Clinton Enacts Tougher Airport Security Measures

Surrounded by people who have lost loved ones in airline crashes, President Clinton on Wednesday signed into law a bill that tightens airport security against terrorism.

Conceived after the July 17 crash of TWA Flight 800, which exploded off Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard, the $19-billion law calls for upgrading bomb-detecting luggage scanners at major airports, requires background and fingerprint checks for workers with access to airport security areas, increases the number of FBI agents assigned to counter-terrorism and increases mail and international air cargo inspections.

“Because of these improvements, Americans will not only feel safer, they will be safer,” said Clinton. “We cannot make the world risk-free, but we can reduce the risks we face.”

Some of the women who stood with Clinton as he signed the legislation broke down crying as they watched the signing.

Clinton embraced the Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996 in spite of a provision that takes a poke at organized labor, a key constituency that is spending millions to help him and Democratic candidates win next month’s elections.

That provision classifies all Federal Express employees as aviation workers, which, under the National Railway Act, means they can only organize in a union nationally. Federal Express truck drivers want the right to organize locally.

Separately, the new law bars unlicensed pilots from attempting aeronautical competitions or feats, a response to the death of 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff of Pescadero, Calif., who crashed April 11 while trying to become the youngest pilot to fly across the country.

It also gives the National Transportation Safety Board the duty of notifying and assisting families after a plane crash, a task previously left to the airlines.

That provision was one of several recommendations made by the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, which Clinton created after the crash of Flight 800.

Clinton also signed legislation Wednesday pulling the plug on the federal helium reserve, a perennial target of budget-cutters.

The reserve, based outside Amarillo, Texas, could supply the world demand for helium for 10 years and the federal government’s needs for 80 years. It will be sold over an 18-year period so as not to destabilize the private helium market.

In addition, Clinton signed three bills that expand benefits, increase disability payments and improve health services for veterans, and a bill that brings unemployment benefits for railroad workers in line with those paid to other workers.