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Floor Speech
We just had a major transportation hearing in the Commerce Committee before we left for the holiday recess, and we heard from airline executives--some who had implemented their own vaccines, some who had implemented other mandates and systems on their own, and others who basically responded to the Federal Government's desire to say that passengers would be required to wear masks. All of them said that this was a big success. All of them said that this, along with the Federal dollars that went into preserving the airlines, allowed us and our economy to recover better than other nations had; basically that when the upswing in transportation got to the point where people felt it was safe to travel, that those mechanisms themselves helped us have an airline sector and industry that could respond so that we literally, by Thanksgiving, were up to 85, 90 percent of where we had been the previous year.
So my colleague, I think, would like us to predetermine today exactly everything we are going to do on this issue; that we would prohibit the President, the Department of Transportation, Amtrak, and the Transportation Security Administration from making these decisions in the future.
Now, I can just tell you, I get up every day and I read the press. I also went to the gym today, and the first thing they said is, Where is your vaccination card or we are not letting you in? So there is the fact that businesses--the airlines and small businesses--are using this as a tool. Even though DC has the highest explosion of COVID cases in the Nation as a percentage right now--I understand that in the neighborhood I live in, there was a pretty hearty New Year's Eve, but everybody had to show a vaccination card to get into those businesses. Those businesses decided they were going to stay open. Those consumers decided they were going to participate--not the choice I would have made, but they decided to do that, and they showed their vaccination card.
So these businesses, the ones that the Federal Government is involved in--Amtrak and our transportation system--they also might have further issues in the future that they want to look at, so why pass a bill today that restricts them from showing proof of COVID vaccine in order to travel?
The proposals that were made at the time--we didn't really know 2 years ago now what was going to happen. But I can say--and that is why we had our most recent hearings--that we were right that the transportation sector was going to be critical to helping us fight the pandemic, that it was going to be critical for us to respond in our economy, and that it was going to be critical to providing essential services to some areas of the United States. The things we did allowed that air service to respond, and those business leaders showed up. In fact, one of them made a little mistake and said: Oh, you know, I think HEPA filters have really, really good responses, and maybe we don't need anything.
Well, he corrected that the next day. He corrected it the next day. He said: Oh, yeah, yeah, by the way, I believed in the mask mandate and still do.
An airline executive was questioned by some of my colleagues, who said: Why did you implement your own vaccine mandate of your employees?
He said: Because I wanted to have a workforce, and this is the best way I could get this workforce.
So this isn't a clear-cut issue, but I know, right now, why should we prohibit Amtrak or anybody from a decision that some of these small businesses are making right in this neighborhood, here in DC or probably Baltimore? My colleague has just joined us on the Senate floor. These people are making these decisions, and all we are saying is that the Federal Government, instead of passing Senator Scott's bill, should also have that decision in the future in their toolbox if they so choose. Why? Because the movement of commerce and transportation is so important to our infrastructure. It is so important to us as a nation to keep it going. I don't want to preclude any of the tools in the toolbox at this moment.
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