Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 18, 2010, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 18, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 18, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room 406 of the Dirksen Office Building.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 18, 2010, at 2:15 p.m., in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on March 18, 2010, at 10 a.m., in SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 18, 2010. The Committee will meet in room SDG-50 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building beginning at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 18, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Science and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 18, 2010, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. DORGAN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, Senator Rockefeller will be back on the floor shortly. We are on the FAA reauthorization bill. This is the fourth day in the Senate that we have been trying to pass the FAA reauthorization bill. We have accepted many amendments. We have had many amendments offered that have nothing at all to do with this legislation. I understand that. I think we voted on three or four of them last night. But the process of trying to get something through the Senate these days is slow and difficult. It is a little like watching paint dry to see activity on the floor of the Senate. We are trying very hard to do this. This is not and should not be a controversial bill. Every American who gets on a commercial airplane in this country has a stake in this bill. This bill includes modernization of the air traffic control system which will allow people to fly in the skies more safely, more direct routes, save energy, and save pollution. Modernization of the air traffic control system, to go from ground- based radar to a GPS navigation system--we should have done that a while ago. We have not. We need to catch up with the Europeans and others. We need to move with some dispatch. This bill should have been done long ago, but it has been extended 11 times.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Other countries are making good progress on this, going to a GPS system. GPS is not a new technology, as many of us know. You see many vehicles, automobiles around town using a GPS to navigate. You have people using GPS on their cell phones. But on a jet airliner flying across the country, hauling a couple of hundred people behind the cockpit, they are using World War II technology, ground-based radar for navigation, not GPS, which is the modernization approach. This is called NextGen, modernizing the air traffic control system. Europe is moving on it, other parts of the world are moving on it, and we need to move. This is about safety. It is about modernizing the system. But more than that, it is about investing in the infrastructure for aviation in the country, building the airports and the runways. It is about the issue of the passenger bill of rights, which is in this bill, saying to the airlines: Here are the new rules. You can't have somebody in an airplane 6 or 7 hours sitting on a runway someplace; 3 hours and then you have to bring them back to the gate. I know some do not like that, but that is the passenger bill of rights, giving passengers some rights as well. I have spoken at length about this legislation, as has Senator Rockefeller. I guess our hope would be that, if there are those who have additional amendments and wish to debate them, they might come to the floor or engage in the discussion on the floor so we can get this piece of legislation passed. It makes no sense for us to continue to talk and to continue to wait and not pass legislation when we have so much ahead of us to do. Cobell Settlement I want to mention a couple of other issues we need to address while I am waiting. One is the proposed settlement of the Cobell v. Salazar litigation. The parties to the Cobell settlement asked Congress to pass legislation approving the settlement by April 16th. It needs to be done by April 16th or the parties may return to litigation. Let me tell you what the Cobell settlement is. It is about American Indians, the people who were here first in this country, the first Americans. American Indians ceded certain property as a result of treaties and other agreements, and reserved lands for their communities. The federal government promised to manage these reservations and hold the lands in trust. Well, over the last century, Indians watched as timber companies would come in and produce timber from those lands, mineral companies would come in and produce minerals, and drill for oil on those lands. All the while, the government was managing these lands and holding monies earned from that land in trust for the Indians. Then the Indians asked the question: What has happened to our money? We see all these timber, grazing, and mineral activities going on and we are supposed to get money from these lands--that the government is holding in trust--but the money never quite shows up. The Cobell case is named after a remarkable woman, Elouise Cobell, from Montana. She is an American Indian, a member of the Blackfeet Nation, and a banker. She filed a lawsuit against the United States and she asked for one thing. She said to the Federal government: Give me an accounting of the monies that you collected from my lands, my lands that you held and managed in trust for me. And do the same for all other Native Americans. The fact is, nobody knew how much money was owed her. When they took a look at the records that the Federal government had, and held for Indian property and income, it was shameful. For example, Mary Fish, an Oklahoma Indian, lived on her land in a very small, humble house, and she lived next to an oil well pump that was constantly pumping oil off of her land. She received just a pittance of money from that oil. Where did the money go? Who would account for that money? Why is it that Mary lived in such a humble manner, in a very small home, when on her land, an oil well was producing oil. Why is it that the money being managed by the Federal Government somehow never got to Mary? When the lawsuit was filed by Elouise Cobell, the judges in the Federal courts asked: Where are the trust records for all these timber, grazing, and mineral activities? Here is what they found: the Federal Government could not produce the records necessary for an accounting. For example, there were 162 boxes of case-related documents that were shredded after the trial began--a procedure that the U.S. Justice Department lawyers withheld from the court for 3 months. Other records were in Louisiana, and in a rat- infested warehouse in New Mexico. Still more records were in North Dakota, and scattered in sheds across the country. I have photographs of what they saw when they opened up the warehouses in North Dakota. You can see piles of worn and damaged boxes of what were supposed to have been records. And, this is how the Federal Government cared for the information that was going to tell American Indians how their trust lands were used. It is unbelievable. After years of litigation, the Parties in the Cobell case have reached a $3.4 billion settlement. The settlement needs to be approved by Congress, and the parties have an April 16th deadline for Congress to approve the settlement. I have mentioned this on the floor of the Senate before. This Congress has a responsibility to proceed by the April 16th deadline to avoid further, unnecessary litigation. The President, the Secretary of Interior--whom I commend, by the way, who negotiated this settlement--have asked us to get this done, and we have a responsibility to get this done. Disability Claims I also have another point which we will get to in a short period of time on appropriations. I will mention those Americans who have filed disability claims under Social Security and are now waiting over 16 months to have the Federal Government determine whether their claims are valid, waiting 490 days after a claim is filed. That is pretty unbelievable to me. This Congress has included about $2.5 billion of additional funding for the Social Security Administration in the last 4 to 5 years. The expectation was that we would reduce the giant backlog that existed of cases, disability claims filed by people who have paid for this insurance. American people pay for disability insurance out of their paycheck under OASDI. When someone who is disabled files a claim in this country, on average it takes 491 days to process it. That, after we have given more than $2.5 billion in increased funding to the Social Security Administration. Precious little progress has been made. They say it used to be 514 days, now it is 491 days. That is not much progress as far as I am concerned if you are disabled and you are expecting to file a claim and have a claim processed in a reasonable period of time. In my State there are 2,800 claims that are awaiting action. The number of administrative law judges--we have two vacancies now out of five. One gave his notice almost a year ago and has not been replaced. None of this makes any sense to me. Congress should expect, of an agency like this, especially when you get $2.5 billion in extra funding over five years, to understand why has no progress been made. I sent a letter to the head of Social Security asking what happened to the $2.5 billion. On the appropriations side, I want some understanding of what happened to that money and why significant progress has not been made in these disability claims that resulted from the funding given the administration by the Congress. Let me withhold for a moment and yield the floor so my colleague can take the floor with an agreement.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, In the remaining couple of minutes, let me say it is my hope and the hope of Senators Rockefeller and Hutchison that we will be able to make progress and complete the FAA reauthorization bill. This is the fourth day. We have seen so many interminable delays in the Senate. Let's not delay legislation that has bipartisan support, that deals with the issue of air safety in this country, and has so many important provisions. Let's not at this point decide to delay this, of all pieces of legislation, something that should have been done long ago and has had 11 extensions instead of a reauthorization bill, when we finally have a bipartisan reauthorization bill brought to the floor of the Senate. It is my hope if we are going to get cooperation on anything, at least we could expect it on this piece of legislation. My hope would be in the half-hour debate--I guess 1-hour debate and subsequent vote on the judge, we might make some progress in seeing whether we could get cooperation to be able to complete this bill today. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. I will withhold.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that time be charged equally.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, while we are continuing to wait, as we have basically waited all day for amendments to be offered and debated and voted on to the FAA reauthorization bill, Senator Rockefeller has remained on this floor most of this day. This is a very important piece of legislation. It is disappointing that it has slowed down, as have most of the issues we have dealt with in recent months, in the past year. Apparently, we will vote either later tonight or likely tomorrow on an amendment to the FAA reauthorization bill that has nothing to do with the bill. It is so characteristic of the Senate that we bring a bill on air safety and modernizing the air traffic control system, on essential air service, on passengers bills of rights, and an amendment is offered that has nothing to do with those subjects. The rules of the Senate allow that. Let me at least talk for a moment about an amendment that will be voted on probably next and probably tomorrow, I guess, by Senator Sessions and Senator McCaskill. I know Senator Sessions spoke about this recently. He used a very large chart to show the growth in Federal budget deficits and also debt. There is no question that the level of budget deficits and debt are unsustainable and dangerous to this country. There is no question about that. What we ought to do is understand, No. 1, how did we get here and, No. 2, how do we get to a different direction that addresses these issues. Let me describe briefly the first part and then the second part. Ten years ago, there was a budget surplus in this country--the first time in 30 years, a budget surplus 10 years ago. Then President Bush was elected, and President George W. Bush said at the time: There is a budget surplus, and it is expected now there will be a surplus for the next 10 years. He had Alan Greenspan, then-Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, whispering in his ear and saying: And, by the way, if we have surpluses for 10 years, I worry a lot about paying down the Federal debt too quickly. I worry that may be a real problem for our economy. I hope he did not spend a lot of sleepless nights worrying about that. He needn't have, I guess. The President then, with that kind of counsel, said: I am going to cut taxes, and I am going to cut taxes for 10 years at least. What I am going to do is cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans because I believe this economic engine works best by putting something in at the top and letting it trickle down to everybody else. We had a tax cut proposal that was very generous to the people at the top. I stood on this floor and said: I don't think that makes any sense at all. I think we ought to be a little conservative. First of all, these are budget estimates of surplus. They don't exist. They are just estimates by economists who cannot remember their home telephone numbers, let alone what is going to happen 3 years from now. So let's be a little conservative. The President and those in the Chamber who voted for it in 2001 said: Nonsense. Katy, bar the door; we are going to have budget surpluses forever. We are giving big tax cuts and, yes, we are giving big tax cuts to the wealthiest because they are the ones who make this economic engine hum. And they did. I did not vote for it. Very shortly then we found out we were in a recession. That was a problem. Six months after that, we found out terrorists were bent on injuring this country, and we had the 9/11 attack that killed several thousand innocent Americans. Then we were at war with terrorists--at war in Afghanistan and then at war in Iraq--none of it paid for, not a penny. We sent men and women off to fight and did not ask anybody to pay for a penny of it and put all of those costs on the Federal budget debt. Just put it right on top of the debt. In the meantime, as that decade--which I think will be known perhaps as ``the lost decade'' of lost opportunity in some ways--moved on, we also had people come into this town who were to be regulators and were paid to be regulators who boasted: We are going to be willfully blind for a few years. You do what you want. We won't watch. We won't tell. The result was a field day for the biggest financial interests in America, creating the most exotic financial instruments, such as credit default swaps, CDOs, derivatives--by the way, synthetic derivatives. What does that mean? That means you have an instrument that has nothing on either side. It is just flatout gambling. We have some of the biggest financial institutions that were spending a decade trading trillions of dollars of derivatives, synthetic derivatives, much of it by hedge funds and other financial entities that were unregulated. Again, Mr. Greenspan said, when those of us in the Senate pushed for regulations: No, they don't need to be regulated. It will all work out fine. Self-regulation--they are not going to do anything stupid. Self- regulation will work just fine. In the meantime, we had the home loan scandal, massive amounts of money in subprime loans put out there to people who could not afford them by companies that were making billions of dollars. Mr. Mozilo ran Countrywide, the single largest home lender in America. He left with a couple hundred million dollars. He is now under investigation. They were putting teaser loans out. They said: By the way, you have bad credit, no credit, don't pay your bills, no pay, slow pay. They said: Come to us. We want to give you a loan. All of us understand that does not work. Yet that is what was going on. They were awash in money by moving all these assets and securities around. Unbelievable. That is the subprime loan scandal. All of this transpired, and then it collapsed. When you create a house of cards, the slightest little wind blows the house of cards down. That is exactly what happened. We discovered that some of the biggest financial institutions in this country had much more leverage than they were able to sustain, and the entire thing came crashing down. The Federal Reserve Board now has spent untold amounts of money-- untold because they would not tell us. We asked them. They said: You don't deserve to know nor do the American people deserve to know how many trillions of dollars have gone out the back door to sustain investment banks and others who made bad judgments. Those too-big-to- fail institutions, no-fault capitalism, they were too big to fail, and the American taxpayers got stuck. The American taxpayers and American citizens lost about $15 trillion in value, and at the same time had to bail out big financial institutions that made massive amounts of money. By the way, right now they are paying, once again, bonuses of $120 billion, $140 billion in some of those same industries, and they are showing record profits while some 15 million, 17 million people went out to look for work and could not find it. Small- and medium-size businesses are still having difficulties. Those at the top, too big to fail, who received massive amounts of government help, are now making record profits and paying record bonuses. All of that exists. When we hit this ditch, this financial wreck, we lost a substantial amount of income coming into the Federal Government--about $400 billion. The economic stabilizers we have, such as unemployment insurance, food stamps, and others, the cost of them went way up. Had Barack Obama, winning the Presidency, done nothing--walking across the threshold into the White House for the first day, had he done nothing for the next 10 to 12 months he would have had a $1.3 trillion Federal budget deficit not of his making. That was his inheritance when he won the Presidency. We have these giant budget deficits. I find it interesting, people come out and talk about these big budget deficits who have spent the last 10 years saying: You know what. Let's go ahead and send men and women to war, and we will just charge it. We will not ask anybody to pay for it, ratcheting up this deficit, helping create these problems. Now, all of a sudden they are having an apoplectic seizure over budget deficits and the increased level of debt. We should have a seizure over it because it is unsustainable, and we should fix it. We need to understand what happened to create it and making sure we fix it so that it does not happen again. That means financial reform. That means paying for wars we are fighting, and so on, which is not happening yet. Even more than that, the question is, What is the medicine or the solution? So our colleagues bring an amendment that we will vote on tomorrow that says what we should do is to freeze domestic discretionary spending for 3 years--domestic discretionary spending. Well, people who don't work around here don't know what that means so much. What it means is they are proposing to freeze that portion of Federal spending that has not blown through the lid here. What is out of control are the entitlements--massive increases in Medicare and Medicaid. What is out of control is the substantial increase in defense spending that is not paid for. What is out of control is the dramatically less revenue that comes from giving tax cuts to people who didn't need it. If you have a million dollar income a year--which would be a good thing to have--and somebody says: You know what, you just won the lottery. Our government says: We are going to give you a $79,000 tax cut. So a proposal that says: You know what we are going to do, we are going to take that smaller portion of the budget and we are going to freeze that for 3 years--you know, the kinds of things that educate kids, the sort of things that invest in people's lives, human capital, human potential, the kinds of things that make life better. We are going to freeze all that, but we are not going to touch anything on the revenue side. No, we want to protect those tax cuts for the biggest interests. We are not going to do anything in the entitlement areas, despite the fact that we have dramatic growth in Medicare. There is nothing in this that says: Let's take a look at all spending. They say: Let's take a look at a bit of spending. And there is nothing in here that says: Let's take a look at revenues. You have to look at all of these things. If you are serious, if you are a deficit hawk and you are about getting your hands around this deficit problem and getting rid of this problem, then you have to be serious out here and say we are going to do it all; that we are going to take a look at every single area of spending and we are going to take a look at revenues as well. Let me mention one example. In 2008, the highest income earner, pure income, in America is a man who made $3.6 billion--$3.6 billion-- running a hedge fund. So he goes home at night and his spouse says: How are you doing, honey? Pretty good. I made $10 million today. It is a lot of money for a day, isn't it? Well, $3.6 billion is $300 million a month, and so $10 million a day. But that is not his only success. It wasn't just that he made $3.6 billion. It was that he gets to pay a lower income tax than almost anybody in the State of Minnesota--the State of the Presiding Officer--because most of the constituents of the Presiding Officer pay income tax rates that are much higher than 15 percent. But that $3.6 billion earner gets to pay an income tax rate of 15 percent because it is defined as carried interest. That is a loophole that you can drive a Humvee through, and it is one that we ought to close right now. You say you want to do something about deficits. How about making somebody like that pay a fair share of taxes? If somebody is going to work all day as a drill press operator and come home and shower after work and try to figure out how he is going to pay the bills and so on, if that person is paying a 20-percent, 28-percent, 30-percent, 35- percent income tax rate, how about the person who is making $3.6 billion? Somebody will listen to this and say: That is that old populism again. That is not populism, to talk about things that are necessary and right. It is not populism. It is deciding that everybody ought to be treated fairly, and it is not fair if those who are at the low end of the income ladder are paying the highest tax rates and those who are at the high end are paying the lowest tax rates. Warren Buffett, the second or third richest man in the world--a guy I like and whom I have known a long time. He is a wonderful man. He did an experiment at his office in Omaha, NE. I think he said they had something like 20 or 40 or 50 people working at Berkshire Hathaway at the office. So he asked them, I believe voluntarily, to disclose what their income was--although his company pays them--and what their tax rate was. What he discovered was this: Of all the people in his office, the person who paid the lowest combined tax rate of income taxes and payroll taxes was the third or second wealthiest man in the world: Warren Buffet. He paid a lower tax rate than his receptionist. Warren Buffett said to me: That is so unbelievably wrong. It has to change. You all have to change that. I am paying what I should pay, but he said: It is not right that you have a Tax Code that has me paying a lower tax rate than the receptionist in my office. My point simply is this: We could change that, and should, and increase some revenue as a result by making the tax system fairer and having those who should, pay their fair share. That is one way to reduce the deficit, isn't it? Except it will never be done with this resolution because it looks at that portion of the budget that would be used to fund a school or to build a water project or to build a flood protection project--just that domestic discretionary in which you invest in America. Well, that doesn't make any sense at all. Senator Pryor came to the floor and said he is going to offer an alternative, which I am going to support, which includes all of these things. It says: Yes, tackle this budget deficit, do it now, don't delay, but tackle it with seriousness, seriousness of purpose, not just taking one piece that hasn't exploded and ignoring the other pieces. Take the piece of domestic discretionary spending that has not exploded and say: Let's take all the savings out there. I don't understand that. I understand the motive. The motive is to say: Well, we have a bunch of people who don't want to touch taxes in any way, even asking the $3.6 billion person who pays a 15-percent rate to start paying his fair share. I understand they want to protect that. I don't. I want that person to pay a fair rate of taxes to our government. They would call that a tax increase. I don't. I think it is just evening up the score, saying: You want all the benefits America has to offer but don't want to pay the full obligation of being a citizen? The same is true with some corporate interests that decide they want everything America has to offer them but they want to run their employees through the Grand Caymans so they can avoid paying payroll taxes. By the way, the same people who are paying a 15-percent income tax rate on carried interest running hedge funds are setting up deferred compensation accounts in the Bahamas to avoid paying even that 15 percent. So is that something we can shut down? Of course. Would that help reduce the budget deficit? Yes. Is that tackling domestic discretionary? No. It is more effective than doing that, because we know where this money is and we know how we could reduce the budget this way. I am in favor of tackling every part of the Federal budget and seeing what works and what doesn't. There are a whole number of things this government does that it doesn't need to do anymore. I know Senator Kaufman wants to speak, but I want to mention one thing first. I have been here at this desk a long time now, and let me describe how unbelievable it is that even waste has its constituency in this Chamber--even waste. We are doing this: We broadcast television signals into the country of Cuba every single day that the Cuban people can't see. We do it every single day. We have spent $\1/4\ billion doing it. We broadcast from 3 in the morning until about 7 in the morning and the Cubans routinely block them. The purpose of it was to broadcast--under what is called Television Marti--and to inform the Cubans about how wonderful freedom is. They are pretty well aware of that by listening to Miami radio stations. And we know they understand freedom because they get on rafts trying to find their way to this country. But we have Television Marti, which is a big group of people that is pretty well funded, about $20 million a year, or $25 million a year now, and so we send television signals to the Cuban people that they can't see. We first did it with a big blimp called Fat Albert, way up in the air shooting signals down that the Cubans could block. Then Fat Albert got off its tethers and landed in the Everglades, and what a mess that was. Then they bought an airplane and they send the signal by flying these planes, which the Cubans routinely block. I have offered amendment after amendment after amendment to try to stop spending to send television signals to no one, but you can't get it done. Isn't that unbelievable? I will continue to do that because that is an area of spending, it seems to me, where it takes a nanosecond of thought to say: That is just stupid. That is just dumb. So stop it. Except government doesn't quite work that way, or that well. But if the Pryor amendment is offered tomorrow, I fully intend to support that aggressively because we are on an unsustainable path. Most of us know how we got here, but not everybody yet knows how we are going to get out of it, and I think that is a decent step in the right direction. I would say that the Sessions-McCaskill amendment is seriously deficient and is not, in my judgment, the serious way to address what is a very serious problem. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have just visited with Senator Rockefeller. Of course, we, along with Senator Hutchison, are trying to pass an FAA reauthorization bill, which is not as easy as it sounds. This is not one of the most controversial or difficult or passionate issues that divide America. We have plenty of those issues around. But this is about modernizing our air traffic control system, about reauthorizing the Airport Improvement Program, improving air safety--a wide range of issues. Still, anything that is brought to the floor of the Senate these days slows down--way, way, way down--and that is the case with this bill as well. I have described it as similar to trying to walk through wet cement to try to get something through the Congress. We have amendments pending dealing with school vouchers, putting discretionary caps on budgets, earmark reform--things that have very little or in most cases nothing to do with this underlying bill. It is just that this is an authorization bill open for amendment, so we have amendments on a wide range of issues. We also have other amendments that have been offered that are germane and relate to this piece of legislation, and we have been working through trying to put together an en bloc amendment with our staffs and Senator Rockefeller's staff, working through, with other colleagues, some of the suggestions. They make a lot of sense. I think we are making progress there. I have described before the need for this legislation. Last year, I met with some of the Europeans who are putting together the modernization program in Europe. This issue of modernization of the air traffic control system--I think I heard Senator McCain talk about World War II vintage air traffic control. It is the case that for those who are now taking off this minute from National Airport, when that airplane leaves the runway and is in the national airspace, it is the case that someone in a control tower somewhere is watching that airplane. Why? Because there is a lot of traffic up there. This is the most complex airspace in the world here in the United States, and I think the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration, does a terrific job in operating the most complex system in the world. We have the safest skies in the world, there is no question about that. We have had one particularly fatal accident in the last year. That tragedy occurred in Buffalo, NY, with Colgan Air, in which 50 people tragically lost their lives, including the pilot and copilot and flight attendant. But the fact is, we have safe skies, and I would be the last to come to the floor of the Senate and say the American public should be worried about safety. It is the case, however, that the Colgan crash gave us a roadmap to some changes that I believe are necessary and that I and Senator Rockefeller and Senator Hutchison have put in this bill. The issues we have discovered from that tragedy persuaded us that a number of things needed to be done. The FAA itself has worked on aviation safety for a long while. The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates aviation accidents, has made recommendations. In fact, they have a most wanted list. There are some recommendations that will improve air safety that have been on the most wanted list for a long, long time, some for well over a decade and not yet adopted. So the Administrator of the FAA, Randy Babbitt, has worked with us. I know he is working diligently to try to address some of those issues. Let me mention safety in just a moment, but let me talk for a moment about modernizing the system. When people say: Well, what is that about, it means we are moving from the tracking of that airplane that just left National Airport--I think we have about one a minute that is authorized at that slot airport, so every minute, an airplane is leaving that airport. When that airplane is at cruising altitude and on its way up to cruising altitude, it has a transponder, and that transponder is sending signals. That signal shows up on a screen. That screen is in front of an air traffic controller. That screen shows that airplane, in most cases by number, and that air traffic controller is directing that airplane with its traffic through other routes flown by other airplanes. It is all about safety, making sure airplanes can fly in a congested, crowded sky. The dilemma--by the way, it has been relatively safe. It certainly is safer than in the old days when they first started flying at night. During the day, they would fly by sight, years and years ago. Then, at night, they would fly to bonfires. They would fly to a bonfire and then fly 50 miles to another bonfire as they carried the mail at night. Eventually they would fly to lights, and then eventually they would fly to ground-based radar. It has been around a long time. The problem is, ground-based radar only shows where a jet plane is right at that moment--any airplane, for that matter, but a jet moves very fast, so at that nanosecond when that sweep of the radar shows that airplane in that airspace, that is exactly where it is. But a nanosecond later, it is somewhere else. Especially with a jet, with the next 5 or 7 seconds it takes to sweep the radar, that jet is somewhere other than where the dot showed it on the screen. Now we have the capability to know much more precisely than that where the airplane is, but because we only know about where that airplane is, we have to space airplanes for a margin of safety and we fly less direct routes. The result is, we use more fuel in that plane by flying a less direct route. We have to have much wider spacing of airplanes in a congested airspace. We are polluting the skies with more fuel used. We are costing the airplanes and the passengers the extra fuel. We are also taking extra time for the passengers to get to where they are headed because of less direct routes. All of that can change with a new system of global positing, GPS. Everybody understands what GPS is. You have GPS in your automobile in many cases. You type in an address and it shows you where your car is and where the address is and it takes you right to the address. If your child has a cell phone, in most cases they have access to GPS in their cell phone. In many cases, your child with a cell phone has the opportunity, with some of the providers, to link with their best friends--their five best friends, for example--and each of them with their cell phone can have GPS locators, so they can access their five friends and know exactly where each of the five is. We can do that with children and cell phones. We cannot do it today with commercial airplanes. We cannot know exactly where that airliner is with GPS technology. That is because we have not yet modernized. That is what this is all about--modernization of the air traffic control system. When we do--and we will--we will be able to fly much more direct routes, have a greater margin of safety, save fuel, save the environment. We will do all of these things. Other parts of the world are doing it, and so must we. That is why Senator Rockefeller and I have brought a bill to the floor that moves directly and aggressively toward what is called modernization of the air traffic control systems. It sounds complicated. It is less complicated than one would think. It needs the FAA to build the facilities on the ground, and it needs the airplanes to have the equipage in the jet or the airplane itself. When we do that and have the procedures and the developed process, we will have modernized the air traffic control system. That is what the legislation is about. The legislation is also about building infrastructure across the country. If you are going to fly, you have to have someplace to land and someplace for passengers to embark and disembark. It means runways and terminals. It means a wide range of things. This also includes the Essential Air Service Program, which provides essential air service through contracts to smaller communities. As I indicated earlier, it addresses the issue of safety. Let me describe safety for a moment, as I have done a couple of times on the floor because I think it is very important. One-half of the flights in this country are by regional airlines. The passengers do not necessarily know it is a regional airline. They get on, in most cases, a smaller airplane, and it says United, US Airways, Delta, Continental, but it is not that company at all. That is just the brand on the airplane, and it is a regional company, in most cases, that is flying for the larger carrier. In some cases, the larger carrier owns the regional, but in most cases, it is a regional flying under contract to one of the major carriers. What we have discovered in several hearings, in the aftermath of the Colgan accident, is some very difficult circumstances in terms of mistakes that were made and things that we think we need to improve and correct. Some of it we do in this bill. The pilot who was in charge of the Colgan plane that evening--flying at night, in ice, in the winter, into Buffalo, NY, from Newark Airport--that pilot, we discovered later, had failed a number of pilot exams along the way. We have learned that the CEO of this company, Colgan, indicated: Had we known about these multiple failures along the way of this pilot's credentials, we would not have hired the pilot. But they did not know because they did not have access to all of that information. This legislation provides that access shall be made available. So those hiring decisions will be better decisions. The issue of fatigue is very important and was very evident as part of the cause, I believe, of that Colgan accident in Buffalo. There is almost never a circumstance where there was an airplane accident in this country where the accident report says definitively: This was caused by fatigue. But we know, of course, there are a number of tragedies that were caused by fatigue. Let me point out something we learned with respect to this particular flight, and my assumption is it is not peculiar to this flight. This chart shows the Colgan Air pilots' commuting prior to a flight. On this particular flight, on that evening, when the passengers boarded that flight, the copilot, who got in the right seat of that cockpit, had flown from Seattle, WA, to Newark Airport in order to reach her duty station. She lived in Seattle and she worked out of Newark. She flew all night long, deadheaded on a FedEx plane to Memphis, changed, and flew to Newark all night long. The pilot commuted from Florida to Newark. So you have two people in the cockpit: one from Florida who commuted to Newark and one from Seattle who commuted to Newark. What we now have heard from testimony from the National Transportation Safety Board is the pilot of that airplane had not slept in a bed the two previous nights, the copilot had not slept in a bed the previous night. Was this crash caused by fatigue? There will never be something that definitively suggests that, but if you were a passenger on an airplane and in the cockpit sat a pilot and copilot, neither of whom had slept in a bed the previous night or two nights, would you believe fatigue was the cause of perhaps a misjudgment in the cockpit? I would. I would. The question is not, Can you end all commuting? I do not expect you can probably end all commuting. But the question is, Does some of this commuting invariably cause fatigue? I believe it does. And how do you begin to address that? The FAA Administrator has now sent to the Office of Management and Budget, I believe, his rulemaking on fatigue, so that is a step forward because we have to address that. As shown on this chart, this quote is from a discussion by a regional pilot in the Wall Street Journal of September 12, 2008. He said: Take a shower, brush your teeth, pretend you slept. That is what a regional pilot says about the kind of work on regional carriers, where you have a lot of stops, small routes or short routes: ``Take a shower, brush your teeth, pretend you slept.'' Again, I think it raises the question--and a reasonable question-- about how do you make this circumstance change. How do you promote greater safety in circumstances where there is so much commuting, where you have duty time that often allows for less than is necessary to sleep at night? There is the full 8 hours, to be sure. But by the time you get to a hotel somewhere during duty time, it is quite often the case you have not slept a full night. In this case of the Colgan flight, we have now learned the copilot on that airplane not only traveled all the way across country to reach her duty station, but she is someone who made in the neighborhood of $20,000 to $23,000 a year. Does anybody believe a copilot on a commercial carrier paid $20,000 to $23,000 a year is going to be able to afford hotel rooms when they get to their duty station prior to taking a flight? I don't think so. That is not an unreasonable thing to expect to have happen. Let me say, my discussion of this is not to tarnish regional airlines. They play a very important role in our air traffic system in the commercial aviation system--very important. My hope is, though, working with the regional carriers, these safety provisions we have included in this piece of legislation will substantially improve safety and avoid the kind of circumstances that existed on that particular Colgan flight. I mentioned previously the families of the victims on that Colgan flight have been real champions for aviation safety. They have never missed a hearing. They have shown up at all the events in Washington, DC, whether it is a hearing or other activities, to say: I am here on behalf of my son, my daughter, my brother, my mother who perished in that crash. The fact is, that diligence and that effort has made a difference and shows itself in this legislation. We also, in this legislation, are addressing the issue of pilot hours as qualifications. I will talk about that some other time. I think there is a lot here to commend this bill to my colleagues. It is urgent we get this passed through the Senate, get to conference, be able to reach a conference agreement with the House, and get the bill signed. We will, by that, I think improve the infrastructure in this country, substantially increase jobs--we are estimating 150,000 new jobs as a result of it--and dramatically change the air traffic control system from an archaic system to a modern system. All that is good for the country. There is way too much that is needed to be done in this country to improve things, especially in areas of infrastructure and modernization, that is left undone. Let's at least get this piece for commercial aviation and for all aviation completed. I have mentioned almost exclusively the issue of commercial aviation. I do not want to leave the floor again without saying there is another component to aviation in our country; that is, general aviation. Many of us fly on small planes a lot. I learned how to fly a small plane years and years ago. General aviation plays a very important role in the area of aviation in our lives. In States such as Alaska, the Presiding Officer's State, or perhaps West Virginia or North Dakota, in States such as that, the ability to get on a Cessna 210 or a King Air, if we are lucky, or perhaps even a Mooney or a 172 Cessna and go someplace and get there, sometimes in circumstances where there are not a lot of roads, as would be the case in Alaska, and other circumstances where you have wide distances to travel on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday--general aviation is so important and they do so much good work. In addition, very few people talk--it is true of general aviation and also commercial aviation--about the mercy flights, flying a heart for a donor on a mercy flight, or flying someone who needs desperate treatment to save a life. It goes on every day all across this country--corporate jets, private planes, and, yes, even with commercial airliners. We are in the process right now of beginning to fight a flood in Fargo-Moorhead. That river will go up 20 feet in about 10 days. It is going to be 20 feet by Friday from 2 weeks ago. I recall last year when the flood occurred, then Northwest Airlines, now Delta Airlines, flew some very large planes into Fargo for relief purposes. They never asked for anything. They just said they were coming. There is a lot of work that goes on by some of the major carriers, as well as corporate and general aviation, that is very important. Again, I thank Senator Rockefeller for the work he and Senator Hutchison have done. I, as chairman, and Senator DeMint, as ranking member, of the Subcommittee on Aviation are pleased to be working with them. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, as the Senator from West Virginia said, we are on the FAA reauthorization bill, that is reauthorizing the programs that deal with aviation safety and air traffic control and airport improvement funds and essential air service--all of these issues. For the last hour we have been hearing debate about a school voucher program in the District of Columbia. Why would that be the case? Because this is an authorization bill and anyone can come and offer any amendment to an authorization bill. So Senator Lieberman and the cosponsors of his amendment are well within their rights to do that. It has nothing at all to do with the bill on the floor of the Senate, however. Because we are going to vote on it, however, let me say a few words about it. I have spoken about the FAA reauthorization bill previously this afternoon and will again later, but let me talk for a moment about the issue of school vouchers. First, this is not the place to do it. This is not the place to offer the amendment. They have the right to offer the amendment but we are trying to get a bill done here. The rest of the world is moving forward to modernize the aircraft control system and we, with the most congested and complicated air traffic control space in the world, we have extended the FAA authorization 11 straight times because we have not been able to get a bill done. We will probably have three or four votes today and none of them have anything to do with the FAA. I hope we will clear some amendments. Senator Rockefeller has been working hard to clear some amendments, but the votes we will have today have to do with earmark reform or school vouchers or any number of other subjects, discretionary budget caps, having nothing to do with the underlying bill. But if we must vote on them, let me at least take a couple of moments to respond to what we have heard for the last hour. I know the people who came here to support the voucher amendment are enormously passionate about their support. The amendment is providing vouchers paid for by the American taxpayer for about 1,200 students in the District of Columbia, to attend private schools. In short, it provides public funding for certain students to attend private schools. I am a big supporter of education. I believe education is our future. I believe when Thomas Jefferson said that anybody who believes a country can be both ignorant and free believes in something that never was and never can be. I understand that. I think education is the building block and foundation for America's future. In fact, it has been the success of America, that we designed education from the very start differently from many other countries. We said we are going to have a system of public education--public education, that means public schools that allow every child to go into that school and come out of that school with whatever their God-given talents allow them to become. We are not going to move people off, in the sixth grade or eighth grade, based on ability. That is not the way we are going to do it. Every child can enter those classrooms and decide to graduate with whatever their God-given talent allows them to achieve in this education system. That is public education. I know people say to me America's schools do not work. Oh, really? Really? If you get to the Moon, anybody, would you please tell me whose bootprints are on the Moon? They are not Chinese or Russian, they are bootprints made by an American, made possible by people who were educated in America's public school system, who helped us to understand the science and math that allowed us to learn to build airplanes and learn to fly them and then build rockets and walk on the Moon and plant an American flag on the Moon. Public education has been remarkable for this country. I walked into the oldest House Member's office the first day I came to the Congress. His name was Claude Pepper and he had two photographs behind his chair, at his desk, that I have never forgotten. Claude was in his mid- or late eighties. One photo was of Orville and Wilbur Wright making the first airplane flight, December 17, 1903, 59 seconds off the ground, the first human-powered flight. The photo was autographed ``To Congressman Claude Pepper with deep admiration, Orville Wright,'' before Orville died. But just behind it was a second photograph of Neil Armstrong stepping gently with his boot on the surface of the Moon. I thought to myself, what is the distance measured between those two photographs? About four inches. But think of the distance in education, to learn to fly and fly to the Moon. Someone else didn't do that. We did that, with a network of public education that says to every kid: You can become whatever your God-given talents allow you to become. Universal education in a system of public schools. Is it perfect? Certainly not. Has it worked? You bet. I am so tired of people trashing public schools. I go into a lot of classrooms and I almost never leave the classroom without thinking to myself: What an American hero teaching in that classroom. They didn't choose the profession that pays the most, for sure. But that teacher, that man or woman who is teaching those kids, what a remarkable person that is. I always leave classrooms feeling that way. Let me talk about this program very quickly. This program, a voucher program to create public funding for a certain number of students here in the District of Columbia to attend private schools, was established as a 5-year pilot program in 2003. That is 7 years ago; a 5-year pilot program. It has now been extended twice through appropriations bills in order to minimize the disruption for students already in the program and a plan to wind it down is now in place. Reauthorization is not needed to keep current students in their schools. In my judgment, public dollars should be spent on public schools. Yes, there are improvements that are needed in public schools. Why don't we invest in those improvements. Here in the District of Columbia they are $40 million short of what is needed. Yet we are using public dollars to support vouchers for private schools. I know it is not a lot of money but this is a program that, 7 years ago, was authorized for 5 years. It demonstrates how hard it is to shut down any program. At a time when education budgets are being slashed for public schools, we ought to be directing the money we have in the public domain for public schools. Those who wish to attend private schools, they pay private tuition, I understand that. But our public funding ought to be devoted to strengthen our public schools. Let me talk for a moment about a study that has been done of this voucher program. It has produced very mixed results. The Department of Education did a study that was mandated. After 3 years, no statistically significant achievement impacts were registered for students coming from the lowest performing schools. The reason that is important is that was the target of this program, low-performance schools, to allow those parents to get those kids out of those schools and give them a voucher to go to a private school. What we have discovered from the Department of Education study is for those very schools, the target schools, the lower performing schools, there is no statistical achievement impact for students who came from those schools going into this voucher program. Some of my colleagues said you have to give these people a choice and a chance. How about giving them a choice? The District of Columbia already has choices. There are choices available to parents on where to send their kids. There is a robust public charter school network with 60 charter schools here in the District of Columbia. Unlike voucher schools, public charter schools are open to all students, subject to the same accountability as all other schools, public schools; the same accountability standards. So the parents in DC already have some of that flexibility about which schools their children shall attend. This program has not gone through the full committee process since 2003. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has yet to mark up this legislation in this Congress. More important, this amendment has nothing at all to do with the bill that is on the floor of the Senate. I do not support this on its merits. I didn't support it in the Appropriations Committee. I do not support it now. I believe we ought to defeat it at this point, not because I do not support education but it is precisely because I support public education that we ought not be spooning off money here into a voucher program, taking public funds and moving them into private schools with, as I indicated, very mixed results as reported in a study that was done by the U.S. Department of Education. I want for our children, for all children, to have the best education they can have. Our public school system has served this country well, but we have a lot of challenges. I will, finally, say this: One of the significant challenges of the public school system is not that teachers are poor teachers; it is not that the school is a bad school; it is, a school inherits virtually everything that exists in that town or that neighborhood and has to deal with it. That is just a fact. So it is a challenge sometimes to, in public schools, do all that we want to do. But if we look at a couple of hundred years of history in the United States of America, it is pretty hard to conclude that we, as opposed to all other countries, we are the ones with universal education. We are the ones who supported public education. It is pretty hard to conclude that we have come up short relative to other countries. Let me make one other point and perhaps boast just for a moment. If North Dakota were a country and not a State, a country not a State, we would rank second in the world next to Singapore in eighth grade math scores. Does good news get reported very often? Not very often. It is just bad news that sells. This is an old saying: Bad news travels halfway around the world before good news gets its shoes on. We ought to spend a day talking about the good news of education and then spend time as well addressing the challenges because there are some difficulties that we need to address. But I did want to say I am not going to vote for this voucher amendment. I do not think it is the right choice. I believe the proper choice is to strengthen public education, address the challenges of public education. We can do that. Our parents did it, our grandparents did it, and we can have the same kind of impact on our future as they did. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on March 18, 2010 at 2:15 p.m. in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing to examine Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal police recruitment, training, hiring, and retention. Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 202-224-2251.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Would the Senator from Nevada yield?

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for such time as I may consume.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I assume we will report the FAA reauthorization bill shortly, and I believe Senator Rockefeller will be on his way. He is chairing the Commerce Committee hearing right now. I will go over and chair the hearing in his stead when he comes to the floor. Prior to bringing the bill to the floor today or prior to making it the order of the day, let me just speak in morning business before we get to the bill. I wanted to talk just for a minute. Yesterday, I talked about what is in the FAA reauthorization bill. Much of what we will discuss today is about commercial aviation--getting on an airliner someplace and flying across the country or across the world. But I wanted to mention that there is another component to this, and that is what is called general aviation. General aviation is a very large and increasingly important component of air travel in this country. In a State such as my home State of North Dakota, which is a very large State and one that does not have a great deal of interstate commercial airline service, the use of private planes is very prevalent, and general aviation plays a very significant role in our economy. I learned to fly many years ago. I am not a current pilot at all. I was not even very good at it, I don't think. But I learned to fly and got out of the airplane one day, when the instructor said: You are ready. And I took off and wore this metal suit with an engine attached and got up about 5,000 or 6,000 feet and practiced stalls, steep turns, and the things that you do. So I understand a little about flying an airplane. It is an extraordinary thing. The private pilots who have an airplane in their hangar out on the farm or in a town and the small business man or woman who has a Cessna 210 or perhaps a Cirrus or a Piper or any number of other small airplanes, single-engine, twin-engine, use those planes every day in every way for very important purposes--to travel around the State and the country to do commerce, to haul parts, to haul people. It is a very significant contribution to our economy. It is estimated that $150 billion annually is added to our economy by general aviation. It is also estimated that there are about 1.2 million jobs in America from general aviation. I know the thoughts people have about general aviation are immediately to go to: OK, here is a big corporation flying a G-5 and sipping Cristal and eating strawberries dipped in chocolate, flying across the country. The fact is, big corporations do have airplanes that move their executives around. In most cases, they do that because they want to be at a meeting in Los Angeles in the morning and in Dallas in the afternoon and an evening meeting in New York. The only way they do that is through the use of private planes. It makes them much more effective and much more efficient. I understand that. But much more than the large corporate jet that is flying people around this country, it is the smaller planes of general aviation that are used in all of our States in many ways across this country. You know, it is true that, yes, the corporate planes and the smaller private planes in general aviation every day are flying organ transplants around, flying hearts and so on around to be transplanted at a hospital; to reunite combat troops with their families; to take someone for cancer treatment, to an urgent appointment with a cancer specialist. All of that is the case. I understand that. So what I wanted to say is that the use of general aviation and the extensive impact it has on our economy is something we also should discuss and describe in this bill. The legislation we have created has things that are so important to all of aviation--yes, commercial aviation, but to general aviation and to private pilots as well. The investment, for example, in airport infrastructure, the building of and maintaining of runways in communities that don't have scheduled airline service but do have a lot of activity with private pilots flying in and out is very important. The general aviation portion is important. Six hundred general aviation airplanes have now brought fresh doctors, relief services, workers, equipment, and supplies to the country of Haiti. Six hundred private airplanes have flown in and landed at airports--in most cases, airstrips--other than the airstrip at Port-au-Prince. That is a story that needs to be told. I have great admiration for the pilots, particularly the older pilots who have been around and used to fly those airplanes when there weren't many rules. They kind of chafe at the rules. When you meet with pilots, the older they are, the more they chafe at the fact that there are now rules because in the old days you would jump in an airplane and run off, and you could do almost anything. We do have rules and regulations and general aviation subscribes to them willingly and ably. It is an important part of our aviation system. I wish to mention as well Senator Rockefeller, chairman of the committee, is now in the Chamber, and I will chair the Commerce Committee hearing that is underway. I would like to take a couple minutes to retrace what I described yesterday. This legislation, the FAA Reauthorization Act, has been extended 11 times. Rather than passing the bill, we have extended it 11 times. Finally, at long last, with the leadership of Senator Rockefeller and Senator Hutchison and the work that I and Senator DeMint did on the Aviation Subcommittee, we have a bill on the floor, and we want to get it done. We want to get to conference and finally reauthorize FAA programs. We are talking about investment in infrastructure, jobs, aviation safety. All that is critically important. I have held a number of hearings now on the issue of aviation safety. The skies, particularly with respect to the record of commercial airlines, are very safe. We have a great record with respect to aviation safety. There is no question about that. But we are learning as well along the way from the last accident that occurred in this country that tragically killed 50 people, landing on a winter evening in icy conditions going into Buffalo, NY. I have held hearings on that. I have studied it. I have read the transcript of the cockpit voice recorder. I know a fair amount about the crash. What I know is pretty disconcerting. Let me describe a few things. That was a Dash 8 propeller airplane, flying in ice at night. The pilot had not slept in a bed for the two previous evenings. The copilot had not slept in a bed the previous evening. The copilot was a person earning somewhere between $20,000 and $23,000 a year, living in Seattle, and the work station was flying out of Newark. That copilot flew all the way from Seattle, deadheaded on a FedEx jet that landed in Memphis, flew all night to go to work at Newark. The pilot flew up from Florida in order to fly on that Colgan route. But you had two people in the cockpit, according to testimony, the captain of which had not slept in a bed. There was no record of his sleeping in a bed. He was in the crew lounge, where there is no bed. The captain hadn't slept in a bed for 2 days and the copilot for 1 day. They had inadequate training, with respect to stick shakers and other related issues. The fact is, there are a series of things that have now led us to understand that fatigue is an issue. There is a rulemaking on fatigue going on right now. Administrator Babbitt has now sent that to the Office of Management and Budget. That is important. Training is an issue, critically important. Commuting is an issue. I wish to put up this chart. This shows where Colgan pilots commute in order to go to work. They commute from all over the country to Newark. There clearly is a fatigue factor. There has to be some action taken on a range of these issues--training, fatigue, sterile cockpits, which were violated on this flight, training in icing, a whole series of things such as those. There is a most wanted list at the NTSB that has said: Here is what you must do. That most wanted list, for 15 or 18 years, has had icing and fatigue on that list, and the FAA has not taken appropriate action. I will speak more about this, but I do have to go spell Senator Kerry, who is now chairing the Commerce Committee. Senator Rockefeller, chairman of the committee is here, as is the Senator from Texas. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.