Peter Fitzgerald

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I rise today with my Colleagues to introduce the Electronic Benefit Transfer Interoperability and Portability Act of 1999. This legislation addresses the problem of food stamp beneficiaries being unable to redeem their benefits in authorized stores that may be located outside their state of residence. As you may know, Congress passed legislation in 1996 that required the federal government to deliver food stamp benefits electronically, rather than using the paper coupons. Most states have started the process of issuing plastic cards, very similar to ATM cards to access these benefits. The federal government termed this new process, electronic benefits transfer (EBT). You may have noticed a separate button on the payment terminal in your local supermarket with the designation ``EBT'' or a separate stand-alone payment terminal to handle these new transactions. More than half of the country has already switched from the paper coupons to this new EBT card. However, one significant issue is causing problems in the program for retailers, states and recipients. That issue is the inability for recipients to use their state-issued cards across state lines. This is especially true in communities that are near a state border. Under the old paper system, recipients could use the coupons in any state in the country. Under the new electronic system, that is currently not the case. Customers go into a food store expecting to use their federal benefits to purchase food and when they cannot use their EBT cards, they become frustrated and dissatisfied with the food stamp program. For example, under the old system, a food stamp recipient living in Palmyra, MO could use their food stamp coupons in their favorite grocery store in Quincy, IL just over the Illinois border. Similarly, a recipient living in Illinois could visit family in Tennessee and still purchase food for their children. Food stamp beneficiaries are not unlike the average shopper. Cross border shopping occurs for a variety of reasons. One reason is convenience; another equally important one is the cost of groceries. The supermarket industry is very competitive. Customers paying with every type of tender except EBT have the ability to shop around for the best prices. Shouldn't recipients of our nation's federal food assistance benefits be able to stretch their dollars without regard to state borders? Another reason is convenience. While one of my constituents may live in the metro east area, they might work in St. Louis. Under the current situation, if the only grocery store between their work and their home is in Missouri, the recipient cannot purchase food without traveling out of their way. The legislation I am introducing today would once again, provide for the portability of food assistance benefits and allow food stamp recipients the flexibility of shopping at locations that they choose. Interoperability works well today with ATM/Debit cards, the type of cards that EBT was modeled after. Consumers and merchants are confident that when a MAC card issued by a bank in Pittsburgh is presented, authorization and settlement of that transaction will work the same as when a Star card, issued by Bank of America in California is presented. This occurs regardless of where the merchant is located. Unfortunately, this is currently not the case with EBT cards. If every state operated their EBT program under a standard set of operating rules as this legislation requires, companies operating in multiple states could be more efficient, resolve any discrepancies in customer accounts more quickly and ultimately hold down the price of groceries for all consumers. This legislation I am introducing is very straightforward. Specifically, the legislation: Requires interoperability by October 1, 2002, with a few exceptions needing a waiver; Requires USDA to ``adopt'' the national standard used by the majority of the States; Requires USDA to pay for all interoperability costs (currently estimated by Benton International to be no more than a maximum of $500,000 annually when all states are on EBT systems or $160,000 for the current year), significantly less than the $20 million USDA pays annually to the Federal Reserve to redeem coupons; Requires contracts entered into after the date when the national standard is adopted to use the standard, and for USDA to pay the interoperability costs; Includes transitional funding for states currently using a national standard. Upon enactment, FNS will pay 100 percent of the costs of interoperability fees for current states using a national standard (While the interoperability pilot sponsored by NACHA is due to expire in September, this would allow those states and beneficiaries in states participating in the pilot to continue to have interoperable transactions beyond the pilot period without interruption.); Requires current contracts that are not using the national standard to convert at the point of a new contract; Includes a waiver process for current states with significant technological challenges to provide time to convert to the national standard (This is intended to cover current smart card states). This legislation is more about good government than it is about food stamps. Since 1996, the transition from paper coupons to electronic benefit transfer has saved the federal government a significant amount of money. For example, while the food stamp caseload decreased 24 percent from fiscal year 1995 to 1998, food stamp production and redemption costs dropped by an impressive 39 percent. While it is estimated that the bill's implementation will cost the federal government no more than $500,000 annually, it will save at least $20 million per year when paper coupons are a thing of the past. This legislation is sound public policy that enjoys bipartisan support. I thank my Colleagues, Senators Leahy, Lugar, Harkin and Craig, for joining me as co-sponsors of this bill. I would stress to my fellow Senators that this legislation is vitally important to every food stamp recipient, every state food stamp program administrator and every grocery store nationwide. I ask each of you to join me as co- sponsors of this important legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I think the first thing we need to do, in considering the Gorton-Rockefeller amendment to lift altogether the high density rule that governs O'Hare International Airport, is to look at what that high density rule is and why it was first imposed. The high density rule was imposed not by Congress, although Congress is attempting to repeal it; the high density rule was imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration back in 1968 or 1969. The reason they imposed it at O'Hare was because by then--already the world's busiest airport--demand for flight operations exceeded capacity at O'Hare. Given that situation, in order to prevent inordinate delays to the air traffic system at O'Hare and around the country, they capped the number of operations per hour at O'Hare. They capped those operations at 155 flights per hour--roughly 1 every 20 seconds. The sponsors of this amendment, and others who are proponents of it, have said: We need to lift that high density rule because it is anticompetitive, and we have to get more competition for more slots and more flights at O'Hare. They point out that just two carriers--United Airlines and American Airlines--control 80 percent of the flight operations at O'Hare International Airport, and there are studies that show that given that duopoly, the prices are higher at O'Hare. And that is true. There is absolutely no question about it. The idea of increasing competition is great in the abstract. There is only one problem. O'Hare Airport does not have the capacity for more flights. How do we know that? We know that because the last time Congress considered lifting the high density rule in 1994, the FAA commissioned a study and asked: What would happen if we were to lift the high density rule at O'Hare International Airport? The study, commissioned by the FAA, came back and said if you did that, there would be huge delays at O'Hare International Airport that would reverberate throughout the entire air travel system in the United States of America. Consequently, following that report, in the summer of 1995, the U.S. Department of Transportation said they would not lift the high density rule at O'Hare because it would add to delays. The reason it would add to delays was because it would put more planes there waiting to take off or land, and that demand for more flights vastly outstripped the capacity at O'Hare. So the problem with lifting that high density rule is that unless there is more capacity in Chicago, planes are just going to sit on the runway at O'Hare until they can take off. What is the situation now? We have not lifted the high density rule now. Are there delays at O'Hare? You bet. There are more delays at O'Hare than just about any other major airport in the entire country, with as many as 100 airplanes lined up every morning waiting to take off from the runway. This proposal is a proposal that would give airlines an unfettered ability to schedule even more flights. Sometimes they schedule 20 flights to take off at the same time. The marketing experts have told the airlines that 8:45 a.m. is a popular time, so schedule your plane to take off at 8:45 a.m. The airlines know darn well only one plane can take off at 8:45 a.m., but as many as 20 of them will be scheduled to take off at that time. What does that mean? That means when you are trying to take off on an 8:45 a.m. flight out of O'Hare, most likely you are going to be sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off. At least the high density rule is some limitation because it is a limitation on how many airline flights can be scheduled to take off within that 8 o'clock hour. But by lifting this rule, we are saying there is not going to be any limitation. Perhaps the airlines could schedule 100 or 200 or 300 flights to take off in that 8 o'clock hour. People will buy tickets; they think they are going to be able to take off sometime in that hour. They do not realize that is just a bait and switch; that the airlines know full well the passengers are going to have to be sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off. Does it make sense, at the most congested, most delay-ridden airport, to add even more delays? It makes no sense at all. I know Senator McCain well. I do believe he is very concerned about competition in the airline industry, and he, in good faith, wants to increase competition in the airline industry. I agree with him wholeheartedly on that point. But I do not agree we want to do it in a way that is going to inconvenience everybody who flies out of O'Hare, and not just everybody who flies out of O'Hare but people all around the country who will suffer because of backlogs and delays at O'Hare International Airport, which is in the center of our country. Furthermore, there is a provision in this bill--neatly tucked in there--that probably not many people can figure out what it means. Let me read it to you. As I said earlier, United and American have 80 percent of the flights at O'Hare. So if we were to add slots or more flights at O'Hare, you would think we would want to encourage some new entrants into the market, some other companies. That would bring some more competition, bringing some other airlines into O'Hare. There is a little provision in here. I wonder who thought of this. Did some Senator think of this? This is on page 4 of the amendment: ``Affiliated Carriers: . . . the Secretary shall treat all commuter air carriers that have cooperative agreements, including code-share agreements with other air carriers equally for determining eligibility for the application of any provision of these sections regardless of the form of the corporate relationship between the commuter air carrier and the other air carrier.'' I bet many people wonder what that means. What that means is that American Airlines' wholly-owned subsidiary, American Eagle, and United Airlines' affiliate, United Express, can be treated equally with new commuter airlines that are trying to get in and get slots out of O'Hare. This provision in the bill seems to undercut, in my judgment, the argument that this bill would increase competition. In my judgment, competition isn't going to be increased by increasing concentration. The FAA bill before us today will not increase competition due to its definition of the term ``affiliated carrier.'' As the term ``affiliated carrier'' is defined, those carriers that already control the vast majority of capacity at the airport, United and American, will get eligibility for additional capacity and slots. In addition, many carriers that would benefit from this bill are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the controlling carriers. Later, I hope we can have a discussion on that particular aspect of the bill. Let me talk a little bit more in depth about the delays we already have at O'Hare, without this idea of increasing the number of flights we are going to have, regardless of the fact that we don't have more capacity for more flights. This was an article just the other day, September 10, 1999: ``Delays at O'Hare Mounting. For the first 8 months of this year, flight delays at O'Hare soared by 65 percent compared to all of 1997 and by 18 percent over 1998, according to an analysis by the Federal Aviation Administration.'' Why are those delays occurring? In part because in the existing law we already have exemptions from the slot controls put in by the FAA back in 1969. Those slot controls limited the number of flights to 155 operations per hour. By virtue of the 1994 bill we passed in this Congress, before I was here, they allowed more exemptions to those slot rules, and the FAA has been granting those. In fact, I am told the FAA now has about 163 flights an hour at O'Hare. This bill would lift those caps entirely. This is from August 23, 1999. I said O'Hare is one of the most delay- ridden, congested airports in the country. This article talks about it: O'Hare has one of the worst on-time arrival and departure records of any major airport in the Nation, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data analyzed by the Chicago Sun-Times. For the first 6 months of 1999, O'Hare ranked at the bottom or second to last in percentage of on-time arrivals and departures at the 29 biggest U.S. airports, performing worse than the Boston and Newark airports, the other chronic laggards. This goes back to the idea that airlines set their own schedules. There are slot controls that limit the number of flights in an hour at O'Hare. You can get from the FAA a slot to take off in a particular hour. You can get a slot, for example, to take off at the 8 a.m. hour. It is up to the airline, then, to schedule when that plane will take off. It turns out, as the Sun-Times investigative report found, that many of the airlines schedule them all at the same time. At times there have been as many as 80 planes scheduled to take off, all at the same time. Obviously, they can't do that. What that means is that passengers sit on the runway and wait. Have you ever been in an airplane, sitting on the tarmac with that stuffy air, waiting for the plane to take off? The airlines always blame it on the weather or they blame it on the FAA. They blame it on somebody else. They never blame it on themselves for scheduling all the flights to take off at the same time, which we know as a matter of physics is impossible. This October 3 article, just this Sunday, was the front-page headline article in the Chicago Sun-Times: Airlines Cramming Departure Time Slots Airlines at O'Hare Airport schedule so many flights in and out during peak periods that it is impossible to avoid delays, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis shows. O'Hare can handle about 3 takeoffs a minute at most, [that is one every 20 seconds] but air carriers slate as many as 20 at certain times, slots they believe will draw the most passengers. And they've continued to add flights to crowded time slots, even though delays have been increasing since 1997. At least today, even as we have these horrible delays, there is some limitation as to how far the airlines can go with this bait-and-switch tactic with consumers. There is some check. That is the check on the absolute maximum number of slots that can be given for takeoffs and landings at O'Hare in a given hour. This bill removes that check. There will be no check then on airlines scheduling departures and arrivals all at the same time, when it is impossible for them all to land or take off at that time. In fact, you could have 200, 300, 400 flights all scheduled to take off at the same time. We are removing any of those caps. I mentioned that in 1995, the FAA ordered a study of what would happen if we lifted the high density rule. Again, the 1995 DOT study shows that lifting the high density rule more than doubles delay times at O'Hare. That is why they didn't do it. According to this report, a Department of Transportation May 1995 Report to Congress, a study of the high density rule, lifting the rule at O'Hare, ORD, is estimated to increase the average time average annual all-weather delay by nearly 12 minutes, from 11.8 to 23.7 minutes per operation, and besides, that average annual delay is much higher now than it was back in 1995, assuming no flight cancellations occur due to instrument flight rules, weather. This is beyond the average of 15 minutes, the original basis for imposing HDR. There are many studies that show the problem. This is why the caps were put on at O'Hare. They wanted to stop delays. The studies have all shown that adding just one more slot beyond the capacity of an airport causes an exponential, compounding increase on the delays. In fact, this is a chart that the Federal Aviation Administration prepared on airfield and airspace capacity and delay policy analysis. Once you go beyond the practical capacity of an airport--and for O'Hare, the FAA has said it is 158 flights per hour--the delays skyrocket. In my judgment, if we are saying now we are not going to have any checks on the demand at O'Hare and there is no added capacity, we are going to go right up into this range very fast. I said yesterday, Mayor Daley from Chicago was supposed to be in Washington last week for an event. We were going to have a taste and touch of Chicago in Washington. There was a huge celebration. There were about 500 people at this reception. We were all there waiting for Mayor Daley. Everybody was asking: Where is Mayor Daley? It turns out Mayor Daley was delayed at O'Hare Airport. In fact, poor Mayor Daley had to sit on the tarmac for 4 hours at O'Hare. He arrived in Washington at 8:30 at night, after the reception was over, and he got the next plane back to Chicago. That is typical of the kind of delays people incur going through O'Hare. This bill would add to that. I think it is a mistake to do that. It ignores the original reason we had for the high density rule. Furthermore, I think it is unusual for Congress to put on the mantle of safety and aviation experts and decide that we are going to rewrite FAA rules. We ought to take that out of the political process, have the FAA write its own rules, not us rejiggle them from the statutes. With that, I am not going to mention at this time what I believe will be the extreme safety hazards by trying to cram more flights into less time and space at O'Hare. A flight lands and takes off every 20 seconds at O'Hare. If we are going to cram more in and narrow the distance, maybe it will come down to every 10 or 15 seconds. There is not much room for error. If you are sitting in a plane and you think there is a plane tailgating you, there is a lot of pressure. All these takeoffs and landings will not give air passengers a great deal of comfort. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I wish to take a few moments now during this lull in activity on the floor to speak to my concerns about lifting the high density rule that governs O'Hare International Airport in my State.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Well, I understand the last time we talked, I thought the Senator was working to address my concerns. In fact, I didn't realize he supported lifting the high density rule altogether. I guess that is what has taken me by surprise. Senator Moseley-Braun, my predecessor, and Senator Durbin urged your support to limit the increased exceptions for slot restrictions at O'Hare from 100 down to 30. You had supported that in your original bill which had that 30 figure. You and I had been having discussions with respect to that. This year, the amendment by Senator Gorton and Senator Rockefeller is what has given me pause because, obviously, that would be going in a different direction than the limitations that were worked out with you, Senator Durbin, and former Senator Moseley-Braun last year in what was reflected as the original version of S. 82.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, in response to the distinguished Senator from Arizona, I would be delighted to work with him as best I can. I am sorry we have missed each other in recent days. Obviously, he has dual responsibilities now as a candidate for President of the United States. I would certainly like to continue negotiations with him. I do believe----

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that John Fisher of the Congressional Research Service be granted the privilege of the floor during the Senate's consideration of S. 82.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to finish one final point to the speech I had given a few moments ago wherein I mentioned the likely delays that would be caused at Chicago O'Hare, and that is the increase in delays that would be caused in Chicago O'Hare and throughout our Nation's entire air traffic system if the high density rule were to be repealed. But right now I mention one other item which is probably the most important matter this Senate confronts in passing statutes to govern our aviation system, and that is the issue of safety. I alluded earlier to the fact that O'Hare is the world's biggest airport and that there is a takeoff and landing every 20 seconds at O'Hare. Any sixth grader can figure out if we are going to try to run more flights per hour and more flights per minute through O'Hare, we are going to have to bring them in and take them off in less time than 20 seconds. Either that or we will continue mounting delays. Most likely, we will continue mounting delays. But it is possible the increased congestion and delays would cause the air carriers to be pressuring the FAA to let the planes take off and would be pressuring the air traffic controllers to get planes into the air quicker, and it would be pressuring them to shorten the separation distances between airplanes. Already in this country, in order to increase capacity at our airports without adding capacity in terms of new facilities and runways, we are doing a number of things. We are reducing separation distances between arriving aircraft. A couple of years ago, I was doing a landing at O'Hare. I was on a commercial air carrier. We were about to land at O'Hare. Lo and behold, we were about to land on top of another plane that was still on the runway. At the last minute, the pilot lifted up, and we took off again right before we hit the other plane that had not gotten off the runway. Many people have probably been through that experience. It is pretty frightening. If we are going to cram more flights into the same space at O'Hare, we are going to see more incidents like that. They are already reducing runway occupancy time. You will notice when your plane lands that it hightails it off that runway because it knows there is another plane right behind. They are doing something that they call land-and-hold operations-- they are doing it at O'Hare and across the country--where the plane lands, and it has to get to a crisscross with another runway. They have to hold while another plane lands. Pilots hate to do that, but they are forced to by air traffic control. We are seeing increasing incidents of triple converging runway arrivals in this country. All of this is designed to put more planes together in time and space. I think it is obvious to anybody that decreases the margin of safety that we have in aviation in this country. I think that is a great mistake because nothing is as important as the safety of the flying public. I call your attention to an article that appeared in USA Today. I apologize. The date is wrong on this. It says November 13, 1999. Obviously, that was November 13 of a different year because we haven't gotten to November 13 of 1999. This is actually from 1998. They had a front-page headline article called: ``Too Close for Comfort. Crossing Runways Debated as Travel Soars. Safety, On-Time Travel on Collision Course, Pilots Say.'' Let me read a quote from this article from USA Today from November 13, 1998. ``They are just trying anything to squeeze out more capacity from the system,'' says Captain Randolph Babbitt, President of the Airline Pilots Association, which represents 51,000 of the 70,000 commercial pilots in the United States and Canada. ``Some of us think this is nibbling at the safety margins.'' Probably at no airport in the country have we nibbled more at the safety margins than at O'Hare International Airport--the world's biggest airport, the world's most congested, the one that has the most delays in this country. I will read a portion of a letter that was sent earlier this year to the Governor of our great State, Governor George Ryan. My name is John Teerling and I recently retired, after 31.5 years with American Airlines as a Captain, flying international routes in Boeing 767 and 757's. I was based at Chicago's O'Hare my entire career. I have seen the volume of traffic at O'Hare pick up and exceed anyone's expectations, so much so, that on occasions, mid-airs were only seconds apart. O'Hare is at maximum capacity, if not over capacity. It is my opinion that it is only a matter of time until two airliners collide making disastrous headlines. I close with that thought, and I caution the Senate on the effects of our interfering in the rulemaking authority of the FAA, overruling their authority, and by statute rewriting their rules. I ask unanimous consent that this letter to Governor George Ryan from this former American Airlines captain, John Teerling, be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, this amendment would exempt O'Hare International Airport from any lifting of the high density rule. I understand this amendment has been accepted on both sides. I ask unanimous consent the amendment be agreed to. I thank the Presiding Officer himself for his efforts to work with me, and also the distinguished Commerce Committee Chairman, Senator McCain from Arizona, and the ranking Democratic member, Senator Rockefeller. Of course, I thank the good auspices of our majority leader who helped work out this agreement. I appreciate the time and consideration of all on a very difficult matter.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I thank the Chair.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes, I will yield.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I rise on behalf of myself and my colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin, to propose an amendment to the amendment proposed by the Presiding Officer himself, Senator Gorton, and Senator Rockefeller. I send the amendment to the desk.

Mr. FITZGERALD

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

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the manager of the bill and also the distinguished Senator from West Virginia. One thing I want to make clear, contrary to the statement of the Senator from West Virginia, is that at least this Senator from Illinois does not believe he was involved in any of the negotiations, certainly not with respect to this last-minute attempt to entirely lift the high density rule that has governed three of our Nation's most crowded and congested airports since the late 1960s. Going back to the 1960s, the FAA has had a rule in effect that limits operations at Chicago O'Hare International Airport to 155 operations an hour. The reason for that rule was that the airport was at capacity and adding more operations per hour would add to delays and jeopardize the safety of the flying public. This original bill had an exemption for 30 new slots that the FAA could grant at O'Hare. I had misgivings about even those 30 exemptions for new flights at O'Hare, and I had been working with the chairman of the Commerce Committee on that issue, going back several months. But this was at the last minute. In fact, I read it in the newspaper today that a deal had been cut behind the scenes to go ahead and lift the high density rule altogether. I think that is a grave mistake that could jeopardize the safety of our flying public in the United States. I fly out of O'Hare International Airport every week. In fact, I live 12 miles from it. As I grew up, that airport grew up. It grew into the busiest airport in the world. Anybody who has been there this year knows that it is so crowded and congested that there are constant delays at O'Hare. In fact, a report that came out earlier this year suggested there are more delays at O'Hare International Airport than at any other major airport in the country. In 1995, when Congress considered lifting the high density rule, the FAA commissioned a study to look into what would happen if they lifted the high density rule. That study concluded it would be a great mistake to lift the high density rule because it would further add to delays at O'Hare and some of the Nation's other slot-controlled airports. When there are massive delays at O'Hare, it pressures the air traffic controllers to hurry up and get more flights in the air to alleviate those delays. Sometimes there are 100 flights waiting to take off at O'Hare International Airport. Lifting the high density rule says that maybe sometimes we will have 200 flights waiting to take off on the runways at O'Hare. With that kind of pressure on the air traffic controllers, certainly there is the possibility to do something unwise and to make too many flights take off too close to each other, which could risk the lives of passengers in this country. I am here to tell you that if one passenger dies in the United States because this Congress, going along with pressure from United and American Airlines, which already have 80 percent of the market in Chicago O'Hare and want more of it and are trying to block the construction of a third airport in Chicago because they do not want anybody else to have any of the market in Chicago, if in responding to pressure from those airlines, we are going to add so many more flights at O'Hare that we jeopardize the life of just one passenger in this country, then we have made a horrible, grave mistake. Thus, I will be here everyday this bill is up, and I will fight doing that. I look forward to working with the managers of the bill to possibly address my concerns. I was elected, in part, on this issue, and my predecessor, Carol Moseley-Braun, in fact, last year when there was a proposal to add just 100 more slots at O'Hare, fought that. She thought she had an agreement to lower that to 30 more slots that could be sparingly granted by the FAA, if all sorts of certain criteria were met. Now it appears there is an effort on the part of those who have negotiated this bill to run roughshod over all those conversations with Senators from Illinois and go ahead and say the sky is the limit at O'Hare. It is interesting; last week, Mayor Daley from Chicago was trying to fly to Washington. We had a Taste of Chicago party on the House side of the Capitol. It was a huge party. There were 500 people from Chicago willing to celebrate the Taste of Chicago in Washington. Unfortunately, the mayor of Chicago was stuck on the tarmac at O'Hare for 4 hours because of delays. It is too crowded and it is too congested. Fortunately, thus far, the air traffic controllers have managed the traffic and the delays there, and they have not felt pressured into doing something unwise. But it is very possible that we could put so much pressure on those air traffic controllers and those pilots that a mistake could be made and we could jeopardize the safety of the flying public. So I will be here to fight the lifting of those caps at O'Hare. We have to come up with some other solutions. I do agree we want competition amongst our airlines. Certainly with the situation at O'Hare, where you have two airlines, United and American, that control 80 percent of the slots, they don't want anybody else to cut into their monopoly there. Thus, they don't want any more air capacity outside of O'Hare in Chicago. I understand that. That has created problems. I want to work to solve those problems with the Members of this body. But I do not think we should do it in such a way that we cause more delays at O'Hare, which puts more pressure on our air traffic controllers, our pilots, and our whole infrastructure in aviation, and potentially jeopardizes the safety of the flying public. Mr. President, thank you very much.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I object.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Stanley Bach of the Congressional Research Service be granted the privilege of the floor during the Senate's consideration of S. 82.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I object.

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

Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Evelyn Fortier of my office be granted the privilege of the floor during the Senate's consideration of S. 82.

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

Mr. FITZGERALD

Mr. FITZGERALD. Madam President, if I could just take a moment now, I say to the Senator from Washington, I would be happy to take my time tomorrow when we consider the amendment on lifting the high density rule. But if I could just reiterate my opposition to lifting the high density rule.

Mr. FITZGERALD. As was noted earlier, the FAA imposed the high density rule back in the late 1960s. It was an internal FAA rule. I guess I am a little perplexed as to why Congress would come in and rewrite, with statute, an FAA rule. If the FAA thinks it is a good idea to lift the slot rules at O'Hare, if they think it is safe to do that, they are confident it will not add to any delays at the most congested, most delay-filled airport in the country, then the FAA can go in and do that. So I guess the threshold issue is, I am perplexed why we would come in and write a statute that overrides a Federal Aviation Administration rule. I do believe, while the proponents of this proposal have good intentions; they would like to increase competition and access to the Chicago market; and certainly it could be argued that would benefit the whole Nation and could even benefit Chicago--a basic law of physics says that you cannot have two objects occupying the same space at one time. Right now, O'Hare, which has over 900,000 operations a year, is already at capacity. The FAA commissioned a study in 1995. That study concluded that the absolute maximum number of flights or operations one could have at O'Hare in an hour was 158. Today, we are at 163 operations at O'Hare in an hour. This proposal before the Senate is to lift any restrictions at all. A flight lands and takes off every 20 seconds at O'Hare. If we want to cram more flights into O'Hare International Airport, are we going to close that 20 seconds that divides each flight going in and out of O'Hare? What is a safe amount of time? Ten seconds between flights? How would you like to be coming in 10 seconds behind the plane in front of you with another flight 10 seconds behind you? Would you feel safe flying that jumbo jet in that compact air space? Going into O'Hare right now, one can look in every direction and see planes lined up as far as the eye can see waiting to land at O'Hare. In the morning hours at O'Hare, there are typically as many as 100 flights waiting to take off. I hope the Members of this body will give thought to what we are doing. With this lifting of the high density rule, we are saying it is safe to cram more flights into the most congested airport in the country; that it is not endangering the safety of the flying public and that it won't add delays. I never did take physics in high school. I have to admit it. I was a classics major. I majored in Latin and Greek. I took a lot of humanities courses and my great interest was not science. But I am going to be interested to hear whether there is some scientific evidence that we can keep packing more and more flights into the most congested, dense, delay-filled, crowded air traffic space in the world. I will be interested to learn why other Members of this body think that is a good policy and why it would be safe. With that, I look forward to being afforded the opportunity to speak on this matter tomorrow. I thank the distinguished Senators from West Virginia and the State of Washington for conferring with me this afternoon. I look forward to being given the time to address this matter to the full Senate body tomorrow. Hopefully, at that time, more of my colleagues will have arrived, many of whom will have passed through O'Hare and probably some, quite a few, who will have incurred delays on their way passing through O'Hare. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.