House panel sets vote on protecting airplanes from missiles

A House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on Thursday will take the first step toward requiring that commercial airliners be equipped with defenses against shoulder-fired missiles and toward reducing the number of those missiles in circulation.

Florida Republican John Mica, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Aviation Subcommittee, panel ranking Democrat Peter DeFazio of Oregon and New York Democrat Steve Israel recently joined forces to draft a bill, H.R. 4056, that proposes long-term and short-term steps to address the longstanding threat of shoulder-fired missiles.

"The bill represents a compromise," Mica's spokesman said.

Mica's subcommittee plans to vote on the legislation Thursday, and the spokesman said the full committee plans to consider the bill next week. The International Relations Committee, which also has jurisdiction over the issue, has limited time to take action on the bill before it is released for a floor vote. Mica said earlier this month that floor action could happen as soon as May.

The weapons -- also called man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADS -- have existed for years, but since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the threat against U.S. commercial air fleet has become a cause for recurring debate among lawmakers and Bush administration officials.

Last year, Israel introduced legislation to require the Homeland Security Department to more quickly implement defensive mechanisms on U.S. passenger planes. Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., filed a similar bill. The department is testing defense systems but is not expected to deploy the devices until 2005. The department estimated that it would cost $10 million to equip the entire commercial air fleet.

Mica's spokesman said that while his boss shares Israel's passion to protect the traveling public, he believes the departmental timeline is necessary to make sure MANPADS are safe and durable for commercial aircraft. In the meantime, Mica, DeFazio and Israel believe their compromise measure would require the administration to take interim steps to limit the threat.

The legislation would encourage President Bush to pursue treaties and other diplomatic and cooperative efforts to limit the stockpile of missiles and destroy excess, old and stolen missiles. The bill would require the Federal Aviation Administration to expedite its process for certifying missile-defense systems for commercial aircraft and to avoid duplicating efforts underway by Homeland Security to test and deploy countermeasures. And it calls for international programs to buy back shoulder-fired missiles.

Next week, the General Accounting Office plans to release a report on the worldwide proliferation of shoulder-fired missiles. Investigators are expected to criticize the United States for its control over U.S. exports of the weapons, an Israel spokesman said.

A GAO spokeswoman said more than 800,000 shoulder-fired missiles exist worldwide, with 27 terrorist groups known to possess the weapons. They are relatively cheap -- ranging from $25,000 to $80,000 each -- take only seconds to prepare, require minimal training and have a flight time of three to 10 seconds. The missiles are most effective at 10,000 to 15,000 feet, when airplanes are at their most vulnerable altitude.