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American Morning

President and Congress Working on Airline Security Bill

Aired October 31, 2001 - 09:11   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush has been updating congressional leaders. At issue, the aviation safety bill and the fight against terrorism.

Congressional Correspondent Jonathan Karl has more on that live from Capitol Hill.

Jonathan, good morning.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

In what has become a weekly appearance, the president had breakfast this morning with the big four congressional leaders. The Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and the Senate met with the president, and the number 1 issue on the agenda was that airline security bill, which the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on tomorrow. But already you've got some serious positioning going on up here -- the president and the -- and the Democrats at odds on this issue.

Here's a look at basically what their fundamental disagreement is: It's a question of those people that screen your baggage at airports. There's 28,000 of them at airports across the country. Under the -- under the president's proposal, the Republican proposal in the House, those employees would be supervised by the federal government but they would be private contracts. Private companies would, by and large, do the screening or the president would have the option to do it that way. The Democrats, on the other hand, want to make all 28,000 of those at the biggest airports actually federal employees. So it would be federal employees that would be screening your luggage.

Now after that breakfast meeting with those congressional leaders, they all came to the microphones. And the Democratic leader of the House, Dick Gephardt, came out and said that he absolutely wants to go with that Democratic plan, not surprisingly, it would make them federal employees.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: Everyone wants to do the right thing. I think everybody wants to increase airline security. We feel that making them federal law enforcement officials is an important step to take. There's a disagreement about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: Standing at his side, Republican Senate leader Trent Lott acknowledged that disagreement, but said the important thing is that the disagreement is worked out quickly and that the Congress send the president an aviation security bill as soon as possible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TRENT LOTT (R), MINORITY LEADER: I'm more inclined to support the Young bill, the House position, but I voted for it, as did every senator, even though we might have had some problems with various aspects of it because we thought we should move it on through the process and get a result which will hopefully be completed within the next week or so. The president can sign the final product and we can say to the American people "we've taken the next step" to make sure that aviation is going to be secure and people will feel comfortable to fly to be with their families at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: Now this is a major disagreement, whether or not 28,000 people become federal employees or not, but, by and large, this bill includes the two bills. The competing Republican and Democratic plans have a lot of major similarities, including things like putting federal air marshals on airplanes, strengthening those cockpit doors, allowing pilots to carry firearms, and also providing a fee that would help pay for all of this. Miles.

O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill.

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