Peter Fitzgerald

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes. Just as in return for the loan guarantees the Treasury could ask for warrants, I believe that in return for the cash grants, the Treasury can ask for warrants from the corporation.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes, I have, in a conversation, I think, with Sean O'Keefe from the Office of Management and Budget. He works for Mitch Daniels. He was under the impression that the executive branch had the authority, in return for granting $5 billion worth of cash assistance, to demand warrants or other appropriate instruments from the airlines that were getting them, and that that would deter the airlines from asking for more than they should.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Madam President, I rise to say what I think are some improvements that have been made to the bill as it has been negotiated by various parties in the House and the Senate, and I guess with involvement from the White House and the Office of Management and Budget. I am very concerned about the airline industry and especially the many employees of the industry. Tens of thousands of airline employees have already been laid off. My home State of Illinois is home to O'Hare International Airport which is a hub for United and American Airlines, the Nation's two largest carriers. Perhaps no State in the country is as immediately affected by the problems affecting the aviation industry as is Illinois. I am very concerned about the employees. I met with several skycaps the other day who told me it was their last day on the job, and to see the forlorn look in their eyes was heart wrenching. However, I alert my colleagues, the way this bill is designed, there is no protection for the employees of these airlines. There are no strings, really, attached to the airline access of up to $15 billion in taxpayer money. It is money that some airlines will take, and still we will see lots of layoffs and poor treatment of some of the airline employees. I think Congress is remiss; we are moving too fast. We should have some strings attached if they are getting all this government money. We should have some protections for the airline employees. That is an omission in this bill. I am also concerned that anytime you have a Federal bailout of an industry, you have to ask, by what principle or what reasoning are you bailing out this industry? In this case, we have chosen to bail out the airline industry. The airline industry has said they are entitled to Federal money because the Federal Government issued a ground stop order on September 11 that kept their planes out of the air for at least 2\1/ 2\ days, and but for that ground stop order, that edict of the Government, they would not have incurred the losses they did during those days. This bill might make sense if we were only compensating them for the losses incurred by virtue of that ground stop order. The fact is we are compensating them for many times the losses they suffered as a result of the ground stop order. Analysts testified before the Senate Commerce Committee yesterday. I sat in the whole hearing for 4 hours. We heard from many people. It was testified that the direct loss to the aviation industry in America as a result of that ground stop order on September 11 was $2 to $3 billion. That comports with the estimates that have come out from research departments, investment banks around the country, and comports with everything I have seen. Yet this bill has $5 billion in direct cash assistance and another $10 billion in loan guarantees or $15 billion in Federal taxpayer bailouts. Leo Mullin, the CEO of Delta Air Lines, testified that the direct loss of Delta Air Lines for each day they were shut down as a result of that ground stop order was $70 million. So over 3 days, Delta Air Lines incurred a loss as a result of the ground stop order of $210 million. How much in Federal assistance will Delta get as a result of this bill? At least four times the losses they sustained as a result of the ground stop order. Delta will get about 60 percent of the $5 billion in cash assistance. In other words, they will get a grant of about $800 million, four times their losses, plus they will be eligible for these new loan guarantees. The bottom line is, I think this assistance is too generous. It gives too much money. It goes far beyond compensating the airlines for those 3 days that Government edict was in effect. Clearly we are compensating them for far more. In fact, this bill suggests we are compensating them for all their losses through the end of the year. Then my question is, By what principle do we not agree to help other industries? I had the general counsel of a major car rental company call me and say they needed the bailout. I had restaurants tell me they are shutting down. There are hotels shutting down. The fact is, those other industries did not quite have the effective lobbying team the airline industries had. They were very prompt in coming to Capitol Hill and requesting relief. And, moreover, they got this relief in a way that I think is virtually unprecedented. When the Chrysler Corporation got its loans guaranteed back in the 1970s, in return for making those Government guarantees the Federal Government was paid in warrants of Chrysler Corporation stock. The Government took 14 million warrants of Chrysler Corporation. When those warrants rose in value as the company did better and got back on its feet, the Government sold those warrants at, I believe, a $300 million profit. Fortunately, Senator Corzine and I worked together. We did get put into this bill, at our request, language to allow the Treasury Department, in return for any of the loan guarantees that are given out under this bill--the Treasury will have the authority to negotiate appropriate warrants so the taxpayers can participate in the upside here. I would prefer that the Treasury Department have clear authority to ask for warrants in return for the $5 billion in cash assistance. I think that would be the appropriate protection for the taxpayers. In fact, without that protection, then, what we are doing, by the way we are structuring this bailout--this is not a bailout of the industry so much as it is a transfer of the loss that industry has incurred from the airline industry shareholders to Joe Taxpayer. It may be intuitive to some that the general decline of the industry, that loss, should be borne by the taxpayers. To this Senator it is not intuitive that the shareholders of airlines should be protected and indemnified from any loss here. I find it very troubling. I think there should be a price the shareholders have to pay. I hope the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget will try to find if they have any residual authority --they tell me they believe they do--to ask for warrants from each airline in return for the grants they are given. In the Continental Bank bailout, which happened in Chicago, IL, many years ago, in the 1980s, the FDIC did not come in and make the shareholders of Continental Bank rich. In fact, they wiped out the shareholders of Continental Bank in return for the Government assistance, and FDIC ended up owning 80 percent of the bank. Then, when the bank got back on its feet, the Government did an initial public offering of its shares and sold them back to the public and recouped for the taxpayers what they had given. I think we could have done better. It is an improvement from where it was earlier in the process. I certainly hope the issuance of warrants--and the Treasury has the authority now to accept warrants in return for the issuance of the loan guarantees--I hope that authority on the part of the Treasury will deter companies, airlines that do not need a Federal guarantee, from coming to the taxpayers and asking them for that guarantee. So I am hopeful the Treasury will use that authority to the fullest extent, and I am hopeful, furthermore, that in return for the cash grants available under this bill, the Treasury will insist upon getting some equity instruments in the corporation or some payment for the taxpayers, lest this just be a complete and total indemnification of the sophisticated shareholders of the airline industry. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Only a couple of minutes; 5 minutes will be fine.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Maryland for yielding me the time. I rise to support my friend from Arizona, Senator Kyl, and compliment him on the amendment he has introduced. I think he has studied this issue very carefully. He has noticed that many States--in fact, about 29 States--appear to get severely shortchanged in the current formula in the clean water development fund. His is a new formula that has a better rationale to it. We cannot really figure out what formula was used back in 1987 in the conference committee. They just picked an arbitrary formula that seemed to steer a lot of money to a select handful of States. But most States, the majority of States, come up short under the current formula. As I understand it, Senator Kyl's new formula is based on the same formula that is used in the safe drinking water revolving fund. It certainly will make for a better need-based distribution of these important allocations of funds for wastewater treatment around the country. I rise to support Senator Kyl's amendment. I understand the Presiding Officer has joined as a cosponsor. This seems to be good legislation for our State and a majority of States around the country. We all know from local communities around our States how important these funds are for these water treatment projects. I hope we will have a majority vote in favor of this amendment.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, pursuant rule XXII, I yield my 1 hour to the Republican leader.

Mr. FITZGERALD

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

Mr. FITZGERALD. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I rise to speak today about two amendments that I have filed and will call up later. I recognize now we are dealing with an amendment concerning the trucks from Mexico. I wish to speak about a different issue, and that is something that is tucked into the Senate appropriations bill that deals with aviation in the Greater Chicago area. I have been working with my colleague, Senator Durbin, almost since the day I came to the Senate, to find a resolution to the air traffic problems in the Chicago area. Senator Durbin has included language in the appropriations bill, as it was reported from the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, that addresses aviation transportation in the Chicago area. This is the language that appears in this fiscal year 2002 Transportation appropriations bill concerning the Chicago-area aviation: Section 315 says: The Secretary of Transportation shall, in cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administrator, encourage a locally developed and executed plan between the State of Illinois, the City of Chicago, and affected communities for the purpose of modernizing O'Hare International Airport, addressing traffic congestion along the Northwest Corridor including western airport access, and moving forward with a third Chicago-area airport. If such a plan cannot be developed and executed by said parties, the Secretary and the Administrator shall work with Congress to enact a Federal solution to address the aviation capacity crisis in the Chicago area. In Chicago, aviation is the No. 1 issue. In fact, throughout northern Illinois, that is what my constituents are talking about. O'Hare Airport, which is one of the finest airports in the world, has been at capacity since 1969, and in recent years the traffic congestion has gotten worse than ever. I attribute a lot of that to a decision Congress made 2 years ago to lift the delay controls at LaGuardia and Chicago O'Hare Airports. After they lifted the delay controls which had been in effect since 1969, we started to see delays at O'Hare and LaGuardia go up exponentially. As a result of those delays, now many people are trapped waiting on the tarmac at O'Hare and LaGuardia for their planes to take off. In fact, when I returned to Washington on Sunday evening, I was trapped on a United Airlines plane on the tarmac at O'Hare for at least 2 hours. I did not get into Washington until close to midnight. This is becoming the norm that people experience as they travel through O'Hare, particularly in the summer months. Often, as we know, those airplanes are very uncomfortable, particularly in the hot weather, while you are waiting on the tarmac at O'Hare. Last night, Senator Durbin's office and my office had a softball game on The Mall. I am much chagrined to report that Senator Durbin's office beat us by one run. I think the score was 9-8. But if we had been able to take one of the 22- or 23-year-old interns off Senator Durbin's team and substitute that star athlete with Senator Durbin, as my team was required to have me play, my team might have been more competitive. But Senator Durbin spent, I believe, 3 hours on the tarmac at O'Hare yesterday and was unable to make that game. This is how it is when you travel through O'Hare. I compliment Senator Durbin on being active in trying to resolve the problems. Clearly, we are both interested in finding a solution, though we may have a different perspective on the solution. One of the amendments I will later offer will add language to this section 315 that encourages any Federal, State, or local solution that comes out of this process to consider using the Rockford Airport. Rockford is, I believe, the second largest community in the State of Illinois. It is on the Northwest Tollway, northwest of the city of Chicago. The Northwest Tollway runs from the Chicago loop out to O'Hare Airport and then it goes beyond, out to Rockford Airport. Rockford Airport, which I visited a few weeks ago, is right now not being used, even though it is a wonderful facility with annual capacity for 237,000 operations a year. The airport has two magnificent runways: one 10,000 feet, another 8,200 feet. Right now the airport is being used for cargo operations. It is a hub for United Parcel Service, and they have been doing very well right there. There is no reason the Rockford Airport should not be used to alleviate air traffic congestion in Chicago. Many of the solutions that others have proposed--expanding or modernizing O'Hare, tearing it up, rebuilding it so it can handle more flights, or building a third airport--those may all someday come to fruition, but all of those solutions will take years, if they ever happen at all, and they will cost hundreds of millions, even billions, many billions of dollars. Meanwhile, just outside O'Hare, we have a fabulous airport that is already built, that does not require the expenditure of any money to get it used to alleviate air traffic congestion at O'Hare. The airport is being used sometimes to land planes from Midway or O'Hare when there is bad weather in the area and those planes have to land. This chart is a schematic of the Greater Rockford Airport. We can see there are two runways that are already built, a 10,000-foot runway and an 8,200-foot runway. They also have plans for a future runway someday. Their passenger terminal is capable of handling 500,000 passengers per year. Their runways are state of the art. They have even, I am told, landed the Concorde at Rockford Airport. As far as I know, this airport is able to land any plane flying today. It is superior in that respect--at least its runways are--to Chicago's Midway Airport, which was the busiest airport in the world before O'Hare was built in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The runways at Midway are only about 6,000 feet, and it makes it very difficult to have long-haul operations out of Midway. I am going to offer language to section 315 that would encourage the use of Rockford. This is the wise thing to do for aviation consumers in the Chicago area and especially for the taxpayers, but it will not cost any money.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I yield to the Senator.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I agree to that, Mr. President.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I thank my colleague from Illinois. I thank Senator Durbin for joining as an original cosponsor of this amendment and also for working with me. This is absolutely one of the bright spots on the aviation picture in Illinois today, one of the issues on which we hope to agree. It is one of the wonders of the world, in my judgment, that Rockford is not being used right now when it is so close to O'Hare. It is an easy answer, in my judgment, to alleviating traffic congestion at O'Hare. I wish to point out a few things. In addition, there are 740,000 people living and working within 25 miles of Rockford Airport. Beyond that, there are 2.2 million people living within a 45-minute drive of Rockford Airport. There are probably not that many large cities in this country that would have that many people within a 45-minute drive of their airport. Another point I have not made is that over 400,000 airline passengers a year depart from Rockford's market service area via bus to access the air transportation system at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Both American and United Airlines, which control almost all the operations at O'Hare, run several passenger shuttle buses to the Rockford Airport every day and funnel from there 400,000 passengers a year into their hub operation at O'Hare. That further congests O'Hare. In addition, I am told 800,000 people a year drive their cars from the Rockford area to get to O'Hare. There are 1.2 million people coming from the Rockford Airport--not using the Rockford Airport but coming out of Rockford to further congest O'Hare. It makes common sense we make greater use of the Rockford Airport. I see Senator Gramm is on the floor. I told him I would be happy to allow him to speak for a few minutes. With the approval of the Chair, I would like to come back and continue my discussion of Chicago aviation after Senator Gramm has had an opportunity to speak. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. I thank the Chair and appreciate the Senator from Washington giving me the time to speak on a matter of great importance to the city of Chicago, and actually it is probably of some interest to the Presiding Officer, as she grew up in the city of Park Ridge which is right next to O'Hare International Airport. I hate to say it, but since the Presiding Officer grew up in Illinois we have had problems at O'Hare. O'Hare has been at capacity since 1969. In fact, it was in that year that the FAA first put delay controls in at O'Hare Airport. Unadvisedly, I think 2 years ago, Congress lifted the delay controls at O'Hare and LaGuardia, and delays went up exponentially. That has kind of renewed and intensified the crisis we have in aviation in this country. Madam President, I have filed an amendment I will discuss later that I am continuing to work on with my colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin. I hope we will be able to work out some arrangements, but my amendment would restore a Chicago supplemental airport to the National Plan for Integrated Airport Systems around the country, the so-called NPIAS list. For 10 years, Chicago had a supplemental airport on the NPIAS list. It was taken off in 1997 by the FAA. I think it is time we put the Chicago supplemental airport back on that nationwide plan for airports. There are several reasons that I say that. I want to first point out exactly where we have our airports in Illinois for those who are following this debate. I show you a map of the Chicago area. We have O'Hare International Airport on 7,000 acres on the northwest side of the city of Chicago. It is also bounded by the cities of Park Ridge, Des Plaines, Elk Grove, Wood Dale, and Bensenville. We also have Midway Airport that prior to O'Hare's opening in the late 1950s, early 1960s, was the world's busiest airport, if you can believe it. I think President Kennedy appeared at O'Hare's grand opening in 1963 and by 1969 O'Hare was at capacity. But if you look at where these airports are located, you see that in order to get more capacity to expand these airports we are confronted with a lot of problems. Midway Airport is right in the middle of a congested area within the city limits of Chicago. In fact, I have never heard the mayor of the city of Chicago suggest expanding Midway to have longer runways. The runways are only 6,000 feet at Midway, so it is very difficult to do a long-haul flight out of that airport. Recently, Southwest Airlines, and also ATA, have been doing very well at Midway. Midway is almost back to where it was in terms of capacity before O'Hare was built. It is pretty much full right now. Then, of course, we have O'Hare. O'Hare has seven runways. I will show you a map of those seven runways. This is a blowup of O'Hare Airport. All of this land in the interior shown on the map is filled with runways. In fact, O'Hare has more runways, as far as I know, than any other airport in the country. It has seven runways. It does about 908,000 flights a year. But when you get into expanding O'Hare, you are met with some real logistical challenges. There is the Tri-State Tollway on the eastern boundary of O'Hare. You have the Northwest Tollway on the northern boundary of O'Hare, and you have Irving Park Road to the south, and you have York Road--Route 83--to the west. So a lot of people have been saying to me: Why don't we just put down more runways at O'Hare? Many people think--and, in fact, some encourage the perception--that putting in new runways at O'Hare would be as simple as laying new sidewalks. But the fact is, it is very difficult to figure out how you get more capacity at O'Hare. I show you on this map the existing configuration of the runways at O'Hare. This 7,000-acre field goes way back. The planning was started in the 1940s. It came on line in the late 1950s. I gather that the airport has had this runway configuration for many years--at least 30 years, maybe more. But there are seven runways at O'Hare. One of them is one of the largest runways in the country. I believe this runway--14R-32L--is one of the longest runways in this country, about 14,000 feet. The problem with these seven runways, though, is that they are not really laid out properly. In fact, in an optimal configuration that would be done today in a new airport, they would lay these runways out in a parallel fashion so they do not intercept. If you have a plane landing on this runway shown on the map, for example, then another plane cannot be taking off on that runway. So O'Hare's problem isn't that it does not have enough runways but that they are not laid out right. In fact, Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport, which only has four runways--they are trying to build more now--handles more flights now than O'Hare does, even though it only has four runways. That is because those runways are laid out in a parallel fashion, and you can have simultaneous departures and landings on those different parallel runways. In any case, Mayor Daley has recently proposed getting more capacity out of O'Hare essentially by tearing all of this up and rebuilding it. In fact, I think the mayor proposes tearing up three runways and building four new ones. One of these runways--I think this runway, the 14,500-foot runway--they would just tear up and demolish it. They would lay new runways all in a parallel fashion. But the problem is, this project gets very expensive, and it would take a very long period of time. This is a diagram of Mayor Daley's proposed modernization of O'Hare, which really amounts to a tearing up and rebuilding of the airport. He would eliminate this runway and this runway I show you on the map, and he would lay parallel runways. He would leave this runway shown here in place. You would essentially have six parallel runways here, and then two parallel in this direction shown here. Essentially, it is kind of like a quad-four runway system. I think mainly these four parallel runways would be the ones that would be used. In addition, the mayor would add a western access to the airport. The Presiding Officer would be very interested to know that when she grew up in Illinois, it was much easier to get to O'Hare than it is today. In fact, back in the 1950s and 1960s, there were just cornfields out in that direction. The Northwest Tollway was built in the late 1950s during the Eisenhower administration in 1958, and the development started occurring much later. But now it is very difficult to get into O'Hare because there is not enough access. In fact, coming from my home in Inverness, which is only 12 miles to the northwest, sometimes it takes an hour to go those 12 miles east on the Northwest Tollway because of congestion. So recognizing that congestion is a problem, the mayor would propose creating a western access to the airport with another major expressway coming into the west to relieve some of the bottleneck that enters now at the airport on the east. Also, he would add a new terminal. I think basically what they have now is the main terminals, which he would redo under a program called the World Gateway Program that would cost $4 billion, or actually $3.8 billion, to be exact. They would give United terminals 1 and 2, and American terminals 3 and 4. My understanding of it is that most of the other airlines would be stuck at a desk out here on the west side of the airport. These are the various elements that would have to be done in order to accomplish Mayor Daley's expansion plan. They would close the 3 existing runways, construct 4 new runways, make an extension of 4 runways, construction of the west terminal, construction of western airport access, acquisition of 433 acres, acquisition of 303 homes, and acquisition of 240 rental units. The costs of this proposal have been all over the map. I think the mayor initially disclosed about $6 billion. But that was pretty much just for tearing up and rebuilding the runways. He did not include the $4 billion he is spending now on the World Gateway Program. That brings it up, even by the mayor's cost estimates, to about a $10 billion reconstruction project. The fact is, when you add in the cost of all the ancillary projects, including road building projects, you would probably have to expand the Northwest Tollway and the expressway to accommodate more people. In fact, you can barely get into the airport right now, as I have said. Imagine what it would be like trying to get into the airport after twice as many people are being urged to go into the airport. So it would be a very costly project--probably somewhere in the $15 billion range, possibly up toward $20 billion. The Chicago Tribune has had estimates ranging from $6.3 billion to $18.9 billion. My thought is this: I believe we have an aviation crisis in Chicago because we lack capacity. We have far greater demand than we have capacity. O'Hare has capacity for about 908,000 flights a year. Mayor Daley's proposal of spending about $15 billion, and lasting at least 15 years following the approval process, would get us up to 1.6 million operations a year. I favor, instead of going forward with that proposal, building a supplemental Chicago airport. The reason I favor that is because it would bring far more capacity, far more quickly, at far less cost. This is a chart that shows what would be involved in expanding O'Hare vis-a-vis what would be involved in building a third airport in the Chicago area. The cost could range from $13 billion to $26 billion for the O'Hare expansion. The estimated cost of the third airport, which would have six parallel runways and handle 1.6 million operations a year, would be only $5 billion to $6 billion--the same as Denver International Airport. Mayor Daley proposes adding 700,000 flights, or operations, a year for the money he proposes spending. For a third of the cost, you could get 1.6 million more operations a year. In contrast to the 15-years-plus it would take the city of Chicago to tear up and rebuild O'Hare--and God only knows what the delays would be like while they were tearing up and rebuilding O'Hare--the State has estimated it could have the first phase of a third airport done in 3 to 5 years following the approval. That would only be with one or two runways to begin with; ultimate build-out would be six runways. There is great community support for the third airport. There is significant community opposition around the expansion of O'Hare. Also, competition. Surprise, surprise, but United and American oppose a third airport. Well, United and American have at least 75 percent of the operations. In fact, United and American oppose a third airport because they, right now, have 76 percent of the hub gates at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. If you look around the country, you will see that we have a tendency around the whole United States toward having a local air carrier that has a dominant position at a regional hub airport. If you look at Atlanta's Hartsfield, you have Delta with 62 percent of the hub gates. At Dallas-Fort Worth, you have American Airlines and Delta together controlling 84 percent of the gates. In Denver, a brand new airport, United is already up to 57 percent of the gates. At Washington/Dulles, United is up to 65 percent of the gates. So, surprise, United and American oppose a third airport. The reason for that is they would not control the third airport in Chicago. There would be new entrants that would be allowed to come in and compete with them. It seems to me that we should not let that detour us because we are not representing the shareholders of the big six air carriers in the Senate. We need to be worried about aviation consumers. Over the last 20 years--in fact, since deregulation of the aviation industry in the late 1970s--operations in aviation have gone up 80 percent in this country. Yet we haven't built a single new major airport, except for the Denver Airport, which was simply a replacement for the old Stapleton International Airport, which got shut down. As you look around the country, big airlines that have a dominant position in their market fight like the dickens to prevent another airport from being built because that would allow new entrants to come into their territory, and it would force them to lower costs and improve services or they lose new business to the new entrants. Because United and American don't want new competitors coming into their marketplace where they have a duopoly should not deter anybody. What I think would be best for consumers in the Chicago area is if we did have another major hub airport and we had other carriers coming into compete with United and American. They are both good airlines. They have wonderful employees and thousands of wonderful pilots, mechanics, and stewardesses; but I believe the consumers in the Chicago area would benefit by having new choices. I think there are possibilities, such as getting a wonderful new startup airline such as a Jet Blue, or even a Southwest Airways, which is competing at Midway Airport in Chicago, but might someday enjoy having the opportunity to run longer haul flights out of the Chicago area and compete more head- on with United and American at O'Hare. To get one of those fine airlines in the new airport would be great for the Chicago area, and it would help decongest O'Hare for the rest of the Nation. Now, in the few moments I still have, I want to make one final point. In this regard, I want to associate myself with my colleague from Illinois in the other Chamber, Jesse Jackson, Jr. For many years he has been a strong proponent of a third Chicago area airport. It is the south suburbs and the southern limits of the city of Chicago that he represents in Congress. He makes the point that we should not want all economic activity in our State concentrated in one 7,000-acre site. That is perhaps why I disagree with Mayor Daley, the mayor of the city of Chicago. He has a different constituency than I. As mayor of the city of Chicago, he wants to keep as much economic development as possible in the city of Chicago, and Chicago is a mighty fine city, and I hope it remains always strong. Looking at this issue as a Senator with statewide responsibilities and concern for the whole State, I want other parts of Illinois to have jobs, economic development, and an economic engine, too. I want the Rockford area to have their airport used, I want jobs for the people in the south suburbs, and I want some convenience for the 2 million-plus people who live in the south suburbs who have to drive 2 hours or more to get to O'Hare on those crowded expressways. Yesterday, there was a good column in the Chicago Tribune by a new columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Her name is Dawn Turner Trice. She analogized this issue actually to the G8 economic summit that was just concluded in Europe whereby the big G8 countries were talking about sharing the wealth with the rest of the world, forgiving some of the debts that Third World nations have, turning loans into grants, outright grants to help some of the developing countries. She said: Why aren't we looking at this airport issue the same way in the State of Illinois? Why do we allow such a great concentration of wealth in one tiny 7,000-acre site and not worry about it anywhere else? She is absolutely right on that and, in addition, those wealthy communities around the airport have said enough is enough. Their quality of life is now negatively impacted by the continual cramming of everything into O'Hare. The idea of dramatically increasing the number of flights at O'Hare beyond what they are now presents a real dilemma to the Chicago area. People do not know how they can get there now. They cannot imagine what O'Hare would be like if the airport was expanded further.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Madam President, I thank you for this time, and I thank you for the opportunity to address this issue. I hope to be working with Senator Durbin and my other colleagues to solve the aviation crisis in the country, beginning in Chicago.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I thank Senator Domenici and Senator Reid and also the sponsor of this amendment, Senator Stabenow. I have been pleased to support this amendment, which would place a moratorium on drilling for oil in the Great Lakes. As a Senator from a State which has a large urban area--namely, the city of Chicago--and the surrounding communities that rely on Great Lakes water for drinking water, I think this moratorium is well advised. Illinois, as a practical matter, doesn't allow any drilling off its Lake Michigan coast. The issue has arisen, however, in Senator Stabenow's State. I think this amendment has worked out very well. I appreciate Senator Domenici's commitment to work to try to hold this amendment in conference. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Madam President, I did want to, in part, agree with my colleague from Pennsylvania. I think he has identified an important problem that exists in the underlying bill. I have long favored creating liability for HMOs that harm someone because of their negligence. Right now, HMOs are protected. They are immune from liability, and that is a protection that almost no other individual or corporation has in this country, and I don't think it is defensible. For the last 2 years, I have been voting regularly to make HMOs liable where they have been negligent. But I do think we have a problem in this bill in that we create State court tort liability by repealing the ERISA immunity in one part of the bill. That is on page 157, I believe. But then, at the same time, we create also tort liability, as well as more contract liability, and there already is contract liability under ERISA in Federal court. The problem I see is that there are tort causes of action authorized in this bill both in State court and in Federal court. I have always thought the playing field was tilted in favor of HMOs, and that playing field needs to be leveled. But I am concerned now that if this effect in the underlying bill is not remedied, the playing field will be tilted in the opposite direction.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I rise today to submit a resolution expressing the sense of the Congress that the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1958 should be fully enforced to prevent the needless suffering of animals. On April 10, 2001, the Washington Post printed a front page story entitled ``They Die Piece by Piece.'' This graphic article asserted that the United States Department of Agriculture was not appropriately enforcing the Humane Slaughter Act. In response, I am introducing this resolution that encourages the Secretary of Agriculture to fully enforce current law including the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958, as amended by the Federal Meat Inspection Act in 1978. The Humane Slaughter Act simply requires that animals be rendered insensible to pain before they are harvested. However, apparently this law is not being enforced in some instances. For example, the Washington Post article reported that ``enforcement records, interviews, videos and worker affidavits describe repeated violations of the Humane Slaughter Act'' and ``the government took no action against a Texas beef company that was cited 22 times in 1998 for violations that include chopping hooves off live cattle.'' While the regulated industry may argue that problems highlighted in this article are not endemic of the entire meat processing industry, ``a couple of rotten apples could ruin the whole basket.'' As the Washington Post article demonstrated, there are some operations that may need oversight to ensure that the entire meat industry does not get a ``black eye.'' Additionally, the Washington Post article pointed out that in 1998, the USDA stopped tracking the number of humane slaughter violations. USDA's Director of Slaughter Operations reportedly admitted ``she didn't know if the number of violations was up or down.'' This is simply unacceptable. We cannot manage nor regulate what we do not monitor nor measure. Thus, the resolution asks the Secretary of Agriculture to reinitiate tracking of violations and report these results and relevant trends to Congress annually. This legislation is supported by the Society for Animal Protective Legislation, the Humane Society of the United States, and the Humane Farming Association. The resolution is sound public policy that enjoys bipartisan support. I thank my colleagues, Senators Leahy and Akaka, for joining me as original co-sponsors of this bill, and I encourage my Senate colleagues to join us in this endeavor. I ask unanimous consent that a letter of support from the Humane Society of the United States be printed in the Record.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, late last year, Congress passed the Transportation Recall Enhancement Accountability and Documentation, or TREAD Act. That new law includes a bill I authored, the Child Passenger Act of 2000, which requires the Department of Transportation to update its standards on child safety seats for infants and toddlers. Today, I rise to introduce another bill, which represents the next step in our effort to ensure that all of our Nation's children are adequately protected in motor vehicle crashes. The purpose of this bill is to encourage greater use of booster seats, and thereby reduce the number of traffic fatalities and injuries to young children. Booster seats are seat belt positioning devices that are designed to protect children who have outgrown their car seats but are still too physically small to fit properly in an adult-sized safety belt. Safety advocates have coined the term ``forgotten child'' to describe the average occupant of a passenger vehicle who is at least 4 years old, but usually less than 8 or 9 years old, and less than 4'9" tall. According to the National Highway traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, only about 6 percent of children between the ages of 4 and 8 years currently use booster seats when riding in motor vehicles. Too often, the child in this category has outgrown his child safety seat and is inappropriately placed in an adult-sized safety belt without a belt-positioning booster, or worse still, left completely unrestrained. Three-point shoulder and lap belts, even those in the back seat where it's recommended that children sit, currently are not made or tested for children. Children who are graduated at 40 pounds or so directly from their child safety seat to adult seatbelts can suffer serious harm, say researchers. In some crashes, the seatbelts don't restrain the child. In others, they do, but the shoulder belt that cuts across the small child's neck, and the lap belt that rides high over her abdomen, cause severe internal injuries to the liver, spleen, intestines and spinal cord. Medical doctors have characterized such injuries as ``lap belt syndrome.'' Parents obviously want to do what is best for their children. Safety restraint use for children under a year old is 97 percent, and 91 percent for children ages one to four. These high usage rates are due in part to the education and outreach that has occurred through the Occupant Protection Incentive Grants Program, enacted in 1998. The authorization for that annual, $7.5 million grant program is about to expire. The legislation that I am introducing would extend the program for an additional two years. To an even greater extent. These high restraint usage rates for infants and toddlers are due to the enactment of mandatory child restraint usage laws in all 50 states. There is no similar uniform requirement for booster seat use, and there are very serious gaps in state laws regarding child restraint generally. For example, some states require seatbelts only for children sitting in the front seat, and others only require children to wear seatbelts if they are younger than 5 or 6 years. According to NHTSA, for children between age five and fifteen, restraint use is only 68.7 percent, and NHTSA data for 1998 shows that over 47 percent of fatally injured children ages four to seven are completely unrestrained. Education is critical to closing this safety gap. A recent survey of 1,000 parents and care givers conducted by NHTSA and DaimlerChrysler revealed that about 96 percent of parents and caregivers did not know the correct age for which a child no longer requires a booster seat or child safety seat. We know booster seats save lives, yet the overwhelming majority of states don't require them. Only three states, Arkansas, California, and Washington, have adopted mandatory booster seat laws. Recent attempts to pass meaningful legislation in other states, including my home state of Illinois, have failed. One obstacle that is holding back the states from adopting stronger laws is the lack of a Federal performance standard for booster seats for children who weigh more than 50 pounds. The legislation I am introducing today would give the Secretary of Transportation two years in which to come up with a new performance standard for booster seats. That standard would, of course, cover all children in booster seats, including those who are heavier than 50 pounds. In addition, this bill provides strong incentives for states to adopt responsible highway safety laws. It would extend grant money to states if they adopt seat belt laws for all children under the age of 16 as well as booster seat laws for some of these children. Many passenger cars have only a lap belt in the rear, center seating position of the vehicle, which generally means that you cannot install a booster seat there. Yet safety advocates say that the rear, center seating position is generally the safest place for a child to be in the event of a crash. To close this safety gap, my bill also would require the installation of lap and shoulder belts in each of the rear seats of newly manufactured passenger vehicles offered for sale in the United States. That new requirement,which may be phased in over a three-year period, is based on a recommendation of the National Transportation Safety Board. In closing, comprehensive medical data evidencing the benefits of booster seats is still being developed; and a lot of states have yet to adopt adequate safety belt laws. I believe that the safety of the ``forgotten'' child is extremely important, and we need to consider all of the tools at our disposal to advance it. I therefore urge my colleagues to support this important measure. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, late last year, Congress passed the Transportation Recall Enhancement Accountability and Documentation, or TREAD Act. That new law includes a bill I authored, the Child Passenger Act of 2000, which requires the Department of Transportation to update its standards on child safety seats for infants and toddlers. Today, I rise to introduce another bill, which represents the next step in our effort to ensure that all of our Nation's children are adequately protected in motor vehicle crashes. The purpose of this bill is to encourage greater use of booster seats, and thereby reduce the number of traffic fatalities and injuries to young children. Booster seats are seat belt positioning devices that are designed to protect children who have outgrown their car seats but are still too physically small to fit properly in an adult-sized safety belt. Safety advocates have coined the term ``forgotten child'' to describe the average occupant of a passenger vehicle who is at least 4 years old, but usually less than 8 or 9 years old, and less than 4'9" tall. According to the National Highway traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, only about 6 percent of children between the ages of 4 and 8 years currently use booster seats when riding in motor vehicles. Too often, the child in this category has outgrown his child safety seat and is inappropriately placed in an adult-sized safety belt without a belt-positioning booster, or worse still, left completely unrestrained. Three-point shoulder and lap belts, even those in the back seat where it's recommended that children sit, currently are not made or tested for children. Children who are graduated at 40 pounds or so directly from their child safety seat to adult seatbelts can suffer serious harm, say researchers. In some crashes, the seatbelts don't restrain the child. In others, they do, but the shoulder belt that cuts across the small child's neck, and the lap belt that rides high over her abdomen, cause severe internal injuries to the liver, spleen, intestines and spinal cord. Medical doctors have characterized such injuries as ``lap belt syndrome.'' Parents obviously want to do what is best for their children. Safety restraint use for children under a year old is 97 percent, and 91 percent for children ages one to four. These high usage rates are due in part to the education and outreach that has occurred through the Occupant Protection Incentive Grants Program, enacted in 1998. The authorization for that annual, $7.5 million grant program is about to expire. The legislation that I am introducing would extend the program for an additional two years. To an even greater extent. These high restraint usage rates for infants and toddlers are due to the enactment of mandatory child restraint usage laws in all 50 states. There is no similar uniform requirement for booster seat use, and there are very serious gaps in state laws regarding child restraint generally. For example, some states require seatbelts only for children sitting in the front seat, and others only require children to wear seatbelts if they are younger than 5 or 6 years. According to NHTSA, for children between age five and fifteen, restraint use is only 68.7 percent, and NHTSA data for 1998 shows that over 47 percent of fatally injured children ages four to seven are completely unrestrained. Education is critical to closing this safety gap. A recent survey of 1,000 parents and care givers conducted by NHTSA and DaimlerChrysler revealed that about 96 percent of parents and caregivers did not know the correct age for which a child no longer requires a booster seat or child safety seat. We know booster seats save lives, yet the overwhelming majority of states don't require them. Only three states, Arkansas, California, and Washington, have adopted mandatory booster seat laws. Recent attempts to pass meaningful legislation in other states, including my home state of Illinois, have failed. One obstacle that is holding back the states from adopting stronger laws is the lack of a Federal performance standard for booster seats for children who weigh more than 50 pounds. The legislation I am introducing today would give the Secretary of Transportation two years in which to come up with a new performance standard for booster seats. That standard would, of course, cover all children in booster seats, including those who are heavier than 50 pounds. In addition, this bill provides strong incentives for states to adopt responsible highway safety laws. It would extend grant money to states if they adopt seat belt laws for all children under the age of 16 as well as booster seat laws for some of these children. Many passenger cars have only a lap belt in the rear, center seating position of the vehicle, which generally means that you cannot install a booster seat there. Yet safety advocates say that the rear, center seating position is generally the safest place for a child to be in the event of a crash. To close this safety gap, my bill also would require the installation of lap and shoulder belts in each of the rear seats of newly manufactured passenger vehicles offered for sale in the United States. That new requirement,which may be phased in over a three-year period, is based on a recommendation of the National Transportation Safety Board. In closing, comprehensive medical data evidencing the benefits of booster seats is still being developed; and a lot of states have yet to adopt adequate safety belt laws. I believe that the safety of the ``forgotten'' child is extremely important, and we need to consider all of the tools at our disposal to advance it. I therefore urge my colleagues to support this important measure. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FITZGERALD

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

Mr. FITZGERALD. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Fitzgerald pertaining to the submission of S. Con. Res. 44 are located in today's Record under ``Submission of Concurrent and Senate Resolutions.'')

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

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Madam President, I rise today, with my colleague Senator Smith of New Hampshire, to submit a concurrent resolution honoring the American servicemen who were attacked by the Japanese Imperial Forces at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Senator Smith submitted a parallel resolution last year but has allowed me to take the lead on this matter this year in light of the special significance of Pearl Harbor remembrance day to my family. My uncle, Navy Ensign Edward Webb Gosselin, was among the 1,102 American seamen killed aboard the battleship U.S.S. Arizona on December 7, 1941. Edward had enlisted in the Navy in September of 1940 and reported to his first duty station, the Arizona, in May of 1941. He was 24 years old when he died. Edward had just graduated from Yale University and was, in fact, the first Yale graduate to die in World War II. The Navy later named a destroyer escort after Edward, and it was named the U.S.S. Gosselin. Fittingly, after participating in the invasion of Okinawa, the Gosselin had the honor of being the first American warship to enter Japanese waters upon that nation's surrender. The Gosselin also was the first ship to bring home American prisoners of war held in Japan. Many years later, Edward's father, my grandfather, recounted the tremendous pride he felt upon hearing the ships's name mentioned during radio broadcasts of the surrender. The resolution that Senator Smith and I introduce today reminds federal departments and agencies to fly the United States flag at half/ mast on December 7, and pays tribute to the United States citizens who died in the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, and to the members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. I conclude by asking all of my colleagues to join me this Memorial Day in remembering and honoring the 2,403 American sailors and soldiers who were killed at Pearl Harbor, and all other Americans in uniform who have died serving their country.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the Holocaust Victims Tax Fairness amendment, No. 670, to H.R. 1836, which I offered last Thursday, and which was approved by the Senate yesterday by voice vote. I would like to thank Senators Schumer, Jeffords, Clinton, McCain, Torricelli, Domenici, Allen, Durbin, Gordon Smith, Specter, Bill Nelson, Bingaman, Corzine, DeWine, Leahy, Collins, and Feinstein for cosponsoring my amendment. This year we mark the 56th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust. There are as many as 10,000 Holocaust survivors in my home state of Illinois, and over 100,000 in the entire United States, with an average age over 80. It is imperative that Congress act as soon as possible to prevent the federal government from attempting to tax any restitution obtained by Holocaust survivors and their families because of their persecution by the Nazis. Holocaust survivors and their families have lived through unspeakable horrors. Three weeks ago, I attended a Holocaust Memorial Service at a synagogue in Skokie, Illinois. After the formal proceedings were over, I spoke with a number of survivors of concentration camps, and heard what they were able to tell me about their dreadful experiences. One survivor of Auschwitz told me things she had never told her children. Why? Because I was a United States Senator, and she felt she had to tell me so that the Holocaust would never be forgotten, even though remembering these horrors caused her indescribable pain. The accounts of these survivors remind all of us that America has an obligation to continue to pursue justice and compensation for Holocaust victims and their families. My amendment, the Holocaust Victims Tax Fairness Act of 2001, would prevent the Federal Government from imposing the Federal income tax on Holocaust restitution or compensation payments that victims or their heirs may receive. The IRS has indicated in various private letter rulings that certain restitution money is exempt from the Federal income tax, but these rulings apply only to the specific individuals who received them, or to specific settlement funds, not to all recipients of compensation and restitution. The U.S. Treasury Department has made clear that Federal legislation is needed to ensure that all compensation and restitution payments are protected from unfair taxation. In fact, the Bush Administration Treasury Department supports my legislation, as did the Clinton Administration last year. The Holocaust Victims Tax Fairness Act of 2001 will provide certainty for elderly Holocaust survivors, thereby sparing them from having to navigate complex legal and bureaucratic processes. More than 50 years after the end of World War II, many banks and companies in Europe are beginning to return stolen assets to survivors of the Holocaust and their heirs. In August of 1998, two of the largest banks in Switzerland agreed to distribute $1.25 billion as restitution for assets wrongfully withheld during the Nazi reign. And in February of 1999, the German government agreed to establish a fund to compensate victims of the Holocaust. This amendment ensures that the beneficiaries of these settlements and other Holocaust restitution or compensation arrangements can exclude the proceeds from taxable income on their Federal income tax forms. The measure also ensures that survivors and their families do not lose their eligibility for federal or federally assisted need-based programs when they receive Holocaust-related restitution or compensation payments. Those of us too young to have lived in those times can never know the pain of the survivors. But we must learn from them. We who were born after the war must commit ourselves to try our best to shoulder the responsibility the survivors have carried for so long. While the restitution settlements pale in comparison to what they have lost, this legislation ensures that survivors and their families can keep all that is returned to them without being unnecessarily burdened by taxes or excluded from need-based programs. The Congress must send a clear message that to allow the federal government to tax away any reparations obtained by Holocaust survivors or their families because of their persecution by the Nazis or their sympathizers is simply unacceptable. Given that the average age of Holocaust survivors now exceeds 80 years of age, we believe it is imperative that the Congress act now to prevent the Federal Government from attempting to tax this money. Similar legislation was agreed to by the Senate as an amendment to the Taxpayer Refund Act of 1999. The provision was retained in conference, but the final bill was vetoed, preventing this important measure regarding Holocaust restitution from becoming law. My amendment improves significantly upon bills on this issue that were introduced in the 106th Congress. For example, this amendment is more carefully crafted to encompass all possible types of restitution and compensation that Holocaust survivors or their heirs may receive in the coming years. Furthermore, unlike previous versions, my legislation ensures that survivors and their families do not lose their eligibility for Federal or federally assisted need-based programs when they receive Holocaust- related restitution or compensation payments; this provision expands upon a 1994 law that protected only victims, not their heirs, from losing benefits from need-based programs because of restitution payments. My legislation corrects this unfortunate omission in the 1994 law. Finally, unlike previous versions, my amendment provides that the initial tax basis of property returned to Holocaust victims or their heirs will be the fair market value of the property on the date of recovery. This provision ensures that Holocaust survivors who receive in-kind, rather than cash, restitution do not have to pay tax on capital gains if they immediately sell the property. Survivors should not be unfairly penalized because they receive in-kind restitution; and the Federal Government should not make one dime on Holocaust restitution, whether the restitution is in cash or in kind. This legislation has strong bipartisan support in Congress. Twenty Senators have already cosponsored S. 749, a bill I introduced last month that is identical to this amendment. Many organizations that work to assist Holocaust survivors have endorsed the Holocaust Victims Tax Fairness Act of 2001, including the Conference on Jewish Material Claims, the Anti-Defamation League, B'nai B'rith International, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors-the largest organization of American Holocaust survivors. After over 50 years of injustice, Holocaust survivors and their families are reclaiming what is rightfully theirs. Even as we support these efforts to reclaim stolen property, we must do our part in protecting the proceeds. I thank my colleagues in joining me in supporting this amendment.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. I thank my friend and colleague. Mr. President, I have an amendment----

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes. Amendment No. 669