LIBERTY — Sen. Roger Wicker visited Amite County for a tour Friday of the Air Cruisers plant — seeing a contaminant control product funded by a congressional earmark and promising to work for more jobs in southwest Mississippi.
Wicker, who was appointed to fill former Sen. Trent Lott’s seat by Gov. Haley Barbour when Lott retired, will be up for re-election in November.
The visit allowed him to see the fruits of taxpayer money while campaigning around the state, with Air Cruisers officials touting the “LIDS-CBRNE” contaminant control product during Wicker’s trip.
The product is an inflatable tent that can be used to quarantine individuals affected in chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high yield explosive attacks — such as soldiers or first responders — as they go through various stages of decontamination.
After a tour that also included a demonstration of an Airbus-320 emergency slide and a water landing raft that inflates in less than a minute, Wicker thanked workers for their hospitality.
He then praised Air Cruisers’ employees as a direct support to American security. He said their emergency slides equip a majority of the U.S. air fleet, and other products such as rafts are used by military aircraft.
“You are not only helping the economy of the United States of America,” Wicker said.
“You’re making America safer. You’re making America safer for our troops over in Iraq and Afghanistan … and I hope you go to bed at night with a good feeling that you are saving lives all over the world.”
During the tour, Wicker asked several questions about the company’s tax status, pay scale and use of workers trained in local schools’ vocational tracks.
“These jobs are going to stay here in the U.S., right?” he asked, saying he wanted to make sure the company was boosting the local economy.
“I know how important a quality manufacturing plant can be to an area,” Wicker told workers in a speech at the tour’s conclusion. “I know that I want to be your teammate in that regard.”
Wicker also spoke on his ideas to ease the burden of gasoline prices, such as drilling in the Anwar region of Alaska.
“I wish I could tell you that there’s a quick solution,” Wicker said.
“We need to work with some of our environmental friends, but frankly, some of them are a little unrealistic.
“Why do we have a moratorium on using our own God-given resources?” Wicker asked. “We can be a friend to Mother Nature and still use our natural resourcesg.”
