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Read Chairman Pfluger's full exchange with the witnesses below:
Rep. Pfluger: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the witnesses for being here, and a lot of kudos, Mr. McLaughlin, to what DFW does. I fly through there all the time. You run an incredible airport, TSA operations inside DFW. There are airports you will fly out of, and some that are not as good, and DFW is a great example. And I also want to say thank you back to my district, to San Angelo, to Midland. You guys came to work with a smile on your face, you kept our airport safe, and you weren't paid for multiple months, and I want to thank you for the work that you did. Dr. Kelly, you said something interesting. You said that these workers do sacred work, holy work. I agree with you. They don't do it for pay, do they?
Chairman Everett Kelley: Definitely not.
Rep. Pfluger: In fact, they weren't paid for how many months? It's over 75 days. So you said they do something that is sacred to keep us safe. That Pan Am flight, I'm so glad you brought that up. It wasn't just 9/11. There were a string of events, weren't there, before 9/11. Are we still facing a threat in the United States of America for people who want to co-opt air travel for the purposes of terrorism?
Chairman Everett Kelley: I certainly think that we are still facing those threats. I mean, there are those in this world who want to harm Americans.
Rep. Pfluger: And they would use air travel to do that harm, wouldn't they?
Chairman Everett Kelley: I think they could, yes.
Rep. Pfluger: Well, Dr. Kelly, let me ask you a question. How harmful was it for our TSA agents to have to go home to their families and tell them, "I'm not going to get a paycheck"? How harmful was that to the overall force?
Chairman Everett Kelley: You know, the thing of the matter is, this is what we have to understand. The TSA agents take an oath. They take an oath to defend the American public, and they do that with pride.
Rep. Pfluger: They don't do it for free.
Chairman Everett Kelley: I'm proud of the fact that they do that, and that they did that without a paycheck. But understanding that their mission is to protect the flying public, they take that to heart.
August Pfluger: And they take that very seriously. In fact, they came to work for multiple months without getting a paycheck, didn't they?
Chairman Everett Kelley: That's a fact.
Rep. Pfluger: Dr. Kelly, do you also represent folks who work with Border Patrol?
Chairman Everett Kelley: I certainly do.
Rep. Pfluger: What's their feeling? How's their morale right now? On the subject of not getting paid, how is their morale?
Chairman Everett Kelley: You know, I think anybody's morale is down when they're not getting paid, but they also understand the mission. They, too, understand that they are working for the American public.
Rep. Pfluger: How many months can they go with a Congress telling them that they don't want them to exist?
Chairman Everett Kelley: You know, I don't think they should have to go one day with the Congress telling them that they should not exist.
Rep. Pfluger: I agree.
Chairman Everett Kelley: What they should be doing is praising these employees who have gone for over 119 days without pay. They should be praising them for making sure that even though they came to work without pay under stressful conditions, they still performed their duties, and they performed them well.
Rep. Pfluger: That is very well said, Dr. Kelly. Mr. McLaughlin, let's change over to TSA. How do you balance the potential benefits of private screening operations with the importance of maintaining a well-trained and well-structured TSA? Give us an example there at DFW, and how would that apply to Midland and to San Angelo if we were to put that model in place?
Chris McLaughlin: To the point that was made earlier, the SPP program has been around really since the onset of TSA, and it has worked for 22 airports around the country. I think it's important for airports to have choices. I think there might be places where an SPP model could work for specific airports. I think lower-volume airports have, over time, been the more likely airports to participate in SPP. A lot of that has to do with labor availability and other issues in remote areas. And, by the way, thank you for your kind words about the work that's done by tens of thousands of employees that really make up the community of DFW, which includes federal, it includes airlines, and it includes our own employees. In our case, our federal TSA officers do an amazing job. Even during the shutdowns at DFW, we did not experience the line weights that others saw around the country, and I attribute that to the quality of the leadership at DFW, as well as the quality of the workforce. They were showing up without fuel in their car; they were showing up, making choices between feeding their families and taking on a side job.
Rep. Pfluger: How tragic is that?
Chris McLaughlin: It is, but it speaks to the quality of the workforce, and that should be commended.
Rep. Pfluger: I maintain good contact with Ms. Smith at DFW, and a lot of praise for her continuing to motivate those [employees]. Mr. Sununu, very quickly, how important is it for the folks that you represent to have an operation that keeps the airline and air traffic safe, specifically TSA and their association?
Christopher Sununu: National Airspace is a public-private partnership. I represent the airlines from the private side, and on the public side, you have the air traffic controllers, the TSA agents, all those pieces. It has to work hand in glove together, and I firmly believe that on the private side, the airlines and the other private contractors and private entities, that whether it's from the point you park your car to the point you get to where you're going, it's a lot of different pieces there. And I think the private end has done a phenomenal job, in spite of two government shutdowns, in spite of these increased prices on jet fuel that we're seeing lately, or the spirit issue that was going on.
Rep. Pfluger: I'm sorry, my time has expired. Any further thoughts on that, please put it in writing.
Christopher Sununu: The government has to do its job; they've got to pay their employees. Period. End of story. No excuses. Political issues don't matter.
Rep. Pfluger: Thank you.
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