Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. If we can yield back time, then the vote on this would be held at what time?

Mr. HARKIN. I ask the chairman, are we then through with this amendment and we are open for other amendments right now?

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for me to make a couple of comments?

Mr. HARKIN. We have a list of amendments. I urge Senators on our side to please come over and offer the amendments that we have listed. People are protected in their amendments, but we want to get the bill done. Any Senators who may not be on the floor but who are available, please come over and offer your amendments. We have time agreements, and we can get these out of the road this afternoon before we start voting later on. It would be a shame not to use the time we have right now available to us to offer amendments and get them debated. Again, I urge Senators on the Democratic side to please come over.

Mr. HARKIN. Reserving the right to object, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. That is true.

Mr. HARKIN. First of all, we all agree this has been a bipartisan approach to put more money into Head Start to cover all 4-year-olds in the Head Start Program. We know an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Every study done, all the educators, everybody says if we can put the money into Head Start, we are going to save a lot of money downstream.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes. The CBO has projected that we are heading toward using at least $19 billion of the Social Security surplus next year. Again, I agree with Senator Nickles that we should not be dipping into Social Security to pay for this year's appropriations bills. But, quite frankly, I believe the other side already has dipped into Social Security by the fact of what they have been doing with their spending bills. While I do agree with Senator Nickles on not dipping into Social Security, I don't agree with his solution. Again, he calls for an across-the-board cut against all discretionary programs, even those that we have already passed. They were passed by both sides, went to conference, came back, and they have been signed into law by the President. Now they want to take that back. OMB has estimated a 9-percent across-the-board cut. We have a letter from CBO which shows that this across-the-board cut that Senator Nickles is proposing would be about 5.5 percent. Well, let's take a look. The Senator from Minnesota said we are spending too much money. I am going to get into that in a second. Take a look at what we would have to cut with a 5.5-percent cut across the board. Our COPS program, our community policing program that puts cops on the streets, would have to be cut by $26 million; Head Start, $290 million cut; meals for seniors, $29 million cut; NIH, $967 million cut. That is almost a $1 billion cut in NIH. While Senator Specter and I and others, in a bipartisan manner, have worked to get the $2 billion increase for NIH and get it on the track to double in 5 years, this would whack about a billion dollars out of NIH.

Mr. HARKIN. We have a letter from CBO that says dividing the projected deficit by the available outlays results in an across-the- board cut of 5.5 percent. That is from the CBO. I ask the Senator, if he hasn't, if he would take a look at that. I think he will see that is some pretty deep cuts he is talking about, 5.5 percent.

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for a question? If the Senator will yield for a question.

Mr. HARKIN. That is correct--probably less than 40 percent. Four out of 10 kids who qualify, who need the Head Start Program, will be cut out of the program because of this cut.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes. I think right now on Head Start, we are a little over 50 percent. About 50 percent of the eligible kids are served by Head Start. We are trying to get it up to 80 percent.

Mr. HARKIN. The Senator has put his finger on it. We are spending too little on that program. We need to fund it so every eligible child can get into that program.

Mr. HARKIN. Not one penny in taxes. I want to say to my friend from Nevada that the Senator from Minnesota said we are spending too much money. I am thinking that I might offer an amendment to cut NIH by $1 billion. Let's see how many votes we get on the other side. What if I offered an amendment to cut Head Start by $290 million? Do you think the Republicans would all vote to cut that? How about title I, education grants, $380 million in cuts to title I for our schools? How about veterans' health care, cut by $1.1 billion? Does anybody believe that if we offered amendments to cut those, we would get the votes to do that? Maybe the Senator from Minnesota would be the sole person who would vote to cut NIH by a billion dollars; I don't know. Perhaps we ought to have an amendment to see if that is what they want to do.

Mr. HARKIN. That is probably true. The Senator is absolutely right. When the Senator says we are spending too much and we have to cut spending, why doesn't he offer some amendments to cut NIH, title I, meals for seniors, and Head Start? No, they are going to try to hide behind this sort of across-the-board cut. An across-the-board cut means deep cuts in these programs. The Senator from Nevada said we have a proposal where we can pay for these programs and it would not require any tax at all. This is what we could do. I have a proposal that has been scored by CBO. If we just penalize the tobacco companies that fail to reduce teen smoking--they set the targets to reduce teen smoking, but they are not meeting them. We are saying that they pay a penalty for not reducing that and it raises $6 billion. CBO has given us the score on that. We could fund the Department of Defense at the requested level. What DOD said is, fund them at that level. That saves us $4 billion. We could enact the administration's proposal for student loan guarantee agencies. That is $1.5 billion in savings. I might add that the House, last week, went the opposite direction. They raised the student loan origination fees. I could not believe they did that. Talk about raising taxes; last week, the House raised the taxes on college students by making them pay more for their loans. They increased it by 25 percent. It affects about one-third of students. More than half of the students in my State of Iowa are affected by that. So they got a 25-percent increase in their origination fees. Well, that is the opposite way to go. If we enacted the administration's proposal, we would save $1.5 billion. Reduce Medicare waste, fraud, and abuse by $13 billion. Well, again, the House bill-- the counterpart to this--actually cuts funding for Medicare waste, fraud, and abuse. It retreats at a time when we have $13 billion estimated annually that we lose to Medicare for waste, fraud, and abuse. What the House GOP did is to cut $70 million from the audits and other checks that save us $17 for every dollar spent. We know from the audit agencies and others that for every dollar we have spent on audits, every dollar we have spent on the checks, we got $17 returned from waste, fraud, and abuse. Yet the House bill cut money from fighting waste, fraud, and abuse. That is inexcusable. If we want to go after it, we could save $13 billion. The last is reducing corporate welfare. We have a series of things-- $2 billion tax deductibility of tobacco advertising; underpayments by oil and gas industry royalties for use of Federal lands; billions lost because of tax loopholes and gimmicks that allow foreign companies and multinationals to avoid paying their fair share by bookkeeping methods that shift funds to foreign tax havens. By doing that, we can save about $4 billion. So our total offsets are about $28.5 billion, and we haven't raised taxes on any American. Nobody would have to pay more taxes. Yet this is the choice: Either have these kinds of offsets that will help pay for increased funding at NIH, veterans' health care, Head Start programs, meals for seniors; or what the Senator from Oklahoma wants to do, and that is to have a huge cut in all of these programs. That is really where we are. As I said, I agree with the Senator from Oklahoma; we shouldn't be dipping into Social Security. But we shouldn't be cutting Head Start programs. We shouldn't be cutting Meals on Wheels, meals to seniors. We shouldn't be cutting NIH and biomedical research. We should focus on the waste, fraud, and abuse, focus on the tax loopholes, focus on the DOD funding at their requested level, and that will more than pay for the programs we have come up with on a bipartisan basis.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. HARKIN. I concur with the Senator.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the Senate struck the portion of the Gorton slots amendment concerning O'Hare Airport and inserted a portion of the language that had appeared in last years measure. I understand that was not done because the Chairman and Senator Rockefeller supported the substance of the change. I understand there was a concern with the filing of over 300 amendments on the issue. It was clear that we would have had difficulty finishing the bill if the Senate was forced to consider those amendments. Now we can move this measure to conference. I am hopeful that we will see the slot rule eliminated in two phases in the conference. I believe that the O'Hare elements of the Gorton Amendment are solid and would be an excellent position for the Senate to push for, given that the House has proposed to eliminate slots at O'Hare. We need a two-step elimination of the slot rule to provide time for mitigation against the adverse effects of the rule. These include: the need to provide for improved turboprop service for our small cities, the need to provide for regional jets for our mid-sized cities, the need to provide for balance between the major carriers and we need an ability to provide for new entrant carriers to competitively compete. I am pleased that Senator Grassley is expected to be a conferee on the entire measure.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I may object. I have been standing here about 45 minutes waiting to speak. I thought we were going to go back and forth across the aisle. I want to speak on the bill, not as in morning business. Since I like the Senator from Utah so much, I will not object. I wanted to make my point.

Mr. HARKIN. I did not hear the request.

Mr. HARKIN. If I can follow the Senator from Utah for 10 minutes, yes, I request to speak.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the President for this time and his indulgence while I take my 10 minutes when I know we are supposed to be recessing for our luncheon caucuses. I appreciate the indulgence of the Senator from Wyoming. I want to take a few minutes to talk about the managers' amendment, the slot amendment that provides for a two-step process for the elimination of airline slots for landing and takeoff rights at O'Hare, Kennedy, and LaGuardia Airports. Senator Grassley and I have been working on this for quite awhile together. I am pleased we have been able to work closely with Chairman McCain, with Senator Rockefeller, Senator Gorton, and others on the development of this proposal. It is an important step toward eliminating a major barrier to airline competition. Not only must we eliminate the barrier, but we have to do it in a way that mitigates against the long-term effects of a Government-imposed slot rule. Under the current rules, most smaller airlines have, in effect, a far more difficult time competing, in part, because of the slot rule. In the first phase of the proposal, in the managers' amendment, small airlines will be allowed immediate expanded access to the airports. Again, this will help stimulate increased competition and lower ticket prices. Turboprop and regional jet aircraft will also be allowed immediate slot exemptions when they serve smaller markets. This will increase airline service available to smaller cities, especially cities west of the Mississippi, such as the Presiding Officer's cities in Wyoming, or Nebraska or the Dakotas or Iowa, or places such as that. The two-step mechanism in the bill has the support of 30 attorneys general, the Business Travel Coalition, and the Air Carrier Association of America which represents many of the smaller airlines. After that first phase, in the final step--after a number of years when the new competitive airlines might get a chance to establish a foothold and smaller cities would have established better service--the slot rules will be ended at O'Hare, Kennedy, and LaGuardia Airports. Again, I commend Chairman McCain for working so closely with us on this issue. Chairman McCain had a field hearing in Des Moines on April 30 of this year to hear firsthand how the current system affects small- and medium-sized cities. Senator McCain has worked hard to move forward a proposal which I believe will significantly increase competition. I also thank Senator Gorton, and my colleague, Senator Rockefeller from West Virginia, for their considerable efforts. These Senators have shown a keen interest in the problems unique to smaller cities and rural areas where adequate service is a paramount issue. The provision has a number of items that address the noise implications of eliminating the slot rule near the three airports. I believe this final language is an excellent compromise. I am pleased that the structure of our original proposal is largely intact. I was also pleased that the House moved in June to eliminate the slot rule at these airports. I think the Senate provision improves on that. Access to affordable air service is essential to efficient commerce and economic development in States with a lot of small communities. Again, Americans have a right to expect this. Airports are paid for by the traveling public through taxes and fees charged by the Federal Government and local airport authorities. Unfortunately, when deregulation came through in 1978, there was no framework put in place to deal with anticompetitive practices. A lot of these outrageous practices have become business as usual. What happened? We went through deregulation in 1978; and then in 1986 the DOT gave the right to land and take off under these slots to those that used them as of January 21, 1986. So what happened was, when the Secretary of DOT, in 1986 said, here, airlines, these are your slots, it locked them into those airports, and it effectively locked out competition in the future. It was, in fact, a give-away. I always said this was a give-away of a public resource. These airports do not belong to the airlines. They belong to us. They belong to the people of this country. So what has happened is that over the years these airlines have been able to lock them up. So we have this slot system. The slot system came in in the late 1960s because the air traffic control system was getting overwhelmed with the number of flights then being handled. So they had a slot system. Just the reverse is true today. With the modernization of our air traffic control system--with global positioning satellites, GPSs, all of the other things we have, the communications systems, our air traffic control system, and the ongoing modernization of it--we can handle it. We do not need the slots any longer. However, rather than just dropping them right away, we need to mitigate against the damage that has been caused by the slots. That is why we need to have a phaseout, a two-step phaseout--a phaseout that would both phase out the slots but at the same time include, in that first phase, turboprops that serve smaller cities, new airlines that would start up with small regional jets that would serve some of the smaller cities that have been cut out of this for the last almost 20 years--well, I guess 14 years now since 1986. So, again, many airlines have monopolies in markets, especially if they control a hub airport. Local airport authorities at major hub airports do very little to encourage small carriers to use hub airports. It is no surprise that big airlines would rather see gates empty than lease them to competitors. Dominant carriers flood the market with cheap seats to destinations served by small carriers. They maintain the low price until the day the small carrier is gone. This happened in Des Moines with Vanguard Airlines. We had a new airline that started. What happened? United and American, flying to Chicago, dropped their fares by over half, dropped their fares down to below what Vanguard could do. The travelers were happy, but Vanguard could only afford to do that for so long, and then they went out of business. As soon as they went out of business, what did United and American do? They upped their fares 83 percent. That is what they were doing to stifle competition. I believe that allowing new entrant carriers, such as Vanguard, Access Air, and others that may be coming along, easier access to O'Hare from cities such Des Moines, and the Quad Cities--Moline, Rock Island, Bettendorf, and Davenport and others, will be a step in the right direction toward helping economic development and growth and providing for lower airfares for our people. The amendment of the managers opens up the opportunity for direct service into LaGuardia, important to cities such as Des Moines and Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities. Again, the Quad Cities recently lost American Airlines' service to O'Hare because of the slot rule. American Airlines decided to fly their new regional jet between Omaha and O'Hare. Normally, this would not have had an impact on Quad Cities' service to O'Hare, but under the slot rule, Quad Cities lost American Airlines' service entirely. They entirely lost it. Without the slot limitation, Quad Cities would be a profitable market for American or any other airline. But the area did not make the cut with a limited number of landing rights available under the existing slot rule. Again, economic decisions are not based upon what they can expect to get from a market; it is based upon the slot rule. That is skewing the economic decisions made by airlines and by small community airports. So again, for our area, for Iowa, for areas west of the Mississippi-- I am sure for Wyoming and for West Virginia--we need to change this system, but we need to do it in a way that does not lock in the past anticompetitive activities of the larger airlines. Right now, Sioux City, IA, does not have service to O'Hare. It is the No. 1 destination of its business travelers. So, again, what is this doing? It hurts economic development and stifles competition in Sioux City. Again, I urge the Senate to support the managers' amendment. Doing so will lower airfares, it will improve air service to small- and medium- sized cities across the Nation, and it will allow for economic decisions to be based on economics and not upon an outdated, outmoded, anticompetitive slot rule. I thank the Chair.