Moran Says Bluff Led To DCA Reopening
Congressman recounts tale of airport's post-9/11 reopening
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ARLINGTON, VA - FEBRUARY 08: A U.S. Airways aircraft takes off from Reagan National Airport February 8, 2010 in Arlington, Virginia. The airport was partially opened to accommodate travelers after one of the biggest snowstorms in the history has hit the area. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
In the first days after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, one of the starkest indicators of the quickly altered world was the silence of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
As a dazed and shattered Washington region began to return to something resembling normalcy, the airport remained closed. DCA’s location at the heart of the federal government -- moments away from the Pentagon, White House, Capitol, and most of the buildings from which America is run -- had been transformed from a convenience into a danger.
High-level people in government and everyday commuters in and out of Washington suggested the airport should remain closed, possibly forever. I was living in Alexandria at the time, and have vivid memories of seeing the eerily quiet airport as the Yellow Line clacked past it each day.
In a new interview with WAMU, Rep. Jim Moran, who represents the northern Virginia district where the airport stands, says he took action to get the airport reopened, against the wishes of the Bush Administration.
“It was thousands of jobs at the airport, but more importantly than that, it was a major factor in the Washington area’s economy,” Moran told WAMU’s David Schultz.
Moran and other representatives from the districts surrounding Washington appealed to the White House, warning of a regional economic collapse, but the Bush Administration thought reopening DCA was too much of a risk.
“We got nowhere,” Moran told WAMU. He said he then took a more aggressive approach.
“We finally got to the point where we threatened to enact legislation” to force the reopening of the airport, he said. Meeting with top Bush aides, including Karl Rove, who “were still adamant that it wasn’t going to open.” Moran recalls that he said, “We’re going to put this bill through that will embarrass the Bush Administration,” and said he had the votes lined up to pass it.
Moran now says he never had the votes, but “had a hunch that they hadn’t done their homework, and that they didn’t know that I didn’t have the votes.”
On the day after that Oct. 1 meeting, President Bush appeared at the airport to announce that it would reopen later that week.
