Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, the title of the bill just reported is the correct title. However, the legislation we are discussing inside that bill does not relate so much to the title. This is the FAA reauthorization bill, reauthorizing a wide range of programs in the Federal Aviation Administration. This is the fifth day we have been on the floor. Senator Rockefeller has been managing the legislation. He is necessarily absent now and asked me, as chairman of the aviation panel, to manage in his stead. He has said--and I agree--we have put together a piece of legislation that has substantial modernization pieces in it that will modernize the air traffic control system, provide substantial improvements in safety, improvements in the airport improvement program to invest in and expand the infrastructure in aviation. It contains a lot of things that are so very important. I worry now, on the fifth day on this legislation, that if we don't get it done today, we may not get this bill done at all. That would be a shame because this authorization has languished for a long time. Rather than reauthorize the FAA with a new authorization, we have extended it 11 straight times. That describes how difficult it is to get things done. Finally, Senator Rockefeller and Senator Hutchison have brought the bill to the Senate floor. Senator DeMint and I, as chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee, worked on the bill with them. We have now been here 5 days. The question will be, between now and the end of today, will we get this done or does this dissolve as unfinished work? We made a good try, but we just didn't make it happen, so it gets extended again and all of this work is for nought. The fact is, every single Senator and every constituent of every Member has a big stake in getting this done. Anybody who flies on commercial airlines--and that is a lot of Americans--has a big stake in the issue of air traffic control modernization, improvements to safety, and the things that are included in this legislation. The failure to do this would be a great disappointment, not only for us but for the American people. We have cleared a lot of amendments. As has been the case recently with a lot of legislation, there has been a lot of delay. We have worked on amendments en bloc that have been cleared. There is an additional group of amendments we hope we will clear. At 2 o'clock today there will be votes on two amendments side by side, offered within the rules, although they do not relate to this particular legislation. But we will vote on those and try to dispose of those issues. There is another issue, probably the last significant issue that is there. That is the issue of the slots and the perimeter rule at National Airport in Washington, DC. The slots and perimeter rule is controversial, complex, difficult. We have a number of amendments filed representing different interests of how many additional flights should be added to Washington National, how many flights might be added that would extend beyond what is a perimeter rule at Washington National. I hope those who have filed those amendments will agree to stand down and allow us to try to resolve that in some way in conference. The House, in its legislation, does address in part the slot rule. If we get to conference with the House, if we can pass a bill through the Senate, it will be something we will need to resolve there. What my great concern is, if this afternoon, following the votes, we get into long, protracted debate about the various amendments that have been filed on the slot and perimeter rules, this bill will not get done. A number of people who have offered amendments dealing with slots have great interest in making certain this bill gets done. My fear is, if it is not done today, it probably will not be done. We will probably not complete this legislation. I will be visiting and talking with those who have offered those amendments, asking if we can work with them as we go into conference and try to address the slot and perimeter rules with the House. It has to be a part of our conference because the House has a number of provisions in their legislation dealing with those issues. The frustration for 200-plus years in the Senate is nothing moves very quickly. That remains a frustration in 2010. Nothing here moves very quickly. That is part of the charm of the Senate, perhaps, and part of the abiding frustration of the Senate. At least on important issues during important times things really should move. There are certain things that are urgent to get done. One year has now passed since the last commercial aviation accident in Buffalo, NY. As a result of that accident and the investigation that ensued, a number of new safety recommendations are included in this legislation. It is important for us to understand the urgency of passing legislation that will substantially improve aviation safety. To ignore it is to shortchange the American people. We are working through the amendments. I expect this afternoon we will have these votes. I also hope we can work with our colleagues on the slot or perimeter rule amendments that have been offered in order to resolve them. My hope is we will resolve them not by protracted debate, which will probably doom this bill because we will likely not have additional time on the Senate floor after 5 full days, but resolve them in a way that allows those who care about this to work with us as we go into conference with the House on the slot and perimeter rules. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. First, let me say I support the Senator's amendment. Both amendments have some merit. It is not unworthy to be talking about trying to tighten belts in every area of public spending, but some public spending is more important than others, and we ought to be judicious as we deal with it. The difference, as I understand, between these amendments is one says, Let's cut spending in one area, which is domestic discretionary spending, which is a rather small part of the budget, and it doesn't address the other issues of the spending that goes on through the Tax Code, the entitlement spending, and other larger issues as well. Even as we vote on these issues--and I intend to vote in support of your initiative, which I think is the right initiative--I have to say I don't think this is complicated in terms of what has happened to our country and what we have to do to put it back on track. You can't send kids off to war and then say we are going to charge all the costs of war. We have been involved now in the war against terrorism, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and not paid for a penny of it because throughout the last decade the President said we are going to make all of this emergency spending. Some of us said, Well, let's pay for it? And President Bush said, If you try to pay for it, I will veto the bill. So it is not particularly complicated to understand what has happened here. Government has to pay its bills. Dealing with the entire area of public spending here is very important, and I think the Senator has offered a piece of legislation, an amendment, that has great merit and I hope will get the substantial support of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, before the Senator leaves the floor, let me say that the families of the victims of the Colgan crash--the tragedy that occurred just about a year ago now--have been unrelenting in coming to the Congress, appearing at every single hearing, meeting with Members of Congress, saying: We want these changes. I just wanted to say I know the families know but New Yorkers should know the work Senator Gillibrand has done, and Senator Schumer as well, to try to include in this legislation, the FAA Reauthorization Act, some very needed changes, safety changes, that resulted from what we learned in investigating that accident. Senator Gillibrand talked about the fact that 2 people entered the cockpit of a commercial plane that evening, and then a number of people--45 people--entered from another door and filled that commercial airplane and set off at night, in bad weather, with icing conditions. The two people in the cockpit--the person flying in the left seat, the captain, had not slept in a bed for 2 nights, and the copilot had not slept in a bed the night before. As Senator Gillibrand indicated, she had deadheaded from Seattle, WA, which is where she lived, to go to work, to a workstation in La Guardia. This is a young copilot who was paid between $20,000 and $23,000 a year in salary deadheading across the country to get to her duty station, not feeling particularly well, sitting in the crew lounge, where there is no bed. The point is, we have learned that is just the fatigue issue and the commuting issue. We learned about training issues in that cockpit with the stick pusher, the stick shaker, icing conditions, and other things. So I want to say we have learned so much from that tragedy. Our hearts go out to the victims of the crash, and, yes, the pilot and copilot lost their lives as well, and our hearts go out to their families. But it is important for us to learn from this. The diligence of Senator Gillibrand and Senator Schumer, especially, and I would say especially the witness exhibited by the families of the victims over all of these months have been extraordinarily important in putting in this bill some very needed safety changes. So I thank Senator Gillibrand for her diligence.

Mr. DORGAN. We are on the FAA reauthorization bill. I want to comment on the discussion of my colleague from Arkansas, but I will do that briefly. I did want to say before that, however, that we really threaten to lose this bill. We have been on the floor now 5 days. We have a number of amendments. We are going to vote at 2 o'clock today on a couple of amendments that are properly filed, but they have nothing to do with the underlying bill. We have some other amendments still waiting that have nothing to do with the underlying bill. And then we have this issue of slot rules and perimeter rules with National Airport, which is unbelievably complicated. I think we have eight amendments, and my hope is that we can convince people not to offer those amendments. We will try to deal with them in conference because the House has a couple of provisions. But if we do not complete this bill today, after 5 days, then I worry we will never get back to it and once again the issues of aviation safety and airport improvement funds and all of those issues will be left at the starting gate. We have extended this 11 times. Rather than reauthorizing the FAA bill, we have extended it 11 times. Now we finally have legislation that deals with aviation safety, which is so unbelievably important, a passengers' Bill of Rights, AIP improvement funds. Let's get this done today. I urge colleagues, if they have amendments to offer, offer them. As to the vote at 2 o'clock, Senator Pryor has offered an amendment that one of my colleagues described as a cover amendment, not very serious. That is unfair to Senator Pryor. His amendment is not only serious, it is so much better than an amendment described as a baby step. It is OK to take baby steps, but we don't exactly face baby challenges. We have unbelievable fiscal policy challenges. It should not surprise anybody that we face these unbelievable challenges. Ten years ago, we had a budget surplus. President George Bush said: I want very large tax cuts, the bulk of which will go to the wealthiest Americans. Some of us said no. I said no. Katy bar the door, it happened. It accounts for about 50 percent of the current deficit, as a matter of fact, going forward. Then we had a recession. Then we had a 9/11 attack. We had a war against terrorism, a war in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and now back in Afghanistan. None of that was paid for. All paid for with emergency money stuck on top of the Federal debt. This is unsustainable. There is no question how serious it is. But when we do address it, let's address it in a way that tends to grab this problem and begins to fix it. My colleague seemed to suggest, let's clean house, and we will only do the smallest room. That doesn't make any sense to me. Senator Pryor has offered an amendment that says: Let's look at all areas. I know why it is the smallest room. Because the minute you talk about taxes, some people here have an apoplectic seizure. What about asking people who aren't paying their fair share to do so. What about asking those earning the highest incomes in the land and paying a 15-percent tax rate to begin paying what the rest of the American people pay? How about that? Is that a tax increase? I suppose for somebody who makes $3.6 billion in a year, which is $300 million a month or $10 million a day, and that person, who incidentally was the highest income earner running a hedge fund in 2008, that person not only got $10 million a day in income but, because of the generosity of this Chamber and others, gets to pay a 15-percent rate, one of the lowest income tax rates. Warren Buffett wrote an op-ed piece some while ago. I like Warren Buffett. I have known him for some years, one of the world's richest men. They did a little survey in his office in Omaha. Of the people who work in that office, if you take a look at the taxes paid, income taxes and payroll, the lowest tax rate paid was by one of the world's richest people. A higher tax rate is paid by his receptionist than by him. Think of that. Warren Buffett is the first to say that is not fair. It is not right. You need to straighten that out. Under what we are going to vote on proposed by the Sessions-McCaskill amendment, you couldn't do that. They want to keep that over here because that would be trouble if you decided to ask those folks to pay their fair share. It is not a tax increase to ask others to pay what most Americans pay. If you want all the benefits America has to offer, how about meeting the responsibilities to your country? That is a lengthy way of saying, Senator Pryor has offered an amendment that says: Let's look at everything. Let's ask those who are not paying their share to pay. Let's look at discretionary spending but not only that. Look at all of it: Defense, entitlements, do it all, and do it in a serious way with the seriousness of purpose that says to the people looking to the future, we are going to get this under control. We are going to seize this deficit and debt problem and tame it. We don't have a choice. If we don't reestablish some confidence in the future among the American people, this economy will not recover. I briefly taught economics in college. I used to teach that this is all about confidence. If people are confident, they do things that are expansive to the economy--buy a suit, a car, a home, take a trip. They do things that expand the economy. When they are not confident about their families, about the future, they do exactly the opposite. They delay the purchase. That contracts the economy. We need to do some things that will give the American people some confidence that we are not going to stay on this path. This path is unsustainable. It requires us to look at every aspect of fiscal policy and domestic policy and find a way to tame these deficits. I strongly support the amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas. I don't agree it deserves to be called a cover amendment. It has a much greater seriousness of purpose than the Sessions-McCaskill amendment. I hope the Senate will see fit to support the amendment offered by Senator Pryor. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. Let me observe that we were able to get that bill out of the Commerce Committee because we did not deal with the slot issue. I understand there is an appetite for slots and perimeters. The only way we will get an FAA reauthorization bill done is if we get it out of the Senate and get into conference somehow. That is the dilemma. If we get involved in a lengthy debate with multiple amendments on slots and perimeters, we may never get the FAA authorization off the floor. We will never have the opportunity to get all the other things that relate to that bill. It seems to me we could in conference, even as it goes to conference, work on a solution that would resolve some of the issues the Senator mentioned.

Mr. DORGAN. I am required to object. By a unanimous consent previously ordered, we have a 2 o'clock vote, and the Senator from New York has asked for 5 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, that is the pending amendment. We have other amendments that have been filed, properly filed, and we are hoping to have additional votes this afternoon. What we hope to do is complete this bill this afternoon. We have a number of issues that I think are being resolved in meetings off the floor. It is now 3 o'clock, and I know the majority leader would very much like to complete this bill. This is the fifth day we have been on the floor trying to pass an FAA reauthorization bill that should have been passed 11 times previously but was extended 11 successive times. This deals with commercial aviation safety, airport improvement, infrastructure improvement, a passengers' bill of rights, so many very important things. Some have said: Well, this will not get done this year either. But after 5 days on the floor of the Senate, I remain with some hope that we can get this done if we could get a bit of cooperation from our colleagues who have amendments to come over and offer them and we will have votes on them and the Senate will make decisions and we will have a final vote on this bill. This bill should not be controversial. It is bipartisan. It came out of the Commerce Committee with support from Republicans and Democrats, so we ought not have controversy on the floor of the Senate about when we will get this bill completed. I know one of the issues that remains unresolved at this point are amendments dealing with what are called the slot rules at National Airport and the perimeter rule, kind of a complicated set of rules with respect to how many slots are allowed for takeoffs and landings at National Airport per hour and also how far those airplanes can fly because there have been some limitations with respect to the perimeter. There are fewer nonstop flights from Washington National. Most of the nonstop flights, particularly coast to coast, happen from Dulles Airport in this region. There are amendments on the slots and the perimeter rule with respect to National Airport. I hope we can get this resolved. We decided not to address that issue in the Commerce Committee because it is very controversial and it is an open issue when we go to conference with the House because the House does address it. The best approach, in my judgment, would be for those who wish to offer amendments on the slot and perimeter rules to withhold those amendments here, and we will reach an agreement when we go to conference on how we can create the Senate position in terms of what we want to do on these issues. It is an open issue and, undoubtedly, we can resolve it in conference. If we have eight amendments on slot rules and perimeter rules and debate them for a few more days, this bill may very well be a casualty of time. After 5 days, I think the majority leader feels--appropriately--and I feel and I know Senator Hutchison and others feel as well that we want to get this bill done today. If people have amendments, come down and offer them and debate them. If they do have amendments they want to offer, I hope some epiphany will occur to suggest to them they do not need to come down and offer them. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, while we are waiting for colleagues to come and offer amendments to the underlying bill, let me speak in morning business for as much time as I may consume.

Mr. DORGAN. I will relinquish the floor if colleagues come and wish to offer amendments to the FAA bill. That is what I prefer happen at the moment. Travel to Cuba Mr. President, I wish to visit in morning business about legislation that Senator Mike Enzi from Wyoming and I have worked on now for some long while. It has 38 cosponsors, 38 Senators cosponsoring, Republicans and Democrats. It deals with the question of travel to Cuba. As you know, what we have at the moment and have had since 1962 is a prohibition on the American people's ability to travel to the country of Cuba. Cuba rests about 90 miles off our shore. We have, obviously, had massive disagreements with the Castro regime for many years. In order to punish the Castro regime, we have restricted the rights of the American people to travel. We can travel unimpeded to many other countries. We can travel to Communist China. We can travel to Vietnam, a Communist country. We can travel to North Korea, if you can get a visa to get in. No restrictions there. The American people just cannot travel to Cuba. Let me describe the absurdity of this which leads Senator Enzi and me to offer this legislation. We have not offered it on the underlying bill today, but we will offer it on an authorization bill in the near future. With 38 cosponsors, we feel this bill would pass the Senate with some ease. Let me point out that the New York Philharmonic Orchestra is the oldest symphony orchestra in America, founded in 1842. The New York Philharmonic Orchestra is one of our most renowned cultural ambassadors around the world. In 1959, the New York Philharmonic played in the Soviet Union in Moscow. Last year, the New York Philharmonic has also played music in Communist Vietnam. In 2008, the New York Philharmonic played music in North Korea. By the way, if anyone has a chance to go to YouTube and/or the Internet and look at the reaction of the North Koreans to the New York Philharmonic playing music in Pyongyang, it is extraordinary--quite a cultural experience for our country to send this philharmonic orchestra to those countries. The only place they were not able to play was Havana, Cuba, in October 2009. Plans for those concerts had to be canceled. Think of that: the New York Philharmonic was able to go and play music in Moscow at the height of the Cold War, in North Korea, in Vietnam, but it wasn't able to play in Havana, Cuba. Why? Well, we have had now, through 10 Presidencies, an embargo in place. An embargo has been in place that not only embargoes the movement of goods to Cuba but also punishes the American people by saying: You can't travel to Cuba. That is what Senator Enzi and I and 37 other Senators wish to say is inappropriate, and we want to lift those travel restrictions. I understand the Castro government has restricted the freedoms of the Cuban people. I understand this country has no use for the Castro government. I have no use for the Castro government. I want the Cuban people to be free. I think the most likely approach to freedom for the Cuban people is to allow them to hear other voices, other than just the Castro government. Opening up Cuba to travel by Americans, it seems to me, will provide those other voices. Mr. President, this chart shows we have under the current U.S. policy, criminal penalties for violating sanctions of travel to Cuba: 10 years in prison, $1 million in corporate fines, and $250,000 for individuals. Well, let me show a few people who have run afoul of the law against traveling to Cuba. This is Joni Scott. Joni Scott went to Cuba. She went to Cuba with a church group to distribute free bibles in the rural areas--free bibles, distributing free bibles to Cuba. She got back to our country and, guess what. Our country sent her a letter because she was honest and said she had been in Cuba distributing bibles. She got a letter saying: We are fining you $10,000. So we fine an American citizen $10,000 for going to Cuba to distribute free bibles? That is unbelievable. But it is not just Joni Scott. Here is another Joan. This is Joan Slote. I have met both these women, by the way. Joan Slote was in her mid seventies when she went to Cuba. She was a Senior Olympian. She is a bicyclist, and she joined a Canadian cycle group to go ride a bicycle in Cuba. She came back and found out that her government was going to levy a $10,000 fine. Then, by the way, they decided to try to attach her Social Security payments because she hadn't responded. She hadn't responded because she had gone to her son's side, who was suffering from brain cancer, and she didn't get the mail. So this woman, for cycling in Cuba, was told she should pay her government $10,000 in fines. This is Sergeant Lazo--SGT Carlos Lazo. We actually had a vote about Carlos Lazo on the floor of the Senate on an amendment I offered one day. He fled from Cuba on a raft, joined the U.S. Army and went to Iraq to fight for our country. He won a Bronze Star Medal fighting for America in Iraq. He came back to this country and discovered one of his children--he has young children who, by the way, were still living in Cuba--one of his children was sick. Sergeant Lazo wanted to go to Cuba to visit his sick child. Having won a Bronze Star Medal on the battlefield in Iraq, he was told by his government: You have no right to see your sick child in Cuba. Unbelievable. So that is what we have, this restriction on travel to Cuba. Senator Enzi and I believe it is past the time, long past the time to eliminate it; to stop punishing the American people by restricting their right to travel. The last chart I have is a photograph of an airplane that flies around distributing television signals into the country of Cuba. We have spent $\1/4\ billion in our country sending television signals that the Cuban people can't receive because they are routinely blocked by the Cuban Government. We send television signals to the Cuban people to tell them how wonderful freedom is, when they know that by listening to Miami radio stations. We have spent $\1/4\ billion doing it, and I have tried to eliminate that expenditure time and time again and have been unsuccessful. Talk about government waste. Government waste even has cosponsorship in the United States on this issue. The point is very simple. Senator Enzi and I, and many other Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, believe we ought to stop punishing the American people for the actions of the Cuban government. Many years ago, we also had a complete embargo on all shipments and goods to Cuba, which included food, which I felt was immoral. So I and then-Senator Ashcroft sponsored a resolution that passed the Congress and became law that opened up just a bit in the embargo to say: You can sell food into the Cuban marketplace and ship medicine into the Cuban marketplace. You can do that, but it has to be paid for in cash, and you can't run the cash through an American bank. So running these transactions through European banks for cash, our farmers now have sold a substantial amount of commodities in the Cuban marketplace, just as the Canadian farmers have always done, and just as the European farmers have always done. So just that little bit of change in the embargo, opening up opportunities to sell food and medicine into the Cuban marketplace, was a significant step. But I think this embargo has been an unbelievable failure, through 10 Presidencies, and I think it is time for us to decide the best way to promote freedom in Cuba--and I think 39 of us believe this in the Senate, having cosponsored the legislation, and many more would vote for it--is to stop punishing the American people, to stop restricting travel. The Castro government will have a very difficult time if an onslaught of Americans go to travel in Cuba, and Cubans hear other voices other than the Castro government. Again, we have tried to address this issue of travel for a long while. I would hope most who are engaged in this would hang their heads with some shame that we are spending our time tracking down someone who is under suspicion of taking a vacation to Cuba so we can levy a $10,000 fine. What an absurd contradiction for a country that measures its health and freedom. What an absurd contradiction. We have something down at the Treasury Department called OFAC Office of Foreign Assets Control. OFAC has the main mission of shutting down the flow of money to terrorist organizations. That is what they are supposed to be doing. The fact is, they have a Miami office, and for a good part of the last decade they spent 60 percent of their money trying to track American citizens who were suspected of vacationing in Cuba. Again, are we daft? Have we lost all sense? That doesn't make any sense to me at all. We had a couple of colleagues from the Senate in the newspaper the other day encouraging people not to go. There is a trip to Cuba described in the paper--I believe they have a license to go--but some colleagues were encouraging people not to go. Well, with respect to China, for example, a Communist country, we have always said that constructive engagement through trade and travel is what will lead to greater human rights in China. That has always been the belief of this country. It is the way we deal with China, the way we deal with Vietnam, it is the way we would deal with North Korea if they would allow Americans in because we don't restrict the American right to travel to North Korea or Vietnam or China--only to Cuba. Some of us believe it is an archaic, absurd contradiction for our country to continue doing this. I hope, perhaps, in the name of Sergeant Lazo or, perhaps, Joni Scott, or any number of others--and I didn't mention the young man from the State of Washington whose father died. His father had previously been a minister at a church in Cuba. This young man, when his father died and was cremated, took his ashes to Cuba to have the ashes placed on the grounds of the church his father served in in Cuba. He did that. That was his father's last wish. When he came back to this country, he was tracked by his government and levied a fine. That is not what this government ought to be doing. So if the Congress can and will pass the amendment Senator Enzi and I have constructed, which has wide support in the Senate, I think we will have done something that is important. Having said all that, I expect there will be things written tomorrow by those who watched these proceedings to say that this amendment is somehow sympathetic to the Cuban government. It is not. That is an absurd proposition. It is not sympathetic to anything except sympathetic to freedom for the American people. Let's stop punishing the American people for others' transgressions. The fact is, the American people ought to have the right to travel where they wish, where they choose--and they generally do, with this exception. But what is happening now is that the Office of Foreign Asset Control--which is supposed to be tracking Osama bin Laden and other known terrorists and tracking their finances to try to shut down the financing of terrorism--is diverting its attention to see if they can't nab a couple of Americans who went to take a vacation in Cuba. This country is better than that, and we can do better than that by passing the legislation I and Senator Enzi have authored. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 4:15 p.m. be equally divided and controlled in the usual form and that at 4:15 p.m., the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the following amendments in the order listed; that prior to each vote there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled in the usual form; that the second vote in the sequence be a 10-minute vote and no intervening amendments be in order: Inhofe amendment No. 3549; McCain amendment No. 3475.

Mr. DORGAN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. We will be voting at 4:15 on two amendments. Following that, we have 17 amendments en bloc that have been agreed to by both sides. We can't get them here and have them voted on because of objection, but by and large, they have been agreed on by both sides. Following that, the issue of the slot rules and perimeter--if we can find a way to resolve that, we should be able to finish the bill this afternoon. If not, if there are some who insist they intend to offer amendments, that will be problematic and we probably will not be able to finish this bill. This bill is about aviation safety, modernization, a passenger bill of rights. I hope that we will be able to have some cooperation by Senators--this is the fifth day we have been on the floor with this bill--to get this done today. I hope that will be the case.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I yield back the time. I make a point that the pending amendment deals with matter within the Budget Committee's jurisdiction. I raise a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 306 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, Senator Reid has asked I announce to Senators that there will be no further votes this evening and there will be no votes tomorrow. We expect the next vote to be Monday at 5:30 p.m. We do expect finally that we are near an agreement by which we would be able to finish this FAA reauthorization bill with a final vote Monday evening. That is our expectation. I indicated I would describe the circumstances. We are hopeful, as I indicated earlier, that we would be able to reach conclusion on this bill. We were hopeful in doing it tonight. That was not possible. But we expect to have final passage on the FAA reauthorization bill on Monday at 5:30. But let me describe the discussions we have had more recently with Senator Kyl and Senator Warner and many other colleagues--Senator Hutchison. There remains very little to be done on this bill. We have 17 amendments that have been agreed to on both sides that would be offered en bloc. We were not able to offer those until we were able to resolve another issue or at least begin discussion of another issue. And then there was an issue dealing with slots and perimeter rules for Reagan National Airport. It has been controversial in the past--for many, many years--and some colleagues on both sides of the aisle have offered amendments dealing with slots and the perimeter rule. So it has caused a lot of discussion for some long while. We have people on both sides of these issues, for and against increasing slots and expanding the number of flights beyond the perimeter at Reagan National. What we have discussed more recently is that an amendment would be offered by the minority. They would perhaps modify an amendment that is now filed, and they would offer an amendment on the slots--I guess slots and the perimeter rule--and have that debated. One of the things we discussed is that we understand, going into conference with the House, that the House has provisions to increase slots at Reagan National. So that will be an issue in conference. The question is, What is the Senate's position going into conference? It can be determined by a vote on the floor of the Senate--yes or no--or it can be determined in good faith by discussions with all of us who understand there will be modifications, some kinds of modifications on slots and the perimeter rule. What will they be? Those conversations, it seems to me, can also become, between now and Monday, a part of the discussion and good-faith negotiation on how to approach a conference that reaches the interests and needs of the broadest group of Senators. So that is what we have done. We expect to have a new amendment filed that will modify one previously filed and have a debate about that. My hope is that we would not have a vote on that and instead reach some common understanding that we would work together on the slot and the perimeter issue in a way that can satisfy the broad interests here in the Senate and take that position into conference in a very assertive way and hope the Senate provision would prevail in conference. Mr. President, that is my understanding of where we are, and with that, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we do not yet have a script with respect to an unanimous consent on the Monday 5:30 vote, but all of us are understanding we want to conclude this legislation Monday, beginning with the 5:30 vote. I think that is a good result. As Senator Hutchison indicated, this is a big bill with many important parts--safety, modernization, so many issues. I am frustrated, as is everybody, in the pace of the Senate. This is the fifth full day on this bill, but Monday at 5:30 we understand we will finally resolve this issue, and it will be good for this country. We will have done some good things passing this bill and getting to a conference with the House. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Byron Dorgan

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