John Shadegg

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, we owe the American people the most safe and secure air system in the world. We owe them a fair debate. This debate has been focused on the current system, but the Young-Mica bill rejects the current system. Under the current system, responsibility for security is with airlines and private contractors. Under the Young-Mica bill, it is with the Federal Government. Under the current system, training is with the airlines and private contractors. Under the Young-Mica bill, it must be done by the Federal Government. Under the current system, the testing of the competency of screeners probably is not done at all; but when it is done, it is done by the airlines and private contractors. The Young-Mica bill rejects that, and testing must be done by the Federal Government. The current system says compensation is set by the airlines and the private contractors. Under the Young-Mica bill, it is set by the Federal Government. Under the current system, the power to fire or discipline employees rests with the airlines and private contractors. Under the Young-Mica bill, that is rejected. Any Member who debates this issue based on the current system is making a tragic mistake. The Young-Mica bill replaces that. Mr. Chairman, I have the greatest respect for the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), but the substitute is not his. The substitute is the Senate bill identically; and, although sincere, it is flawed. It is weaker in six ways than the current bill before us, the improved House bill. First, it treats small and large airports differently. That is one of the very mistakes that was exploited by those who came in on September 11. Second, it has a weaker baggage screening provision. That is because we revised it later. The simple truth is the House bill improves upon the Senate bill; and, therefore, it improves upon the substitute because the substitute is the Senate bill. Third, the substitute allows noncitizens to be screeners. Again, the House bill written after that, the Young-Mica bill, improves on that and says no noncitizens can be screeners. Fourth, it is implemented slower. The substitute is implemented slower than the Young-Mica bill. The substitute is implemented in 9 months. The Young-Mica bill must be implemented in 3 months, and it has expedited rulemaking. Fifth, the substitute splits the jurisdiction for security between the Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation. We can debate who ought to have this authority, but it should not be split. Last, the substitute discriminates against people from small towns by making them pay twice the fee. Defeat the substitute. Let us go to conference. We owe the American people and the victims of September 11 the best possible bill and nothing less.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let me yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. SHADEGG. That requirement is not in the Senate bill, which we are going to be urged to pass?

Mr. SHADEGG. The gentleman referred to the requirement that all screeners be U.S. citizens. Is that in the Senate bill we are going to be asked to pass tomorrow?

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for participating. We are about down to the last minute-and-a-half. I would kind of like to summarize. I think she makes the point very, very well. The reality, as the gentlewoman said, is that at the end of the day this is not a partisan debate. This is not Republican and it is not Democrat. There is not a Republican or Democrat way to make our skies safe. But it is a very, very serious debate. I think the gentlewoman has said it well, and I appreciate her and all of my other colleagues who have joined us tonight. Our number one concern and the challenge before us in this debate is to create the safest and most secure aviation system in the world, and we can do that. There are many, many good things in the Senate bill. It has many good pieces, and I commend the people who wrote it. I think they did a great job, and much of it is in the House bill. If we go to conference, much of it can be put into the House bill. But the question tomorrow is, should we just pass the Senate bill, or should we look at where it is flawed? And sadly, I am afraid that the debate tomorrow is going to sink into some partisanship, with some people saying, well, it is just House leaders that do not want a new system. As we said earlier, and we began this debate and I want to end this debate by making this point, the demagoguery and the rhetoric we will hear on this debate on the floor here tomorrow saying that the current system is what we are trying to perpetuate could not be further from wrong. It is absolutely wrong. Under that current system, airlines hire private companies to do the job. Under the House bill, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure bill, that authority is given to the Federal Government, to Federal law enforcement officials who are at every single gate and every single checkpoint and who have total responsibility. But there are serious, very, very serious flaws in the Senate bill. It gives different responsibilities to two different airports and says we are going to treat the big and the small differently. It has vague language on accountability. We owe it to the American people to conscientiously legislate and to create the best possible legislation. That is what we will be arguing for here tomorrow.

Mr. SHADEGG. Reclaiming my time for just a moment on that point, Mr. Speaker, as I am sure the gentlewoman is aware, the Senate bill is very confusing on that issue. It says that overall transportation safety goes to a Deputy Secretary of Transportation, but says that airline safety or airline security goes to the Attorney General, and it fails to sort out who has the ultimate authority. It seems to me that is a serious problem with the Senate bill, and I think the gentlewoman has said it quite well, that the Senate bill, although a good bill and well-intended with some good provisions, is not the best we can do. We can improve upon it in this body. I would be happy to continue to yield.

Mr. SHADEGG. An even perhaps more dangerous environment than otherwise. We are joined by our colleague, the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart). I would hope she would join in this debate and express her concerns on this issue. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart).

Mr. SHADEGG. So the notion that we have never delegated this kind of authority to anyone other than a Federal employee is simply wrong?

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman made an interesting point. He said none of the hijackers were U.S. citizens. That means that all of the people who got here made it through some government employee, through some government process to get here in the first place. And if mistakes were made, those mistakes were made by government employees. Now I am a fan of government employees. I have a lot of great government employees who are personal friends. I do not think because one works for the government one is better or worse. I do not think if one's paycheck comes from the government, as mine does, one is somehow bestowed with special powers or less than special powers. I think we are all human beings. But the notion that government employees cannot make mistakes is kind of belied by the fact that a number of the hijackers were here in violation of their visas or had obtained visas falsely, or had otherwise slipped through a system run by government employees already. Everybody makes mistakes; I certainly do. That is why I think the requirement that we just say, oh, well, everything must be done by a government employee and that is the sine qua non really kind of misses the boat. To that point, I just want to reemphasize something the gentleman said. This Marshals Court Service or Court Security Program, those individuals are in fact private sector employees; is that what I understand the gentleman to say?

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time just a moment, if I might, maybe the gentleman would want to refer to these charts, because they make the point he is making. This is the private-public partnership that is in place in Europe. If we look at this chart, we will see that it shows the countries that have switched to, instead of a 100 percent government employee operation, to a mix of government supervision and training, but with some private-sector employees actually doing some of the work. It began in, I believe, 1982, and if we look at the dates on here, it shows the dates on which all of these countries switched to that private-public partnership. This is a second chart that kind of follows on to that, and it shows the mix of what we have. That is, for example, this is the number of private-sector employees and the number of public-sector employees in each of those locations. So we look at this and we see that in Norway necessity has 150 private-sector employees supervised by 20 public- sector employees, and in various other countries, across the map we can look at that in Brussels, it is 700 private-sector employees supervised by 50 public-sector employees. It illustrates precisely the points that the gentleman has been making. Then I think he was just about to talk about what the effect of that was going to be. This shows the trend beginning in 1982 of how they went to this private mix, and I think the last point, maybe I will let the gentleman discuss this chart, which I hope he has seen, which shows what is happening. The gentleman was about to say it has been quite some time since there has been a hijacking in Israel which uses this kind of mix.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for participating. I think he makes an excellent point. The President has said that the Senate bill has problems in it, and we have been talking about some of those problems. One of the problems is, it says there is just one way to do this. The President has said, no, he thinks there are multiple ways to do it. No less than the Washington Post, not exactly an arch right-wing organization, has said, yes, the House bill is a reasonable bill and it would do the job. We just need to get it passed. I also commend the gentleman for pointing out that as sad as the debate tomorrow will be on the issue of partisanship and one side attacking the other side, saying that because we do not support the Senate bill it is because we are partisan or we are Republican or we love the companies that are currently doing the job, which is rather ridiculous, this really is not a partisan issue. This is about how we make our skies as safe as possible. On that point, one of the arguments that has been made over here is that we really cannot ever delegate this kind of responsibility to anything other than Federal law enforcement personnel. Well, I came to the United States Congress having in a past life been a member of the Arizona attorney general's office. I spent my life in law enforcement, and my dad was a deputy sheriff before that. I will tell my colleagues that I do not know many law enforcement personnel who believe standing in front of a screen looking at whether the image inside there reflects a knife or a gun or something is necessarily a law enforcement function, and certainly they do not think that as law enforcement officers, they want to spend their days saying, would you please empty your pockets of change and will you take your laptop out of your briefcase and put it on the shelf, the notion that every person at a checkpoint who says to you, will you please take out your laptop or the change out of your pockets has to be a law enforcement officer. But on this point of whether or not some of these functions could be performed by a mix of law enforcement personnel and contract personnel who are not Federal law enforcement personnel, I think there is some precedence. I am glad we are joined by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and I would like to yield to him to address that specific issue.

Mr. SHADEGG. So when somebody attacks the current system in the debate later tonight or tomorrow and says, well, the other side, our side, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure majority side wants to retain the current system, on that point they would be dead wrong and that argument would be unfair, would it not?

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for his participation. I know he has thoughtfully studied this legislation and cares very much, as we all do, about airline security, about making sure we have the safest system, and not about doing a quick and easy fix of just saying well, if we make them Federal employees, that will solve the problem. There are serious problems with the Senate bill, beginning with this issue of should we have a different set of responsibilities for small airports and should people who live in small towns pay a different price? The gentleman is from New Hampshire. I wonder if he has given the question any thought of why should we have different responsibility at those smaller airports than we have at the larger airports and how fair is it to say to people who live in small towns, you are going to pay more than people who live in large towns?

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, the topic I want to talk about tonight, and I am pleased very much to be joined by several of my colleagues, including the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass), the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart), is the topic that we will be debating on the floor tomorrow, and it is a topic of great concern for every single American, and that is the security of our airline system and our air travel system here in this country. Tomorrow we will debate airline security legislation, and it is very important that we do that because we are being urged by some to rush to judgment and pass the bill that the Senate has already passed. I do not think it is appropriate to ever rush to judgment when you are legislating. Legislation becomes permanent, it becomes the law of the land, and it is binding and cannot be changed until the Congress meets again to change it. And so I think we have a duty to do that conscientiously and thoughtfully. I want to begin by talking about what this debate is really about and what it is not about. First of all and most importantly, for the people of America, for American families who vacation by taking an airplane someplace and for American businesswomen and businessmen who have to travel on our Nation's airlines to do the business of this Nation, the issue is, how do we create the absolute safest, most secure airline system and air passenger system in the world? As is sadly often the case in these debates on the floor, a lot of people try to hide the ball and not focus on what really is the issue. I think it is very, very important to understand that both sides in this debate believe passionately that we need to create the safest system. One side says, the Senate bill has already done that; the other side is saying, ``No, wait a minute, let's take a look at that legislation.'' But I want it understood that, although people may have heard that this is a partisan debate, I and my colleagues who will speak tonight on this issue do not believe that this is a partisan issue. We believe that this is an issue solely about the safety of our airline system, aviation safety in America and how to create the best possible system and the safest possible system. There is not a Republican way to do that or a Democrat way to do that, and this is not about somebody's motives. This is about how do we do it best, how do we create the best and the safest system. Those of us who will be arguing for the House bill tomorrow and arguing it for tonight genuinely believe that it is a better piece of legislation, that it will go further and do more to protect the American people, and that there are serious problems with the Senate bill. I do not question the motives of the Senators who wrote the Senate bill. I do not question that they intended to make some mistakes in that bill; they did not intend to make mistakes. But as this discussion tonight, I think, will illustrate, there are some serious flaws in that legislation that deserve to be debated and scrutinized and analyzed; and if, in fact, they are flaws, then they ought to be corrected in the process. That is what we are trying to do. Secondly, having said that this is about creating the safest aviation system in the world, I want to make it very, very clear that this is not about the current system. I want to put up a chart here that shows that system. A few moments ago on this floor, one of my colleagues stood up and said that the proponents of the House bill want to, and this is a direct quote, he said, perpetuate that system, referring to the current system of aviation security; and he said they wanted to do that because it is profitable for the companies, and he said we want to keep the same companies that are currently doing the job. I want it understood in the clearest possible terms that every one of my colleagues in this Congress and every American can download the House bill and can discover for themselves what I am about to tell you, and that is that those statements that the House bill perpetuate the current system, that we are doing so because it is profitable for those companies and that we would keep the same companies are absolutely, totally, abjectly false and no honest debate can go forward on untruthful information. The current system in America which that Member of Congress was referring to requires the airlines of America, American Airlines in my home State, America West, United, you pick it, to hire the guards that perform the screening of passengers as they board airplanes. They are hired by the airlines and they are private companies. I want to refer to this chart over here. Under the current system, the airlines hire private companies and there is absolutely no Federal supervision, no Federal law enforcement supervision of the personnel that do those jobs. Let me make this point clear; I want to drive it home over and over again in this debate. No one is proposing that we keep that system. No one is proposing that we continue to rely on the existing airlines to hire the current private companies. So all the anecdotal information that you heard here on the floor about those companies are being indicted, those companies have hired felons, those companies underpay, those companies have perhaps even lied or perjured themselves, none of that is relevant to this debate because the current system is gone. It is absolutely, totally gone. The airlines, following the effective date of this legislation, will not hire or be responsible for hiring or paying for the individuals who do the screening. Under the House committee bill, the Transportation Committee bill, the bill that I believe is a more thoughtful and better product, responsibility for airline security, aviation security, is handed over to the Federal Government and it is performed by Federal law enforcement personnel at every single site. Let me just put up a little chart that shows that. This is a schematic of the system that would be in existence following the passage of this legislation. If you see this little green man down here, he is a passenger. When they come on board, that passenger's baggage, carry-on baggage is screened, right here. Federal personnel are at that gate, are at that checkpoint to screen that carry-on baggage. His checked baggage goes through, and as the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) was just explaining, that checked baggage will be screened by personnel who are either Federal employees or who are being currently supervised at that site, at that moment, by Federal employees. You go on through the system and there are other personnel, there is camera surveillance, there are Federal marshals. Every little blue man that you see on this screen is Federal Government law enforcement personnel or is somebody trained and currently being supervised right on site, at that location, by a Federal Government employee who is a law enforcement officer. The difference, and we will go into this in greater detail as we continue this discussion, between the House bill and the Senate bill, which I believe is flawed, and we will walk through the flaws in the Senate bill, is that they say in the Senate bill, every single employee on this screen, indeed perhaps the food handlers, perhaps the people who clean the planes, perhaps the mechanics, would have to be a Federal employee or at least they would have to be screened by a Federal employee; and we say it can be a mix. We support that mix because that is in fact the system that is used throughout Europe and in Israel by El Al, the airline that is the most targeted of any airline in the world. I just want to make this point one more time. You are going to hear all day tomorrow that this is terrible. I just want to read these points again because they are so important. The gentleman actually accused Members on this side of the aisle and some of the leadership on this side of the aisle of wanting to perpetuate the current system because it is profitable to the current companies, and they want to keep those same companies. That is abjectly false. The current system is gone. No longer will airlines hire the screening personnel, no longer will they be the employees of Argenbright or the other companies, they will in fact be private contractors, contracted to the Federal Government and overseen by Federal Government employees on site, law enforcement personnel. I want to turn to one more point before I defer to some of my colleagues. We talked a little bit about the Senate bill, and I want to just lay the groundwork for the key problems with that Senate bill which we are being urged to just adopt, go ahead and adopt it, and tomorrow it will be here on the floor as either a substitute or it will be here on the floor as a motion to recommit. Let us talk about some of the problems with that Senate bill just in outline form before I turn to some of my colleagues. Number one, one of the most critical problems on September 11 was that some of the terrorists penetrated our system, although there is no evidence that there was a failure by the screening personnel at any airport because the weapons they carried on board were legal at the time, but they penetrated the system by going to small airports and flying from those small airports to bigger airports. At least it is clear they tried to do it in that fashion. One of the incredible things about the Senate bill is, it treats small airports and big airports differently. It assigns the responsibility for large airports to the Attorney General and says that will be Federal. But it says, on the other hand, if it is a small airport, well, he, the Attorney General, can decide to hand that responsibility over to local law enforcement. I would suggest that if local law enforcement is good enough for small airports, it is good enough for large airports, and if it is not good enough for large airports, it is not good enough for small airports. We cannot have a separate standard. In my State of Arizona, we have a couple of very, very large airports. If you go through those, you would go through one standard. But if you get on at one of the smaller airports in a small town like Yuma or Flagstaff or Prescott or Page, when you land in Phoenix, you are inside the security perimeter. You do not get checked again. Why in the world would we have an unequal standard, an unequal set of responsibilities, for those different size airports under this legislation? I think it is a serious flaw. I do not think the drafters of the Senate bill intended it, but it is there. There is another problem with regard to that, and that is the fairness of the fees. The Senate legislation says, if you are lucky enough to fly from a big airport to another big airport, you are going to pay one fee. If you are not lucky enough to do that, because you live in a small State or in a small town and you have to fly a small commuter plane from your small town to a big city, you pay at least double the fee of anyone who lives in a large city. That seems to me to be unfair. Another issue in the Senate bill, and I just want to touch on these briefly in outline form and we can go into greater detail later, there is a clear question about the accountability of the Federal employees that are mandated in this Senate bill, which creates a straitjacket and says every single employee must be a Federal employee because by getting their paycheck from the Federal Government, somehow that would make the airlines safe. The problem with that language is detailed, and I will go into it later, but fundamentally it is not clear that those employees do not have civil service protection. Nowhere in the bill does it say that they do not have the civil service protection created by title 5. It does not say that they are at-will employees, though I know that some of the sponsors of the Senate bill believe they are at-will employees, and it does not exempt them from civil service in the same fashion as we have done in the past. I want to touch briefly on the House bill, just to make sure that everybody understands that legislation and understands it clearly, as contrasted with the current system which is a flawed system and which, although my colleague attacked it earlier and said that is what we were trying to have, that is not at all what we are trying to have. The current House bill, created by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the bill of the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) says, number one, there will be Federal supervision of screening personnel at every single security gate, at every single baggage check location. You will all be screened at a location where there are federally trained people present, including law enforcement officers or military personnel, with the capability and the ability to question someone trying to board a plane and, if necessary, to make an arrest of that person. Second, it says that there will be Federal personnel at every checkpoint. Third, it sets Federal standards. And, fourth, it requires that they be either Federal law enforcement personnel or, as is happening in the case right now, military personnel. I could go on talking about these issues, but I know there are many of my colleagues that would like to get in on this discussion. Let me first start with the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass).

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, let me just ask the gentleman a couple different points to make sure I understand this. This screening requirement for baggage says all baggage must be screened by December 2003. That is currently not being done. I heard our colleagues on the other side railing about the fact that that is not currently being done, but if I am not correct, and I would yield to the gentleman to answer this, that requirement that 100 percent be screened by December 2003 is nowhere in the Senate bill whatsoever, is it?

Mr. SHADEGG. My understanding is that also there is no requirement in the Senate bill that they have to speak English. Is that correct?

Mr. SHADEGG. We are joined by my colleague the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune). I know he has concerns about this disparate treatment of small versus large airports.

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman. Let me comment. I want to thank the gentleman for bringing out some of the points that I think are so important to this debate. As the chart here shows, the current system, which is what was attacked by our colleagues on the other side yesterday and today, just before we started, no doubt if there is an hour special order after ours it will be attacked later, that the current system does not work and that the companies operating it are corrupt. That system is gone, and I appreciate the gentleman pointing out that the House bill is very, very difficult different from that. I also think it is important that the gentleman has brought out the fine point, and it is an important distinction, that the House bill, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure bill that some of us believe is the more thoughtful legislation, is being supported by editorials by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the L.A. Times, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Times, the Arizona Republic and USA Today. That legislation importantly does not say that they cannot be Federal employees or that they must be Federal employees. What it says, as the gentleman accurately points out, is that that is the kind of technical decision on the implementation of the legislation that should not be made by Federal mandate, should not be proscribed and commanded by the Congress as saying, we want the safest skies, but the only way to get there is this way. I think the gentleman made an excellent point in saying that the Secretary of Transportation under the House bill could, in fact, choose to make them all Federal employees, make some of them Federal employees. Many of them will be Federal employees, but the discretion is left there. I would quote from the Washington Post in its editorial. They said, referring to this issue of all-Federal or a mix of Federal and private that ``Security could work either way, as long as there is a government agency in charge dedicated to safety only and insisting on overseeing high standards in hiring and training.'' That is in the House bill. That is what we have. It goes on to point out that a number of European countries and Israel use a mix of private and public. But I think the gentleman dealt very well with this issue in pointing out that in the House bill, we simply choose not to create a straightjacket saying we want a safe air system and oh, by the way, we, the Congress, know how to do that. Rather, we just say, we want a safe air system; you figure out the right mix and the right way to do that. I thank the gentleman for his comments. I particularly appreciate his comments about the idiocy of charging people in small towns who have to fly multiple segments more money for the system and having, quite frankly, a different set of responsibilities for those. If the gentleman wants to add anything further, please do.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk tonight about an issue that was discussed in the last hour and will be discussed in this country and in this Chamber tomorrow and the day after. Indeed, it is a topic that all Americans have been focused on if they are watching the great debate here in this city. That topic is a critical one for this country; it is airline and airport security. This country's economy depends on our national air system, on our air travel system, on the security of people who decide to take a flight, whether it is for recreation or business, from their home to some other location to conduct business or to go on a vacation. We heard a discussion in the last hour about the bill that will be before us, and I think it is important for all Americans to understand the issues presented by this legislation. It is vitally important that we make America's airports and America's airlines and America's air travel system absolutely safe. However, it is also important in doing that that we have an informed debate, a debate about what needs to occur and a debate about what is wrong with the current system, and a debate about what the alternatives are for the future. Unfortunately, a lot of the debate that we have had and that we heard in the last hour focused on the past and not accurately on the future or the issue that is presented for the future. We heard a lot of discussion in the last hour about the flaws in the current system and about what is wrong with the current system. Mr. Speaker, I want to make it absolutely clear that no one is proposing that the current system be retained. No one is proposing that. I want to make it also clear that while a lot of the discussion in the last hour focused on this issue of a Republican versus a Democrat solution of philosophy or ideology, those really are not the issues. The issue which all Americans need to understand as the issue is the safety of our airlines, the safety of our airports, and the safety of air travel in America. On that issue, I and my Republican colleagues do not see it as partisan and do not see any benefit in discussing a partisan divide. We see it as one issue: how do we make the skies of America safe for every single American, black, white, Republican, Democrat, brown, red; every American needs and deserves the best possible protection system for our Federal aviation system to ensure that we are all safe. I want to say that I think it is sad, absolutely sad when the debate on this kind of issue, which ought not to be partisan, sinks to a level of partisanship where one side is saying the other side is driven by ideology or bipartisan gain. This issue is about the safety of the American traveling public, and it is about how we make our airports and our airlines safe, the securist and the best it can be in the world. How do we create that system? It is not by creating a one-size-fits-all piece of legislation. I would like to go down to the easel and walk through some of these points, because I think they are extremely important for all Americans to understand, and I have some graphics that I think will help make those points. As I said just a moment ago, this is not about partisanship. And importantly, although we have heard a lot of discussion about what is wrong with the current system, it is not about the current system. Let me say it again. Let me make sure nobody misses this point. Nobody is debating the merits of the current system. The current system, whether it could have succeeded or not, has, in fact, failed. The current system has not provided the American people with the safety they deserve. So all the anecdotal stories we heard in the last hour, all the anecdotal stories we are going to hear tomorrow and the next day about the failures of the current system, about how the airlines are not doing security correctly; about the corruption, for example, of some of the current security providers, that is really not an issue, because the issue is not the current system. Nobody, again, is proposing the current system. Let us talk a little bit about that current system. Under the current system, airlines hire private companies to supervise airline security. That is not in the Republican bill. That is not in the Democrat bill. That is not in the President's bill. That is not in any legislation. Nobody is proposing that we retain the current system where the airlines have responsibility for security and where private companies are hired by airlines to provide that security. Why discuss it? Why debate it? I was in a debate on this topic with one of my colleagues the other day who recounted to me over and over again the failings of the current security companies. Guess what? Nobody is proposing that we keep those systems. Under the current system there is no federalized and no law enforcement supervision of any kind. There is none. Right now, the Federal Government has no responsibility because we hand it over to airlines who hire private companies, and that system has failed. So make no mistake about it, in the debate we are going to hear in the next few days, when we hear Republicans talk about the idea of having a mix of Federal Government employees and Federal supervisors and Federal training and Federal law enforcement personnel at every gate and at every site to supervise, but not requiring that every single employee as a mandate of Federal statute, which cannot be changed until this Congress meets again; when they talk about that, they are not talking about the current system, because that does not exist in the current system. Under the current system, airlines hire private companies. Let me make it clear. That does not exist anymore. It is gone, absolutely, totally gone. So although the stories about what is going wrong today or what is going right today about the checks that Americans may have experienced or may not have experienced when Americans have been through airport security in the last few days, all of that is a part of the past. Indeed, we will talk a little bit later about one of the dangers about one of the bills, the Senate bill, which says what we should do is make sure that every single employee responsible for any aspect of screening is a Federal Government employee. One of the dangers is that they will go out and simply hire the people that do the job now and make them Federal employees. I want to make another point here: the issue is not where the paycheck comes from. I have never had a single constituent come up to me and say, you know, Congressman, I think I would feel more secure when I fly in an airplane if I knew that when I got on the airplane the person who checked me through got a paycheck from the Federal Government. I have never had somebody say to me, Congressman, I think I would feel more secure if when I went through the security gate, I knew the person got a paycheck from a private company. Nobody has ever said that is the issue. Indeed, that is not the issue. The issue is and the issue that all of us need to focus on is how do we create the best system to make sure that Americans are safe and secure. The question we have to ask ourselves is what are the constituent elements of that? Well, I can tell my colleagues that one is, we have decided not to have the airlines continue to hire private companies. We have decided that the Federal Government should take over the responsibility of making our skies safe for the traveling public. And both the Republican bill and the Democrat bill will provide that. The airlines no longer hire private companies. The airlines indeed no longer have the responsibility for this task. It becomes a Federal Government responsibility. That is a decision that has been made. That is a debate that no longer will even occur, although some are trying to get Members not to watch the ball, and they may talk about that. They may say that private companies mean we are going to keep the old system. Please understand that is not correct. There is another point. Right now there are no federalized standards, no federalized law enforcement present, no federalized supervision at the gates. That is gone. That will not be part of any legislation that is before us tomorrow. But we need to talk about what is before us tomorrow and about the two different alternatives that are here. One, quite frankly, is an approach by people who I think are genuine and sincere and are concerned about the safety of the traveling public, as I am, who think that the way we have to do that is to prescribe in Federal statute, locking it in forever and ever, until this Congress meets again and the Senate meets again and changes that, that the issue really is, where does the paycheck come from, and that the way to make our skies safe is to have those paychecks come from the Federal Government, because of course if they come from the Federal Government, our skies will be safer. So the Senate bill, which will be offered here on the floor and which one of my colleagues just a moment ago called upon us to pass immediately, says that all screening of personnel and property must be done by Federal employees. It actually uses those words. It says it must be done by Federal employees, as if making them Federal employees would somehow accomplish the task. I want to make it clear, I have a lot of friends who are Federal employees. I have great respect for Federal employees. I think they are sincere and hard-working people. I think this job could well be done by Federal employees. But I do not think that it will be done by Federal employees correctly just because they were Federal employees. I think it could be done by Federal employees; I think it can be done by properly supervised private people, private employees, as well. Again, the issue is not where their paycheck comes from. The issue is the standards and the training and the supervision, and, yes, the pay and the competence of the people who do these jobs. The issues are: Are we intelligently thinking through the process; have we correctly assessed the threat; have we set proper security standards; are we training the personnel correctly to do the job; are we supervising them; are there law enforcement personnel present to supervise them; are there law enforcement personnel present to make arrests or to question people, if that needs to occur? All of those things are true under the House Republican bill and, quite frankly, they are also true under the House Democrat bill, except the Democrat bill offers this premise: unless their paycheck comes from the Federal Government, they will not do it correctly. I simply reject that. Now, the House Republican bill, and I regret using those terms, but those are the kinds of issues that we have here, and we will be discussing tomorrow a Republican and a Democrat bill, the House Republican bill says that the Secretary of Transportation can do this through either Federal employees, or a mix of Federal employees who are law enforcement-trained and who are screened and trained and supervised, all the personnel. But it says that if the Secretary determines that some of those employees should be private rather than get a Federal Government check, then that is okay. We give that discretion. I think it is important to understand that this is really not a fight about anything other than should we legislate the Department of Transportation into a strait-jacket where one must have Federal Government employees and Federal Government employees only; or should we give that discretion, so somebody could make a judgment? If it should be, on their determination, the Secretary's determination, all Federal employees, so be it, but if it should be a mix, we can make that decision, as well. There are problems with the Senate bill beyond this that I think are worth some attention and worth talking about; and I also want to talk about the facts behind this debate, because there are facts in this debate. First, however, before we get to those facts, which include how this is done in Europe and how this is done for El Al, the airline that flies in and out of Israel, probably the most-attacked airline in the world, let us talk a little bit about the Senate bill. In the last hour, we heard people call for, why do we not just pass the Senate bill, and why did we not do it a long time ago, and what in the world could be wrong with this? How could we have such a partisan debate? Why have some Members not just rushed to pass the Senate bill? First of all, we have this building, we have this Congress, to debate these issues. We have them to educate ourselves and to study these issues. We do not just pass the other body's piece of legislation because it is done. We have a duty. I have a duty to my constituents to read it. I have a duty to study it. I have a duty to think about it. I have a duty to inform myself about it, and I have a duty to consider whether or not it does the job right. I commend those who wrote the Senate bill for doing a competent job. They addressed a number of these issues. They moved very quickly. They are entitled to credit for that effort. But I do not believe it strikes the right balance. That is why I hope that my colleagues here in this body and all of the people across America will take a careful look and carefully listen to this debate, because the Senate bill is not flawless. Let us talk about it. One of the first things that is kind of surprising to me about the Senate bill is that it perpetuates a flaw in the current system. The current system has a different mechanism, a different level of security at smaller airports than at larger airports. Now, maybe if, when we flew from a smaller airport to a larger airport, we had to in every case go back through security, there might be some rationale for drawing a distinction between small and big airports. But that is not the way the system works. In my State of Arizona, we have two very, very large airports. We have Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, and I fly in and out of that airport every single week. Let me assure the Members, I am part of the traveling public. I live in Phoenix every weekend, and I live in Washington during the week every week. I have flown countless times since September 11. I have been through Reagan Airport, BWI, Dulles, and I have been through Orange County Airport, I have been through John F. Kennedy Airport, I have been through LaGuardia, and I have been through O'Hare and D-FW, all of those since September 11. So I am part of the traveling public, and this issue is of grave concern to me, not only for my safety but my family's safety and that of all the traveling public. But I want to make this point: in Arizona we have two large airports, Phoenix Sky Harbor and Tucson International. But we also have multiple small airports at Flagstaff and at Page and at Prescott and at Yuma. People should understand that if I get on an airline at a small airport in Flagstaff, Arizona, let us say it is the hometown airline, America West, and I fly out of Flagstaff, Arizona, and land in Phoenix, I am in the secure area at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. I do not have to go back through any security screening. I go straight from my arriving gate to my departing gate; and my departing gate can take me to any airport in the country, and indeed, to many airports around the world. It can certainly take me to LaGuardia and to Washington National, Reagan National. It can take me to Dulles and all the major airports of this country. But if I got on at a small airport, I am in the system. The hijackers used that very advantage when they got on, when some of them got on for the attacks, the unspeakable horrors of September 11. Yet the Senate bill allows different responsibilities for different airports. It says that the Secretary has the right to delegate the authority for certain smaller airports, but not for larger airports. So we have different levels of responsibility or different responsibility at different airports. Explain that to me. As a Congressman, do I not have a duty to look at the facts, to look at what happened on September 11 and to say, well, why would the Senate bill say, well, we are going to have one level of security for the 100 or so largest airports in America, but we are going to have a separate and different responsibility at smaller airports, when that was one of the very loopholes that was either used or tried to be used by the hijackers on September 11? For that reason alone, we should reject the Senate bill and reexamine it and rewrite it. I hope we will do that. I hope Americans across the country will understand that that is a critical flaw in the Senate bill. Now, that is not a partisan flaw. It is not that I think that the authors of that bill were insincere. It is not that I think that they intended to leave a loophole in the Senate bill. It is, however, that in their effort rather quickly to write a piece of legislation to address this very, very, very important topic, they thought, well, maybe we should have the Secretary have different authority for different airports, and maybe we should allow him to set different authority for different airports. I would argue that that is a serious flaw, and a flaw that was exposed by the hijackers on September 11. That is the first part of the Senate bill, and that would be my response to my colleagues who were here on the floor an hour ago urging us to instantaneously pass the Senate bill. Interestingly, I had a debate with the ranking member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, or I guess one member below him, an expert in this field who has done some very, very good work in this field. He said he thought the Senate bill was not perfect; and, indeed, he thought the House Democrat alternative was better than that. I commend him for at least acknowledging there are some problems with the Senate bill. Let us talk about the second problem in the Senate bill, because I think it is also a very, very severe problem with that bill. I do not see this issue, again, as where the paycheck comes from. I see it as the competency, the training, the supervision, and the professionalism of the people who do this job. I do not see it as being solved by a quick and dirty, ``well, we will just make them all Federal employees'' solution. But if we go down that road, we have to look at this. Even proponents of that solution say, well, what about the issue of the accountability of Federal employees? What about the issue of accountability of government employees? What about the accountability of the people who will be doing this? What laws should they be governed by? In the Senate bill, they try to address that issue. In the Senate bill, they have written a sentence which says, notwithstanding any other law, the Attorney General may hire, discipline, and I think fire or terminate these employees. I think their goal there was to make sure that these employees would be accountable, so that is why I talk about accountability. Right now, the authors of the Senate bill have apparently said, we do not want the same civil service protections for these new Federal airport screening personnel as we have for other Federal employees. They actually, I think, conceded that point and wrote the bill this way because there has been discussion across the country, and indeed, discussion in Europe, about the question of whether or not government employees with full civil service protection can be fired or disciplined as rapidly and as easily as they need to be. I do not know if they can or not, but I know there was an effort on the Senate bill to say that we ought to do it differently, except that I think they did not do it right. If we read their bill, we will see it says, as I said, ``Notwithstanding any other law, the Attorney General may do these things.'' But in discussing that issue with one of the authors of the bill, he said he thought that made those employees at-will employees, meaning that if the Attorney General, who has the responsibility under the Senate bill, decided they ought to be fired or disciplined, he could just do it and there would be no civil service protection, no hearings, no nothing; it could just be done. Unfortunately, they do not use the words ``at-will employees.'' But more importantly, and this is a second key problem with the Senate bill, they do not cross-reference or refer the current civil service statute. What I mean by that is the current law gives civil service protection to all Federal Government employees, and there is a statute that gives that protection. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a series of cases, has said that with that civil service protection, an employee may not be fired and may not be disciplined without certain due process rights. The Supreme Court has said, Congress could choose not to extend those rights to either all Federal employees or some subset of Federal employees; and I think that is what the Senate was trying to do when they wrote this bill, but they did not. They did not cross-reference the Federal statute that gives government employees, Federal Government employees, civil service protection. So I think, quite frankly, they have done nothing to ensure that the Attorney General, who has the authority under their bill to hire such employees or fire them or discipline them, in fact has that authority without civil service protection. So I think that is a very serious drafting problem with that bill. When we hear people tomorrow and the next day urge people on the floor, just vote for the Senate bill, the Senate bill is perfect, the Senate bill is flawless, I hope Members will remember this. Because we can log on and find, all Americans and all my colleagues can find, this legislation and can look up these flaws. They can look up the fact that the Senate bill, which will be urged here on the floor, has different standards or allocates different responsibility for the security of airports that are large and those that are small; and it has this language which tries to make these new Federal employees accountable. But I think fails to do that, because, as we will see, there is no cross-reference to the title IX, section 5, statute that gives these employees civil service protection. So can they be disciplined? Who knows? Can they be disciplined without a hearing? Who knows? Can they be fired? Who knows? Can they be fired without a hearing or do they have these civil service rights? That issue, unfortunately, under the Senate bill will have to be litigated. Now there are other issues that I think are worth discussing and worth people understanding on this very, very important topic; and it is not just that I am against the Senate bill. I want to make that clear. I am for the Senate or the House bill, whichever will make America's airlines and America's airports as secure and safe as is humanly possible. I give no quarter, absolutely no quarter to claims that this debate is about somebody who wants to protect or preserve the current system, because that is not true. We talked about that a minute ago. The current system of airlines employing security companies is gone. That is not in the House committee bill. It is not in any Democrat substitute that will be here. I give no quarter to anybody who says Republicans do not care about security or about safe skies. Come on. Give me a break. As if I do not fly and my family members do not fly. I give no quarter to anybody who says this is about partisan divide or philosophy or some dislike of government employees. That is outrageous and unfair. The question is, is the Senate bill written correctly, or should we pass an alternative that fixes a couple of these problems, and do that and go to conference committee and try to write a good piece of legislation that will provide the American people with the securest and safest airline and airplane passenger and air traffic system in the world? And the answer is we have to do the latter. We cannot do the rush to judgment. We cannot just pass the Senate bill when we know it has these kinds of problems in it. Let us talk about another issue. The Senate bill says that all passengers and property shall be screened by Federal employees. I have already expressed my concern about whether just having them be Federal employees is the answer, but let us talk about all passengers and property. Here is the interesting issue there. The Senate bill does not define, or at least does not define very clearly, about the question of property. What do we do about property? We understand and I understand and the House bill supports the fact that every single carry-on piece of luggage needs to be screened and screened carefully. It needs to be screened by people who are competent and people who are trained. I think they ought to be certified by the Federal Government to do their jobs. They ought to be supervised by Federal law enforcement personnel with the ability to question people and the ability to even make arrests on sight. That is what the House committee bill, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure bill does. But there are other issues besides that metal detector that we go through and carry our briefcases through, as I did this morning when I left Phoenix. The other issues are what about our baggage? I think every single piece of checked baggage needs to be screened. It needs to be screened by personnel who are competent, by personnel who are trained, by personnel who know what they are doing and are paid well and are professionals. And they need the equipment to do that job right. That is in the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure bill. All of that is in the Committee on Transportation Infrastructure bill. But when we use the word property we are raising the question of what about the employees who prepare the food that comes on to the airplane? Do they need to be Federal employees? Is that what the Senate bill is saying? What about the question of people who come on to the airplanes to clean them? Do they need to be Federal employees? Maybe they should be supervised by Federal employees. Maybe they should be screened by Federal employees. But do they need to be Federal employees? One of things that we still do not know the answer to is in the tragic events of September 11 we know that those who carried out the attacks brought on board so-called box cutters. I first heard that term and I did not know what it was until I figured out it is the kind of razor knife that I use to cut open a box at home or to cut a piece of cardboard. It has a blade, it is in fact a razor blade, but the blade is exposed only about an inch. Some of the speculation about September 11 and the attacks that occurred that day is that maybe those knives were not brought on board by the hijackers themselves, maybe they were brought on board by the cleaning crews. Maybe they were brought on board by the people who prepare the food. Maybe they were smuggled on board by mechanics. We do not know. But again it raises the question and I think the House bill address this, that we need a comprehensive system to ensure all security on those planes. And the idea of let us just make them Federal employees, we have to ask ourselves, where does that end? Do all the people who cook the food have to be Federal employees? Do all the people who clean the planes have to be Federal employees? Do all the people who bring on boxes of Kleenex or rolls of toilet paper or big stacks of paper towels that we use to dry our hands, do they have to be Federal employees? What about the mechanics? What about the pilots? What about the stewardesses or flight attendants themselves? Do they all have to be Federal employees? That does not make any sense. But under the Senate bill where we have this broad definition of property and this definition of Federal employees, we raise this very serious issue. Are we going to make all of those people, the cooks and the caterers and the cleaners and the mechanics and whoever else might bring something on board, some property on board the plane, a Federal employee? I think that highlights that the Senate bill, though well intended, I think it has huge sections that are very well written and thoughtfully written out, made a mistake in that vague definition. I think we have a duty, all of us here in this Congress have a duty to read that bill carefully and to reflect on it and not just to rush to pass it, as was mentioned in the debate earlier here tonight. Why can we not pass the Senate bill? We have a good bill in front of us. What is wrong with it? That is why I get really sad and disgusted. And I would hope that all people of good will in the debate that will come tomorrow and the next day would be saddened and disgusted when the attack comes that says, oh, the only reason that they do not want to pass the Senate bill is because of partisanship; the only reason they do not want to pass the Senate bill is because Republicans do not like it; the only reason they do not want to pass it is ideology or philosophy or refusal to compromise. These points that I have just made, different airports having different levels of responsibility, accountability being unclear, the vague definition of what is property and what is not property and who would have to be a Federal employee, all raise serious questions on the merits, substantive questions, that I challenge my opponents, opponents of the House bill whether they be on that side of the aisle or this side of the aisle, to address, deal with and talk with. Explain why these are not serious problems in the Senate bill and explain why the debate that will occur here on what we ought to pass to make America's skies as safe as humanly possible is not a meritorious debate. That kind of leads me to the last point, and maybe the camera can look at it here, and that is the word strait-jacket. I would argue in crafting the Senate bill, its authors were, I think, genuine and sincere and did their best to write a good piece of legislation, have simply made a mistake by creating a strait-jacket, a strait-jacket written into Federal statute that says here is how we do it. It does not say, we want safe skies and we are going to give the authority to some Federal law enforcement officials to create safe skies. No. It says, we want safe skies and we, the United States Congress, know the only way to make safe skies and so we are going to write into law forever and ever, or at least forever and ever until we pass some other piece of legislation, that way to make the skies safe. And by the way, that is to dictate that all of this be done by Federal employees. Again, I do not criticize Federal employees. I have great respect for them. It is not about Federal employees or private sector employees. It is about professionalism. It is about training. It is about pay. And the critics who say the current people who do that job are underpaid are dead right. But, again, like I stated earlier, nobody is defending the current system. The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure bill drafted by the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) does not preserve the current system. It changes that system, as I outlined before. But what the Senate bill does is create a strait- jacket. Now I want to talk just for a moment for people who understand the problem when you do that in Federal statute. All of us want clean air in America and all of us think that that is an important goal for us to have. We need the cleanest possible air for Americans to breathe. A few years back, the United States Congress wrote a law and said we will create clean air. And that was the right thing to do. But unfortunately the Congress went a step beyond that. And what we said was the way and the only way to create clean air is to mandate by Federal statute that we oxygenate the fuels. Guess what? It turns out in California that oxygenating the fuel is not the best way to create clean air. And out of this mess we have created TCE, which is in our water supply. This raises a fundamental question about the debate that will go on here tomorrow. That is, when we as a Congress identify a problem, should we solve that problem by prescribing a standard and giving the authority to people who achieve that standard, or should we tell them how to do the job? Because the Senate bill says the only way to make the skies safe is already known, and it is known by the United States Congress. And it is to require everybody, though it is not clear who everybody is, who screens passengers and property to be a Federal employee. Well, that kind of strait-jacket did not work for clean air because we now have problems with clean air. The answer is science moves faster than the United States Congress. The answer is scientists in the energy field have already figured out how to make cleaner air without using oxygenates. But the Federal Government knew the right answer, so it did not prescribe that we ought to have clean air. It said we ought to have clean air and this is how to do it. That is the problem with the Senate bill. The Senate bill creates a legislative strait-jacket. It does not say we want the safest skies in the world. It says we want the safest skies in the world and we, the Congress, in our arrogance, know the right way to do that. I want to say that that is just dead wrong. We do not know the right way to do it. Let us talk for just a moment about the House bill and then the other experiences around the world and the facts. Here is the House bill. It probably is not perfect either, and if we pass the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure bill tomorrow we will go to conference and we can take the best of both pieces of legislation. But if we pass the Senate bill, it will be done and it will go to the President. First of all, as I said, the House bill does not preserve the current system of airlines hiring private sector companies at the lowest bid, by the way, to provide the screening of passenger and baggage at airports. No. It says that all screening shall be done under the supervision of Federal Government employees. And it says that there will be Federal personnel at every single check point. It is not a question of returning to the current system where we get to the gate and there is some private sector security person that was hired and they are the only one there. It is not that at all. It says that at every single check point in America there will be a presence of Federal Government supervisory personnel. And, by the way, they will either be law enforcement personnel or military personnel, and they will ensure that the screening is done properly. There will be Federal training, there will be Federal supervision, and there will be Federal standards, and there will be a law enforcement or military presence at every single check point. That is not the current system. But to this key question of whether they have to be government employees every single one down to the last person, it leaves that open to the Secretary of Transportation. It says that we will let that job be done by the Secretary of Transportation to decide what is the proper mix. I have said there are facts in this debate and there are facts in this debate. And I think it is important to talk about those facts. That dovetails into the way of House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure wrote their bill because the system elsewhere in the world that is working does not follow the model of the Senate bill. The system around the rest of the world that is working follows the model similar to the House bill, that is, national government supervision, a national government law enforcement presence at every check point, national government in those countries, national government standards and law enforcement presence; but it does not say that everyone shall be an employee of the Federal Government. Why? Because the issue, again, is not where their pay check came from. The issue is competence, training, supervision, pay, and professionalism. Let us talk about the experience around the world. Again, I have charts that show this. This chart, and it is maybe a little bit hard to see, is a chart of Europe. It shows, and I do not know how well it can be read, but it shows the various countries of Europe and it shows a trend. Beginning 20 or 25 years ago in all of those countries, there was one system. The system was the national government ran security at virtually every airport, indeed, so far as I know, every airport in those countries. But beginning in the 1980s they discovered that that system was not the best system. And so they began to move to a mix of private and public personnel at these airports. Now let us just take a look at them. Belgium went partially private in 1982. They still have a federal government, federal Belgium Government presence at the airports, but they have some private contractors. Supervised, trained, overseen by government employees, but not every single person is a government employee. The map goes on, I just want to make this point over and over and over again. You may have heard that security is much better in Europe than it is here in the United States and, indeed, that may be, although the first flight I took after September 11, a gentleman in line in front of me had just come from Europe and he said he had gotten on an airplane in Milan, Italy, and he had not been asked a single question or gone through any security screening whatsoever. But, nonetheless, the argument goes that in Europe, and this is a false argument but it is an argument that has been raised at the outset of this debate, that in Europe they all use government employees. Well, that simply is not true. Belgium went partially private, partially government in 1982. In 1983, the Netherlands, a mix of private and public. In 1987, England had a mix of government supervision and private sector employees. In 1990, a number of countries, Sweden, Norway, Finland, all went to a mix of Federal Government employees of those countries supervising private contractors. I will not go through the entire chart, but Ireland in 1998, Portugal in 1999, Spain in 1999, France in 1993, Switzerland in 1999, Italy in 1999, Germany in 1992, Austria, I believe in 1994, it is almost impossible for me to read so it has to be hard for you to read, Poland in 1998. Virtually every country in Europe, indeed a grand total of at least 16 of them, has moved to a mix of private sector employees on contract with standards and supervision and training done by the government. That is the system that they have found that has worked the best. Now, I have tried to describe that mix by saying that it is a mix of personnel, and this is another chart which shows that mix of personnel. It shows what the ratio of private employees to public employees is at each of these European airports. And I can pick any one of them and perhaps read it. For example, in Oslo, Norway, there are 150 private sector employees supervised by 20 public sector employees. In Amsterdam, there are 2,000 private sector employees supervised by a total of 200 government employees. And the ratios are shown all through this map. In Brussels, for example, they use 50 government supervisors to oversee a total of 700 private sector contract employees. In, for example, Helsinki, Finland, over there, you can see the ratio is 20 government employees, supervisors, trainers, law enforcement personnel supervising 150 private sector employees. Pick any one of these airports and it is, as you can see, a mix. In Geneva, we see it is 50 private sector employees to 250 government employees. So they flipped the chart there. But it is still a mix, and I think that makes the point very clear. The average ratio, as the chart says, is 85 percent private sector employees supervised or overseen by 15 percent government sector employees. I think it is very important to understand, then, that when we hear people tomorrow on the floor say, look, anyone who opposes the Senate bill is just being stubborn or just being rigid or just being anti- government employee or just being partisan, I hope that these facts, and I assume they will come out again over and over in the course of this debate, will help us understand that at least in Europe there is a mix similar to what would be possible under the House bill. Now, I think it is very important to understand because under the language of the House bill, the Secretary of Transportation is not placed in a straitjacket. He or she is not told they must all be private sector. Indeed, they are told they cannot all be private sector. But they are also not told they must be all government employees. That discretion is given. If the Secretary were to decide they must all be, for his or her satisfaction to do the job properly, government employees, then that would be permissible under the House bill. If the Secretary decides it ought to be a mix, as is the case throughout Europe, then that would be possible under the House bill. But, again, under the straitjacket of the Senate bill, that simply is not permitted. That discretion is not given. The Federal Government decides that issue. They decide once and for all, by gosh, it is going to be Federal employees no matter what. That is it. That will assure safe skies, and we the Congress know the right answer. The heck with giving anybody any discretion. The heck with assuring professionalism by training. They have no more training in the Senate bill than the House bill. Pay. They have no higher standards for pay in the Senate bill than the House bill. Supervision. They have no more supervision of the actual screeners in the Senate bill than in the House bill. Certification of compliance with training. That is not done any differently or any better or any more stringently in the Senate bill than the House bill. It is just that they think that what matters is where the paycheck comes from, and they think that what matters is that Congress ought to decide. I think that is wrong. I think it is important to understand two more things in this trend while looking at Europe. Number of European airports with private security. I mentioned that there are 16 airports throughout Europe that have private security. Here is the trend. As I mentioned, it began in 1982 with one airport, it climbed in 1983 and all the way on up, and we can see by 1999 it had risen to 16 airports in Europe, I think the majority of airports in Europe who are a mix of government employees supervising private sector employees. I also said that there were facts in this debate, and there are facts in this debate. It is not just bias or prejudice or philosophy or pro- union or anti-union, because I do not think those are the issues. Again, the issue is competence. And on the issue of competence, on the issue of what will best protect the American people, there are at least some facts that strongly support this structure, a structure where there is a mix of private employees supervised by government law enforcement personnel, as the House bill requires, and that is demonstrated by this chart. This chart is a chart of the number of hijackings in Europe and Israel over time, beginning back in 1968, and it shows there were 8, I believe, in 1970, there were 4 in 1973, and on across. If we look at the red line, we will see that in Europe and in Israel, and I will talk about Israel in just a moment, in Europe and in Israel, as they have moved, beginning in about 1982, from a total government controlled system to a mix of government law enforcement supervision and professionalism and training and standards of private sector employees and away from mandating all government employees, the number of incidents has declined. So the one really hard fact in this debate, what will make the skies of America the safest, is the fact that shows that at least in Europe and also Israel, where we have an airline that is probably the most targeted airline in the world, El Al, the airline that serves Israel, as we have moved from all government employees in the 1970s to a mix of contract employees supervised by government employees, the number of incidents has gone down. Now, in this debate there was some discussion about Israel, and I mentioned Israel a few moments ago. I think it is extremely important to know that Israel has followed the same model as Europe. And that is to say in Israel there was a point in time when no private contractor was involved at all. The entire process was done by government employees. That system has been abandoned. The system in use now in Israel is a system which includes a mix of private sector contract employees supervised by government employees with law enforcement training. It seems to me that when we look at the hard facts, when we look at the real issues here, it is fair to see that this is an honest debate. It is a debate which ought to go forward on the floor of the House, and it is a debate in which I hope my sincere and earnest colleagues on both sides of the aisle will understand there is no room for partisanship. There is no room for political attacks of who gets a political advantage or who loses a political advantage. Indeed, I would hope the American people become enraged at anyone who attacks, one side or the other, saying, well, they are just doing this for philosophy or for political gain. I would hope the Members of this body have enough conscience and conscientiousness to put aside partisanship at this critical point in our country's history and ask themselves, what is the right way to do this job? How do we provide the American people, how do we provide my son and my daughter, or your wife and your husband, or your son or your daughter, or your sister or your brother the safest, most secure system? I would argue to the depth of my soul that there is not just one answer. I would argue that anybody who says that there is just one answer and that just one answer is in one bill is wrong, whether they said that about the House bill or the Senate bill. The truth is at this critical point in America's history, if for no other reason than to honor the people who died on September 11 in the unspeakable horrors of those attacks, that we have a duty to look at these issues conscientiously, that we have a duty to analyze the facts, that we have a duty to actually read the legislation. These are pretty short bills. They are not that hard to read. It is not that difficult to pick them up and leaf through them. The American people have the possibility and the ability to get on the Internet and to read every one of the bills that we will debate here on the floor of the House in the next few days. They can read the Senate bill that has been out for the past few days. They can see the good provisions in that bill on making cockpit doors more secure, on looking at the entire airport and trying to make it more secure. They can look at the House bill and see that we do in the House bill many of those same things. We make the cockpit doors more secure and more safe. We make airline travel safer. We provide for Federal air marshals. But on this critical issue that seems to be dividing this body, I hope the American people will look, and I hope my colleagues will look at the key points of the legislation, and those key points are worth remembering. Number one, this debate is not about the current system or the current contractors. I know that many of the contractors out there are doing a pathetic job. At my own airport at Sky Harbor Airport, there is a private contractor that has been fired because of their incompetence; not doing the job. Nobody, nobody is defending the current system or arguing that we should keep it. The current system says airlines hire private companies. Now, maybe that system could have worked, maybe it never could work, but it certainly did not work. Although it is fair to point out, and I have a column here by John Stossel, who says he does not think the right answer is to give this entire function over to the Federal Government. But it is fair to point out that as flawed as the current system is, give it to the low bidder, do not pay them competent wages, do not screen them, and he says it is important to note are we closing the barn door after the horse got out or are we just simply whistling past this whole issue? The reality is there is no evidence, not one shred of evidence, that the attacks of September 11 occurred because the screeners at the airports let them get by, let the hijackers get by with something they were not allowed to bring on the plane. Indeed, the Federal standards which did exist at the time for what you could carry on the plane made a box cutter legal to carry onto a plane because it had such a short little blade. So it is important to note that as bad as this current system is, and as certain that we are going to replace it that we are, it is gone, we will not keep that system, there is no evidence that it was that system that let those hijackers get on to the plane. The box cutter knives they carried on board were allowed, and they were allowed to bring them on board. Now, it is also important to understand that it is not true that only these lousy private contractors make mistakes and only private contractors hire incompetent people or indeed criminals. Because John Stossel points out in his column, a recent column that appeared, that there was a recent government study which found that 150 IRS, Internal Revenue Service, that is Federal Government, seasonal workers had criminal records. Now, I do not defend the private security companies who have done a terrible job of screening their employees. I do not defend them when they have underpaid their employees. I do not defend them or their records, and I think they should be gone. I will vote for either of these bills because they are going to get rid of this terrible system. But do not make the mistake that only private companies and only these private companies make tragic errors. Here is the IRS of the United States, government employees, who hired IRS workers, also government employees, 150 of them, seasonal workers who had criminal records. What about the issue of the government never makes a mistake. How about in my State where a National Guardsman was allowed to carry a gun in the airport, turned out to be a felon. He was allowed to carry a gun. The question is not that the Federal Government or the private sector cannot make mistakes; the question is how do we ensure that the standards are set and enforced. Again, we owe it to every American and every American business to create a system that will indeed protect all Americans. My daughter, my son, your daughter and your son, and your wife and your husband. That system, I do not believe, is in the Senate bill. I urge my colleagues to log on and read it. There are problems in that bill. Number one, the hijackers tried to slip into this country by using small airports. The Federal bill lets the Secretary delegate the responsibility for small airports to local law enforcement, but says he cannot do that for big airports. If it is not right in all locations, it should not happen in any location. But that is a flaw. Different responsibility at different size airports is a flaw in the Senate bill. Accountability. The question of accountability is extremely important. We need professionalism, and people who do the jobs as professional. We need people who are trained and paid well. We need people who are supervised well and who are given the tools to do the job, not just at the metal detector gate that I went through today, but downstairs where bags go through. The Senate bill and its defenders will be here tomorrow, and you have heard them say it can only be partisanship that causes people not to vote for that bill. The Federal bill leaves the accountability question of whether they have civil service protection, whether they can be hired or fired without a hearing and under what conditions unclear. I do not accuse the Senate authors of that bill of having intentionally made either of these mistakes. I think they were sincere and doing their best; but it is the job of this body as well as the job of the other body to carefully scrutinize the words in these bills and to try to make them right. The vague definition that I mentioned earlier, the question of does this new requirement of Federal employment extend to the people that clean the planes and bring food on the planes, to the mechanics or pilots, if the only way to make something safe is to be done by Federal employees, do we have to nationalize the airlines? I think the issue is professionalism and training and supervision, and indeed pay and competence. These are the issues that we ought to be looking at in this debate. On one there is a clear answer. I think giving a pure strait- jacket for the United States Congress in its arrogance to say not only do we want the safest skies, of course we should say that. But to say there is one way and one way only and that is by making them Federal employees is simply wrong. The head of airport security in Belgium, who is the head of a European task force on the issue of airport security, said as Europe privatized, he said as Europe moved from an all government employee system to a mix of private sector employees supervised by government employees, said that they had better luck and better success in having responsive employees under the mixed system. Maybe that is not always true, but I think it is important that this is a gentleman who is responsible for airport security in Belgium; and it is a gentleman who headed up the task force that oversaw that. It is important to understand the one immutable fact in this debate, and that is that when Europe moved from an all-government employee system, and this is true of Israel as well, from an all-national government employee system to a mixed system of private sector employees and public sector employees, the number of hijackings declined. Mr. Speaker, to conclude, I do not think there is any one right answer, but we have a duty to debate these matters objectively. We owe it to the American people, to the victims of September 11, and we owe it to our families.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill. Make no mistake about it, it is not perfect, but it is a fair compromise worked out by the efforts of both sides. A week ago today, late at night, in the wee hours of the morning, I argued that it was essential that we get our airlines back in the air, and that we as Americans use them. The terrorists who launched their vicious attack against America seek not just to destroy buildings, but to destroy our economy. The airline industry comprises 10 percent of our gross domestic product. We in Congress and the American people must not let those terrorists destroy our economy, or the lives and jobs of the American people. Americans must resume their lives, and we must pass this bill. No additional American should lose his or her job, not an airline employee, not a tourist industry employee, not a baggage handler, no one. It is absolutely essential that we pass this bill tonight. But there is a flaw in this bill. This bill empowers a government board to pick winners and losers in the airline industry, and that is flat wrong. No bureaucrat should say, ``This airline wins; that airline loses.'' How do we say to the employees of the loser, ``We are terribly sorry, you are out of your job, but the employee of some other airline keeps his or hers''? If an airline or its employees was injured by this outrageous attack, they should be eligible to be made whole. They should be put back in the position where they can get back into the skies and fly. And we cannot let this board, I urge Members not to allow this board to pick and choose winners, so the employees of one airline remain unemployed, the employees of another airline get to stay back at work. It is absolutely essential, and it would be outrageous if we allowed that to happen. This legislation must pass tonight. It is critical for the economy of this Nation. Americans need to get back aboard our airlines and resume their lives, but the board must handle its power fairly.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and of the underlying bill. A week ago tonight, actually early in the wee hours of Saturday morning, I stood on this floor and urged my colleagues to pass the bill that was before us then. At that time, I discussed the fact that the airline industry had been massively attacked, and that it was suffering, and if we did not act, we would bring financial consequences to the airline industry, and people would lose their jobs. In point of fact, sadly, that prediction turns out to be true. We now know of some 100,000 layoffs in the industry. How many of those layoffs would not have occurred if we had been able to send the right signal last week? Our enemies do not seek just to destroy buildings, such as the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, they seek to destroy our economy. We cannot let that happen. This bill is a piece of intensely negotiated legislation on which there are fair compromises on each side. Many of my colleagues have concerns about the liability provisions, but as a result of the compromise which has occurred in the last several hours, in the last several days, those compromises are fair. There is a claims procedure under which the victims of this atrocious act will be able to get relief without having to rely on an attorney, and that is a good move. They should not be victimized again by having to pay a huge contingency fee in order to recover. The danger in this bill, however, lies in the ability of the Airline Stabilization Board to allocate the monies which are allocated for loan guarantees. Those funds are absolutely critical to keep our airlines in the air. Sadly, under the wording of this bill, that board can pick winners and losers. We do not need the government picking winners and losers. It is vitally important that we ensure that the airlines of America, not just the big carriers who have lots of capital, who have an old fleet with a lot of equity in it that can stay in the air, but it is vitally important that we keep the small carriers, the cost-sensitive, low-priced carriers, in the air. They are much less able to qualify for those loans. This legislation should say, ``If you were flying on September 10, we are not going to let the act of these terrorists destroy you and keep you from flying, because we understand that will put your employees out of work.'' I urge my colleagues to make sure that we should not let the stabilization board pick winners and losers and hurt the employees of the small airlines while picking winners for the employees of the bigger airlines.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the people that I have the privilege of representing in this House, I rise in strong support of this use of force resolution. Unfortunately, I am concerned that it may not go far enough. It does not go as far as the President requested or may need. On Tuesday, America sustained a cowardly attack. It was a despicable act of war. Mr. Speaker, the American people are a peaceful people. We are slow to anger. But we have been viciously attacked, and the attack was unlike any ever known in this world and in its history. It will require a very different response. We must focus our anger and carefully plan, calibrate, and execute our response. It must be worldwide and comprehensive in scope, as well as massive in magnitude. We must target and destroy every terrorist and every terrorist group that aided or supported the attackers or sympathizers with their cause. We must destroy their will to fight, not out of revenge, but as a matter of self-defense. Because terrorists do not defend territory or populations, they cannot be confronted or defeated using traditional means. We cannot expect easy or quick solutions. We must be prepared for a protracted effort to eradicate these cowardly terrorists.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I would address my colleagues and point out that this has been an extraordinary week. It has been a week in which we have come together. It has been a week when we have stood united, not Republican and Democrat but American. It has been a week in which the debate on this floor has been characterized by immense unity, where we have worked together. I do not want the debate tonight to change that tone. This is an extraordinary situation. I understand the reservations and the concerns of everybody on each side. I understand the passion of the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. I understand the concerns of others on the other side. I would simply argue that we stop and reflect. We are being asked tonight to do something extraordinary, but these are extraordinary times. I would say that those who have expressed concerns, fiscal concerns, appropriators such as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), who is the ranking member of that committee, has legitimate concerns here and they ought to be considered. But, again, I would argue these are extraordinary times. The markets will open Monday morning. The signals we send on this floor are vitally important. It seems to me it is clear nothing will become law as a result of what we do tonight. We must await the action of the Senate. But we can send a signal tonight on this piece of legislation, like the signal we sent on the very last piece of legislation. We can send a signal that says the United States Congress understands that the airline industry has been massively damaged by what has happened in the last week and that colleagues like the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) are suffering dire consequences as a result of that. I would like to just draw a quick analogy. As we watched in horror on Tuesday when the World Trade Center collapsed, that collapse, if you talk to an engineer, was because one floor collapsed on the other and that floor was not designed to carry the weight of two. So those two collapsed on a third. And when those two collapsed on the third, that floor was not designed to carry the weight of three, and on and on and on. So we saw the collapse straight down to the ground of the entire building. Our enemies did not seek just to destroy the World Trade Center or the Pentagon; they seek to destroy our economy, and we had better be sure that we do not let them do that. Their goal is not merely, as the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) said, to kill individuals; it is to instill terror and fear and to cause us to freeze as a Nation. We must get our airlines back in the air; we must as individuals get back on those airlines. We must fly on them. Our sports games must resume. Our economy must resume in full force. And this is one minor step we could take. I understand that there have been assurances from the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that they will abide by the negotiated language tonight. I hope that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, is going to express his view that that language is critical and they must agree to live with that language in the conference committee. But if they do, I would hope that those who have a desire to object tonight, and who are thinking about objecting as a result of the fact that this is happening in extraordinary procedure, would consider the extraordinary times that we are in.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, on December 7, 1941, America was forthrightly challenged by a foe. A foe that came in marked planes and attacked military targets. They stood forward to defend themselves and their possessions. That was the Pearl Harbor attack. Yesterday, America sustained a cowardly attack. Our foes came in unmarked planes and they sought, not military targets, but civilian ones. Mr. Speaker, they have made a grave error. They have underestimated the resolve of this Nation. Make no mistake, we will hunt them down and they will pay. Last night, my daughter and several of her college colleagues went to a blood donation center and stood in line for over 4\1/2\ hours to give blood. She and millions of other Americans stand forthrightly today to help fight for a cause they believe in and a Nation they hold dear. Not until 3 hours ago did the full import of what has happened sink in to me. For 3 hours ago, I and 24 of my colleagues on the Republican Study Committee, Members of Congress, went to the Pentagon. We stood literally 50 feet from where the gaping hole exists in the side of that building. We spoke with the FBI, and we spoke with the first response teams that were there. We thanked them for what they had done. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to two of my colleagues who joined us for their reflections on that site and on these events. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I would simply say it was impossible to stand there and not be stricken with grief and embroiled in rage. The survivors of this tragedy, the victims and their families, deserve our thoughts and our prayers. It was brought home when we went to the site. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).