate and shipped himself undetected from New York to Texas aboard a cargo plane, and Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland by a bomb contained in unscreened baggage. The SEAL Act requires 100 percent physical inspection of cargo that is transported on passenger planes. The costs of physical screening, estimated to be comparable to the $1.8 billion funding level for screening checked baggage, would be offset by a cargo security fee, similar to the fee that passenger pay for security measures when they purchase airline tickets. Federal Air Marshals Ten transatlantic flights were canceled over the weekend of January 31-February 1, 2004 due to heightened fears of a possible Al Qaeda attack, and 16 international flights were canceled or delayed over the Christmas and New Year's holidays as a result of specific intelligence that the flights might be terrorist targets. The cancellations resulted when some European carriers such as Air France and British Airways refused to place armed marshals onboard and instead opted to cancel the flights. There are no international standards to define what constitutes proper training for air marshals. Consequently, air marshals on flights that originate overseas and are bound for the U.S. may have different training that could be inconsistent with best practices. The SEAL Act prohibits foreign air carriers from taking off or landing in the United States unless a Federal air marshal or an equivalent officer of the government of the foreign country is onboard, in cases when the Secretary of Homeland Security requests that an air marshal or officer of a foreign country travel on the flight. Given intelligence indicating that terrorist may try to commandeer all-cargo planes and crash them into nuclear power plants and other critical infrastructure in the U.S., the SEAL Act provides authority for Federal Air Marshals to travel aboard cargo aircraft, as needed. The Federal Air Marshal Service does not currently have this authority. Improved Aviation Security Flight Attendants Flight attendants do not have a discreet, secure and wireless method of communicating with pilots in the cockpit, with air marshals who may be onboard the aircraft or with authorities on the ground. Flight attendants must rely on telephones affixed to the interior of the passenger cabin if they need to communicate with pilots via phone or with authorities on the ground. These phones can be easily disabled. Flight attendants do not have a method of communicating via phone with air marshals onboard. On American Airlines Flight 11, which was crashed into the Pentagon on September 11th, flight attendants were unable to communicate by phone with the cockpit. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 included the directive that carriers' provide flight attendants with a secure, wireless method of communicating with pilots, but this provision was inserted in a voluntary section of the Aviation Transportation Security Act. The SEAL Act makes mandatory the provision of wireless communication systems for flight crew and air marshals. Crew Training Prior to the September 11th terrorist attacks, air carrier responsibilities for security and anti-hijacking training for flight crews were set forth in the Air Carrier Standard Security Program, also known as the Common Strategy. The Common Strategy was originally developed in the 1980s, and it emphasized accommodation of hijackers' demands, delaying tactics, and safely landing the airplane. It advised air crews to refrain from trying to overpower or negotiate with the hijackers. On September 11th, the Common Strategy offered no defense against the tactics employed by the hijackers of Flights 11, 77, 93, and 175. Enacted on December 12, 2003, Vision 100--Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act (PL 108-176) made voluntary many of the important elements of self-defense training for crew members that had been mandatory in Section 1403 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (PL 107- 296). Training in the following tactics is voluntary under Section 603 of the 2003 aviation reauthorization, but had been mandatory in Section 1403 of the Homeland Security Act: The SEAL Act will reinstate the requirement established in the Homeland Security Act to make counter-terror training for aircraft crew mandatory. International Cooperation on Aviation Security The cancellation of more than two dozen international flights since December 2003 suggests significant disagreement between the U.S. and some foreign nations over the best way to respond to terrorist threats to aviation security. In January 2003, Asa Hutchinson, Undersecretary of Border and Transportation Security in the Department of Homeland Security, met with European officials to discuss aviation security measures, including the use of air marshals on international flights to the U.S. No agreement was reached with European governments on the placement of air marshals on U.S.-bound flights in cases when intelligence about terrorist threats against flights is received. The SEAL Act directs the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to develop a well-constructed plan to improve coordination between the Department and its foreign counterparts in the area of aviation security. This plan includes development of air marshal programs for foreign governments and the provision of technical assistance in the formulation of strategies to tighten security measures at foreign airports. Comprehensive Pre-Flight Screening Pre-flight security inspections of the passenger cabins and lavatories of commercial aircraft often are performed by low-wage, poorly trained contract employees. In September 2003, a college student named Nathaniel Heatwole placed box cutters, matches, bleach and simulated explosives on Southwest Airlines flights. These items were not discovered by airline officials until approximately one month later. Heatwole also placed dangerous items on two other Southwest flights in February 2003, and they remained undetected until April 2003. In October 2003, potentially dangerous items were also found on US Airways flights. The Transportation Security Administration has issued a requirement effective in January 2004 for detailed documentation of security inspections performed by air carriers prior to each aircraft's first departure of the day. The directive affects the documentation of the inspections, but does not change the manner in which the security inspections are performed by the airline's contract cleaning crew or the level of verification that TSA provides to ensure the inspections are thoroughly conducted. The SEAL Act sets a firm deadline for the improvement of pre-flight security inspections of the interior of passenger planes to increase the likelihood that any dangerous items hidden in the plane will be promptly discovered. The SEAL Act also includes new requirements that subject individuals who are performing the pre-flight inspections to additional security checks, including passage through a checkpoint to detect any metallic objects prior to accessing the plane; screening of any items to be carried aboard the plane to detect hazardous substances such as chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials; a criminal history background check, social security check and check against all terrorist watch lists maintained by the government. Control Over Access to Secured Areas of Airports Airport workers with access to sensitive areas of airports, including the airplanes, are not required to pass through metal detectors or have their personal items x-rayed before reporting to work at each of the nation's commercial airports. Airport workers have taken advantage of lax security controls to commit crimes. For example, in November 2003, a massive narcotics smuggling operation that exploited airport security weaknesses was broken up at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. While criminal background checks are required under current law for employees with unescorted access to an airport's sensitive identification display area (SIDA), there are no uniform requirements applicable to all airport workers that mandate checks of Social Security numbers and checks against terrorist watch lists maintained by the government. The SEAL Act directs the Department of Homeland Security to issue regulations within 180 days after the bill's enactment that improve control over access to secure areas in airports nationwide. The SEAL Act requires all airport workers with access to secure areas of airports, including aircraft, to pass through devices to detect for metallic objects and have any personal items screened to detect any hazardous chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials before entering these areas. In addition to criminal background checks, the SEAL Act requires that airport employees are checked against terrorist watch lists, that workers' Social Security numbers are checked against government databases to ensure the documents' legitimacy and verify that the Social Security number is assigned to the individual presenting it. Aircraft Maneuvers In December 2003, a C-17 U.S. transport plane was hit by a missile shortly after take off from Baghdad. An engine exploded, but the plane returned safely with only one of its 16 people aboard slightly injured. In November 2003, an Airbus A300 cargo plane operated by the courier company DHL departing from Baghdad to Bahrain was struck by a SAM-7 ground-to-air missile. The plane's engine caught fire, and it was forced to make an emergency landing at Baghdad International Airport. None of the plane's crew was injured in the incident. Pilots currently receive training on how to fly the aircraft and land it safely if engines fail. Pilots are required to receive training on how to maneuver and land a two-engine plane with only one functioning engine; a three engine plane with only two engines functioning; and a four engine plane with only two engines functioning. However, pilots do not receive recurrent training in how to maneuver and safely land the aircraft in the event of a complete failure of the hydraulic system in which normal flight controls are not available. If an aircraft is struck by a surface-to-air missile, it may experience such failures, as was the case when the DHL cargo plane was hit by a SAM-7 missile in Iraq last year. The SEAL Act requires air carriers to provide pilots with training in flight deck procedures, aircraft maneuvers and best practices that enable pilots to respond if the aircraft is struck by a surface-to-air missile. The training is designed to increase the likelihood that pilots will be capable of safely landing the aircraft and will include components that simulate the complete failure of the aircraft's hydraulic system and loss of normal flight controls. Aggressive Flying Maneuvers According to the FAA, aggressive flying techniques were not part of training provided pilots prior to passage of the 2003 FAA reauthorization. As of February 2004, a TSA working group is finalizing its training recommendations on fleck deck procedures or aircraft maneuvers to defend the aircraft. TSA does not expect to recommend any maneuvers that could be considered ``aggressive.'' The SEAL Act recognizes the need to balance the security benefits of maneuvers and procedures with the potential risks, in terms of passenger safety and the structural limitations of the aircraft. The SEAL Act requires the Secretary to issue regulations that require the carriers to provide, in conjunction with appropriate law enforcement authorities, crew members with training in procedures for communicating and coordinating effectively with Federal Air Marshals and law enforcement officers during unauthorized attempts to disrupt the normal operation of the aircraft. Securing Cockpit Doors According to the Coalition of Airline Pilots, approximately 60 percent of cargo planes are not equipped with cockpit doors that separate the flight deck from the aircraft's cargo bay. In September 2003, a shipping clerk packed himself inside a wooden crate and shipped himself undetected from New York to Texas aboard a cargo plane. Fortunately, he was an industrious tourist, rather than an industrious terrorist. Some cargo carriers have installed cockpit doors, but the majority of cargo planes still lack any door between cockpit and cargo bay. The SEAL Act requires all cargo planes to have reinforced cockpit doors, including sturdy partitions surrounding the doors. Within 180 days after enactment of the legislation, the Secretary is directed to issue an order that all cargo aircraft must have, no later than 1 year from the date of issuance of the order, a reinforced, lockable door, including the surrounding partition, between the pilot and cargo compartments. Security Requirements for General Aviation According to a November 5, 2003 GAO report, Aviation Security: Efforts to Measure Effectiveness and Address Challenges (GAO-04-232T), ``Since September 2001, TSA has taken limited action to improve general aviation, leaving general aviation far more open and potentially vulnerable than commercial aviation. General aviation is vulnerable because general aviation pilots and passengers are not screened before takeoff and the contents of general aviation planes are not screened at any point.'' There are more than 200,000 general aviation aircraft, which are located in every state at more than 19,000 airports. According to TSA's working group on general aviation, general aviation aircraft are responsible for 77 percent of all air traffic in the U.S. TSA is taking some steps, such as developing a risk-based self- assessment tool for general aviation airports to use to identify security concerns, but these steps fall short of what is required. The SEAL Act directs the Secretary to establish a no-fly zone around the following facilities whenever the threat level reaches Orange or at any other level the Secretary deems appropriate: sensitive nuclear facilities such as nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons materials production facilities, and chemical facilities identified by the Environmental Protection Agency at which a release of the facility's hazardous materials could threaten the health of over 1 million people, and any other facilities the Secretary shall so designate. The SEAL Act requires the operators of general aviation airports and landing facilities to complete vulnerability assessments developed by TSA, which evaluate the facilities' physical security, procedures, infrastructure and resources. The SEAL Act also requires TSA to develop a plan for addressing vulnerabilities identified by these assessments no later than 1 year from the date of enactment. Mr. Speaker, we can do better, and we must do more to improve our aviation security. I urge my colleagues to support the SEAL Act, which will close dangerous loopholes in our airline security system.