Airport and Airway Extension Act of Part II

Floor Speech

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Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I am standing in lieu of the ranking member Mr. Larsen, who can't be here, and he asked me to do this as I am the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Aviation, which this bill came out of.

I was here earlier today on a veterans' bill, and I mentioned that people sometimes don't think we work together, but military and veterans' issues are a place where Democrats and Republicans come together. We also come together on transportation issues generally, and this time we most assuredly did. There was an overwhelmingly large majority passing this bill on the floor, and it was because of the work of Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Larsen, and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves).

This is a good bill. It protects the flying public. It takes care of consumers who have been left in the breach either on the tarmac or left for hours with the plane not leaving or getting in late, giving them the right to get refunds, compensation, water, all those other things they would like to have. It takes care of trying to see that our air traffic controllers have a larger group of people to choose from, opening it up to minorities who have not really been encouraged and/or permitted so much into the air traffic control system.

We need more and more air traffic controllers, so this bill encourages more people to get involved in that because when we have a lack of air traffic controllers, we have got potential safety problems. We have had 9, 10, or 11--I don't know exactly how many--near- collisions because the air traffic controllers had too much work, some of them were doing other things, and they just don't have enough folks. For safety, we need to get this passed, as well as for consumers.

There are many other improvements detailed in the bill, but I am not going to go through these eight wonderful pages that my staffer has drawn up for me to read. I will just say it is a good bill. The Senate should get their work done and join with us in improving the public's safety in the air and their rights as consumers. The bill includes improvements in airport construction and also gives people with disabilities many more opportunities, too.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage everybody to vote ``aye'' and pass this bill.

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Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, in response to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), my friend, who wished us all merry Christmas, I wish him merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah.

Today is the Hanukkah party at the White House, and the Speaker has yet to limit votes so that the Members who attend can attend and not miss votes. We had votes moved on Christmas, and they should be moved on Hanukkah, too. I know the Speaker is very concerned about the Bible, and in the Bible, Moses said, let my people go. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I will yield back the balance of my time and not ask Mr. Graves who won the Heisman Trophy because he knows well-- the LSU quarterback.

New and persistent challenges facing the U.S. aviation system make clear that the status quo is unsustainable. We must extend the FAA's current authorization and recommit to passing a long-term, comprehensive reauthorization to avoid repeating this scenario. I support H.R. 6503 fully, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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