Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the distinguished Senator yield?

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I am happy to yield.

Mr. HOLLINGS. It is beyond this Senator.

Mr. HOLLINGS. We are into the fifth week. We are into the fifth week since the attacks. We immediately held these hearings, and I called the distinguished Secretary of Transportation the week of this occurrence. It was on the following Thursday immediately after September 11th. I said: I am going to set this hearing up. I said: You can enhance cockpit security by installing reinforced cockpit doors. We found in Israel that once you secure that cockpit--and Boeing said they could retrofit doors immediately in the next 2 to 3 weeks, and then they will have a more secure door. They have a retrofit package for the planes right now, and if you and I were head of an airline, we would immediately require this for the security of our pilots. We want pilots to fly, not fight. Once they secure that door, then you do not have disturbed individuals storming that door as we had on that Los Angeles to Chicago flight. That ends hijacking for all intents and purposes, because never again can they use an air flight as a weapon of mass destruction. I do not want to pass up the eloquence of the observation of the Senator with respect to these firefighters. They are the best in the world. They are not paid enough. They are working extra hours, and they were willing, as the Senator says, to give their life to try to save those lives while the building was coming down. They thought there could be a chance they would save a life or two, and they were going up those steps. That is fixed in my mind. We should be ashamed of ourselves for delaying this bill. We get all boiled up about procedure. We have to move now. Once we moved 97 to 0 to cloture, we need to go ahead to the bill itself. Why are we not debating the bill this afternoon and passing it tonight? There are two or three amendments. Let us vote on those amendments. They could be just ideas. We are not hard and fast, except on one thing, and that is to get airport security. Yes, there is flexibility in the bill. We live in the real world. Take small, rural airports such as at Bamberg and Orangeburg, SC. They are not used to having the federalization of the system, but we have to have the Federal standards for inspections to make certain they have airport security. We do not want a plane coming from, say, Bamberg to fly into Charlotte and then the passengers get off, never having been checked properly, to come into Washington, never having had the proper security check. So that is a lesson I learned from El Al, the Israeli security agents, and the chief pilot at El Al. He told me, for example, once that cockpit door was closed, they could be assaulting his wife in the cabin, but he does not open the door. That is why, when they heard this Russian plane that had come out of Israel exploded and went down into the Black Sea last weekend, they knew immediately it was not from a bomb, because for 30 years they have known they are not going to get anywhere. They are still investigating the possibility that a Ukrainian missile gone astray may have caused the crash. They might start a fight and hurt, say, 5 people, but not 5,000. But the pilot immediately lands and already has law enforcement waiting to take over. The rule used to be--and I guess still is unless that FAA is getting going--if I am the pilot and you come forward and say, this is a hijacking and I want to go to Havana, Cuba, you say, oh, yes, I always wanted to go to Cuba; let's all go to Havana, wonderful, yes--just go wherever the hijacker wants and get it down and then let law enforcement come. No, the rule has changed and ought to have been changed 3 weeks ago, and they are still dillying around wondering about contractors and the employees. I actually had a meeting with the transportation officials, and they were talking about 9 months to a year to get this thing done. Absolutely ludicrous. We are in an emergency situation. We have men committed in battle, putting their lives on the line, and we are talking about maybe securing our airlines in a year's time even though we have already sent $15 billion to the airlines.

Mr. HOLLINGS

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

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it is an honor for me to pay tribute to my former Senate leader, Mike Mansfield. The State of Montana and the United States have lost a great man, a valiant soldier, a dedicated statesman, and a gentleman of a breed we don't see enough of these days. Mike Mansfield was a revered figure whose distaste of partisanship led the Senate to accomplish great deeds for civil rights, voting rights, and foreign relations during Vietnam, the cold war, and the Watergate scandal. His leadership emphasized equality, cooperation, and fairness which were marked by his personal style of leadership. He was considered a quiet man who did not care for self-promotion, often answering questions with a ``Yep,'' ``Nope,'' ``Maybe,'' or ``Can't say.'' Although he was not known as an orator, his simple statements and words were extremely effective. He said in eulogy for John F. Kennedy, ``There was a sound of laughter; in a moment, it was no more. And so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands.'' In his quiet manner, he managed to guide a exceptionally productive Senate during a turbulent political era which could have become bogged down had he not been able to work with both Republicans and Democrats alike. Mike was a Representative and Senator from Montana who came to Congress after dutifully serving his country in the military during WWII. At 14, he stretched the truth about his age in order to enlist in the Navy. He then went on to serve in both the Army and the Marine Corps. Having returned from duty in 1922, he worked as a ``mucker'' in the copper mines of Butte, Montana where he met Maureen Hayes. In 1932, he married Maureen who is said to have played an essential role in his remarkable career. She was the person who convinced him to go back to school, run for Congress, and become U.S. Ambassador to Japan under President Carter and President Reagan. He was elected as the Senate Majority Leader in 1961, 5 years before I was elected to the Senate from South Carolina. I remember in 1971 when I was in Canada on my honeymoon with Peatsy, Mike's office called and asked us to come to Europe. Peatsy and I left Canada immediately and spent our honeymoon traveling around Europe with Mile and Muareen. Mike served as Senate Majority Leader for 16 years-longer than anyone in Senate history. He was extremely involved in the civil rights movement, a critic of the Vietnam conflict, and an advocate of health care legislation. He was a man who was convinced that the true strength of the Senate lay in the center and not on the right of the left. Partisan politics was not his style, and his success lay in the fact that he was an honest, straight shooting individual who cooperated and worked with both sides of the aisle. We have lost a great statesman and a fine man who served his country well. The distinguished Senator from Montana was my role model. He believed in getting things done. In order to get things done, you have to listen and let everyone be heard. But once done, then move on. He was particularly kind to me because I was just a freshman Senator in 1966. He had me immediately on what we call the policy committee. I then, in 1971-1972, chaired the campaign committee for the Democrats on this side of the aisle. It so happened that I was off on a trip just after my wedding in 1971. Senator Mansfield was asked by President Nixon to coordinate and communicate the 10-percent surcharge on imports with about 10 country heads in Europe and in Africa and Morocco. He called me. I was in Canada. He called and I came immediately back down to the Andrews air base. We boarded the plane, and we went to Helsinki, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Morocco, of course, London, several, a couple other countries, he and his wife Maureen and my wife Peatsy and myself. Watching him, how he responded and acted and more or less chaired those meetings with the heads of state was really an inspiration to me. He was so direct, so much to the point. We have so much in the field of political correctness now. Mike Mansfield was always politically correct, but he didn't bother around with all those nuances. He was the finest of Senators and leaders in the history of this body. The best of Mike Mansfield was more or less said by himself in a eulogy to his wife at the time of her funeral just last year. I included that eulogy. He permitted me to put it in the Record because I knew he had friends all over the country and the world. They wanted to be with him in that trying moment. I knew that they would, more than any, appreciate the real Mansfield flavor if they could just hear him. The most eloquent of all tributes to be paid to Mike Mansfield was sort of paid to himself when he made the eulogy to his charming wife Maureen, and I ask unanimous consent that that be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair. Madam President, we have the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the airport security bill at 10:30. I say, in the few minutes allotted me, I wish everyone could have been at the Commerce Committee briefing we had with the El Al airline security chief and Israeli government security officials. You would immediately understand that when the plane went down over the Black Sea this past weekend, even though the plane came from Israel, the explosion had to come from somewhere else because it is veritably impossible to get a bomb aboard a plane at airports in Israel. The United States military is now working with Ukrainian and Russian officials to verify evidence that a Ukrainian missile may have gone astray during military exercises on the Black Sea coast. I only mention this incident to emphasize the thoroughness of airport security in Israel. They call their security plan the ``onion ring'' perimeter defense. Their plan effectively addresses not only security during the boarding of the plane, but security surrounding the airport and on the tarmac. But we continue to talk more narrowly about security in the cockpit and the need for federal screeners and U.S. marshals on board. As inexperienced as we are on these matters, this is where our minds are focused. However, we need to expand our work on airline security to the airport and airline personnel working on the tarmac. At some point during pre-flight preparation, you have not only the screeners, cargo handlers, caterers, and general airport perimeter officials, but you have the individual who vacuums underneath the seats, who all have access to the airplane prior to take-off. Because of this access, all personnel need to go through an FBI check, in our opinion. That is what this bill provides. Take the following scenario for instance. A terrorist checks in ahead of time online and the airline staff says to the person you have seat 9A. All a terrorist has to do is pick up that mobile phone and call a friend who has been working 2 years on the tarmac out there and say it is a 12 o'clock flight to Charleston, seat 9A. That is it. They tape a pistol or a weapon of some kind under seat 9A. But even there at the counter, all you have to do is get out there a little bit early, get your ticket, and then sit down and be calm. Then just give a motion up at the window because your friend has already been told that this is the flight you are going to take. The bill itself has been released to the Senate after a full day's hearing we had at the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee with nearly all of the Senators in attendance. In a bipartisan fashion, Senator McCain, and I, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has been working on this over several years, along with the chairman of our Subcommittee on Aviation, Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia, all got together with some two dozen cosponsors to develop this legislation. We do have a managers' amendment that really takes care of some of the flexibility needs that we found out about from the FAA with respect to restrictions on parking 300 feet from the airport building--that kind of thing. As the Senator from North Dakota says, I think if you move 300 feet from the airport building in North Dakota, you will be in Senator Dorgan's cow pasture. We must be careful to maintain reasonable and flexible oversight of airline security in order to ensure the continued efficiency of the industry. Those kinds of judgments can be made from time to time by the administering agency. These efforts will be paid for. Right now, we are studying the exact cost. Senator McCain and I have tried to hold costs down--including the passenger security fee itself. What we have agreed upon at the moment, of course, is $2.50 per ticketed passenger which would add up to $1.5 billion. But they are saying, no, if you are going to take care of the 18,000 screeners and some 10,000 other personnel around the tarmac and out on the sidewalk, you are going to really get into about $1.7 billion or maybe $1.9 billion total cost. So we might have to raise the passenger fee up to $3. I don't know. We are currently trying to obtain the best CBO figures. The airline executives favor this bill; the airline pilots favor the bill. You go right on down the list, all the personnel involved; the mayors have sent us resolutions. I think we made a mistake in calling it airline security. We should have used the word ``stimulus,'' the ``airline stimulus'' bill, because if we had used that word, we would not have had any trouble at all in passing this measure. Everybody is around here trying to stimulate, stimulate, stimulate--these fancy words we get up here in Washington. I know of no better measure to stimulate airline travel and get the airlines back to normal. We give the airlines $15 billion and then guarantee they go broke by keeping the airports closed or extending the idea that there is no security, that there are no marshals on the plane, as the Senator from California told me early this morning. We are going to have marshals. We are going to have security with this airline stimulus security measure. I yield to the distinguished Senator from Montana. He has worked closely with us on this issue, and perhaps he would have an observation.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished leader.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I admonish the body that we are ready to go forward and, as the distinguished assistant majority leader points out, we ought to be using the time available to conduct other business, if we cannot go forward with the airline security bill. I have been talking with Senator McCain to coordinate this effort. While the managers' amendment is yet to be finalized, we have other amendments. It seems to me we could get some kind of agreement with respect to relevant amendments and consider these measures. It would not be time wasted. This procedure of moving to another bill puts airport security in limbo. We are not having votes tomorrow or Monday, and certainly not on the weekend. Reagan National is up and running again, and we have shuttles going to New York and Boston and otherwise, but the holdup in ensuring the security of our airports is now on the part of the Senate.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, let me go right to the heart of airport security. I had the most unique experience earlier today with El Al officials who came to the Committee on Commerce and reviewed in detail their security provisions for Israel's airline. They have not had a hijacking in the last 20 to 25 years. I do not want to necessarily single them out other than to say that the officials present included, the regional director for the North America and Central America Israeli Security Agency and the head of the Israeli Security Agency of the Aviation Department. We also had the chief of security for El Al Airlines, and the top captain of El Al Airlines visit with us. The four gentlemen went through in detail the Israeli airport security program. It was an eye opener for me. I have been working on this issue since the eighties when Pan Am Flight 103 went down over Lockerbie, Scotland. I was insisting then that we have federalization of security at our airports and on our airplanes. I was in the minority. With respect to TWA Flight 800, in 1996 it was the same, and we had bill upon bill and measure upon measure and study upon study, more training, more this, more that, a particular officer in charge, the Vice President Gore study. None of this made a difference. Of course, the hijackers still flew the planes into buildings in America and killed 6,000 people. I borrowed this diagram from the Israeli delegation. This particular diagram is entitled ``Onion Rings Security Structure.'' The security in Israel and El Al Airlines brings into sharp focus that security is not a partial operation. Security is not part private contract and part governmental. As has been said for years, the primary function of the State government--and a former distinguished Governor is occupying the Chair--is public education, and the primary function of the National Government is national defense. We have gone now from, in a sense, international defense to national defense, homeland security. That is our primary function. There is no difference in safety and security. We would not think for a second of privatizing the air traffic controllers. I agreed with President Reagan. He said: You are not striking; you are staying on the job. We are going to have, in a sense, security and safe flights. This diagram starts with the outer rim of intelligence. The second rim is in the airport. The third rim is the check-in area. The fourth rim is the departure gate. The fifth ring is cargo, and the next two rings are the airport area and the aircraft itself. They Israeli officials were asked: How about somebody who vacuum cleans the aircraft aisles and in between the seats? They have 100- percent security checks. Point: There is no such thing as a low-skilled job in security. As a matter of fact, they periodically rotate security officers to different postings. They found out, like we found out with the Capitol Police that rotations make a difference in the effectiveness of our security personnel. We do not have the Capitol Police sit in the same spot from early morning until their 8 hours are up just looking at the screen as the tourists come into the Nation's Capitol. The officer does that for about 4 hours, and then they swap him off to another post. The Israeli security officials keep their airport personnel alert, they keep them well paid, they keep them well trained, and they keep them well tested. The El Al folks were telling me that they make 150 annual security checks at Israel's airports. They try to sneak vicious items through security like a knife or a metallic object resembling a bomb. Of course, it is not a real bomb. The airports are not given a check in January and then they wait until the next January to check again. They have intermittent checks throughout the entire year. By way of emphasis, in that check-in area they confer with intelligence. Intelligence confers with them. Intelligence will tell them, for example, if you have ever been down to Tijuana, they have certain entities down in Mexico that can really plagiarize, copy, an immigration pass. They know when they come from certain areas what passes to look at. In fact, they have them on a board there because I have been down there and checked with the Immigration Service, in a similar fashion. Intelligence can say: Wait a minute, if they come from this area, we found out now they have counterfeit measures over there and they are almost perfect and here is what we have to look for, and everything else of that kind. So that is why they take them into a side room, give them a separate check, fingerprint and everything else they have, take a picture. You have absolute security and therefore absolute trust in the flights on El Al. You cannot have anything other than that for the U.S. travelers. Specifically, we cannot have the Capitol policemen, who give us security, be private contractors, nor can the Secret Service that gives the President security be private contractors. To put it another way, I am not going to agree to any kind of contract or partial contract or partial supervision over airline security and airport security until they privatize the Secret Service or the Capitol Police, or excuse me, the 33,000 that we have in Immigration and Border Patrol. They are all civil servants. Nobody says privatize the civilian workers, 666,000 civilian civil service workers in the Department of Defense. I am told that the OMB called over there earlier this year and said we want to start contracting. There is a fetish about contracting out and privatizing and downsizing. That helps us get elected. I am going to get elected. I am going to Washington. I am going to downsize the Government. Just like private industry has proven its profitability in downsizing, so I am for downsizing. Those political ideologies have to be dispensed with. As the President has to get a coalition of foreign countries, he has to get a coalition of political interests in-country, get us on the right road for the war against terrorism. They wanted to privatize over at the Defense Department and they said: You are not privatizing anything over here. We are engaged in security. They cannot be made contract employees. They come in, they are incidental to all the information and goings on, and everything else like that. We have to have total security checks, audit them from time to time and everything else. That is the same thing with the airports. We have made a provision for the smaller airports. They are going to have to have the same kind of security, but they can be hired. There is flexibility given in this particular bill. With that flexibility, we know we can work this out right across the hall when we meet momentarily with the Department of Transportation. Incidentally, the Deputy Secretary of Transportation in charge of security will not only have this particular security for airlines and airports but for rail transportation, the tunnels, the stations, and for the seaports. That is the way it is in Israel. The Israeli Security Agency intermittently changes around and does different tasks, and everything else like that. So they keep them alert. They keep them well paid, and there is none of this 400-percent turnover like we have down at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta, the busiest airport in the world. There is a 400-percent turnover in security personnel down there. It is between $5.50 and $7.25, the minimum wage. So that has to stop. We have to have, as has been provided in this particular bill, the marshals. We expand the marshals group, I can say that. I have talked about the airport and the interims, and everything else of that kind. There was one question I asked when I first met with El Al security. I said: Do any of you all contract? They were just amazed. They asked: What does he mean by contract? I said: Private employment or whatever it is. You would not let controllers quit on you. You cannot let the security people strike on you. They are like the FBI. Do you think we can have the FBI strike or the Senators go on strike? I have 4 more years. Should I sit down and strike? You cannot have a strike of your public employees. That has been cleared in Israel, and everything else of that kind. The second question I asked, I said it seemed to me once you secured the cockpit, separated it from the cabin and the passengers, once you secured that cockpit and they are never permitted to open that door in flight, then what you really have is the end of hijacking because you get a better opportunity of killing a greater number of people or taking them off or something or beating on them and everything else of that kind, you cannot take the plane. The rule of the game was otherwise. Heretofore, until September 11, the rule of the game was for the pilots to say: You want to go to Havana, Cuba? I wanted to go there, too. Let us all fly to Havana. And you ask the other hijacker: You want to go to Rio? As soon as we land in Cuba and get some fuel, we will go to Rio. They will go anywhere they want to accommodate the hijacker and get the plane on the ground at whatever place he wants to go and let law enforcement take over. It is totally changed. We have the marshals. That door is never opened. The El Al executive told me--actually, it was the pilot I was talking to--he said, if my wife was being assaulted in that cabin in the passenger's section, I do not open the door. I land it and let the security take over, the FBI or the local security or wherever it is. So that is the end of the opportunity to take over and take a plane wherever you want it to go. We have not just relied on that, of course. We have the marshals. I said about these hijackers, suppose they grab the stewardess and say: Identify who the marshal is. They said the marshal is trained as soon as he sees that happening, he takes the hijacker out. He does not wait around. He is watching. He is trained. He is skilled and they do not dilly around, and everything else of that kind. Instead, even in a disaster of that kind, they still cannot get into the cabin and hijack the plane. Of course, they know immediately. They have communications and signals. They know immediately in the cockpit that is what is going on and they land the plane. I could go on and on. I think what everyone should know is this overwhelming bipartisan majority is ready to pass this bill no later than tomorrow night sometime. We are not having votes on Friday so we cannot get votes on cloture Friday. We are not having votes on Monday, so you cannot get cloture. You have to wait until Tuesday morning. It will be a public embarrassment that we worked patiently with the leadership, and I have commended them both. They have worked around the clock to try to get us together on what we could get together on rather than bringing in all of these amendments. We do not want to send over a bill with all kinds of amendments and then go into a long conference if we can clear, generally speaking, a barebones bill for security so that we can get the flying public back on the planes. If we can do that by late tomorrow night, working with the White House and the House leadership who is also in this particular meeting, then more power to us. Otherwise, shame on us if we cannot do that. We are behind schedule. I tried my best to get this particular security measure up before the money bill came up. Everybody was saying we could not put any amendments, we could not even consider security along with the money. We had to wait, although we had a unanimous consent. We did not have that particular consideration. I thank the distinguished Chair. I thank the leadership for their diligence in trying to work this out so we can proceed to it. There is no question that we can get cloture. If we could forgo the cloture motion and agree that nongermane amendments are not allowed, just germane amendments on the bill, we could consider them, vote them, we would be here late this evening and late tomorrow might and get it done. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the leader. The leaders, in all candor, have worked around the clock to get the disparate interests on this issue together so that we can decide on what we can agree upon rather than what we disagree upon. In that light, let me thank the majority and the minority leaders for their perseverance in helping us get this bill up. It is fair to say I am as interested in this issue as the previous speakers. We have been working very hard on this issue. We just had a Commerce subcommittee hearing on rail and maritime security all day long yesterday. We are ready to go with the airline security bill. But there are some differences of views; similarly, with respect to the economic stimulus, and also with respect to the unemployment benefits bill. In fact, you can bring this bill up and, unless it is relevant, you can add Lawrence Welk's home to this measure, and so forth. We know what the rules of the Senate are. But it is going to be embarrassing if we leave for the weekend having agreed on money, but not on security. We should have put airline security ahead of money to bailout the airlines. But the K Street lawyers overwhelmed us. They were down here and we got billions to keep the airlines afloat. But, by gosh, we can't agree on taking up this airline security measure so that we can keep them in business. So we intentionally put them out of business by delaying implementation of a meaningful security measure. We are not having votes on Friday; we are not having votes on Monday. Unless we can get this thing up this afternoon it is not likely to pass before the weekend. Someone commented that when we considered this matter in the Commerce Committee, we started at 9 o'clock and we got through at quarter to 7 that evening with only a half hour out. We had a full day's hearing and unanimously voted this bill out of committee. The bill is flexible. It was mentioned that the Secretary of Transportation is coming over with views from the White House. We are willing to go along with any reasonable compromise from the administration. What we are trying to do is get security. We are not trying to pass your bill in spite of our bill, or whatever. We are going to meet at 3 o'clock. I hope the two Senate leaders will try to get together and work out this dispute. Senator McCain has been a leader on this. We have agreed on the details. There are a few little differences. But let's get together with the leadership and get this measure up so that we can go home this weekend at least having taken care of security, and then we can move to counterterrorism and unemployment benefits later.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. If it is agreeable here.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. (Mr. HOLLINGS assumed the Chair.)

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I commend the distinguished Presiding Officer of the Senate, the Senator from Connecticut, for his leadership on firefighting issues. As Governor of South Carolina some years back, I helped to establish the Firefighting Institute in my State. I have always been interested in these issues and I continue to admire the bravery of our firemen. When I came to the Senate in the late 1960s during the civil rights era, protestors would pull the fire boxes during demonstrations. When the firemen came to the scene where the alarm was given, they were shooting the firemen. We lost several firemen as a result of this. At the time, there was a $50,000 benefit for the FBI and law enforcement personnel, but none, whatsoever, for the Federal firefighters. So we amended that in our committee to make sure we took care of the firefighters and their families. The current initiative before us that Senator Dodd first presented last year, is something firefighters around the country are looking for. We in government shortchange some, when it comes to prisons, when it comes to law enforcement, when it comes to firefighters. It has been my experience over the years of service that we take these public services for granted when it comes to funding. I guess my frustration with this neglect is an outcome of growing up and coming along during the days of the Depression when anybody was glad to get any kind of job. The fact is, law enforcement officials and firefighters have historically been underpaid. We cannot accept this any longer. We can see the courage displayed in New York, and the magnificent sacrifices made.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I understand that a settlement has been reached between the leadership of the House and Senate relative to the airline assistance measure. This measure, an attempt to propound a bare bones solution, does not encompass all the main considerations that came out at the hearing we had in the Commerce Committee yesterday. It is more or less a gentlemen's agreement that safety is just as important, or this particular Senator was trying to get safety and security ahead of money. Be that as it may, the money has prevailed and the bill will pass, perhaps this weekend or perhaps this afternoon. I want to save time by speaking now so that when the bill is under consideration, I will not be holding up my colleagues who are trying to catch transportation to get home for the weekend. In that light, I have at the desk a bill by myself, Senator McCain, Senator Kerry, Senator Rockefeller, Senator Hutchison, Senator Breaux, Senator Cleland, Senator Nelson, Senator Edwards, Senator Burns, Senator Smith, and Senator Reid. I ask it be given its first reading.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I ask unanimous consent for 5 minutes.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, since others are prepared now, let me read the most significant testimony of Harry Pinson of Credit Suisse First Boston, in Texas, and the head of the southwest regional investment banking group based in Houston that handles all of these industrial accounts. I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I will start on page 3: First, the cash losses suffered while the industry was grounded and as it rebuilds this week are weakening an industry already made vulnerable by a weakened economy. This measure is not going to save a couple of airlines, in this Senator's opinion. Continuing: Second, the reduction in demand caused by the loss of passenger confidence impact on travel times caused by the security guidelines necessary to restore that confidence, coupled with the increased operating costs and lower fleet utilization that those same safety guidelines are likely to require, means that the profit model for the industry will change, perhaps permanently. For the first time ever an industry conditioned to growth will have to find a way to shrink to profitability. It will take a lot of Yankee ingenuity to find that path, and many will not succeed. Third, the catastrophe last week and our government's response to it have served to raise the perceived potential liabilities of operating an airline while simultaneously reducing the availability of insurance for that risk. This means that airline shareholders, creditors, and potentially even the officers and directors of these carriers are being asked to bear the risk of potentially catastrophic losses; an unprecedented and highly disruptive situation. Finance, the industry I participate in, has always had a big role to play in this industry because its persistent growth, capital intensity, fierce competition and low profit margins mean lots of external capital needs to be raised: About $10 billion so far this year. Because the airplanes can be deployed anywhere in the world, have long useful lives and a long history of holding their value, the vast proportion of the capital raised is in the form of long-term debt secured by these aircraft. Madam President, jumping forward: Second, investors are conditioned to assessing management turnaround plans and placing their bets, but liquidity concerns will make analysis again difficult. ``Shrinking to profitability'' is a new concept in the airline industry. Given the rigidity of airline cost structures in both capital and labor, it will take a long time, years, for a turnaround to take place. No airline has anything like the resources necessary to fund this turnaround. Madam President, we are going to do our best at the Washington level to re-instill confidence in airlines, their operation, and, more particularly, the airline traveling public. We have been watching it day by day, and incrementally we have to address the insurance problem, we have to address the warrant problem with respect to payments to dividend. I am not worried about the pay of the airline executives right now; I am worried about more substantial things for the moment. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair. Madam President, there is not any question when we are talking about financing that we can give the airline industry billions upon billions of dollars in the next 10 minutes, but the sustenance, success, and the full resumption of airline travel will never occur until the traveling public is confident of safety and security at the airports and on planes in America. First and foremost, of course, is the matter of the cockpit. Pilots do not want to get into the position of those pilots on 9-11. So they are not only asking for a secure door that can only be opened from the inside, going along with the rule that it not be opened in flight, but that they also be equipped with stun guns. That is going to be taken care of. We have Federal marshals. We need to extend that program, there is no question about it. But the main kick in the arm of security at all airports of America is the reliance upon the industry itself to provide for that security. It has been going to the lowest bidder, to temporary workers paid minimum wage, their average stay not exceeding 5 months. So there is no professionalism, there is no experience and, as a result, there is no security. Everyone knows this. This was not just revealed at the hearing. The bill establishes a Deputy Administrator at the Federal Aviation Administration for Aviation Security. We need a central command with fixed responsibility for this security. The bill also establishes an Aviation Security Council comprised of representatives from the FAA, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and the CIA to coordinate national security, intelligence, and aviation security information and make recommendations. There was a question about curbside check-in. Employees stationed there look at their computers. They are well trained to look for certain persons that Interpol, other countries, or the FBI in this country have given as known security risks. With those that they may have some suspicion about, they check that baggage. Obviously, if the distinguished Senator from California was going through, and she comes through every other week or so, going back and forth to the west coast, she is a discernible public figure, no security risk whatsoever and there is no reason to open the bag. That facilitates airline travel and that is understood. Even at curbside when they use the computer and bring up the name ``Hollings'' on the computer, they can see exactly what his travel practices are and other important information to the security of air travel, and either give a double-check through his luggage or maybe a personal check. El Al Airlines requires that in Tel Aviv. The truth is, we invited El Al's safety executive, and due to the holidays he could not make it, but he will be here the first of the week and is going to brief our committee. We know there is required security in the country of Israel, and as a result we want to try to emulate their success in that regard. First, put in a deputy administrator with a coordinated council and strengthen the cockpit doors and locks. We have heard from the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts of his constituent who manufactures such a door. He will be momentarily addressing that. There is no question in this Senator's mind that once the door is locked securely with a substance such as Kevlar that it cannot be penetrated. Once that is secured and you get the security personnel at Reagan National Airport, you can open up Reagan National. There is no difference between opening up Dulles Airport or Baltimore-Washington Airport and not Reagan with respect to the proximity because, after all, it was the Dulles flight that hit the Pentagon. Once a flight takes off, to turn around and come back into Washington, it is just as easy to turn from, say, Baltimore or Dulles before anything can really be done to stop its course and come right into the Pentagon again. I understand what the Secret Service and the National Security Council are saying, but this is no time for debate. As the President said, this is a time for action. So let us start with action, get in the security personnel in a studied, incremental fashion. Start with the shuttle flights to New York and Boston and immediately have enough security personnel in those particular planes already equipped with the secured cockpit. This particular measure also increases the number of Federal air marshals. In the interim, the FAA can use personnel from other Federal agencies to serve as those air marshals. It federalizes airport security operations. I heard a while ago at a conference that the Secretary of Transportation said we did not have the money to do this. We do have the money, and we have voted the money. That is why this Senator voted the $20 billion. Someone has said it is $3 billion, and that $3 billion is enough. Put some 23,000, 24,000 security personnel in the airports around the country as Federal service employees, civil service Government employees, skilled, with training, with adequate pay and retirement and health care benefits. That is when you are going to get the competent personnel. I have had this struggle for the past several years about privatizing the comptrollers. I do not see anybody in the Chamber this afternoon talking about privatize, privatize, privatize. We can see what privatization has done to security. Europe affords government workers in its airports. If Europe can afford it, we can. In fact, after 9-11, we must afford it. We cannot play games with the number of employees and everything else of that kind when it comes to security, and this is just as important or more so to this particular Senator than the money. I am going to explain the money in a little while. You can give airlines all the money in the world, but if nobody comes to fly on their planes, if the airports and the planes themselves are not secure, then they are going to suffer badly financially and there is not enough money in the Government Treasury to keep them alive unless we do this No. 1 thing; namely, provide for airport security, which is on everybody's mind. The bill also improves screening procedures for passengers. It checks the passenger's name against a coordinated list comprised of criminal, national security intelligence, and INS information. I heard the previous administrator of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Doris Meissner, on TV the other evening. She was talking about checking names off as they come in. The INS gets this information. The FBI gets this information. It ought to be absolutely certain that it also goes to all of the airports and is disseminated, because there is some question that they had some information about the 9-11 attack ahead of time but it was not properly dispensed among those responsible. The bill provides for hijack training for the flight crew. It calls for background checks on students at flight schools for large planes and increases perimeter security at airports and air traffic facilities. It assesses a dollar-per-passenger security charge and authorizes funds to carry out the security initiatives. This bill is totally bipartisan, but there was a concern amongst several of the Senators about assessing a charge. I think all members of our committee more or less will cosponsor the bill, once we can check this afternoon, in a bipartisan fashion. Now, that charge will bring in $250 million. Assuming the security responsibility at airports is federalized, it relieves the private airline industry of $1 billion. So $250 million for passengers to start contributing toward taking care of some of these expenses is definitely in order, in this Senator's mind. I want to cover one particular thing with respect to the bill itself. The bill might have to be repaired if there is not a cap on claims. We are establishing a Federal claims procedure so the injured are not further damaged and do not have to chase around several jurisdictions and file all kinds of legal motions. So the Federal claims provision will be included in the bill this afternoon. My understanding, because I was trying to get it on as a cap, if you do not have a cap on these particular claims, there will not be enough money in the Federal til. That will have to be repaired. I could give the example of this high paid group on the top of the World Trade Towers, and they are very deserving people, but if they make $8 million or $10 million a year, if I were a lawyer I know I could get a $200 million to $300 million verdict of some kind, and while I am getting the $200 million to $300 million verdict, the poor fireman's lawyer comes in and says, ``Wait a minute. You are paying that high paid individual a couple of hundred million dollars, but this is a poor fireman who rushed in and saved his life, I want $200 million,'' and up and away it goes. Or the insurance company takes a traveling passenger who was on one of those planes and the lawyer goes to the insurance company and says, ``Go ahead, give us the $50 million, give us whatever million you want because you are subrogated, you can go against the Government claims, no limit on the government claims, and you can be reimbursed.'' They say I am out here shilling for the trial lawyers, but right is right. I am confident most of my trial lawyer friends would understand, in an act of war of this kind, there have to be some limits. If there are not limits, we will not sustain. I hold the bill up with an amendment. I was prepared, but I have been talked out of it by the leadership, to have the airline security measure that could be passed this afternoon in the House and Senate.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I ask unanimous consent that I may proceed as in morning business for 20 minutes.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Good.

Mr. HOLLINGS. The distinguished Senator from Vermont, Mr. President, has been waiting patiently for 5 or 10 minutes to speak as in morning business. And then we will come back on to this bill. So I ask unanimous consent that he be recognized for 10 minutes.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Let me also thank our distinguished leader, Senator Reid. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following list I send to the desk be the only first-degree amendments in order to H.R. 2500; that they be subject to relevant second-degree amendments; that upon disposition of all amendments, the bill be read a third time and the Senate vote on passage of the bill; that upon passage of the bill, the Senate insist on its amendments, request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and that the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate, with no intervening action or debate.