SENATE COMMITTEE ACTS TO BAN BUTANE LIGHTERS FROM PASSENGER AIRCRAFT

Big victory for airline security

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) --- U.S. Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) applauded action Wednesday by the Senate Commerce Committee that would ban butane lighters from being taken on board commercial airliners.

The committee accepted a Dorgan-Wyden amendment to the Airline Security bill. The amendment directs the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to ban the lighters from passenger flights and to conduct a review of its policies to make sure other potentially lethal items are not being allowed on flights.

“This is a big victory for airline security and for common sense,” Dorgan said. “What on earth were they thinking in the first place? Allowing butane lighters on passenger planes never made sense, especially when the FBI concluded that Richard Reid, the attempted ‘shoe-bomber,’ would likely have succeeded in blowing up a plane with 197 people on board if he’d had a butane lighter rather than matches,” Dorgan said.

“The Commerce Committee has taken an important, common-sense step to protect the flying public from catastrophic attacks in the air," said Wyden. "The near-miss with Richard Reid and statements by countless experts have made it clear that these small items pose too big a threat, and TSA needs to act."

Dorgan and Wyden have pushed to have the lighters banned for nearly a year. In October 2003, they wrote Admiral James Loy, then head of the Transportation Security Administration, to urge a review and reversal of the policy that allowed the lighters on board. Loy responded with a letter in December, in which he dismissed their concern, claiming that many people carry lighters that have “great value or sentiment” attached to them.

The two senators rejected that view and continued to push for a ban. In March of this year, TSA’s new Director, Rear Admiral David Stone, promised to review the policy. In August, Homeland Security Director Asa Hutchinson told the Senate Commerce Committee that a recommendation had been made on the rule, but refused to tell the committee what that recommendation had been.

“I don’t think either TSA or the Department of Homeland Security has pursued this issue with a sense of urgency or even an appropriate level of concern,” Dorgan said. “Putting a ban in place by law seems a prudent course, and I’m happy that is what Congress is acting to do.”

The legislation will next be considered by the full U.S. Senate.

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