John Mica

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence). (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, at this time it appears I have two additional speakers. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson), also a member of our Subcommittee on Aviation.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of our time. Mr. Chairman, I have done everything possible I could do as a representative of the people entrusted with an important matter to work with my chairman, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), who has done a great job; with the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), ranking member; the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), not on a partisan basis, not on the basis of division, but on the basis of issues, on only one driving motivation, and that was to come up with the very best bill possible. I worked with the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), and my colleague actually introduced a bill, and I think he may offer that as a substitute, not this substitute but at the end of this debate. I did everything humanly possible to try to bring the House together on the best possible security plan, a comprehensive plan. If I thought for one minute that this substitute would do a better job, I would step forward and support it, because this is too important for partisan politics. It is too important to not have in place the very best protections. Unfortunately, what the substitute does is it creates a two-tier system. The Attorney General has said it will actually detract from their effort on the war on terrorism and opposes this responsibility being given in a bifurcated fashion to the Department of Justice. Most importantly, what it does not do is give the ability to put in place immediate rules, and that is part of the problem. The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) knows that. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski) knows that. So we end up worse off than we were on September 10. That is wrong. I plead with my colleagues; I ask them to put partisanship aside, to put these other peripheral issues aside, to do what is best for America, to do what is best for aviation security. I submit that the plan that we worked so hard on together does that. I urge Members' support. I plead with my colleagues for their support, not for me, not for my party, not for my President but for the American people who deserve nothing less.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Civil Service.

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

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

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to come to the floor tonight on the eve of consideration by the House of Representatives of the Aviation and Transportation Security bill, which is scheduled for debate and consideration tomorrow before the House. Tonight is Halloween. It is a time when sometimes people are frightened. It is a time when goblins and ghosts and images are raised. Unfortunately, in some of this debate about aviation and airline security there has been some scaring on this Halloween eve. I happened to hear some of my previous colleagues who spoke about the aviation security measure. And I want to say from the Republican side of the aisle, from the majority side, that each and every one of us want to pass legislation that will ensure the safety, the security of every member of the traveling public. We think it is absolutely essential that we pass the best possible legislation. Part of being an American is being able to go anywhere you want at any time without any restrictions. And we want people to feel safe, to be able to take to the air if they choose and feel secure anywhere they have takeoff, whether it is a small airport in a rural area, in a small state or one of the metropolitan areas or one of the major hubs. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, I have tried to work in a bipartisan manner. I have only had this responsibility for some 8 or 9 months and, of course, was thrust into the limelight by the events of September 11. I have tried to approach my responsibility in a business-like fashion. Particularly since I took office, one of my concerns has been aviation security. I have gone around and around about issues of aviation security with FAA from, I believe, February, when I first took on this position, and from the beginning I have been concerned that we have not properly prioritized the risk that the travelling public has taken. In fact, I have had communications back and forth to the Security Director of FAA, who has now been replaced and removed, but we went back and forth in regard to the deployment of equipment that sat idle in regard to setting priorities, in regard to instituting on a more expedited basis security measures. Unfortunately, some of that was not done as of September 11. Now it is very important that this Congress act in a responsible fashion and craft legislation that deals with not just the political questions that have made the headlines and have been the center of some of the debate, screeners and their role as in any new proposed structure as either Federal employees or private sector employees, but looking at the larger picture of aviation security. Even going beyond that, one of the things we have done is sat down, and it is amazing. When I sat down and looked at who is responsible for transportation security, under the current structure it is almost impossible to pinpoint who has that responsibility in the Department of Transportation. Then we look at the other modes of transportation. Of course everyone is now focused on aviation, but when we look at highways and hazardous materials and trucking, we look at pipelines, we look at our ports, we look at any type of transportation security and we see that there is no one, if we look at a chart of organization, in charge with the specific responsibility and also the authority to move on issues of security. So that is one of the glaring examples that we all found lacking. We find actually in the Senate proposed bill that they do create a new Deputy Under Secretary of Transportation Security in a measure that will be before the House tomorrow, and the House Republican majority proposal also has that provision. To start out, when we look at the problems of transportation security and see no one in charge, we know that someone specifically must be in charge of all modes of transportation security. We have done that in the House majority bill. What is better than the Senate proposal, which was somewhat hastily crafted and put together, is, we have given some specific authority. If we look at the provisions of the Senate proposal, they create the position of a Deputy Under Secretary for Transportation Security, but that individual can only act when a national emergency is declared. What is even more lacking in the Senate proposal, again that was hastily put together, is there is no ability for that individual who is charged with transportation and aviation security to put in place security rules on an immediate basis. In fact, that is the biggest flaw of the bill. That is why if that measure should pass, I would urge the President to veto the Senate bill. It was hastily crafted. It is a nice cosmetic proposal that says we are going to make baggage screeners Federal employees and that is going to solve the problems. But I say to my colleagues, that is merely a cosmetic proposal. Whether those employees were under Federal supervision or all Federal employees or all private employees, it does not matter a bit. What matters is the standards that are put in place. Most people, if we stop and just take a minute and look at what happened on September 11, baggage screeners were not at fault. Baggage screeners did not fail. Baggage screeners actually did their job according to the rules and regulations established by Federal employees and the Federal Government. The Federal Government was not able, even after two directives by Congress, to put in place standards for improving the quality, the qualifications, the background checks, and again, generally improving all of the requirements for being a baggage handler for more than 6 years. And, as of tonight, on Halloween night, we still do not have in place strong provisions for qualifications for baggage handlers. That is for a very simple reason. That is because it takes, on average, in the Department of Transportation 3.8 years to pass a rule; in other words, to get a regulation to put in place newer standards. So today, some 6 years after Congress first directed FAA to get a rule into place, higher standards and regulations for baggage screeners and background checks, those qualifications are still not in place. What is absolutely astounding is the Senate proposal does not even have a single provision giving the new Deputy Under Secretary any authority to put in place rules on an expedited basis, so that actually, if we pass the Senate provision, it puts us in a worse position than we were on September 10. And we have not learned very much by the experience, the horrible experience, that we never want repeated of September 11. So, first, the Senate bill creates a position with really no authority, some limited responsibility, mainly to report to Congress, but the whole crux, the whole solution to the problem we face is getting rules into place on an expedited basis. So, on September 11, there were no high standards for baggage screeners. On September 11, there was no requirement, there was no regulation put in place to put in place the very best equipment we could, the very best technology. In fact, getting a rule in place was thwarted. We have technology, and this will not show up to all of my colleagues who are watching, Mr. Speaker. I do not think my colleagues can see this, but this is technology that is electromagnetic technology. It is not x-ray technology. X-ray technology and the machines we see at most airports, that happens to be equipment from the 1970s and 1980s; it will detect metal. On September 11 we believe that hijackers took plastic weapons, possibly plastic knives, they could have been ceramic knives, but the x-ray technology of the 1970s will not detect that. This shows a body outline and it shows plastic weapons, plastic guns, plastic knives and others that we are able to detect with this latest equipment. This technology has been tested, but not deployed, because we cannot get a rule passed to get the latest technology into place. We can have a Federal employee, we can have a Federal employee as we require who is an American citizen, we can have a Federal employee supervised by a Federal employee, we can have a Federal employee with a college degree, we can have a Federal employee as a screener who has a Ph.D.; but he or she is only as good as the equipment that is issued. The Senate bill has not one word, again, or one ability for the new Deputy Under Secretary to get this equipment, this new technology in place on an immediate basis. So basically, if we pass the Senate bill, we would be just as bad off as we were on September 10, the day before the tragedy; and it will not make any improvement in the ability of the screener, be he or she a Federal employee, a contract employee or whoever. So the Senate bill does not address the basic problems with the deployment of technology. I heard the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and some others who were discussing some of the problems with getting legislation passed, and let me say again tonight there were some scary things said, and the American people should not be frightened to fly. The American people should understand, first of all, that the President of the United States acted immediately, and under his order, within just a matter of days now, every large commercial aircraft flying in the United States will have secure cockpit doors. The President acted, Secretary Mineta has informed me by, I believe it is November 5 or 7, but within a few days, every commercial airline or large aircraft, not all of the smaller aircraft, but the large ones, will have secure cockpit doors. That is one of the provisions of both the Senate bill and the House bill. That is a moot point. That has been done. It is in place and it is ongoing. A second provision that is very similar, and the American people again should not be scared on Halloween or any other time, because the President of the United States has acted with due speed and he has required that air marshals be on flights. I can tell my colleagues, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation and former chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Service, and we will get into that in just a second, but I can tell my colleagues as chairman with, again, the responsibility in the House on the aviation side, that air marshals are being trained every day, they are being deployed, they are on most of our flights, that hijackers will not know which ones; and whether the bill passes or not, they will be on almost every domestic and international flight. So that has been done. I can tell my colleagues that Secretary Mineta acted yesterday, issuing additional orders for higher security and improvements and higher standards. So the administration has acted. The President has acted. It has never been safer to fly. Now, is it impossible, or is it possible, I should say, to have some other incident? When we have people who are willing to give up their lives to destroy an aircraft, to go into a marketplace and blow themselves up as they have done in Israel, there is no place that can be totally secure. So we put in place the best provisions humanly possible. What is important now is not for the Congress to rush and act, and everyone says, oh, the Senate passed this in a few weeks; and, yes, they did, and the product shows that it is a product of haste, it is a product of lack of consideration. We, on the House side, held 4 weeks of public hearings, numerous public hearings. We held several closed hearings. We brought in experts from around the world and around the United States to hear what was going on. I do want to say that there has been a scare again by some of the previous speakers about baggage checking, and I can tell my colleagues that tomorrow, when the House votes on the package, the final package that the House majority has put together, it has the very best provisions for checking baggage. Now, as the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) has said, 95 percent of the checked baggage is not screened. He was correct in saying that. The problem we had, and he did attend, I will give him credit for attending one of our hearings, which is more than the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske), who is the prime sponsor, has ever done. One of the prime sponsors of the Senate measure and a member of the majority never bothered to discuss with me or anyone else any of the provisions of our legislation, but at least the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) did take the time to come to the hearing. I do not know if he heard everything that was said at the hearing about checked baggage; and he did repeat tonight on the floor some information about explosive detection devices. What the House of Representatives cannot do is repeat the mistake they made in 1996 after the TWA 800 crash, after Oklahoma City, when all the attention became glued on explosive devices. We went out and we spent $443 million, almost a half a billion dollars, on buying explosive detection devices. Some of that sat in warehouses, some of it is not used. We had testimony to that effect in the hearings that we had. Why? Because some of it does not work, and Congress required the purchase of that. We also heard from experts, technology individuals from a broad range of the sciences, who told us that the explosive devices, the actual materials, explosive materials are changing every 3 or 4 years. There are new products that can be used as explosive devices. So the last thing we need to do is put a provision in a law that requires us to go out, put in place in 3 years, or some specified time, equipment that will be outdated by the time that it all gets deployed. It does not matter how we deploy that equipment, it still will take a number of years to get it deployed everywhere. So in the House measure we have the tightest and the best provision. We do not repeat the mistake when we spend a lot of money, when the equipment is not used, when new technology is being developed, and we have spent the money on old technology, and we get this in place on an expedited basis. The other thing that the Democrat side has lost is that we cannot get that technology in place without a rule-making expeditious provision in the law. The Senate bill has no provision. If we go through the normal rule-making to require this type of equipment, it could be some 5 to 7 years, as we have seen in the past, so the public is left in the lurch. Baggage checking at the level that should be done is not complete. So we do not want to make the mistakes of 1996. Everyone says we must hurry, that this legislation should be rushed through. It passed the Senate 100 to nothing. The worst thing we could do is make a mistake tomorrow and pass bad legislation. I do not want to be rough on the Senators, Mr. Speaker, but the Senate passed legislation, the other body passed legislation that primarily deals with the airline screening process. It is only a small piece of the total transportation security network, a small piece of the total aviation security network that we should be dealing with. When they passed their legislation in haste, they moved it to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice, let me read what the Department of Justice has said about the Senate provision. It says: ``We also feel that attempting to divide the responsibility for aviation security between two separate agencies is not the most effective way to enhance aviation security.'' They also go on to say that right now, ``In light of DOT's strong capabilities and the Department of Justice's many responsibilities in fighting the war on terrorism, we feel that the resources would be better spent carrying out our current mission than developing a new transportation expertise.'' Again, that is in opposition to what the Senate passed. Their focus is on going after terrorism. Actually, the most important function, if we wanted to increase the number of Federal employees, we only have 11,000 Federal FBI investigative agents. This bill creates 28,000, now get this, baggage screeners, Federal baggage screeners. Would we not be much better off getting investigative personnel for the FBI? If we look at the events of September 11, again, it was not the baggage screeners that failed. It is nice to make them the scapegoat, but to tell the American public everything will be fine if we just make them Federal employees, that in fact will not solve the problem. The problem is that we cannot get security in place with, again, a disjointed organization that is created by the Senate bill. We have a plea from the Department of Justice not to send and create a two-tiered system. What is strange in the Senate bill, and I went through the Senate bill, the Senate bill in fact creates several layers of aviation security. Now, if the traveling public and Members of Congress are concerned about a good aviation security system, they should read this bill. I would venture to say that 95 percent of the Senators did not read this legislation. This legislation by the Senate was put together so hastily they left the actual law enforcement functions, law enforcement functions, under the Department of Transportation, while transferring baggage screening to the Department of Justice. Not only did they leave the Department of Transportation with the law enforcement responsibility, and it is hard to believe, but that is exactly how it reads. I went back and had the staff attorneys check this to see if in fact that is what they did, and it appears they did it by error. However, what they did was they also created several levels of law enforcement. They only require one law enforcement officer at each airport screening location at the 100 largest airports. There are another 270 airports for which they exempt security at small community airports, and they go on and say that at smaller airports with scheduled passenger operations, they should enter into agreements under which screening of passengers and property will be carried out by qualified, trained State or local law enforcement personnel. So we might get in in Portland, Maine, as some of the hijackers did, and there would be one level of security. Someone might come to Boston and have a different level of security. Again, this is a fractured system that is far worse than what we have now. Now, trying to make 28,000 baggage handlers Federal employees in even the most expedited fashion might take some 3 years. In the meantime, we would have created a disaster with some of the current services that have already been considered by private vendors. I am not here to defend any of the private vendors who have not put in place already standards. Of course, FAA, a Federal agency and Federal employees, did not require the higher standards. We had no rule in place and could not get a rule for 6 years, and do not have a rule tonight. With the Senate bill, we have no hope of getting a rule because there is not an expedited rule-making process. So again, the bill was hastily crafted by the Senate, sent over to the House, and I think that their intent was that we work on this measure as they have sent it to us. We have conducted, again, a much more comprehensive series of hearings, bringing experts in and trying to see how this would function best. A split system between the Department of Justice for baggage screeners, for some law enforcement to be under the Department of Transportation and for some screening to be done by State and local officials, is not the way to go. It is a fractured, disjointed security system. The bill which we have proposed in the House is well thought out. It has one level of responsibility first of all for transportation and aviation security. That is an undersecretary of transportation level. That Secretary is responsible for all security measures in transportation and all in aviation; all elements, not just a few, not just the baggage issue. There are also issues of airport perimeter security; there are issues of cargo security; there are issues of ramp personnel, those who have access to the airplane; there are issues of those who maintain the airplane and clean the airplane; there are issues of the FAA towers at each of these airports, and we have heard reports some of those may be at risk. The Senate bill does not touch any of those issues. They only deal with the most visible, doing a cosmetic job on the public and convincing people that they acted in a hurry and they got the job done and sent it to the House and we did not act. I can tell the Members that nothing is further from the truth. We acted in a very reasoned manner. We held hearings. We heard testimony from dozens and dozens of witnesses, the best experts. We looked at what was successful in Europe. Today, there is an article from the former head of El Al Airlines. We had that individual come and testify before us. We said, ``What worked well?'' Do Members know, in Israel and Europe they tried federalization in the 1970s and 1980s and it did not work. They went to Federal supervision, Federal management, Federal oversight, Federal background checks, and Federal testing. That has worked. That is the best model. That is the model that we bring before the House tomorrow. We also again go back to the individual responsible for all of these elements of transportation and aviation security, not only responsible, but with the authority to put in place security regulations on an immediate basis. That is the biggest problem with the Senate bill. The Senate bill is a terrible measure, again taking us back to September 10. Have we learned nothing from the events of September 11? So while screeners are the most visible, while we want them under Federal supervision, now the airlines have that responsibility. The airlines now are charged with that responsibility, and are also paid for airline and airport security. The Republican measure, the House majority measure, takes that responsibility away from the airlines. It makes it a Federal process. We have made the Federal Government responsible for aviation security and transportation security, but not just making someone responsible, because we have done that in government before. We have passed two measures, one in 1996 on aviation security, in a reaction to TWA 800, which incidentally turned out to be a technical malfunction in the gas tank, the fuel tank of the airplane. But we passed that legislation in 1996. We passed legislation a year ago, in 2000, directing that we have higher standards for baggage screeners, and it still is not, as of tonight, in place. So Members can have someone with the responsibility, but they must have the authority. It is absolutely unbelievable. We have to take their bill and look at the bill. The bill has no provision for an expedited rulemaking, so we cannot get the rules in place, we cannot get the new technology in place. The mistakes of September 11 can be repeated. It would be years if we could ever get in place this latest technology that can scan the body. Incidentally, we had this tested. We asked why we would not get this in place. Basically, they cannot pass a rule, so they might have the responsibility to get the latest technology in place, government, but they do not have the ability through the rule-making process, which is delayed or which people go into court and try to kill or stymie, to get this technology. This technology can detect plastics, ceramics or other materials, and there will be even a later technology coming on board. Of course, this technology also has upset some of the civil liberties union. It is very invasive. It shows body parts in great detail, but it will detect materials. It would have, if it had been in place in Boston Logan, detected if in fact a plastic weapon was used on one of those flights. The Senate bill does nothing to address the rule-making process. It again divides responsibility in an unclear split between the Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation. It leaves law enforcement in charge, actually under the direction of the Department of Transportation. Now, get this: They move baggage screening to the Department of Justice, but they leave law enforcement under the Department of Transportation. Mr. Speaker, I said that we must have rules in place in an expedited fashion. We do not have the rules for high standards for baggage screeners in place. We do not have the technology in place because we have not had the ability to put a rule in place. No one has expedited rule-making ability under the Senate provision. I have to repeat that, Mr. Speaker, because no one seems to hear it. It is nice to come here and pass legislation, but legislation that does nothing is a fraud on the American public. Legislation that does not enhance security or put in place security measures on an expedited basis is a fraud. At this time it would be an abdication of our responsibility as Members of Congress not to put it in place, and if it takes another day, if it takes another week, if we have to go to conference, but this time to do it right so that we have a comprehensive transportation and aviation security measure. This is not a bipartisan issue. Actually, we worked very closely the last 4 or 5 weeks with members of both sides of the aisle. The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) worked with us. We crafted most of this legislation with the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the ranking member of the Committee on Transportation and infrastructure. We crafted this legislation with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), my counterpart, the ranking Democrat member on the Subcommittee on Aviation. We did this in a bipartisan fashion, and this is a good bill. One issue deep-sixed the bill that the Democrats were going to introduce which was exactly the same as ours and one word. They said all screeners shall be Federal employees. We said all screeners may be Federal employees. We gave the option because again we think a public- private partnership can serve us best. Let me say, I have no problem with having Federal employees handling the supervision. I have no problem with Federal employees handling the oversight. I have no problem with Federal employees doing the background checks, the testing, all of the other management responsibilities of the screening process, and that is what our bill proposes. It makes this a Federal process and then gives the President and also the DOT security administrator the option, and we think that is the best way to go. One of the problems that has already arisen with the Senate bill is the language, when they passed this bill in haste, in trying to make it appear that they were doing something, they passed this bill in haste, and unfortunately, it has raised some questions about unionization of the potential Federal employees. Part of this was done by some of those who would like to represent the new Federal employee group of some 28,000. A quote taken just the other day from AFGE, the American Federation of Government Employees, Legislative Director Beth Moten said the union could live with the measure; that is, the Senate measure, but litigation may be required to ensure most of the civil service obligations remain in place. We were told that this would be a different brand of Federal employee, but it appears the way the language is written that every one of the constraints now and every one of the obligations that are now provided by law for a Federal civil servant will be imposed on those that may be employed of this force of 28,000. My colleagues have to understand the size of 28,000 Federal employees. There are five agencies in the Federal Government, five Cabinet departments, that do not have 28,000 Federal employees. This will be larger than the State Department. It will be larger than the Department of Labor. It will be larger than HUD. It will have more employees than the Department of Energy, more employees than the Department of Education, and they will all be baggage screeners. So we will have a department basically of baggage screeners, taken away from the Department of Transportation and put into the Department of Justice with the Department of Justice saying today that they have no ability to handle them. The Department of Justice only has 11,000 FBI agents in the entire agency and only has between 4- and 5,000 Federal marshals, but we are going to put them in charge of baggage screening. It just is a ludicrous idea. It may sound good. What does it do? Here we create Federal employment with the possibility of getting into a brawl over the status of these individuals the way the language is poorly written on the Senate side. I implore my colleagues, look at this. We cannot create a huge bureaucracy, and having been chairman for 4 years in the House of the Subcommittee on Civil Service, I tried on this floor on numerous occasions over my 4-year tenure to bring to the floor measures that would require performance standards for Federal employees, a performance-based management system, and I actually passed it in the House several times, and it was defeated in the Senate, and we still have nothing in place. Let me say out of the 1.9 million Federal employees, and there are 8- or 900,000 postal employees, there are some dedicated employees. There are some great employees who go to work every day and do an incredible job in the country, serving their agency. When I was chairman of Civil Service, I met so many of these dedicated individuals, but if you get these people aside and you talk to them about what would improve their agency, they will tell you what improved their agency is getting rid of the deadwood, and it is part of the problem we have with our Federal bureaucracy and sometimes government at every level is that we create an insular system, a system in which you cannot, as you do in the private sector, get rid of the deadwood. We tried everything, including giving the employees the right to set up a performance-based system: Reward good employees and get rid of the bad employees, but it is almost impossible to do. In fact, it takes years to get rid of a Federal employee, and if they want to fight the system, it takes on average 38 months just to go through the normal complaint process. That is on average. If we want responsiveness in those screeners that are out there doing a job, if we want the ability to fire somebody and get rid of the poor performers, then certainly the Federal model is not the way to go. I might say that there are Federal employees that try to do the best job, and even if they attempt to do the best job, they make mistakes, too. Let me cite an example of a Federal prison in one of our States. A recent report said that in a maximum Federal prison facility, with Federal guards, Federal employees, Federal oversight, with strip searches, with body cavity searches, with searches of the personnel coming in, with detection screening equipment, still more than a hundred weapons entered the Federal security prison. So it can happen. We have the possibility of a weapon getting on to a plane, but we also have the possibility of weapons going into a Federal maximum secure facility. What is important here, again, is when we create this position that we have someone responsible, who can act on an immediate basis, not just giving someone the responsibility but without the authority, and that is what happens if tomorrow they pass the other body's provision, the Senate's provision. They have the responsibility as they may define a partial responsibility in a new individual but no authority to move forward. The other thing that we tried to do in this legislation is find a responsible manner to pay for aviation security. I have Republicans who do not like to impose any taxes. I have Democrats who can never find a tax high enough and they are trying to find a compromise. It has been a challenge but we did put a provision that allows up to a maximum of $2.50 per one-way trip in our legislation, and this money can only be used to pay for aviation airline security. It cannot be used for ads. It cannot be used for anything else. We also do not let the airlines off the hook. Interestingly enough, the airlines have been anxious to get rid of this screening responsibility. They do not want this. This is a hot potato, but they also now pay for it, and they pay about a billion dollars out of their revenues, and heaven knows, we have tried to help the airlines get back on their feet. We may even have to do more because we are so dependent on aviation as a transportation system in this country. We felt that it was important and we asked questions to these airline representatives: Would you be willing to pay? They said they would pay. Of course, they would like to get off the hook for aviation security responsibility because of the costs, but they have agreed, and under our legislation, the airlines can also be assessed part of the cost. The passenger can be assessed part of the cost. We tried to do a very fair measure. With the Senate provision it basically lets the airlines off the hook. They get a billion dollar free ride, and the taxpayer is going to pay because it is going to come out of the national Treasury and the passenger will pay for the balance. I think people are willing to pay. I have never voted for a tax. I do not consider this a tax. I consider it a user fee, and we do have specific provisions in our legislation that says the actual cost of the screening, passenger screening must be passed on, and we give an amount up to, but we also make the airlines partially responsible, which we think is very important. What concerns me is not only the disjointed approach to aviation security proposed by my colleagues from the other side of the aisle and rapidly put together and sent to the House by the Senate. What concerns me is that we have this disjointed part of the functions now in the Department of Justice, who has said publicly today they have no way of handling 28,000 more employees. They are not geared to that. They think it is best in the Department of Transportation. It also takes out part of the Transportation function, one part of it, and leaves all the rest sort of to hang by itself, again leaving the public at risk. Who knows what is going on in the airport perimeter? Who knows what is going on with ramp personnel? Who knows what is going on with maintenance people? Who knows what is going on with the mechanics? Who is protecting the FAA tower? So they do sort of a half-baked job with a split, undefined responsibility, having screeners in the Department of Justice, 28,000 of them, leave law enforcement under the Department of Transportation, which is just beyond me, having a different level of law enforcement for the hundred top airports. The smaller airports, well, they sort of fend for themselves, and we will take State or local offerings, and again, we do not believe that that is the way to go. We need Federal standards across the board. We need someone with responsibility and someone with authority, which again is lacking in the measure that will be presented by the other side tomorrow. The worst thing that we could do is have several levels of security at our airports. We have another measure in the bill for screening. Some of the screening at the smaller airports may or may not be done according to having Federal standards and Federal regulations in place that are even and across the board for small airports and for larger airports, and that is important. There must be a seamless security and comprehensive security plan or we are just fooling the American public and that would be a shame. Most of what is being done by the Senate bill is cosmetic. Most of it was done in haste. There was a hundred to nothing vote on it to get it over here. The Senate has voted a hundred to nothing before. They voted unanimously, after the British burnt the Capitol in history, if you look this up, to move from Washington, and it was saved by a few votes in the House of Representatives. The House votes unanimously every day on issues. We had several votes today. I think that we were unanimous. Everything is done by unanimous consent and they unanimously tossed the ball into our court, and we tried to be responsible. We held continuous hearings, both open and closed. We brought in the best experts, and we tried to put together the very best provisions possible. One of the other provisions of the legislation that sort of surprised me, and I have the Senate bill here, and again I would venture to say very few Members have taken the opportunity to read this legislation, and that is the frightening part because they will wake up if they pass the wrong measure and see that we do not have in place the very best provisions for airline security, but one of the interesting things is that the Senate bill brings together all of the different intelligence agencies' and enforcement agencies' information, but the Senate measure does not have any way to distribute information about the bad guys. We do provide that that information be available to the airlines. The airlines are the only ones that have the passenger lists. We have a requirement that every airline that flies into the United States must provide us with a passenger list. If we want to avoid the mistakes of September 11, we need to at least allow the airlines to have some information about who the suspected terrorists are. The Senate bill puts together a committee, but has no requirement. It does not require that every airline coming into the United States provide us with a list. So the very least we can do is learn by the mistakes of September 11, see that they are not repeated. The very least we can do is not make the same mistakes we made in 1996, when we passed knee-jerk legislation, and we bought billions of dollars' worth of equipment, made all kinds of changes, and addressed explosive devices. We acquired explosive devices, and we have unused explosive devices because we do not have rules to get in place the proper explosive devices. The worst thing we can do is repeat the mistakes of 1996, so we do not want to do that. Then again in 2000, when we saw we still did not have in place rules for baggage handlers, we passed another law directing the agency to do it. As of tonight, they still have not done this. So while the Senate bill, I think, was well-intended, they tried to pass something in a hurry and get it to us, but it was done in haste. We need to proceed with caution. We need to proceed in an expeditious fashion, but also take the very best from others who have put into place the tightest possible security systems, to put people in place who have both the responsibility and, most importantly, the authority. If there is no other reason to defeat the Senate proposal, it is because it lacks the ability to put rules in place relating to security on an expedited basis, and this brings us back to September 10, not learning one single thing, using airline screening employees as the scapegoats. Airline screening employees on September 11 did not fail; it was the lack of Federal standards put in place to check even their background. It was the lack of Federal agencies to do their jobs. If we want to put more personnel someplace, we should put them in our visa department. I checked to see how many people work issuing visas around the entire world, and it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000. Here we are creating a bureaucracy of 28,000 baggage screeners and what we may need are people who can identify a potential terrorist, a hijacker, a potential murderer who may be let legally into the United States. Most of the terrorists used our border as a swinging door with a visa, with a permit. We can do all the checks, we can send the National Guard to do a check at the screening area, we can have a Federal employee or a contract employee, we can have the airline employees all become Federal employees and they can check the IDs. But if Mr. Adda comes to the counter, and they check him, and he has an ID and a visa, they let him go; and he goes next to the airport screener or to a National Guard person, whoever is checking the IDs there now, and that person checks it and say, oh, this is Mr. Adda, go forth Mr. Adda, you have a visa. A Federal Government employee has given him that visa; therefore he goes to the next stage and he gets on the airplane. Congratulations, Mr. Adda; welcome, get on the plane. So if we are going to put Federal employees someplace where we need them, we need to put them at the visa locations. There are less than 500 INS inspectors and inspectors along our Canadian border, and that is where we understand the terrorists came in. We have 6,000 or 7,000 down in Mexico, but these terrorists picked our weakest point. If we are going to put employees there at the airports, 28,000, why not put a few in place to protect our borders to catch these people as they come in? So we need the intelligence, first of all, about these individuals. We need someone checking the visas. All the protections in the world can be put in place, but they will be useless if we do not do this. Again, look at the September 11 events. Plastic weapons were not in place because we did not have the most modern equipment in place. We cannot make the mistakes we have made in the past. Tomorrow my colleagues will have an opportunity to debate this and, hopefully, we will do the right thing to ensure a comprehensive transportation and aviation security plan for the country. We must do it right. We must do it in a comprehensive fashion. I plead with my colleagues not to make this a partisan issue, but to make it a public interest issue and pass the very best legislation. The American people deserve no less.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, October 6, 2001, the family and friends of Dave Mankins, Mark Rich and Rick Tenenoff, three New Tribes Missionaries, gathered in Central Florida to celebrate their lives, work and service to our Lord. On January 31, 1993 they were taken from their families in the Darien jungles of Panama by Colombian guerillas. These missionaries had come to Central America to minister with a message of peace and love of God. They were held captive in Colombia and died at the hands of their captors in 1996. Their heroic wives, Nancy Mankins, Tania Rich and Patti Tenenoff and New Tribes Mission officials made every possible effort to secure the release or learn the fate of their husbands and colleagues. Only recent accounts by guerilla defectors have validated reports that the men were killed in 1996. Over the past 8 years it has been my honor to work with the wives of these three missionaries. They were unrelenting in their quest to secure the return of their husbands to their families and freedom. They brought their message of hope for the release of their loved ones to presidents, ministers, heads of state, ambassadors and to international organizations. They mounted an unprecedented campaign to free their husbands based on determination and faith. Over the years and through most difficult times, Nancy, Tania and Patti demonstrated an unparalleled love for their husbands and trust in God. They are true heroes who are now left to raise their children and comfort their families. To each of these extraordinary wives, their children and their families, I extend my deepest sympathy. While we mourn the loss of these three devoted missionaries, we also celebrate their lives. Today with hate, distrust and anger in the world, it is a consolation to know that three men have sacrificed their lives in order to spread a message of faith in God, hope and love. Today in the United States Congress we remember and pay tribute to Dave Mankins, survived by his wife Nancy and their children Chad and Sarah; to Mark Rich, survived by his wife Tania and their daughters Tamra and Jessica; and to Rick Tenenoff, survived by his wife Patti and their children Dora, Connie and Lee.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, tonight we have to deal with facts. The provision in this bill of screening of passengers and properties is a smoke screen. This does not address the problem. Turning this responsibility over to somewhere between 18,000 and 27,000 new Federal aviation employees is not the answer, I can assure you. What happened on September 11, we had turned over the responsibility to the Federal Aviation Administration. They did not have in place a rule or regulation or directive that stopped box-cutting knives or small knives to be on board airplanes. Do not make a scapegoat out of the screeners. The screening process has been in limbo since we passed, in 1996, legislation directing FAA who they want to turn this over to, to get a rule out. It has taken 6 years, and today we still do not have a rule out for the certification of screeners; and that is who they want to turn this responsibility over to. The airlines, yes, they want to give up this responsibility, but they testified yesterday that they would continue to pay for that. They do not want the responsibility; but, yes, they will pay for it. So that is a bogus argument. We are working on legislation. We are trying to craft legislation that will make the right decision, not knee-jerk decision, spending billions, like they did after the TWA 800 crash when they spent billions. And we heard testimony of equipment ordered by the Congress that is sitting in warehouses not doing the job. Do not make the same mistake. Defeat the motion to recommit.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I returned to the floor really to try to eliminate some of the myths. The previous speaker tries to couch this as a bailout to the airlines and talks about billions of dollars. Let us look at the billions. There are $5 billion for direct costs. The airlines must prove direct costs of incidence from the September 11 tragedy. Today, $5 billion will barely replace a few number of airplanes. The gentleman does not have to worry about bailing out the airline industry, because there will be no airline industry. They will not have the insurance. They will not have the credit. They will not be in business. So we will not have 100,000 people out of work, we will have hundreds of thousands of people out of work. The rest of the package, the $10 billion, is not a loan program, it is a loan guarantee program. They must pay back the funds. So this is not any big handout. The language on the compensation, the limits we took from the other side, in trust, to put some limits on compensation for overpaid airline executives, we took that in good faith from the other side. The safety issue. There is $3 billion in this legislation for safety and security. We gave the President another $40 billion, of which he has complete discretion. Mr. Speaker, this Congress is not going to decide airline safety on Monday. They tried to do it in 1996 with a bill that is still not enacted by the administration, the previous administration. We passed another airline security bill in the year 2000, and that is still not implemented. We have given the money and the responsibility to the administration. We have sky marshals being put in place as fast as they are being trained. We have loaner security personnel on planes. Do not tell people that every possible security provision is not being instituted. That is not the truth. Do not demagogue this legislation, pass this legislation.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, this is an extraordinary piece of legislation, and it is an extraordinary piece of legislation for an extraordinary time. Never before in the history of American aviation have we faced such a disaster as we now face. We cannot wait. We lost over 100,000 jobs since Tuesday, September 11. By next week, we will lose that many jobs again. This disaster is having a ripple effect across this Nation. There is not a community across this country that has not been touched by the devastation. If we do not act tonight and take this first step in trying to put our economy and our transportation system together, I am telling my colleagues that the results will be disastrous. Everything is not in this bill. The bill is not like the gentleman from Alaska would like to have it, it is not like the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) would like to have it; but the minority leader came before us and pleaded so eloquently, pass this legislation. The other body passed it with one dissenting vote. So I plead with my colleagues: America is waiting. The people that we care about, those that we have compassion about tonight, we are going to take care of tonight, we are going to take care of Monday night, next week, next month; and we will be here next year because the people elected us here to do this job. So I plead with my colleagues, I beg my colleagues, do not delay. We cannot afford it. The Nation cannot afford it.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, September 11, 2001 is a day that each of us will remember as long as we live. That day and the terrorist acts committed against the United States must always remind us of the price we have paid for our freedom. Our hearts and prayers go out to the thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by the unspeakable horror that we have all witnessed. We can and will rebuild the structures that have been destroyed. We will never restore the lives of those lost in this tragedy. As a Congress and as a nation we have a solemn obligation not to rest until those guilty of these murderous acts are brought to justice. May God have mercy on those who have committed these crimes against us and may God have mercy on the United States of America.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained because of a late flight and could not vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 336 and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 337.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 333, H.R. 2291 I was unavoidably detained due to a delayed air flight. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, sacrifice of U.S. values, I heard that. Freedom and human rights. Well, there will not be freedom in Colombia while they are killing each other. It is in the United States' interests, it is in our interests as a neighbor not to let our friends continue killing our friends, just as it was in any other country in South America or around the world where we sent our assistance. But, in this case, there are no troops involved, only training and assistance and close supervision.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I commend my friends on both sides of the aisle who have brought to the attention of the House and the American people the pandemic problem of AIDS. I salute them in their efforts. Unfortunately, I believe that their efforts here may be well-intended, but in fact this amendment is somewhat misplaced. Anyone who has held a dying African child in their arms, or witnessed someone suffering from AIDS, shares their well-intended compassion. I think this Congress has demonstrated, both in this bill and by the action of the Congress last week to increase the AIDS contribution by some 76 percent. I have held one of those dying African AIDS children in my arms. Unfortunately, at this time, to be honest, the only thing we can do is give them some comfort. Most of them will unfortunately die, and your heart does ache when you see the rows of graves across the African landscape and now across the horizon of many other countries. The key to success in this area is research. We should be devoting our resources to research. I am pleased under the Republican Congress we have doubled the amount of money for medical research, and I think we are well targeted to finding a cure. What we do not want to do here today in misguided compassion is to turn the clock back, though, on our efforts to stem illegal narcotics. This is a headline from my newspaper: Drug Deaths Top Homicides. For the first time, in 1999, drug-related deaths in this country exceeded homicides. We knew that some years ago when we took over the House of Representatives as a new majority the seriousness of the threat we were facing with illegal narcotics. They made the same decision some time ago in the Clinton administration to start cutting some of these programs. On this chart is where the cuts started in 1993, the same kind of cut that is proposed here today. Unfortunately back then they started dismantling the Andean strategy and assistance. When this occurred we saw a skyrocketing of drug abuse in this country and drug deaths in this country. Only after we restarted this effort, and the chart here clearly points it out, have we made a dent in this problem. Now would be the worst time to turn the clock back. Where is the heroin and the cocaine and the other drugs coming from that are killing our youth and our population in unprecedented numbers? They are coming from Colombia. That is why we targeted Colombia. Does the plan work to stop illegal narcotics? With the Speaker and others involved in the subcommittee on drug efforts which the Speaker chaired before me, and we targeted the places where our drugs are coming from, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia. Unfortunately, the Clinton administration cut assistance to Colombia; and we were able just recently to start that with Plan Colombia. But we see in Peru almost a complete eradication of cocaine production. In Bolivia, I can announce that our task is complete and accomplished with few dollars. The problem we have in Colombia is that terrorism, which is killing thousands and thousands of people, is financed by illegal narcotics traffic. Colombia is now the source of deadly heroin. Look at this chart. In 1993, zero amount of heroin was produced there. Now, 75 percent of the heroin killing men and women and children in our streets comes from Colombia. That is why we are targeting this country. This is not a pretty picture. This is one of my constituents. His mother gave me this picture to show the Members of the House. This young man was one of my constituents. He died of a heroin overdose. That heroin is coming from Colombia. It came from this route that we would now eliminate and destroy a program that we have started and that we have begun anew to curtail these deadly drugs from coming into our country. What is worse about the drug epidemic, and we will hear more testimony about this in the coming weeks, is the heroin use and hard drug use is hitting our teens. It is hitting our minorities, but it is also hitting those most vulnerable in our society, our young people, both minority and others. To make a mistake here with misplaced compassion, I urge my colleagues not to do it. Do not make that mistake. We can address both the problems of AIDS and we can also fight the war on illegal narcotics.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, you can take that police aid and dump it in the Potomac River, because the police will never be effective unless they are protected to go in there. You will have another 5,000 police lose their lives in Colombia.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, this amendment really is not about allocation of child survival and health programs funding. Because if you just take a moment to look at the history here, we have $1.4 billion, nearly $1.5 billion allocated this year. Some 4 years ago, it was half the amount. It took a Republican Congress to increase this program, and it is an important program, and it is a targeted program which will aid in child survival worldwide. But that is not the debate here. The debate is to really declare war on Plan Colombia. Some of the same opponents, Mr. Chairman, that we had toward giving any assistance to the Colombian military are the same opponents that we have here today. We have heard that this is a purely military solution. Mr. Chairman, we have not had the military involved in Colombia really until this Plan Colombia came about. The Clinton administration blocked all of the military assistance to Colombia. Time and time again the Congress appropriated funds for helicopters. What do we need helicopters and transport vehicles to get to the Colombian military for? To get to the violence and get to the drugs. It does not take rocket science to figure this out. The drugs, the heroin, the cocaine are in the hills and distant lands in Colombia; and you need a way to get there. Just a few minutes ago we dedicated a moment of silence to two Capitol police officers to whom as Members we will always be indebted because they sacrificed their lives to protect us. Do you know how many Colombian police have died to date? Over 5,000. There will be no moment of silence for those 5,000 Colombian police. We have been to Colombia, many times. The Speaker helped develop this program. The administration for years blocked military assistance, and we got a huge increase in the production of heroin. From zero in 1993 to 70 percent of all the heroin coming into the United States is now coming in from Colombia because they blocked the military from stopping it. Yes, there is violence out on the right side. You hear them talk about the military and how they are committing crimes. They did not tell you about the left wing, the FARC. They did not tell you about the ELN who cut people's throats, who use people in the most abusive ways you can ever imagine in human rights violations; and the terror is equally divided on both sides. But they do not tell you that in order to stop the violence, to even get the police there without being slaughtered in Colombia, that you need some way to get them there. The key to that is our military assistance, the military, which we are training three battalions, providing helicopters and assistance to get them there. They encircle an area, and the police come in, arrest the terrorists and drug dealers, all of whom are financing the terrorism that has killed 35,000 people. Do you want to care about human rights? Then allow Plan Colombia to at least go forward for 1 year. The aid is not even there. The helicopters that we begged and pleaded with the Congress and this administration to send there 3 and 4 years ago, are still not there. The last time I was there, they had four helicopters that were operating part of the time, and one was being cannibalized for parts. Now, how do you run an effective anti-illegal narcotics campaign like that? Over one-half of the package is for assistance. If the assistance is not there, then get after the Department of State to get the assistance for alternative crop development and other programs to help people. But you will not build roads, you will not build schools, you will not save people's lives in Colombia until you have a comprehensive plan to make it all work. So do not pull the guts out of the plan. Do not destroy a well- balanced plan that has protections against human rights abuses, that has a targeted approach and balance between a small amount of military delivering troops who are trained to an area to protect police. You have heard about sacrifice of U.S. values. Well, the U.S. values our freedom.

Mr. MICA. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, the question has been asked, why are we here? We really should be here not to talk about good politics. Possibly some of the proposals that have been put forth over the last couple of weeks have been good politics; but I can tell you, they are bad energy policy. At the risk of being hit from all sides, I recently proposed a compromise that would comply with 100-mile limits for oil drilling. Technically the finger that comes up here on this map of Tract 181 is in Alabama waters and we should not be really interfering with that lease sale. The gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) is right in opposing the amendment and prohibiting the construction of this pipeline. Why do we need a pipeline if we ban gas development? I proposed that we should prohibit oil drilling in this finger, and then allow natural gas to be extracted from all of Tract 181, which we need. We have an expected population increase of 29 percent in Florida by 2020, and the demand for natural gas to produce electricity will grow by 97 percent. The United States Department of Energy report entitled ``Inventory of Power Plants in the United States'' revealed that during the next decade, 28 of 34 electrical generating plants planned for Florida are designed for natural gas. Here is an article for a plant in New Smyrna Beach. It is 2 weeks old; that proposed power plant is gas-turbine generated. Here is another proposed power plant mentioned this past week in the Orlando Sentinel, it is also gas-turbine generated. Where are we going to get the natural gas? You cannot have it both ways, and I think the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), by his provision, in banning this pipeline, is correctly raising serious energy policy questions. We must have good energy policy, but we cannot be dependent on bad politics to make good energy decisions.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 199, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.'' Announcement by the Chairman

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I will be brief. I rise to engage the chairman of the committee in a colloquy regarding the Florida high speed rail project. Mr. Chairman, last November 7, the voters of Florida passed a State referendum requiring the construction of a statewide high speed rail system, and that provision is now a part of our State constitution. Unfortunately, the legislature did not pass the enabling legislation in time for the subcommittee's funding deadline, which was April 6. In fact, the Florida Senate passed the High Speed Rail Authority Act on May 2 and the Florida house on May 3. Our Florida Governor signed this measure into law just a few weeks ago, on June 1. The State of Florida has now taken action to authorize and commit $4.5 million in State funds for high speed rail, and we respectfully ask the subcommittee's support and assistance and consideration in the future. Mr. Chairman, I hope that the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) will be able to work with my colleagues in the Florida delegation and help us identify and secure funding for this project, which also has been authorized under one of the high speed rail corridors.

Mr. MICA. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I prepared an amendment to earmark funds for fiscal year 2002 funds for the Florida project, but I will not offer that amendment today. I want to thank the chairman for his intention to work with us on this project. It is most important to the people of Florida.