Peter Fitzgerald

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise in support of Senator Feinstein's amendment. I want to address and rebut a number of things my good friend from Texas said. I have as much respect for Senator Gramm as I do for anybody in this body. It is going to be a great shame that he is retiring this year because I will miss him dearly. I think this is, perhaps, the first time in my 3 years in the Senate that I have ever risen in opposition to Senator Gramm, but I do disagree with him. I do not think this is a complicated issue. I think it is a relatively simple issue. I think what it comes down to is that 2 years ago, when we passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, we patterned our bill after the recommendations of the Presidential Working Group, which included the Chairman of the CFTC, the Chairman of the SEC, and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. And they had recommended that we create three categories of regulation. One was a designated contract market which would be our Board of Trade and Mercantile Exchange in Chicago or the NYMEX in New York. There would be heavy regulation on those designated contract markets. The other recommended level of regulation was the so-called DTEF, the derivatives transaction execution facilities. Those would be online bilateral trading facilities that could be trading derivatives online. They would be regulated but with lighter regulation than the full-blown regulation of designated contract markets. And, finally, we created an exclusion for financial OTC derivatives. The opponents of this amendment have created the false impression that somehow the amendment by Senator Feinstein and myself intrudes upon the now essentially excluded financial derivatives industry. There is no regulation by the CFTC to speak of for all the financial derivatives that are out there, mainly between banks. Our amendment would not impose any regulation on the banks in that regard or on others who engage in purely financial derivative transactions. This has nothing to do with that. Instead, we are simply closing off an exemption that applied to just a handful of online trading companies that happen to be trading energy and metals. At the last minute, over in the House, they were exempted, not just from one or two levels but from all levels of regulation. And this exemption applied to literally just a handful of companies. It was a special carveout that is upheld by absolutely no public policy rationale. The companies that benefited from this exemption included, of course, Enron Online. There is a company called ICE, the IntercontinentalExchange; they benefited from this exemption. The reason banks are interested in this issue is not because they are worried we are imposing some kind of legal uncertainty on financial derivatives but, instead, because a couple of banks have a big ownership interest in this totally exempt energy online trading facility, ICE. And, finally, there is another company called TradeSpark that is owned by a couple of energy companies. So you have three companies that essentially got a special carveout from the whole scheme of regulation that originated with the President's Working Group. The President's Working Group, in essence, said financial derivatives, interest rate swaps, for example, between banks would be exempt from regulation by the CFTC. I take issue with Senator Gramm when he says no Member of the Senate knows what a derivative is. I do. I grew up in a banking family. I was on the board of many banks. I was a general counsel of a publicly traded bank holding company. We used to enter into interest rate swaps. When our banks wanted to do a lot of fixed rate mortgages, we wanted interest rate protection. We would go protect ourselves against an increase in interest rates by entering a swap with another bank. There should be no fear, whatsoever, out there that that market would be disturbed by our amendment because it has absolutely nothing to do with it. We would not impose any requirements on banks entering into interest rate swaps, for example. Instead, the intent of our amendment is to close off an exemption, a special carveout for online energy trading companies that makes no sense. The President's Working Group distinguished between financial commodities of an infinite supply, such as interest rate swaps, and said those should be excluded. And they are excluded. We maintain that exclusion. But they said: Finite commodities such as agricultural commodities-- corn, soybeans, pork bellies--or metals--gold, silver--finite physical commodities such as that in which there is a finite supply and in which, theoretically at least, the market could be cornered, there should be some regulation for those markets. The President's working group further said that there should be full- bore regulation if the trading is in an open outcry pit such as we have at the Board of Trade and the Mercantile Exchange in Chicago. There is full-blown regulation. But there is a lighter degree of regulation, some regulatory oversight, for online exchanges that trade those physical, finite-quantity commodities. It is that level of regulation that we are seeking to impose on these now exempt online energy transaction facilities. Senator Gramm cited section 4(g) of the Commodities Act. He said we already have recordkeeping requirements in the CFMA; we already have the ability for the CFTC to go after fraud if they find it. I looked at section 4(g). Guess what. Section 4(g) does say that the Commission shall adopt rules requiring that a contemporaneous written record be made, as practical, of all orders for execution on the floor or subjected to the rules of each contract market--a contract market is a board of trade like the Chicago Board of Trade--or a derivatives transaction execution facility. Those are the online transaction facilities we are talking about that are regulated. The fact is, earlier in this act we created a special category for these online energy and metal firms such as ICE which is in turn owned by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. They have a rifleshot exemption in this code, and this section 4(g) that Senator Gramm talked about does not apply to them because they are exempt from the definition of derivatives transaction execution facility. That is back earlier in the act. What we need to do is close this loophole. What public policy rationale upholds the picking out of a couple of online firms and saying: You are going to be exempt from the requirements of the act? It doesn't make any sense. Now, we did have good-faith negotiations with Senator Gramm. He has proposed regulating natural gas and electricity contracts that are traded online but exempting metals and oil contracts. Why does that make any sense? Shouldn't everybody be playing on a level regulatory playing field? Why should some business have a regulatory advantage? That isn't what America is all about. We want all businesses to be playing on the same level playing field. If some succeed because they work harder, have better products, and they are smarter, that is great. But when they succeed or make a lot of money because the Government has sponsored some special advantage based on their power and their adeptness at playing the political game in Washington, that is not right. That is not what America is all about, giving a special carve- out to a few companies. It doesn't make sense. Now, I happen to agree with Senator Gramm on one point. I have seen no evidence that the trading by online energy trading firms had anything to do with the spike in oil or electricity prices on the west coast. I certainly doubt that is the case. But that is not why I am here supporting this amendment. Instead, I am supporting this amendment because I think price discovery is very important to consumers. Senator Gramm was saying we never require retailers to disclose the wholesale prices they pay. That is true. But this is not really analogous to going to buy something at Wal-Mart. This is more analogous to buying a stock from a broker. You call up your broker, and you ask them to buy 100 shares of IBM stock. They can look up on the New York Stock Exchange and get one of the latest quotes, and they can tell you. Let's just say it is $100 a share. You go buy the 100 shares for $100 a share, and then your broker gets a commission. The problem with this kind of trading is that the customer can't see the prices. In the case of your going to your broker and buying 100 shares of IBM, you can find out what the price was on the New York Stock Exchange. It is different with an online energy trading firm. You may call them up and say you want a contract for, let's say, natural gas or something, and you will pay $265 for the contract. Well, what if the person from the online energy company looks up and he finds he can buy it at $263? But then he resells it to you at $265. You never would know the difference, would you, because you would never know the wholesale price at which he got it. I am sure no one at Enron Online would ever cheat their customer in the way I just described. I am sure that would never happen, or that this would ever happen in ICE or TradeSpark--that they would use their superior knowledge of the wholesale market and the lack of knowledge of their customer to make a few extra points. I am sure that would never happen. But let's just say that this could happen, that there could be some dishonest people in those companies. And in addition to wanting to make a commission for selling that contract at $265, they might want to take a little bit of markup, a little bit of kickback. It probably happens in the political business when we all buy our direct mail. You are always wondering how much your direct mail firm is actually paying for their printing and mailing. You know they are marking it up, and you try to guard against it. But that very same thing could happen when you are trading with one of these online customers. That is why I do believe it is important for the CFTC to have the ability to require these companies to report their volumes and to report their prices. That is protection for the consumer. Oddly, I think ICE, Enron Online, and TradeSpark would have more customers if they were regulated by the CFTC than they now have. I will tell you this: I would never go trade with them because I would have no idea at what wholesale prices they were buying. I wouldn't use them. I would go to a regulated board of trade where I could be sure there were some safeguards for me. I wouldn't trade with somebody such as that, an online energy company. And I believe their businesses are smaller than they otherwise would be if there were some protections for consumers. It is much like our stock markets. Our capital markets have exploded in the last 50 or 60 years. We have the best capital formation markets in the world. I do believe that our securities laws have helped foster that strong capital market. If you go back to the 1920s and before, when there was really no regulation, or go back before the Federal Trade Commission, when there was absolutely no regulation of our stock markets, the little guys didn't get involved in that at all because they figured it was an insider game and that the deck was stacked against them. They were right; the deck was stacked against them. Since we have put in protections for the consumer, we have banned insider trading and made a lot of manipulative practices illegal, more and more Americans have felt comfortable investing in the stock market to the point that we now have over 50 percent of Americans investing their own stocks directly or indirectly. If there were this light level of regulation that Senator Feinstein and I are suggesting with our amendment, that would be good for these companies that want to uphold this special privilege that exempts them from all regulatory oversight. Now, I also note that there is a Senator who probably knows as much as any of the derivatives experts in this country about derivative transactions, and that is Senator John Corzine of New Jersey. Senator Corzine was chairman of Goldman Sachs, which is an owner of IntercontinentalExchange. He has joined us as a cosponsor of this amendment. I think this is an outstanding amendment. I think it is very simple. We are closing off a special deal that just applies to a few firms. There is no public policy rationale that supports the special deal these firms have. We are making the treatment of all firms the same under the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. It makes perfect sense. We are doing so in a way that was originally recommended by the President's Working Group. I appreciate the hard work of my colleague from California and also my colleague from Texas. We have had a lot of negotiations. I think one thing we have done is conclusively demolish any argument that this represents any threat at all to financial derivatives. They are not affected in any way. Senator Gramm initially said this was his primary concern. We worked on it, and we have modified the amendment to make it crystal clear that we have no intent of affecting the financial derivatives markets. Those are excluded and will continue to be excluded. We are simply trying to close off a special loophole that applies to a handful of companies. I think it is very good public policy. Let's close this exemption that was stuck in by the House at the last minute when they passed the CFMA. I yield the floor.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Madam President, I am pleased to rise in support of this amendment by my colleague from California. I support it and congratulate her for introducing it. Illinois, specifically Chicago, is home to some of the largest futures exchanges in the world. Certainly, I was very involved in the Commodity Exchange Act Reauthorization a couple of years ago. Since that time, in the wake of the Enron bankruptcy, the Enron exemption that allowed Enron Online to operate without any regulatory oversight has come to light, and it has drawn some criticism. I say at the outset, I think probably Enron Online may not have had all that much to do with Enron's bankruptcy. I have also been very involved in the Enron investigations in the Senate, and as far as I can tell, Enron was running what amounts to a gigantic shell game or pyramid scheme, essentially borrowing money and booking borrowed money as income by filtering the borrowings through partnerships. They had the debt parked on the books of the off-the-balance-sheet partnerships rather than on their direct books. At the end of the day, when Enron filed bankruptcy, it was because it had several billion dollars in indebtedness coming due that it, Enron, could not pay. I don't know that Enron Online and their energy trading, per se, was responsible for it. I have seen many transactions that Enron engaged in that were simply borrowing money and reporting it as income. We will have to wait for a full autopsy. Nonetheless, I think it is appropriate to close the Enron exemption in the Commodities Exchange Act. That is what this bill does. Right now, in an electronic exchange in which energy contracts are traded, that exchange is exempt from regulation under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or by the FERC. FERC only comes in if energy is actually delivered, and in most cases energy is not actually delivered. You have contracts traded back and forth and many times an actual delivery of the commodity is put off. I have been troubled to some extent by the wholesale exemption that is given to online futures exchanges. The exchanges at the Board of Trade and the Mercantile Exchange face a great deal of overhead to comply with their regulatory burden. I think that is appropriate. I think sometimes it is unfair to set up an offline exchange and say this is an offline exchange because online does not have any regulation. I like to see industries competing on a level playing field. I think that is what America is all about. I do not think there should be regulatory advantages given to one side or the other. I do think this would be a protection for consumers, even sophisticated principals who may be trading energy contracts on electronic exchanges. I think there would be benefits by having some CFTC oversight. There would be greater transparency. It would be easier for prices to be discovered. I think Senator Feinstein's amendment accomplishes a great deal. It repeals the exemptions and exclusions for bilateral derivatives in multilateral markets in energy commodities. All would be again subject to direct CFTC oversight. That was the case prior to our reauthorization of the Commodities Exchange Act. We would correct that. Also, it ensures that energy dealers in derivatives markets cannot avoid full price transparency and escape regulatory oversight. Third, the amendment subjects all multilateral markets and bilateral dealer markets in energy commodities to registration, transparency, disclosure, and reporting obligations and requires entities running online trading forums to maintain sufficient capital to carry out their operations. It seems very reasonable to me. Fourth, parties engaging in bilateral energy transactions must keep books and records. That does not seem so onerous to me. Fifth, all energy transactions not regulated by FERC would be regulated by the CFTC. And sixth, the amendment requires FERC and the CFTC to meet quarterly and discuss how energy derivatives markets are functioning and affecting energy deliveries. I do think that is reasonable in light of the great runup we saw in energy prices last year, particularly in Senators Feinstein and Boxer's great State of California. It is unclear why the price rose so quickly and why then ultimately it plummeted again back to reasonable levels. Whether this amendment, had it been law at the time, would have prevented that I do not know. But I think it will promote greater price transparency. I think that can't hurt. I think there is a minimal burden here, and I think it is worthy public policy. I compliment my friend from California, and I am proud to stand in support of her amendment. I thank the Chair.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I thank and acknowledge the invocation by Dr. James A. Scudder, the Pastor of Quentin Road Bible Baptist Church in Lake Zurich, IL. Reverend Scudder is one of my distinguished constituents from the State of Illinois. I have appeared before his congregation and I have known him for many years. I appreciate his friendship, and we are all eternally grateful for his being here this morning and giving the prayer. Dr. Scudder is somewhat nationally known. He has a national television show that appears once a week on WGN-TV. He is an outstanding guest Chaplain for us to have today. I thank Dr. Scudder on behalf of the State of Illinois and the country for being here today.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Madam President, I rise today in support of the Dorgan-Grassley amendment regarding payment limitations. Last year, as many as twenty Fortune 500 companies received farm subsidies, while hard-working family farmers struggled to survive near record low commodity prices. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports the largest 18 percent of farms receive 74 percent of federal farm program payments, and the Associated Press recently reported that over 150 people were paid more than one million dollars in farm subsidies in 2000. In 1999, 47 percent of farm payments went to large commercial farms, which had an average household income of $135,000. I believe that these payments disparities need to be addressed. In August of last year, President Bush even recognized this problem. ``There's a lot of medium-sized farmers that need help, and one of the things that we are going to make sure of as we restructure the farm program next year is that the money goes to the people it is meant to help,'' he concluded. Recently, I joined my colleagues Senators Grassley and Dorgan as an original co-sponsor of the pending amendment to cap annual federal farm payments at $225,000 per individual and $275,000 per married couple. This amendment would help ensure that only active farmers receive farm payments. Common sense should dictate that you should be required to be an active participant in ``farming'' to receive ``farm'' payments. This requirement should help ensure that corporations and multimillionaire tycoons no longer feed at the federal trough. If you don't till the soil or drive a combine at harvest, you shouldn't be taking advantage of a program intended for farmers who need the assistance. While the current farm bill establishes caps on government payments to producers, unfortunately, these payment ``limits'' have been circumvented via a loophole known as general commodity certificates. In fact, according to the Congressional Research Service, ``while purported to discourage commodity forfeitures, certificates effectively serve to circumvent the payment limitation.'' Unlimited farm payments jeopardize the long-term viability of the U.S. farm economy by diminishing our competitiveness and artificially inflating land prices and rental rates. Thus, farm payments often go to landowners and not the farm operators who need them most. In fact, these higher land costs add to producers' cost of production and decrease their competitiveness in world markets. If large commercial farmers know that they can only receive a fixed amount of federal farm payments, they will be less likely to bid up farmland rental rates and be less likely to outbid their neighbors or young beginning farmers at farmland auctions. Large farm subsidy payments to super-wealthy individuals and companies has led to close public scrutiny of our farm programs and threatens to undermine public support for these programs. I believe this amendment to the farm bill is a positive step not only toward ensuring those families who most need federal assistance receive it, but also to reaffirming public confidence that farm programs are vital to our nation's agricultural community. We owe it to our nation's farmers to ensure that farm payments are going to those most in need. We owe it to taxpayers to protect their investment in our agricultural economy. The amendment proposed today is a positive step towards ensuring more fairness in our valuable farm subsidy program.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. That is unclear. I think under certain circumstances the western access would have to be paid for out of airport improvement funds because in section 6 of your bill you provide for Federal construction of the project.

Mr. FITZGERALD. No, and that is certainly not clear from the language. I cite section 1(f) of your language where you define the runway design plan to include related facilities, which I take to include related roadway improvements. So I don't know how many Senators want airport improvement funds drained from their States to go for a road in the Chicago area which would be part of this overall O'Hare expansion plan. That road happens to be a good idea if they do it in the right way. If they do it in the wrong way, it will take up 20 percent of the business and an industrial park in the city of Elk Grove, the largest industrial park in the country. Twenty percent of that would be taken out.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I will yield for one more question.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Where do you have that language?

Mr. FITZGERALD. But they would be revenues of O'Hare Airport.

Mr. FITZGERALD. O'Hare revenues would include whatever revenues they took in, from any source. You don't say that.

Mr. FITZGERALD. To my colleague from Illinois I say I am sure if I got an annual report of O'Hare and looked at the income statements, they would include as airport revenues the funds they receive from whatever source--from airport improvement funds, from PFCs, from concessions, or any source that is part of total revenue. I differ on how this language reads. As I said earlier, there are safety issues raised by this project, this proposal. We currently have 25 taxi runway crossings at O'Hare. That brochure that I held up earlier that the FAA puts out on airport safety, one point it makes is layouts of airports that require aircraft and vehicles to cross runways need to be avoided. This goes on to say that every crossing represents a potential runway incursion. Vehicle crossings can be eliminated by constructing all-weather perimeter and service roads. At busy airports with a large volume of vehicles traveling from one side of the airport to the other, it may be cost beneficial to construct vehicle roadway tunnels under the runways. It goes on and emphasizes that the number of crossings, taxiway and runway crossings affect safety. My understanding is the current layout at O'Hare Airport has 25 taxiways and runway crossings, but this new plan would have 43. It is a much more complicated design. Under the standard set up by the FAA, in their own brochure, there could be an increased threat of a runway incursion. The point has been previously made by my colleagues from Arizona and elsewhere that the language Senator Durbin is offering tonight bypasses the authorizing committees in the House and the Senate. It is, in my judgment, a circumvention of the process. The appropriations, the Defense appropriations bill is not the appropriate vehicle to have a transportation or an aviation measure. In the Senate, we have the Commerce Committee that governs transportation and aviation. If there is any expertise in the Senate staff and among the Senators who have a lot of experience in aviation, it is in the Senate Commerce Committee, and in the House it is the House Transportation Committee. The House has, in fact, told our Commerce Committee staff that they will oppose this language in conference because they believe this is not going through the proper channels. There were no hearings in the appropriate committee. As I said, why aren't we doing this in the State legislature? If for some reason they couldn't do it in the State legislature--say they weren't meeting for the next year and they had to come to the Senate-- you would think the way to do this would be to bring a bill and go through the appropriate channels, go through the authorizing committee, and have hearings in the Senate Commerce Committee. Of course, I was in Chicago with Senator Durbin and Senator McCain earlier. We had an informational hearing on aviation in Chicago. At that time, Mayor Daley had decided he was going to come out with a plan. But the plan that was just agreed to that we are now being asked to vote on is 48 hours old. It was a backroom deal between two people. It didn't involve the State legislature. It is not available to the public. No details are available to the public. We are being asked right now to enact it into Federal law. The other thing this language that the city of Chicago is offering does is take the unprecedented step of saying if this new airport violates the Clean Air Act, if we are going to violate the EPA laws, then the EPA must revise their own regulations so that the plan can fly. Isn't that nice? We are just going to give them in Federal law a cart blanche to violate the permissible levels of toxic pollutants put out, and we are going to do that in the Senate. Isn't that a good idea? My understanding is there are airports around the country that have had problems because they haven't been able to comply with the Clean Air Act. But they have to make modifications so they comply with the Clean Air Act. I would like O'Hare Airport--whether the current airport or a redesigned O'Hare--to comply with the Clean Air Act. I wouldn't want the Clean Air Act modified or weakened or the burden put on some other industry to make up for the added pollution given out by O'Hare Airport. Of course, one of the problems we have in airports such as O'Hare in a congested urban and suburban surrounding is that you pose a risk of toxic pollutants to hundreds of thousands of people.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I would prefer to continue and give the Senator plenty of time to respond at the end of my speech.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, another issue I have been concerned about and Congressman Jackson and Congressman Hyde have been concerned about for a very long period of time is that we have two airlines that have 87 percent of the aviation market at O'Hare. Those airlines are United and American. I applaud the hard-working employees of those airlines. I have a great deal of respect for them. They have been through a very difficult fall. But one of the issues I am concerned about is that there is not adequate competition on long-haul flights to Chicago. We have some competition coming out of Midway Airport, and very good competition from great airlines, ATA and Southwest. It is difficult to do long-haul flights because the runways are so short. I thought it would be preferable to build a third airport because that would provide new entrants in the Chicago aviation area and an opportunity to compete with United and American. A GAO study commissioned by Congress a couple of years ago said monopoly overcharges at Chicago's O'Hare Airport--additional fees that consumers of air travel in the Chicago area pay that result from monopoly conditions at O'Hare--amount to $623 million a year. In fact, Governor Ryan, when he was campaigning for Governor, put out a policy paper that cited that GAO report in support of his then position favoring the third airport. While I think Senator Durbin's ultimate objective and certainly Mayor Daley's objective would to be expand capacity at O'Hare, my question is how construction would proceed. When they are tearing up and rebuilding O'Hare, my worry would be we would, in fact, have less capacity than we do right now due to construction. Anybody in the Chicago area who drives the expressways from the suburbs to the city or from the city to the suburbs knows what happens when there is a construction project during the summer on the expressways. It causes huge bottlenecks. People's commutes to work are doubled. My fear is that, while we are doing this massive tearing up and rebuilding of O'Hare, the delays we have been enduring for the last few years at O'Hare and around the country would, in fact, be exacerbated. In addition, one of the things that the language Senator Durbin will be offering in the conference committee, if he succeeds in getting this language adopted tonight, in my judgment--and I think Senator Durbin will probably dispute it, but I will let him speak for himself--this language is a backdoor means of killing the third airport at the south suburban site. There is a section in the bill that mentions Peotone, but it really is just lipservice. It says the FAA must consider Peotone. But I think I will be able to demonstrate as we go on tonight that the specific terms of the language, because they mandate a reconstruction project at O'Hare, would have the effect of drying up the justification for going forward with a third airport. The State's premise for building the third airport has always been that there was not going to be an expansion of O'Hare. The Chicago Airport Capacity Study of 1986 to 1988, in fact, concluded that it wasn't feasible--I agree with them--to expand the capacity at O'Hare, which leads me to my discussion of the wisdom of expanding O'Hare as opposed to going forward with a third airport in the south suburbs. The bottom line, in my argument, is that we would get more capacity more quickly at less cost by building a third airport in the south suburbs than we would by going forward with Mayor Daley's expansion plan at O'Hare. Of course, going forward with the third airport would still leave money for everybody else's airports in the country. I don't think Mayor Daley's plan would. If I could point to a couple of the advantages, first with respect to cost. There have been many estimates of the cost. I think we can count on the O'Hare expansion being at least $13 billion. That was the figure cited by Kirk Brown, director of the department of transportation of the State of Illinois in August with respect to Mayor Daley's expansion plan. That is because there is $6 billion in runway reconstruction that is being proposed and talked about right now. There is $4 billion for the World Gateway Terminal Program that is already underway. Then there is $3 billion in related roadway improvements. In contrast, the third airport would be on a greenfield site on 24,000 acres in a rural area and would only cost $5 billion to $6 billion, roughly the same amount at Denver International Airport. It is laid out similarly on a lot of land with a lot of space. It is easier to build in an open space than it is to go into a congested urban area. It is easier than going into an existing airport such as O'Hare, tearing up and moving the runways, and in some cases tearing them up and moving them over 500 feet. You don't have that waste if you just go ahead and build the third airport. Capacity: Mayor Daley's plan would add 700,000 additional flight operations at O'Hare. It is now at 900,000 operations. An additional 700,000 a year would bring it to 1.6 million operations in a year. But, in fact, for a third of the cost, the capacity could be 1.6 million operations, much greater for the long-term future of our country. Construction of the third airport: By the terms of the legislation, which Senator Durbin will provide to the conference committee, you can see they aren't even anticipating getting to the final runway at O'Hare until 2011. That project is going to go on for more than a decade. It will go on and on and on, and people will probably, in my judgment, be delayed during the construction. In contrast, it is estimated that phase I of the third airport could be up in 3 to 5 years after we got approval. And a request for approval has already been started at the FAA. The State has already submitted that plan. The city of Chicago has not submitted its plan yet to the FAA. Community: With respect to O'Hare, you have significant opposition from communities surrounding O'Hare. The quality of life of hundreds of thousands of people would be adversely affected by that proposal. Yet in the south suburbs, you generally have significant community support, although there is, of course, some local opposition from homeowners; there is no question about that. Going back to the competition point, the O'Hare expansion, in one of the designs of this whole O'Hare expansion, is to goldplate United's and American's position at O'Hare. At United and American, they do a good job. I fly them back and forth every week between Washington and Illinois. But they do enjoy a monopoly position. They have an 87- percent market share at Chicago O'Hare Airport. The fact is, they have been opposing O'Hare expansion for years, probably as much as 30 years. O'Hare first reached capacity in 1969. That is when the FAA had to cap the number of flights there because the demand for flights started to exceed capacity. The former Mayor Daley tried to build a third airport. He tried to build an airport at Lake Michigan, a third airport. He recognized back in the early 1970s the need for a new airport. What this O'Hare expansion would do is, it would lock in American's and United's dominance of the aviation market in Chicago. That is good for the shareholders of United and American. But I would say that is not good for consumers. We benefit by having more choices, by having competition, by having new entrants come into the airport. If we had a new airport, we would have new entrants coming into the Chicago market almost certainly. We have had testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee that new entrants have a hard time or cannot get into O'Hare. In fact, a representative of JetBlue testified earlier this year that they wanted to run flights to Chicago out of New York, but they could not get into Midway or O'Hare. We have to confront this issue because passenger travel has gone up 400 percent in this country since deregulation. But the major hub carriers have blocked every single new airport in the last 20 years with the exception of Denver. And in Denver's case, they insisted that Stapleton Airport be shut down so they could not get a maverick carrier like Southwest in there competing. So you look around the country now. What Congress has allowed to happen is we have monopolies by region in aviation. If you go to Atlanta, Delta has a dominant position. If you go to Minneapolis-St. Paul, you have Northwest, which has a dominant position. They have also a dominant position in Memphis and Detroit. If you look at Dallas, in Senator Gramm's State, you have a dominant position by American Airlines. In Chicago, United and American share their dominance. We are blessed in Chicago because we have a duopoly as opposed to a monopoly; and that is somewhat better. But the fact of the matter is, consumers around the country are suffering because they do not have aviation choices in their communities. And the airlines kind of like this situation. You do not see Delta making much of an attempt to go into United's and American's turf in Chicago, and you do not see much of an attempt by United and American to go and intrude on Delta's dominant position at Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport. They have kind of carved up the Nation's aviation market like slices of apple pie. I would like to focus and turn our attention now to a section-by- section analysis of the language that Senator Durbin would like to introduce into the conference committee on the Defense appropriations bill. If we start right at the beginning of section (1), it is entitled: ``Necessity Of O'Hare Runway Redesign And Development of South Suburban Airport.'' Section (1) (a) reads: The Congress hereby declares that redesign and reconstruction of Chicago-O'Hare International Airport in Cook and DuPage Counties, Illinois in accordance with the runway redesign plan---- And that is later defined---- and the development of a south suburban airport in the Chicago metropolitan region, are each required to improve the efficiency of, and relieve congestion in, the national air transportation system. I submit that the very first paragraph of Senator Durbin's language that he hopes to put into the conference committee report--that there is no basis for this language. There is not a single report, no finding, no study, no cost analysis, no cost-benefit analysis to support the idea that we should both build a massive O'Hare and go forward with the south suburban airport that I discussed. As we discussed, the State's premise for the third airport is that O'Hare would not and could not be expanded. There are studies--there are reams of studies--going back many years that say we need a third airport. Those studies are premised on the belief that there is no way that O'Hare could be feasibly expanded. And so there is justification for Peotone. There is no study--nothing--that supports the notion that we need both a massive new O'Hare and a Peotone. Now 49 U.S.C., section 47115, subsection (c), says that as a condition of any discretionary grants a cost-benefit analysis of the project should be done. We are mandating a project right now. And apparently we are not going to do a cost-benefit analysis. Why is Congress, why is the Senate being asked to gut our mechanism for applying an analytical review process to improvements and changes at runways and airports around the country? What are the costs and benefits here? We do not know. This is a backroom deal that happened about 48 hours ago. In fact, it was less than 48 hours ago that they reached that backroom deal. And we do not have any of the details. We do not have any of the internal documents. We do not have any of the background information that we need. And, moreover, we are not the ones who should be passing on this backroom deal. If there is a runway plan that the city of Chicago has, they should submit it through the appropriate channels. The other thing that the FAA's cost-benefit analysis, that Congress has mandated, requires is that it requires a consideration of alternatives. If an airport is proposing an expansion plan, the FAA would make them go through a rigorous analysis of what would be the alternative. What are the costs and the benefits of an alternative? Isn't that the sort of analytical approach we should take on these things? Why are we mandating, codifying in Federal law, and preordaining the outcome? No one is going to look at whether this plan makes sense. We are just going to make it a Federal statute. And it does not matter whether it makes sense. No one has introduced details of costs. There are no benefits that have been suggested and no alternatives. There is no such analysis available for O'Hare. And they have not offered any new analysis on Peotone. So, in short, this language that Senator Durbin hopes to put in the conference committee report guts the analytical framework mandated by Congress and makes this the only mandated runway construction plan in the country. Mr. President, we talked earlier about how the costs would probably be borne by the airport improvement fund to some extent around the country. If you go to section 1(b), it says that ``The Federal Aviation Administrator shall implement this Federal policy by facilitating approval, funding, construction, and implementation of'' the runway design plan. So the FAA, its hands are tied. It must facilitate, it shall--the word is ``shall''--shall facilitate the approval, the funding, construction, and implementation. What if the FAA were to decide they didn't want to give this any discretionary grants? I would think anybody who had bought a bond that was issued in reliance on this language that the FAA would be compelled to facilitate the funding might have a claim there. They would be in a position, the city would be in a position to force the FAA to cough up money, and it would be forced to cough up perhaps at the expense of other airports around the country. We have said this involves blockbuster amounts. This is not a $1 billion project, this is a $2 or a $3 billion project. This is $6 billion for the construction of runways, and then it is $2 to $3 billion for a ring road and even more costs if it goes through a lot of businesses. With respect to Peotone in that first paragraph, it says that there is a necessity for O'Hare runway redesign and development of a south suburban airport. But it doesn't say what kind of a south suburban airport. Is this a one-runway south suburban airport or a six-runway south suburban airport? There have been different proposals in that regard. The State of Illinois has already submitted a proposal to the FAA for a starter south suburban airport that would have one runway initially but could be expanded to six. This language does not say. With respect to airport financing, it is pretty well gone, certainly on the Senate Commerce Committee. And I am sure, as most of the Senators, that these projects are typically paid for with a combination of general airport revenue bonds that the airlines agree to help retire over time, and also another element is passenger facility charges, so- called PFC fees. Of course, one major component is the one I was discussing before that I would suggest would be depleted for other airports around the country. That is the airport improvement funds. Huge amounts of airport improvements funds would be sucked up for O'Hare, for a controversial plan that the residents, the legislature, the congressional delegation of Illinois are split on, and many don't even want it. Congress should not obligate itself to these huge expenditures in Senator Durbin's language. It is clear to me that Congress, if it enacted into law Senator Durbin's language, would be obligating itself to huge expenditures. But we don't even know what those expenditures would be because those haven't been introduced or shown to anybody. We don't know what it would cost. But we would be obligating ourselves. (Mr. CORZINE assumed the chair.)

Mr. FITZGERALD. I suppose it would not be the first time we have picked up some unspecified liability, but I know the Presiding Officer has been a fiscal watchdog for the taxpayers, and he and I worked together to make sure that the taxpayers were not abused with respect to the airline bailout bill. We were concerned about the amounts there, and others in this Chamber were. I would suggest to the Presiding Officer and all Members of this body that we should be very cautious in obligating ourselves to unknown costs. We are assuming liabilities that are not specified in this language. The airport improvement funds have two components. Two-thirds of AIP funding is based on a formula which is in turn based on the size of the airport and the number of enplanements at the airport. If O'Hare is the busiest airport in the Nation this year, that means that based on the formula, it is probably getting the most airport improvement money of any airport in the country. If its size is doubled, then indeed its share of the airport improvement funds, formula funds, would in fact be close to double. That would come out of other airports around the country. The other third of the airport improvement funds comes from discretionary grants. I suggest to my colleagues in the Senate that this language would obligate the FAA to take huge chunks of their discretionary money and put it into this project at O'Hare that I don't support, that Congressman Hyde does not support, that Jesse Jackson, Jr., doesn't support, that the State Senate of Illinois does not support. All that money would be obligated to come from all of your projects. So, again, why not just go forward and build the third airport? The State committed the proposal for the third airport. We would get more capacity by building Peotone alone, and we would have money left over for airport improvements elsewhere in the country. I would also be concerned for the airports I have in downstate Illinois. Some of their AIP funds could be sucked up and given to O'Hare. This project could in fact be done at the expense of some of the downstate airports in Illinois. We would be doing this all at a time when we have a complete absence of models, a complete absence of FAA models, a complete absence of specifics, a complete absence of studies, a complete absence of detailed financial cost disclosures, and a complete absence of alternatives. With respect to the costs, the costs are written. And in fact the runway design plan that would be mandated here is written and defined in such a way as to include undefined elements. In fact, in section 1(f), it says that the term ``runway design plan'' means six parallel runways at O'Hare oriented in the east-west direction with the capability for four simultaneous, independent instrument aircraft arrivals and all associated taxiways, navigational facilities--what does that mean?--passenger handling facilities--is that terminals?--and other related facilities, and on top, the FAA would be mandated to facilitate this, presumably with funds, and the closure of existing runways 14L-32R, 14R-32L, and 18-36. I said earlier that the State was preempted and that really is the crux of why we are here. You have a plan that cannot get approved by the State legislature, and therefore we are being asked to substitute ourselves for the State legislature of Illinois. I am proud to have served in the Illinois State Senate. Many distinguished people, including Abraham Lincoln, served in the Illinois General Assembly. I would suggest to my colleagues that it is not appropriate for us to be substituting ourselves for the Illinois General Assembly. If the mayor needs their help in getting this plan approved, he ought to go submit his plans to the Illinois General Assembly. But instead, if you look at section 1(c) of Senator Durbin's language, what the bill attempts to do is preempt State laws. I will read the language here that is the crux of Senator Durbin's bill: The State shall not enact or enforce any law respecting aeronautics that interferes with or has the effect of interfering with implementation of Federal policy with respect to the runway redesign plan including, without limitation, sections 38.01, 47 and 48 of the Illinois Aeronautics Act. This clearly preempts the Illinois Aeronautics Act. It preempts specifically and gives specific mention to the sections of that act that require a hearing process, a vetting process, a permitting process. It wipes out the State's permitting process. I believe this language is broad enough. It does not just say it wipes out the Illinois Aeronautics Act, although it does mention it specifically. It says any law respecting aeronautics that interferes with or has the effect of interfering with the implementation of this law. So that would wipe out, in my judgment, environmental laws if they were a roadblock. If Mayor Daley could not comply with State environmental laws, he would have a Federal mandate to blow those away. He would not have to comply with the environmental laws of the State of Illinois.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I would rather yield at the end, I say to my colleague, my good friend from Illinois. State securities laws could come into play if there are airport bonds that are issued. If they had the effect of interfering with this, could they be overridden? There are other States that are in this position, in fact, that have some State laws in this area. I have a chart. This chart was actually prepared for a different bill, H.R. 2107. That was an attempt by Congressman Lipinski in the House to preempt local and State laws regarding airport approval processes. I believe there are a total of 26 States that have some control to give approval to local airport projects. Of course, Illinois is one of them, and all these other States--in fact, Mr. President, some of your neighboring States--Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Missouri, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Alaska, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi-- they all have some State laws in this regard to regulate airports. In my judgment, it is a bad precedent for the Federal Government to begin overriding those laws. Perhaps some of those people in those State legislatures and some of the local permitting authorities know something about their local projects and we in Washington should not be substituting our judgment for their judgment. I do not think it is a good idea we come in and blow out the laws of the State of Illinois that have been enacted by people duly elected to serve and represent their interests. We would be obliterating the say of the people in the Illinois General Assembly by enacting this measure. Again, the mayor could have gone to the legislature to pass this plan, but he did not want to or he could not, so he came to Congress to wipe out the State's legislature law. At the heart of this legislation, more than anything else, is really an attack on the Illinois General Assembly, if you want my opinion. If we turn to section 1(e) of the bill, this section indicates there is a fear on the part of the proponents that the mayor's expansion proposal will violate national air quality standards. Therefore, what this language does in section 1(e) of the bill is it will force the U.S. EPA to rewrite and weaken environmental regulations to keep them at the same strength by having some other industry in Illinois pay for it. Either that or it would just cause them to weaken their regulations altogether. Section 1(e) reads as follows: If the Administrator determines that construction or operation of the runway redesign plan would not conform, within the meaning of section 176(c) of the Clean Air Act, to an applicable implementation plan approved or promulgated under section 110 of the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency shall forthwith cause or promulgate a revision of such implementation plan sufficient for the runway redesign plan to satisfy the requirements of section 176(c) of the Clean Air Act. What does that mean? It means if Mayor Daley's runway redesign plan violates the Clean Air Act, then the EPA must weaken the Clean Air Act so the plan no longer violates the Clean Air Act, or they must, through their crediting process, put the burden on some other industry. Not many industries in Illinois are aware of that. Right after that, we have section 1(g) that, again, refers to the ``south suburban airport.'' It says: The term ``south suburban airport'' means a supplemental air carrier airport in the vicinity of Peotone, Illinois. Again, there is no definition. Is that a 6-runway or a 10-runway airport? We do not know. There have been different proposals, so I do not think this language is necessarily well done. Section 2 of the bill is on phasing of construction. This bill suggests that, in fact, the city would be forbidden from beginning construction of the sixth runway until 2011. What that means is that prior to 2011, there will not be six parallel runways at O'Hare. We have seven runways at O'Hare today. Prior to 2011, there will only be five parallel runways? Will we have less capacity at O'Hare until the sixth runway is finally built in 2011? It raises interesting questions. Western roadway access, again--and I had this colloquy with my colleague from Illinois. He disputes this, but I believe the language would require that the airport revenues be made available to pay for western public roadway access and revenues of the airport. As the Presiding Officer would know, having been the chairman of Goldman Sachs, one of our country's leading investment banking firms, the revenues of the airport would include all their revenues, whatever source derived, whether passenger facility charges or airport improvement funds. They could apparently use airport improvement funds to help with the roadway project. The Administrators shall not consider, and shall reject as incomplete, an airport layout plan submitted by Chicago that includes the runway redesign plan, unless it includes public roadway access through the western boundary of O'Hare to passenger terminal and parking facilities. I do believe that roadway access would help with O'Hare. The problem is right now we have to build another terminal out there on the western side for it to be truly as valuable as it should be. There is a question as to where this roadway would go. It would be a massive roadway. Would it take out several villages, such as Elk Grove and other villages, in the area? In fact, Mr. President, we have some maps that show some of the surrounding communities. We see the problems we get into when we start a massive plan such as this in a congested urban and suburban area. That western ring road would be on the western boundary of O'Hare. It would go from I-90 presumably on the north down somewhere to Irving Park Road on the south. I will point out that Elk Grove Village is there. The largest industrial park in the entire Nation is right about here. If this road goes through, it would take out perhaps 20 percent or more of the largest industrial park in the country. I do not favor that. If they wanted to do the western access on airport property, I think I would favor that, but I would not favor this. Will we give Federal impetus to something that nobody in this body was intending, perhaps not even sponsored the language, and that is the destruction of a large portion of Elk Grove Village, IL? I know Elk Grove Village, IL, very well. I represented that area when I was in the State senate. I represented the northwest suburbs. I know the mayor of Elk Grove is very concerned about losing the tax base in his village and hundreds of wonderful, strong businesses that use the industrial park. There is a large section on noise mitigation, and I will address that section as well. There seems to be an attempt to address the noise concerns that would be created by this expansion program, but I think there is a trick. If we look at section (4)(b)(1), it says: Approval by the administrator of an airport layout plan that includes the runway redesign plan shall be subject to the condition that noise impact of aircraft operations at O'Hare in the calendar year immediately following the year in which the first new runway is first used, and in each calendar year thereafter, will be less than the noise impact in calendar year 2000. The administrator shall make the determination required by this section. The trick is they are comparing today's fleet with a much quieter fleet in the future. It is not an apples to apples comparison. The apples to apples comparison would be to take the future fleet at the current level of operations and to compare that future fleet at the future level with the current level with the future fleet. So it gets complicated. What they are doing is clever but misleading. I say to my constituents who are worried about that issue, there is not a lot to help them with their concern of the disruption in their life caused by this massive expansion plan. Of course, this expansion is in a very congested urban and suburban area with hundreds of thousands of people living in and around there, most of whom--our phones have been ringing off the hook--are opposed to this plan, but the Senate is being asked to approve this plan tonight. I apologize for that because I do not think this is an appropriate bill, the Defense appropriations bill, and I regret that we have to be debating this specific issue tonight. Section 5 of the bill pays lipservice to the south suburban airport issue. It says: The administrator shall give priority consideration to a letter of intent application submitted by the State of Illinois or a political subdivision thereof for the construction of the south suburban airport. This consideration shall be given not later than 90 days after final record of decision approving the airport layout plan for the south suburban airport has been issued by the administrator. This has been billed and portrayed in Illinois as legislation that would actually move the ball forward with respect to the third airport. I suggest to my colleagues this language, in fact, kills the third airport in the south suburbs. The reason I say that is any airport funding for the south suburban airport would be, one, soaked up by the massive expansion at O'Hare and, two, all this language requires is the administrator give consideration to a letter of intent submitted by the State of Illinois. The FAA is already going to consider the letter of intent submitted by the FAA. We do not need this language. They are already going to consider it. Maybe it would speed it up a little bit, but that is about all. There is no guarantee the third airport would be approved. In fact, I believe the justification for the third airport would vanish in light of the massive expansion of O'Hare. Again, the whole premise for the third airport was it is not feasible to expand O'Hare. Make no mistake about it, everyone in Illinois should know this language is a Peotone killer. It is a backdoor way of ensuring the third south suburban airport will never be built in the State of Illinois. There is no justification--no cost-benefit analysis would suggest the FAA should approve that plan once the massive expansion of O'Hare has been approved. The next section, section 6, is a section I think should be of special concern to every Member in this body from every State in this country. This is the section that would require the Federal Government to construct this massive plan at O'Hare, which I have said I do not want, many Members of Congress in my State do not want, and the State legislature will not approve. The Senate will be asked to pay for it as a Federal project. That would be nice if the Chair would, for instance, give me his airport funds from Newark Airport to pay for this project, except I do not want this project. I think every Member in this body should think long and hard whether they want their airport improvement funds to be sucked up by a massive O'Hare expansion plan, a $13 billion plan at least, in my judgment, something that I do not even want in my State, that is very controversial in my State. What this language says is: On July 1, 2004, or as soon thereafter as may be possible, the administrator shall construct the runway redesign plan as a Federal project, provided (1) the administrator finds, after notice and opportunity for public comment, that a continuous course of construction of the runway redesign plan has not commenced and is not reasonably expected to commence by December 1, 2004. I am not sure whether those are the exact dates they are going to want, but that is the language Senator Durbin shared with me, and I appreciate that. He did not spring this language on me. He shared this with me. I called him yesterday and I asked him to fax the language he wanted to introduce in the conference committee. I compliment him for not taking me by surprise and for disclosing his intentions as to the conference report. What that means is if there has not been a continuous course of construction on the runway redesign plan, then the Federal Government, the FAA, the Administrator, the Federal Aviation Administrator, shall take this project over and shall construct a runway redesign plan as a Federal project. So all the taxpayers and all the other States would pay for it. I love it when the Senate gives money to my State. Our State has not gotten its fair share of Federal funds over the years. I think we are doing a lot better. Thanks to the leadership of the Speaker of the House, who is from Illinois, we are doing better in that regard in recent years. I enjoy it when my colleagues are generous with money for my State, but this is a project I do not support. So I ask, please, do not take money out of your airports and deprive them of revenue to put into a project in my State that I do not support. One of the interesting parts of this whole thing is if we go back to section (1)(c) of Senator Durbin's language, the first thing this bill really does is it preempts the Illinois Aeronautics Act. The interesting thing about the bill, it goes on to say the city of Chicago shall not build the runway redesign plan, and if for some reason they did not, the Federal Government will step into its place and do it. But it can delegate those responsibilities, then, back to the city of Chicago. Interestingly, under our State law, municipalities such as city of Chicago don't have any authority except from State law to operate its airports. That is where the city of Chicago gets its authority to operate O'Hare. They have it from the Illinois Aeronautics Act. But this Federal bill would obliterate the Illinois Aeronautics Act. How would Illinois or Chicago have the authority to even have the airport? Would O'Hare airport or the city of Chicago become a Federal reservation? It is not clear. Very unusual language, in my judgment. I am sure the proponents, especially United and American, have a lot of employees, a lot of contractors and subcontractors, a lot of people who do work for them. They have influential directorships, they are very active and involved in the community in Chicago. This is a bonanza for them because it blocks a third airport for generations to come and they would be assured, in my judgment, of not having any effective competition in the Chicago market from any other long-haul carriers for as long as the eye can see, as far as we can see into the future. In my judgment, this is not in the interests of the general public. Once the legislature's granted authority is obliterated by this Federal legislation, then interestingly the city has no authority to build. The city would lose its legal authority to contract for an airport, so this is very curious language. That would point out that is exactly why we shouldn't be acting in the Senate as though we were the Illinois State Legislature. You get these problems, unintended consequences, when you start rewriting the Illinois Aeronautics Act or preempting it at the Federal level. You get all sorts of unintended consequences. It is not a good idea, in my judgment, to come in and rewrite a State act, especially on a Defense appropriations bill at 8:30 in the evening on Friday night when we should be debating defense amendments. We have our troops on the ground in Afghanistan. This, clearly, isn't the appropriate forum to debate the propriety of the Illinois Aeronautics Act. Let the State legislature take up the Illinois Aeronautics Act when they get back into session next January. Then if you go on--and the language is many pages long--if you go to the end, they do have the provision I support and that is keeping Meigs Field open in Chicago. I don't know if the President has ever flown in or out of Meigs Field, but it is a beautiful airport on the Chicago lakefront. The business community loves that airport. People are able to fly right into the heart of downtown Chicago. They are right in the city and can easily get to a meeting. It is a great general aviation airport. There is a provision that would do something to assist keeping Meigs Field open. I support that. It was regrettable the city of Chicago wanted to close Meigs Field. I always thought that was a mistake. Meigs Field has handled as many as 50,000 flight operations a year. If it shuts down, you will put those flights into Midway and O'Hare--a large number of them, anyway-- which will add to congestion at Midway and O'Hare. I have always felt closing Meigs Field was inconsistent with alleviating air traffic congestion in the Chicago area. I was disappointed the city wanted to close it. This backroom deal we are being asked to codify, which is under 48 hours old, and no specifics or financing or details or studies have been released to the general public back in Illinois, has been portrayed in the press as keeping Meigs Field open until January 1 of the year 2026. It appears to give it another 25 years. But they have a provision in here that would allow the Illinois General Assembly to close Meigs Field in 6 years. Now, is this not odd? On the one hand, they take away, obliterate the State statute passed by the Illinois General Assembly, passed by all the State representatives and State senators in Illinois and enacted into law by the Governor, we are asked to obliterate one act, but on the other hand, we are writing a law that the State legislature in Illinois would have to comply with, and that is they can't shut Meigs Field down prior to January 1, 2006. But after January 1, 2006, Meigs Field could be shut down by the Illinois Legislature. In fact, it says in section (7)(4)(b): The administrator shall not enforce the conditions specified in subsection (a) if the State of Illinois enacts a law on or after January 1, 2006, authorizing the closure of Meigs Field. So we are at the Federal level granting the State of Illinois the authority in Federal statute to close Meigs Field. However, we are taking away the Illinois General Assembly's authority to have anything to do with O'Hare. It is wildly inconsistent. There is no principle behind what they are doing. That is what you get with a backroom deal that is the product of people saying: I will scratch your back if you scratch mine. We are being asked to put a secret backroom deal into Federal law. Now, I get to the final section on judicial review. That is section 8. It says that what this is designed to do, as I read it--and I have to say I have not yet looked up title 49, United States Code, subtitle VII, part A, but I have a feeling what this is meant to do is basically to cut off the right of trial and to deprive anyone who would question this backroom deal; they would never get their day in court. So this section 8 curtails the judicial review and says you never get your day in court. If you want to challenge this deal, that is tough luck. What happens is you won't get a right of trial in the district court. You will have to go right to a court of appeals and the FAA will control all the facts below and you will get 20 minutes in a court of appeals and that is it. This is a way of cutting off anybody who may object to this, cutting off their right to use their legal rights they might have. Those rights would be curtailed. Going back to the safety issue, I have great concerns. I am concerned that two sets of parallel runways in the proposal of the new design at O'Hare would be too close together. My understanding is--and we only have what we know from news accounts because no details are released-- there has not ever been a formal plan submitted to the FAA or to the State, so we don't have all the details. We have maps that have appeared in newspapers and the like. It is everybody's best guess as to what is in the backroom deal we are being asked to codify into Federal law tonight. But it looks, from what I understand of the information available to me, that these two sets of parallel runways on which they would like to have simultaneous takeoffs and landings would be only 1,300 feet apart. The FAA regulations require ordinarily, without a waiver, a 4,300 foot separation between runways. Now, the problem with that is if a plane is landing in one direction and another taking off in another direction and a plane turns here, it could hit a plane coming into another runway. We are not cutting down the margin of error. I can understand why they can't make a 4,300 foot separation between runways on this airport land in Chicago. They don't have enough room. O'Hare's footprint is only about 7,000 acres. They would try to take 500 homes in the city of Bensenville and displace those people and bulldoze their homes. They would be moving some roadways. Mr. President, you and other Senators might be paying for that out of your airport improvement funds under this language. But the problem is they are trying to jam too much in here. There are only 7,000 acres. A newer airport--the third, south suburban airport in a location known as Peotone in Will County south of Cook County where Chicago is located--would be on 24,000 acres. There would be plenty of room to have parallel runways. They would be appropriately spaced. We also talked about in addition to the runways being too close together, several of these--I don't know how far the distance is between 927-L, the arriving runway, and the south 927 runway. I don't know what that would be. I haven't even seen press accounts of what that would be. Again, there is no formal plan. All of these seem awfully close together. In my judgment, we could be working against ourselves by going forward with a plan such as that. God forbid. If there ever were a problem that resulted by packing too many runways in too close, we would have made a horrible mistake. Some Members of this body may believe they are capable of passing on the safety of a runway design plan. But I certainly can tell you that I don't have that expertise, and I suspect none of us really has the kind of engineering background and experience that would require. Maybe somebody here has that expertise, but I don't think so. That is why I don't think it is appropriate for us to enact into law a runway design plan. Never before has Congress, to my knowledge, enacted into Federal law a runway design plan. We allow this to go through a vetting process. We allow people to study and vet and test, and we get input from air traffic controllers, from pilots, from experts, and from engineers. They are the ones who need to come and give us their views on the propriety of such a layout. You shouldn't be called upon, Mr. President, as the Senator from New Jersey, at a quarter to 9 on a Friday night, to decide whether this is a good runway design plan. Maybe it is, but maybe it isn't. Do you believe we can guarantee to the people of this country that in fact this is a safe design plan? I had an air traffic controller in my office this week who told me he had grave concerns that he thought this was an unsafe plan. In fact, I have a letter, which I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, dated November 30, 2001, from the facility representative of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, this letter raises several concerns. I have to say that Mr. Burzych and the local chapter of air traffic controllers support expanding O'Hare. They have made that very clear. I certainly know they want an expanded, modernized O'Hare. There may be some need to modernize O'Hare. I am not disputing that. I am just saying we shouldn't be enacting a runway design plan into law. In his letter, Mr. Burzych told me he had some concerns about what he knew of Chicago's O'Hare expansion plan. He said: The Daley and Ryan plans both have a set of east/west parallel runways directly north of the terminal and in close proximity to one another. That is the set of east/west runways in close proximity to one another that are just north of the terminal. Because of their proximity to each other (1200')-- According to Mr. Burzych; I thought it was 1,300 feet-- they cannot be used simultaneously for arrivals. The idea that we would have parallel runways--I know the intent of the mayor of Chicago is to expand the capacity at O'Hare, but this raises the question. The idea of the city was they could have simultaneous takeoff and landing and they would get more capacity out of these six active runways than they get out of their current configuration, which has six active runways as well, but they converge. There are three sets of parallel runways running east-west, northwest- southeast, and northeast-southwest. There are six active and one unused runway now at O'Hare. The idea has been that by tearing up and rebuilding these runways at O'Hare, we get with this configuration about the same number of runways--actually eight, one runway more than we have now--but there would be greater capacity. It appears to me that the whole premise of this expansion program is in question because as this air traffic controller, certainly an expert in the field, said, because of their proximity to each other, they cannot be used simultaneously for arrivals. They can only be used simultaneously as one is used for departures and the other is used for arrivals, but only during VFR, visual flight rules, or good weather conditions. During IFR, instrument flight rules--ceilings below 1,000 feet and visibility less than 3 miles--these runways cannot be used simultaneously; they basically must be operated as one parallel runway for safety reasons. The same is true for the set of parallels directly south of the terminal. They, too, are only 1,200 feet apart. This shows why enacting into law a $13 billion plan at 9 o'clock on a Friday night as part of the Defense appropriations bill, which has nothing to do with the subject of aviation--enacting this plan into Federal law with the intention of increasing capacity at O'Hare, that whole premise may be wrong. Maybe it is not wrong, but we don't know. There is no study. There is no basis in the record. There is no record whatsoever, no FAA model, and not a shred of any evidence that this backroom deal will in fact accomplish what they are hoping to accomplish. Then, if you go on to point No. 2 of this letter, both sets of parallel runways closest to the terminals--the ones referred to above-- are all a minimum of 10,000 feet long. This creates a runway incursion problem, which is a very serious safety issue. Because of their length and position, all aircraft that land or depart O'Hare would be required to taxi across either one or, in some cases, two runways to get to and from a terminal. Design flaw exists in both the Daley and the Ryan plan. A runway incursion is when an aircraft accidentally crosses the runway when another aircraft is landing or departing. They are caused by either a mistake or misunderstanding by the pilot or controller. Runway incursions have skyrocketed over the past few years and are on the National Transportation Safety Board's most-wanted list of safety issues that need to be addressed. Parallel runway layouts create the potential for runway incursions; in fact the FAA publishes a pamphlet for airport designers. . . . That is the pamphlet I referred to earlier. The pamphlet is entitled: ``Improving Runway Safety Through Airfield Configuration.'' It mentions the problems that you can have with closely spaced parallel runways, which I suggest these are. There are serious safety issues here. Los Angeles International Airport has led the nation in runway incursions for several years. A large part of their incursion problem is the parallel runway layout; aircraft must taxi across runways to get to and from the terminals. That is the problem. If a plane is landing or taking off here, it has to first come out of the gate over here. And to get from the gate over here, down to this runway to take off, it has to go through at least two other runways, perhaps three. Each time it goes through one of those other runways, there is the potential for an incursion. I noted earlier that the current O'Hare Airport has, I think, according to the State of Illinois, 25 so-called taxiway runway crossings. This new plan would greatly increase that number, making it much harder for air traffic controllers. I believe, on the basis of the information available to me, that would go from 25 taxiway runway crossings that they have currently at O'Hare up to 43 under the Daley plan. We would be nearly doubling the potential for runway incursions just on the basis of how many new crossings we would have. I want to be clear, Mr. Burzych and air traffic controllers at O'Hare do favor expanding at O'Hare. Maybe they are right and I am wrong. But I do believe they were not consulted in this backroom deal. This backroom deal that we are being asked to codify in Federal law involved two people, and that was it. They did not have air traffic controllers and pilots involved in that deal. We do not even know the details of that deal that we are being asked to codify in Federal law. But there were other issues that he raised in his letter to me dated November 30: The major difference in Governor Ryan's counter proposal is the elimination of the southern most runway. The Governor had originally proposed eliminating that runway because it involves the condemnation of 500 homes and businesses in the city of Bensenville. He later gave in to the mayor and granted him that sixth runway. The letter reads: If this runway were eliminated, the capacity of the new airport would be less than we now have during certain conditions (estimated at about 40 percent of the time). So what he is saying is that this plan, until that runway is in place, under certain conditions, would have less capacity about 40 percent of the time at O'Hare. We would spend $13 billion for less capacity at O'Hare--at least until 2011--at least 40 percent of the time. That is another reason this is not good government, to try to stick placeholder language in the Defense appropriations bill while our country is at war in Afghanistan and we need the Defense appropriations bill. That is why we should not be acting as an aviation commission for the State of Illinois. The letter goes on: If you look at Mayor Daley's plan, it calls for six parallel east-west runways and two parallel northeast- southwest runways. The northeast-southwest parallels are left over from the current O'Hare layout. Let me read that again. If you look at Mayor Daley's plan, it calls for six parallel east-west runways and two parallel northeast- southwest runways. So we have six parallel east-west runways; these are the northeast- southwest parallels, these two runways. The northeast-southwest parallels are left over from the current O'Hare layout. This, again, is the current O'Hare layout. These two runways would be preserved in this new plan of the city of Chicago. These two runways simply won't be usable in day-to-day operations because of the location of them (they are wedged in between, or pointed at the other parallels). We would not use these runways except when the wind was very strong (35 knots or above) which we estimate would be less than 1 percent of the time. So they leave these runways. Fortunately, I guess, there is not much expense in leaving these runways. All these other runways would be torn up from the existing O'Hare Airport. Other runways would be torn up and moved. In some cases you would be paying nearly $1 billion to dig up a runway and move it a few hundred feet north or south.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes.

Mr. FITZGERALD. At least dating back to 1992.

Mr. FITZGERALD. When I first got elected as an Illinois State senator.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Absolutely. This was an issue when I was in the State senate in every election. Right prior to my going into the State senate, the city of Chicago at that time did not propose expanding O'Hare. They proposed a third airport in the south part of Chicago in the Lake Calumet area. Mayor Daley supported building a third airport at that time, but the Illinois General Assembly did not approve that plan because they favored the site in Peotone. Since that time, because this third airport would not be within his political jurisdiction, Mayor Daley has fought the south suburban airport and worked toward just expanding O'Hare. That way, in my judgment, it would keep all aviation within the city limits of the city of Chicago.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes. What happened there was that Governor Edgar, who was Governor in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was moving forward with this south suburban airport. When President Clinton took office, at the request of the mayor, the FAA removed the south suburban airport from the so-called NPIAS list, the National Plan for Integrated Airport Systems, for airport improvements. Otherwise, we might have that airport now. The Chicago airport capacity study of 1986 to 1988 had said we needed the south suburban airport by the year 2000. The city of Chicago blocked that by calling President Clinton and asking him to remove the Peotone project because it was not within the political jurisdiction of the city of Chicago from that planning list. Aviation capacity around the country and in Chicago would be far greater today if we had that airport up and running. We would not be having this discussion. So this has, indeed, been going on a very long time. I believe, as Governor Edgar did believe, and as did Governor Thompson before him, that we ought to go forward and build that south suburban airport. It is a major issue for Congressman Jackson. It is interesting, as a Senator for our whole State, I do not think it is in our interest to concentrate all our economic development within one 7,000-acre spot at O'Hare. I have 2.5 million people who live in the south suburbs of Illinois who have to drive 3, 3\1/2\ hours to get up to O'Hare to wait in line because it is too congested. I would like to, in addition to bringing more aviation capacity, have some economic development in other parts of the State of Illinois besides 7,000 acres at O'Hare. I understand the city would like to retain jurisdiction over all economic activity in the State of Illinois, but I don't think it is in the interest of my State. I have been working very hard with Congressman Jackson to, in fact, bring some economic development to areas outside there. Incidentally, in the northwest suburbs where this is located, they have what they would term too much development. There is so much traffic and congestion that it is difficult to get into O'Hare. If you were to double the number of people going into O'Hare Airport, in my judgment--right now it takes so long to get into O'Hare Airport because these traffic arteries, the northwest tollway, I-90, the Kennedy Expressway, are jammed at all hours of the day practically every day of the week with people going into O'Hare--if we expand O'Hare Airport, already the busiest airport in the country for a long time, by far the busiest airport in the world, we are going to make it almost twice as big. I don't know where the State of Illinois will get the money to double the size of the roadways going in there because you can't get in there now. There is no possible way that it will be feasible to funnel all the people who would be going into O'Hare under this plan put forward by the city of Chicago.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I thank the Senator. I have the greatest respect for the Senator from West Virginia. I respect him as much as any of my colleagues, but I must respectfully decline that request. I have to say, as the Senator from West Virginia will recall, when I first came to the Senate, I read his book on the history of the Roman Republic. On my first opportunity to be back in the Illinois State senate and appear before them, I gave as a gift to every State Senator in Illinois a copy of your book.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I gave them the Senator's admonition that the Senate should never yield too much power to the executive, and that was the decline of the ancient Roman Republic.