We've been informed by a knowledgable and trustworthy source that it is this Conference Committee that should be pressured (in addition to our own Senators and Congressmen). Unfortunately, as of this morning, we don't know who will be on this committee, but we were told that it usually is members from the subcommittee in charge.

So we can presume that the people will come from the Appropriations Subcommittees on Transportation , for the House, phone: 202-225-2141, and on the Senate side, phone: 202-224-7281, to get info on who and when. (Of course, current list of members would be on thomas.gov)

Another "insider" told us that, as the domestic smoking ban was put through as a last minute amendment by voice (meaning unrecorded) vote on a similar appropriations bill, and also, "in the dead of night", this could be ugly history repeating itself, so we definitely do need to act on it to stop it. The Conference Committee is most likely to be appointed and go into action in September, after they come back from break, BUT there remains some possibility that they will ram it through to the Committee next week. After the Conference Committe does its number, the reconciled Bill goes back to both the House and the Senate, for a final vote. Every step in this process provides an opportunity to make some change in the bill...for us as well as our enemies.

On our side in this is the Montreal based International Air Transport Association, which represents foreign air carriers, who don't like this and were important in stopping the last attempt, a couple of years ago, to do this. This time, you may have noticed, the bill contains what looks like an "out"...if a foreign carrier objects to the ban and "squawks", they could "negotiate" some "compromise'. This is an attempt to let the foreign carriers save face, but we're more interested in saving our smoking seats!