Peter Fitzgerald

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. I am afraid----

Mr. FITZGERALD. I yield for a question only.

Mr. FITZGERALD. No, I am not in a position to do that. I will yield temporarily to the Senator from Illinois with the understanding that when he completes his 10 minutes, automatically the floor reverts to me.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I appreciate this opportunity to talk on this issue. I compliment my colleagues from other States--Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia-- and also the distinguished Senator from Arizona for speaking in favor of my position on this issue. The fact is, this is an issue on which there is a sharp difference of opinion between Senator Durbin and me. That rarely happens on a State project issue. In fact, more often than not, Senator Durbin and I work together when it involves a State project. We were just working earlier today to help save a VA Hospital in the city of Chicago. More often than not, we are certainly united on civil or project-type issues. On this issue, we do have a difference of opinion. I oppose what Senator Durbin is hoping to do. His argument pointed out that the Illinois delegation is divided. In general, I think Congressman Lipinski in the House supports Senator Durbin's efforts. Congressman Hyde and Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., happen to support my side. Other Members of the Illinois delegation have not necessarily taken a position. They are not statewide officers and have not had to form an opinion necessarily or weigh in on this matter. It is true that the mayor of the city of Chicago, Mayor Daley, as well as the Governor of the State of Illinois, did reach agreement two nights ago on an O'Hare expansion plan. I do not support that expansion plan, however. Our Governor had long opposed Mayor Daley's efforts to expand O'Hare Airport. After getting some other provisions, including the continuance of Meigs Field in Chicago, which incidentally, I support, the Governor did decide to support Mayor Daley's efforts to expand O'Hare Airport. The crux of this issue, as I see it--and Senator Durbin has been very upfront with me--is the language that we will actually be called to vote on in the Senate. It is this language, and it is, as Senator Durbin stated, placeholder language. It is innocuous language. It does not do much. The idea is Senator Durbin, who is going to be on the conference committee on Defense appropriations, would like to go into the conference committee and then introduce much lengthier language that would, in fact, force the reconstruction of O'Hare Airport, the tearing up and rebuilding of O'Hare Airport. The nub, the crux, of Senator Durbin's language in that regard is to, indeed, preempt State law. At the outset I will introduce into the Record the legislative language that Senator Durbin shared with me. We spoke on the phone yesterday. He fully disclosed his plans. He would have placeholder language tonight. If he made it to conference, he would like to introduce this language. The Senator cannot tell me if he believes that language will be any different but he said this is the language he would like to get in the conference committee report on Defense appropriations. With a ruling from the Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter this language and have it printed in the Record, because I will later want to walk through this language section by section.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I would like to speak for a while.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I would object to a unanimous consent agreement on the time. Mr. President, we are not in a position to approve a runway design plan. This is probably the first time Congress has ever been asked to codify a runway design plan. I am not sure whether it is safe to have two sets of parallel runways only 1,300 feet apart. That seems pretty close to me. Maybe it is a good design and maybe it works. The point is, we don't have the expertise in this body, and we should not get the framework that we in Congress have set up for approving and subjecting such proposals to a rigorous analysis. Another point I make at the outset is that as you read the language that Senator Durbin would like to get in the conference committee report, you see that the Federal Government takes a role in this whole process of building the O'Hare redevelopment plan. The language in the bill could arguably drain airport improvement funds from every Senator's airport around the country and put it in at O'Hare, when some members of the Illinois delegation, including myself, don't even favor that plan. I favor the construction of a third airport in the south suburbs. That is something that the FAA and the city of Chicago and the States of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana concluded was the right thing to do back in 1986-1988 when they did the Chicago Airport Capacity Study. That study concluded that it was not practicable to expand the capacity of O'Hare Airport and that the appropriate solution for the future was to build a third airport. It was suggested that the south suburbs of Chicago would be a good place to start a third airport. My message to my colleagues from around the country is, if you are willing to risk airport improvement funds in your own States for your airports, then you should support Senator Durbin. But if you want to keep your share of airport improvement funds for your airports and not send them for an expansion plan that I don't even support in Illinois, then you should vote with me. It should also be pointed out at this point that this is a project that involves blockbuster amounts. In August, the State of Illinois transportation director suggested that the cost of the total project would be as much as $13 billion. And the reason it is so costly is because you are tearing up existing runways that are very deep--one is one of the longest in the country--and you are repositioning them. Of course, the mayor of Chicago already has a $4 billion terminal expansion plan that is on the table, and then included in this language that Senator Durbin has is a western access road that could cost as much as $3 billion, depending on where it goes.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes.

Mr. FITZGERALD. The Senator from Oklahoma makes a very good point. I appreciate that point, and I appreciate his efforts to keep Meigs Field open because I think that is an important asset for the city of Chicago. I have worked with the Senator on that issue before and would like to continue working with him in that regard. I do not believe it is appropriate to have this language on a Defense appropriations bill. This language has nothing to do with our national defense. It has nothing to do with protecting our troops in Afghanistan, and I regret the Senate has to be in session tonight debating this and, in fact, substituting itself for the Illinois State Legislature. I served for 6 years in the Illinois State Senate. Whether we would amend the Illinois Aeronautics Act is the sort of issue we used to debate and vote on in the Illinois State Senate. It is not by my choosing, I assure my colleagues, that the Senate is tonight substituting itself for the Illinois Legislature, which would probably not approve this plan. We are being asked to preempt the laws of the State of Illinois and specifically the Illinois Aeronautics Act. I am going to give some summary remarks at the outset, and then I will want to walk through a section-by-section analysis of Senator Durbin's language. There is no reason for us to be in the Chamber tonight debating this. There is no reason to ask the Federal Government to step in. The mayor of the city of Chicago has never requested the State of Illinois for a permit to do his expansion plan at O'Hare. If he wants to do it, he should formally request that the State grant him a permit. If the FAA also grants him a permit, presumably he could go forward and do his expansion plan. What we are being asked to do tonight is to gut the State permitting program, to rip out and make of no effect the Illinois Aeronautics Act. Of course, we are also being asked to gut State environmental laws that might protect the environment and the health and safety of the people around O'Hare Airport. Nor did the mayor of the city of Chicago ever bring this issue up to the State legislature. If it were a problem he could not get a permit from the State of Illinois, clearly he could ask the State legislature to amend State law. No attempt has been made to go to the State legislature and ask them to amend State law. Instead, as a first step they came to the Senate and asked the Senate to come in and rewrite and preempt State law. In my judgment, a project such as this should be a bottoms-up project, not a top down; not people in Washington making these decisions; I do not think I would be qualified to act on a runway project in Hawaii or New York or at LaGuardia or JFK or Newark; I would not know the situation. This is not an appropriate issue for the Senate to be debating. As Senator Gramm said, we are not an aviation panel. In addition to gutting the State permit process, the other thing this language would do is it would gut the analytical framework that we in Congress, in the Senate and the House, have mandated for approving airport plans. We have no studies, no reports, no FAA modeling available. We do not have any idea, other than news reports, of the cost of tearing up the seven runways at O'Hare and repositioning them. We have no FAA models of how much new capacity we would get. We do not have any studies that suggest it would improve or cut down on delays. We do not know what the future capacity would be. We do not know whether it is a safe plan. I have two charts. The first chart is a diagram of the existing layout at O'Hare Airport where we have seven runways, six of which are active. O'Hare is the world's busiest airport and, in fact, this year we have had more operations and enplanements than Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport. Mayor Daley's plan is to tear up those existing runways and to reorient them so he would have six parallel runways, six of them parallel east/west and two running from the northeast to the southwest, for a total of eight runways. We are not safety experts in this body. We do not know if that is a good design. We do not know if that is a cost-effective design. I had an air traffic controller in my office on Monday of this week saying he was concerned there could be safety problems. The reason he said he thought there could be safety problems is because FAA regulations normally require a 4,300-foot separation between runways. In fact, I have a brochure from the Federal Aviation Administration that suggests proper separation between runways is an extremely important issue with respect to the safety of an airport. This is the brochure. This is called ``Improving Runway Safety Through Airfield Configuration.'' It is a little pamphlet put out by the Federal Aviation Administration. One of the points it makes for building safe airports is that layouts should be avoided that result in closely spaced parallel runways. It says, provide adequate distance between parallel runways so a landing aircraft can exit the runway, decelerate, and hold short of the parallel runway without interfering with subsequent operations on either runway. The FAA says the standard separation requires 4,300 feet, but it is my understanding this city of Chicago plan which has not been subjected to any vetting by any engineering firms or engineering designers, airport designers, airport layout experts, any Federal or State panel that those two runways would be 1,300 feet apart.

Mr. FITZGERALD. The Senator brings up many good points. One, you don't have the benefit of the language that they are going to try and put into a conference committee report. I do have a copy. And I have to say, Senator Durbin was very straightforward in sharing it with me. But for all the other Members of this body, it is phantom language, so- called placeholder language that would be used later to create an opening in parliamentary rules to slip in the real deal, the real backroom deal between George Ryan and Mayor Daley. The point you made is, that deal has not been shared with you. You have gotten no specifics from Mayor Daley or Governor Ryan. Interestingly, it is not the Governor who actually has the authority by himself to just decree that a runway plan be done in Illinois under State law. There is, in fact, a permitting process. There are hearings, and these plans are subjected to an adversary proceeding. There is opportunity for controllers and pilots and other interested parties to come and testify. There is a whole permitting process. We are being asked, in codifying the backroom deal made by two people, just 48 hours ago, to preempt the Illinois Aeronautics Act. We are being asked to do what the Illinois State Senate should be doing. They can take a look at the Illinois Aeronautics Act. I had 6 years in the State Senate. I didn't think when I got to Washington I would be put in the position of debating the sorts of issues they debate in the Illinois State Senate. The NPIAS list is the national plan for integrated airport improvements around the country. Many airports, most of your small local airports, are on the NPIAS list, and that makes them eligible for grants from the airport improvement fund, the AIP fund. It was a very momentous step when the FAA put the south suburban airport on the NPIAS list about 10 years ago. That plan was moving forward. The State of Illinois Department of Transportation, with the strong backing of local officials and the State, was going forward with the south suburban airport. The State legislature had rejected plans for an airport in a different location that Mayor Daley had favored. So Peotone was on the NPIAS list. It was eligible for Federal funding, and after it had gone through the planning process, I believe that it would have gotten Federal funding. But when President Clinton took office, that created an opportunity. The mayor of Chicago obviously was good friends with the President, and they were able to prevail upon the FAA at that time to simply remove Peotone from the NPIAS list and take it off. I think it was probably the only airport, of the 3,000 airports around the country, that has ever been taken off. At that time the FAA said: Well, there wasn't local consensus. So they did not know whether they wanted to go forward. There was local consensus among some, but Mayor Daley, the mayor of the city of Chicago, opposed it. I have to tell you, there is no local consensus on this plan, this backroom deal, this $13 billion deal that will take money from your States and put it into a plan in my State that I oppose. I oppose it. The State legislature has never supported this deal. The reason they are coming to you is because they can't get the approval of the State legislature. They didn't even try. You are being asked at 9 o'clock at night, while our country is at war in Afghanistan, on a Defense appropriations bill, to debate this transportation issue. Clearly, I do not think this is the appropriate forum. I don't think it should be before the Federal Government at all. I think if the mayor wants that plan at O'Hare, he ought to submit a plan to the FAA. He has never even done that. I applaud many of the things the mayor of the city of Chicago has done. It is a wonderful city. O'Hare is a wonderful airport. It is a great airport. I want to make it clear, it will have to be modernized sometime. There is a problem that bigger jets can't taxi around at O'Hare. The Boeing 747-400, for example, is so wide that other planes have to get off taxiways when it is taxying around. I think we need to modernize O'Hare. I will be supportive of that. I think a $13 billion project to tear up and rebuild O'Hare is wasteful, however, of the funds that would be applied. The bottom line is, there may be good arguments, and there are good arguments on both sides of this issue. But they should be presented to the FAA and the State's panel on aviation. The interesting thing is-- the Senator from Arizona would be interested in this--we are preempting here the Illinois Aeronautics Act which, in fact, is the act that grants the city of Chicago the right to run an airport. The city of Chicago doesn't have a right, except one deriving from the State government, the Illinois Aeronautics Act, to even operate an airport. We would be asked to obliterate----

Mr. FITZGERALD. Senator, I wish to go on. I will yield at the end of the evening.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes, from the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes, I yield for a question.

Mr. FITZGERALD. The Senator from Arizona is exactly right. We have never been shown any details of this plan. No Member of this body has been shown details of this plan. Senator Durbin may have some details of which I am not aware. I have not been shown any details. It is a backroom agreement that was reached at about 9 or 10 o'clock in the evening two nights ago, Wednesday night. Maybe the rush to pass this is because they do not want anybody to know the deals and know the details. Perhaps there is a problem with the details. I think we ought to be very reluctant to codify into Federal law a plan obligating the Federal Government to unspecified expenditures of money in the future without knowing the details when there are questions of safety and when we do not have the expertise in this body to do this. None of us has a background in airport engineering.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I yield.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes, I have many more charts. (Laughter.)

Mr. FITZGERALD. If necessary.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I am doing OK. Thank you.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Illinois for withdrawing the amendment. I say to him that I do not think I made clear exactly how I would respond. I did say that I was willing to take an up-or-down vote, and perhaps we may yet have an up-or-down vote on this issue before the Senate. I do not believe I made those representations. I do appreciate my friendship with Senator Durbin. I hope there are not many more issues that we disagree with amongst ourselves with respect to our State. In many cases, we have been able to have a great impact for the people of Illinois, and we will continue to do that. We have a difference of opinion on this issue. It has been tough for both of us because normally we work together and do not have differences of opinions on major issues such as this. So I appreciate Senator Durbin's withdrawal of the amendment, and I look forward to continuing to work with him on this and other issues in the Senate. I do think it was important for the Nation and the Senate to be educated on this issue because aviation in the heartland does affect all of us, and Senator Durbin is certainly right on that. I believe this was a very important discussion, both for the citizens of Illinois and also for the citizens around the country. I yield the floor.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I would like to bring attention to one particular segment of the railroad industry--commuter rail. As a Senator from Illinois, I have had the opportunity to become very acquainted with the excellent commuter rail system that serves Chicago and northeastern Illinois. This system--Metra--is the second largest commuter rail system in the country and is a key part of the overall, growing, commuter rail industry. Metra employs between 2,500 and 3,000 workers, nearly all of whom are covered under the Railroad Retirement Board benefit plan. The extent of commuter rail's growth over recent decades is made clear by looking at the number of workers that it employs. Nationally, roughly one-quarter of all rail employees work for commuter and passenger rail, and it is expected that this number will grow substantially in the future. For these reasons, I believe commuter rail, because of its growing size, importance, and impact, should be represented on the Railroad Retirement Board of Trustees that is created by this bill. As this bill moves forward in the legislative process, I hope that I will be able to work with the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and other conferees to ensure that commuter rail is represented on the Board of Trustees.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to help food banks, soup kitchens, and other emergency feeding organizations meet the needs of our hungry citizens. According to the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates, 10.1 percent of U.S. households, 31 million Americans are considered food insecure. Under current law, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, TEFAP, purchases agricultural commodities for use by food banks and soup kitchens. Needy American citizens rely on this program to get them over the hump when they lose their jobs or fall on unexpected hard times. Yet, a recent report of the U.S. Conference of Mayors concluded that 13 percent of these families who requested emergency food assistance were turned away due to a lack of food resources. The bill I introduce today simply increases funding for TEFAP by $40 million, a 40 percent increase. As well, the bill allows $10 million of this new funding to be used for state and local food processing, distribution, transportation, and storage costs. This $10 million enhances the $45 million already appropriated annually for these costs. Additionally, this bill has secondary benefits to our rural communities. TEFAP provides a boost to the agriculture economy by purchasing surplus commodities from the market. I commend Congressman Goodlatte of Virginia for championing a similar bill on the House side. I look forward to working closely with my colleagues on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry to ensure that this legislation is included in the Nutrition Title of the Farm Bill. The legislation is supported by America's Second Harvest and food banks and soup kitchens throughout the nation. This bill entitled the ``Emergency Food Assistance Program Enhancement Act'' should enjoy bipartisan support, and I encourage my colleagues to co-sponsor this piece of legislation.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to help food banks, soup kitchens, and other emergency feeding organizations meet the needs of our hungry citizens. According to the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates, 10.1 percent of U.S. households, 31 million Americans are considered food insecure. Under current law, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, TEFAP, purchases agricultural commodities for use by food banks and soup kitchens. Needy American citizens rely on this program to get them over the hump when they lose their jobs or fall on unexpected hard times. Yet, a recent report of the U.S. Conference of Mayors concluded that 13 percent of these families who requested emergency food assistance were turned away due to a lack of food resources. The bill I introduce today simply increases funding for TEFAP by $40 million, a 40 percent increase. As well, the bill allows $10 million of this new funding to be used for state and local food processing, distribution, transportation, and storage costs. This $10 million enhances the $45 million already appropriated annually for these costs. Additionally, this bill has secondary benefits to our rural communities. TEFAP provides a boost to the agriculture economy by purchasing surplus commodities from the market. I commend Congressman Goodlatte of Virginia for championing a similar bill on the House side. I look forward to working closely with my colleagues on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry to ensure that this legislation is included in the Nutrition Title of the Farm Bill. The legislation is supported by America's Second Harvest and food banks and soup kitchens throughout the nation. This bill entitled the ``Emergency Food Assistance Program Enhancement Act'' should enjoy bipartisan support, and I encourage my colleagues to co-sponsor this piece of legislation.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I want to take a few moments to lend my support to Senator Carnahan's measure, which would finally give some relief to the many airline workers in this country who have lost their jobs in recent weeks. I voted against the prior package to bail out the airlines of this country. Many of the Members in the Congress were under the impression that that $15 billion package was designed to compensate the airlines for their losses during the 3- or 4-day Government shutdown. But most Members don't recognize that during that 3- or even 4-day shutdown the airlines' lost revenues--not necessarily bottom line losses, but missing revenues--were $340 million a day. If you multiply $340 million a day by 4 days, as opposed to 3 days, being very generous to the airlines, you come up with losses of $1.36 billion. But Congress didn't give the airlines $1.36 billion; we gave them $5 billion in immediate upfront cash, plus $10 billion worth of loan guarantees. So the Nation's airlines got many times their losses from the 3-day shutdown from Congress. I thought that bailout package was excessive. I also thought that Congress perpetrated an injustice in shoveling out such large amounts of taxpayer money toward the airlines. We completely ignored the over 1 million employees in the airline industry. It is a misnomer to call the airline bailout package an industry bailout package. It wasn't an industry bailout package; it was a shareholder bailout package. There was no bailout for the skycaps, or for the flight attendants, or the mechanics, or the baggage handlers, and the pilots didn't get bailed out. Instead, it was a bailout for the sophisticated investors who held airline stocks in their portfolios and the many large institutions holding airline stocks in their portfolios. I emphasize that it is a misnomer to call the airline bailout an industry bailout. It was simply a bailout for shareholders or investors. There was no relief for the over 1 million employees of the airline industry. It is fitting and proper to now provide relief for the airline industry employees. We should have done this in the original airline industry bailout. Out of that $15 billion which we gave to the airlines, we could have had some requirements that they give minimal severance or health care benefits to their employees, at least some requirements, some strings attached to assure the laid-off flight attendants, baggage handlers, pilots, and skycaps would be treated decently. But we did not do that in that bailout package. We have to correct the injustice in that first bailout package, and we have to help the industry's employees. The relief Senator Carnahan has put together in her package--and I am happy to say I am a cosponsor--is appropriate. It should have been in the original bill. As I said, we paid the airlines many times their losses for the period they were shut down. That created a terrible precedent, in my judgment, one that is haunting Congress every day this fall because we now are beset with industries from all over the country coming to Capitol Hill knocking on our door and saying: You gave all that money to the airlines. You bailed them out. You covered all their losses through December 31, 2001. You paid them not just for the days the Government shut them down by Government edict; you covered all their losses through the end of the year. Other industries are now saying to leaders in Washington: Why are we different? Why shouldn't we get a bailout? We have hotels that are empty. We have car rental firms that are hovering near insolvency because they do not have any customers. We have many of the suppliers for airlines--I was approached by a company in Illinois that supplies food for the airlines, and they believed they were entitled to a bailout. We have industries of all sorts that have come asking us for help, and because of the precedent we set in the airline industry bill, we do not know how to tell these other industries that they are not entitled to help. We should have carved aside a generous portion in that initial bill for workers in the airline industry. Senator Carnahan's amendment will get this done. I support it, and I urge colleagues to vote in favor of it. It would be a miscarriage of justice; it would compound the injustice we have already perpetrated if we were to let stand a bailout for sophisticated investors while we left all the airline industry employees twisting in the wind. We cannot allow that to stand. We have to correct that injustice. Many of these employees who have been furloughed maybe never had a nickel to invest in the market in the first place. They are worried about how they are going to pay their mortgage, or how they are going to pay their rent, or how they are going to feed their families while they are laid off. Meanwhile, many investors who should have appreciated the risk of investing in the airline industry were bailed out, but the skycap got the boot. We have to correct that. I am pleased to stand with the Senator from Missouri in support of this legislation. I urge all my colleagues to vote in favor of it. Mr. President, I thank you for your indulgence at this late hour and appreciate your attention. I yield the floor.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. I object.