Improving America's Security Act of 2007

IMPROVING AMERICA'S SECURITY ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - March 06, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the vote we are about to have should give all Members of the Senate a sense of deja vu; we have been here before. We are about to vote on an amendment that is reminiscent of a rather significant debate we had in the fall of 2002 in connection with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. The issue at that time, as is the issue this morning, is the question of whether we are going to have collective bargaining for the transportation security agency.

The public spoke rather loudly in the fall of 2002 in the form of Senate elections that year. They thought collective bargaining for transportation security workers was not a good idea. The public was correct then, and I think that is the public view today. In the ongoing debate over Iraq, it is easy to forget the success we have had in fighting terrorism, and chief among that is the fact that America has not seen a terrorist attack at home in 5 1/2 years since 9/11. There is one reason, and that is the heroic work of our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and the tireless efforts of our homeland defenders in detecting, preventing, discouraging, and disrupting those attacks in our country. Yet, today, these two pillars of our post-9/11 security are being put at risk by those who have the audacity to put union work rules above the national security.

It is no secret that big labor expects something in return for last November's elections. But America's security should not be on the table. It is ironic that Democrats who campaigned on the pledge that they would implement all of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission are now forcing us to consider something that wasn't in the report at all. This measure was not in the report and they are blocking us from considering something that was in the report. I am talking about the proposal to give all 43,000 airport screeners the ability to collectively bargain. Not only was this proposal not in the 9/11 report, it would end up undermining the commission's recommendation.

A key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission said:

The United States should combine terrorist travel intelligence, operations, and law enforcement in a strategy to intercept terrorists, find terrorist travel facilitators, and constrain terrorist mobility.

That is in the 9/11 report. We saw this during the U.K. bombing threat in August. TSA workers who showed up for work at 4 a.m. that morning in the United States were briefed on the plot and trained immediately in the new protocol. Within 12 hours, we had taken classified intelligence and adapted to it. There was no noticeable impact on U.S. flights.

It was a different situation over in Great Britain, where unionization is the norm. Dozens of flights had to be canceled as they worked out an understanding on how they would respond to the new threat, travelers were delayed, and backups ensued literally for days. We saw the importance of mobility earlier that year when TSA acquired new technologies for bomb detection. It trained nearly 40,000 airport screeners in the new methods in less than 3 weeks. The TSA says that under collective bargaining the same training would take 2 to 6 months.

We are not going to let big labor compromise national security. The President has said he will veto a 9/11 bill if it includes collective bargaining. We have the votes to sustain that veto. The House has just announced it has the votes to sustain a Presidential veto.

This bill will not become law with this dangerous provision in it. The only question now is why we are being kept from passing a 9/11 bill that focuses on security alone. The President made it clear he will veto the bill if it includes a provision that compromises security. The American people have already made clear where they stand on collective bargaining.

Remember, as I stated, we have been down this road before. We had a huge debate in Congress over collective bargaining when we created the Department of Homeland Security. Americans didn't like the idea of labor slowdowns among security personnel in 2002. They said so at the polls in November of 2002. The answer, I am afraid, is clear: This new attempt to insert this into the 9/11 bill is a show that was meant to appease a voting bloc. We know how this charade is going to end. Republicans won't let security be used as a bargaining chip. We are not going to let it happen.

It is too bad Americans will have to wait even longer for this bill to be signed into law because of the efforts to satisfy organized labor.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

http://thomas.loc.gov/