Frank Lautenberg

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the keeper of sanity in the Senate, the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, for his ever available courtesy. Amendment No. 1922 (Purpose: To state requirements applicable to air carriers that bump passengers involuntarily)

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. No objection.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I object.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I hate to talk above the din, but I will take the liberty of doing so if that competition continues to exist.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, there is still a fair amount of commotion in the Chamber, and if I might ask that the Chamber be in order.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I first want to thank the managers of the bill and acknowledge their hard work. The distinguished Senator from Arizona and the distinguished Senator from West Virginia have performed an extremely arduous task to get this bill to the place that it is. I don't enjoy holding the work back. I don't think I am doing that. By some quirk in the process, our amendment was not offered at an earlier time because of a procedural mixup. I thank them. I commend them for their understanding. I know they want to see this bill get into law. It is very important that we do. I offer an amendment on an issue that is, unfortunately, becoming more and more of a problem for American travelers. That is the experience of reserve paid passengers being bumped from overbooked airline flights. I have talked to Members, and I speak from direct personal experience where airlines said: Sorry, seats are filled--even though you have arrived on time, paid for your reservation--that is life, and we are sorry, and you can get there by going first to Boston, or Cincinnati, or what have you. Our skies are more crowded than ever. People need to move quickly between different cities to do business and also to attend to a wide variety of personal functions. As this need has grown, people who fly find themselves increasingly at the mercy of the airlines. The airlines are not quite as user friendly as they used to be when they were scraping to get the revenues and the profits. They do not always treat their customers as they should. They are pretty good. I give them credit. But in 1998, almost 45,000 customers--44,797, to be precise--were bumped from domestic flights on the 10 largest carriers; 45,000 people to whom word was given, well, you have lost your seat, and maybe you can get to your business appointment tomorrow; maybe you can miss the flight you were going to take to India; or maybe the funeral that was going to be held that you were going to attend can be held over for a couple of days until you get there. Mr. President, it is not pleasant news when it happens. This year, the numbers have increased. For the first 6 months, 29,213 customers have been involuntarily bumped. If the trend continues, this year over 58,000 people could be involuntarily bumped--paid for, reserved, and just not able to get on the airplane. People with a paid reservation have a right to expect a seat on the flight they booked. But too often they discover that having a ticket doesn't mean much when they get to the gate. For the first half of the year, the number of people bumped from airlines has increased. Nothing ruins a business trip or a vacation more thoroughly than being bumped from a flight. It is sometimes impossible to make up for the lost hours and the frustration of rearranging longstanding business or personal plans. The airlines ought not to be able to act as an elitist business. They have to treat their customers with respect, just as any other seller of services or products would have to do. They are the only business I know of that deliberately oversells their products. Can you imagine, if you go to your doctor and you have an appointment, it is urgent that you see him, and you get bumped because someone else took your place; or you go to buy furniture, you paid for it, for 3 months you want to go down and see the final product, and they say, sorry, someone else took your place. The airlines have a unique position. They also are users of a commodity that belongs to the American people; that is, our airspace. They use our airports that are paid for by others. They have lots of community services that accompany this process of handling passengers. When people hold a valid ticket to a sporting event or a concert, they know when they get there they are going to have a seat. They deserve the same assurances when they try to fly. Current practices don't go far enough. There are regulations, but they don't have the teeth to get the airlines to respect passengers who hold paid for and reserved tickets. The regulations are out of date. They don't provide incentives for the airlines to pay attention to this overbooking problem. The amount of compensation has not been increased for those who are bumped since the early 1980s. The dollar amounts are not enough to have any impact on the airlines and their decisions to overbook flights. I do not want to see them flying with empty seats. I do not think that is a good idea. People ought not to take advantage and make two, three, and four reservations and then do not show up. But the airlines are smart enough to figure out a different way to do it. Perhaps they will have to have some kind of a deposit on a reservation that is honored as part of the cost of the ticket. If not, then it becomes a reminder to the passenger, as well as to the airline, as well as a benefit to the airline, that they lost their seat. While there are regulations now, we need to make this a matter of statutory law so the airlines step up to this serious issue. The Senate needs to send a strong message to the airlines that it cannot treat our constituents as second-class citizens when they fly. We need to put strong measures into law to protect consumers, and that is what this amendment does. Very simply, my amendment is not out to get the airlines. It is to make sure that people are treated fairly, and we are going to have a chance to see whether my colleagues agree with me. My amendment will make the airlines act more responsibly by allowing travelers who are bumped from a flight to first choose between alternative travel plans or receiving a full refund. Every traveler who is bumped will receive cash or a travel voucher at least equal to the amount they paid for the flight. The amount of compensation would increase based on how long the person is delayed from his or her destination. If a passenger is delayed more than 2 hours, he or she would receive 200 percent of the value of his or her ticket. If a passenger cannot depart that day, then he or she would receive 300 percent of the value of the ticket, or $1,000, whichever is greater. This will remind the airlines they have, after all, already sold that seat. They have already gotten the income from that seat. My amendment would also require the airlines to disclose these rights to passengers in a one-page, simple-language summary. The burden should not be on the customer to read up on the latest Federal regulation or law to know their rights. My goal is not to sponsor a ticket giveaway. The goal is to hold the airlines accountable when they put profits ahead of respect and service for their customers. I will cut short my presentation. I ask my colleagues to recognize on what we are voting. We are voting on whether or not a passenger who gets bumped is entitled to compensation for being refused that flight or whether we are going to protect the airline's ability to continue to sell more than one person the same seat and hope they will be able to get away with it. That, Mr. President, concludes my comments.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, GAO has reviewed voluntary customer service plans and the GAO concluded many of the new measures that the airlines volunteered to do were already required in law or regulation. The problem is the voluntary customer service plan says nothing on the topic of involuntary bumping. Whatever there is already on the books does not do it. I hope my colleagues will support this reminder to the airlines that they have to take better care of the passengers.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I am not going to object. But I will try to wrap that up in less than half an hour to move the process.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I agree with the exception of one thing that happened I am sure was inadvertent. As I understood it, the unanimous consent agreement did not call for rebuttal in any way. Since the distinguished Senator from West Virginia chose to rebut, I would like to make a couple of sentences to respond to that, and I assume there will be no objection.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, I rise in support of the conference report accompanying H.R. 2084, the Transportation appropriations bill for fiscal year 2000. I am pleased that during this, the first day of the first full week of the new fiscal year, we are sending a free-standing Transportation bill to the President for his signature. Earlier this year I would not have predicted that we would succeed in getting a free-standing Transportation bill. Credit for his successful accomplishment belongs primarily to our subcommittee chairman, Senator Shelby. This bill has had a number of difficulties along the way--difficulties that sometimes divided Senator Shelby and myself. But I think it is fair to say that throughout the year, both Senator Shelby and I showed a willingness to listen, as well as a willingness to compromise. As such, many of the problems that burdened this bill earlier this year have been worked out over time. Senator Shelby consulted the Minority throughout this year's process. We may not have agreed on every figure and every policy contained in this bill, but there were never any surprises. His door was always open to me and to the other minority members of the subcommittee. I especially want to thank Senator Shelby for his attention to the unique transportation needs of my home state of New Jersey, the most congested state in the nation. Our congestion problem makes New Jersey the most transit-dependent state in the nation and Senator Shelby recognized this fact by working with me to provide substantial investments in projects like the Hudson-Bergen waterfront, the Newark-Elizabeth rail link, Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, the West Trenton line, and a feasibility study of a new transit tunnel under the Hudson River. The Transportation Subcommittee faced a very tight allocation. These funding difficulties were made more challenging by the spending increases mandated for the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration under TEA-21. These mandated increases put extraordinary pressure on the non-protected programs in the Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The funding level provided for Amtrak represents the largest single cut in this bill below the fiscal year 1999 level. Amtrak is funded at a level fully 6 percent below last year's level. It is to Amtrak's credit, however, that Amtrak's financial turn-around has generated the kind of revenue that will allow the corporation to absorb this cut without any notable service reductions. Funding for the operations budget within the Federal Aviation Administration is another area of concern. While this bill funds FAA Operations at a level fully 6 percent above last year's level, the amount provided remains 2.3 percent below the level requested by the Administration. Also, funding for highway safety within the operations and research account in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is 19 percent below the President's request. In this instance, the Administration's budget request depended upon the enactment of a new authorization bill raising the authorization ceilings for NHTSA. Unfortunately, by the time that authorization bill was enacted, our subcommittee ceiling had already been established and we did not have the funding to accommodate these funding increases for NHTSA. Mr. President, if I could identify one serious flaw with the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), it would be the fact that several trust funded programs for highway construction are granted guaranteed increases over the next several years, while the safety programs from the trust fund are not granted similarly privileged budgetary treatment. We need to do better for these critical safety programs, both in the FAA and in NHTSA. I have not given up on the chance to do better for these programs. I intend to work with the Administration to see if additional funds can be included in an omnibus appropriations bill or, perhaps, in a Supplemental Appropriations bill. In the area of truck safety, I am disappointed that this bill does not include the $50 million that I added during full committee markup for grants within the Office of Motor Carrier Safety. The tight funding allocation burdening the subcommittee just made it impossible to accommodate this item in Conference. However, I have to say that while money is important to our efforts to maintain truck and bus safety, guts and determination on the part of the Administration is of even greater importance. The Office of Motor Carrier Safety needs to be willing to shut down the most egregious safety violators to protect bus passengers and the motoring public. There have been several hearings regarding the deficiencies of the Office of Motor Carriers this year. Within the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, we spent considerable time discussing the recent series of fatal bus crashes within New Jersey. The Commerce Committee also held hearings on the overall deficiencies with the OMC. Those hearings painted a very dismal picture of a largely impotent agency that is more interested in outreach than in ensuring safe truck and bus operations. More recently, we have seen indications of a new, more serious attitude at the Office of Motor Carrier Safety. This appropriations bill mandates that that office can no longer be operated within the Federal Highway Administration. Perhaps this will make a difference. In my view, the jury is still out on whether we have turned the corner on improving truck and bus safety. Over the course of the next year, we will need to review carefully whether the changes recently announced by the Office of Motor Carriers represent a true change in attitude or just a change in rhetoric. In summary, Mr. President, I encourage all Members to vote in favor of this conference report. The conference agreement is a balanced and bipartisan effort to meet the needs of our nation's transportation enterprise within a difficult funding envelope. I believe it deserves the support of all Members.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to some of the things the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee just said, particularly his acknowledgment of the hard work done by the staff on both sides, the majority staff and the minority staff, and to say that I watch Senator Stevens in action; I see how difficult it is to get some of these allocations in the shape we would like. We are pleased that the Transportation bill was, if I may use the word, hammered out because there are still a lot of needs with which we have to be concerned. One is the FAA, of course, and our safety programs. I was pleased to hear the Senator mention that. The other is the U.S. Coast Guard, in which Senator Stevens has such an active interest. I share that interest. The State of New Jersey has a great deal of dependence--as well as the entire country--on the activities of the Coast Guard. And the fact is that their funding is presently on the short side. But decisions are made when resources are too spare, and, inevitably, some hard decisions have to be made. I commend the chairman of the Appropriations Committee for being able to ensure that the Transportation bill was moved along. I know how hard he is working with some of the other bills that are still pending. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill authorizing the President to grant permanent Normal Trade Relations status to Albania, overcoming the so-called Jackson-Vanik restrictions in Title IV of the Trade Act. This legislation is urgently needed so that when Albania joins the World Trade Organization later this year, the United States can enter into full WTO relations with this market- oriented country in the Balkans. Mr. President, I offer this legislation and seek the support of my colleagues for three reasons: First, the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik restrictions are no longer relevant for Albania. We should free our relations with Albania from restrictions applied to communist countries. The Jackson-Vanik restrictions applied to countries with non-market economies which limited emigration. Albania now has a market economy which some may argue needs more regulation. Albanians are now also free to emigrate, sometimes much to the chagrin of Albania's neighbors. The President certified Albania to be in compliance with the Jackson-Vanik requirements in January 1998 and has continued to report that Albania remains in compliance. The certification process is simply a relic of the Cold War. Second, granting Albania permanent Normal Trade Relations, or NTR, status through the WTO will encourage and support Albania's free-trade orientation and integration into the global trading system. Little more than a decade ago, Albania was closed off from the rest of the world by a severely Stalinist regime. Today, all major political forces in Albania--including the governing Socialist Party and the opposition Democratic Party, which led the first post-Communist government-- support democracy, free trade and integration with the West. A delegation from Albania's Parliament made clear the breadth and depth of support for Albania's WTO membership. Albania has enacted virtually all the necessary legislation and implementing regulations necessary to meet WTO standards and will implement the rest prior to its WTO accession. They will not even require a transition period. We should reward this tremendous positive change by welcoming Albania into the WTO and opening our markets to Albanian goods on a fair basis negotiated through the WTO. Third, this bill will benefit U.S. firms by securing Albania's commitment to WTO standards and giving the United States access to WTO dispute settlement mechanisms with regard to Albania. The annual certification requirement under existing law would require the United States to demur from entering into full WTO relations with Albania when that country becomes a member later this year. Thus, without the enactment of this legislation, we will not have access to WTO dispute settlement mechanisms and will only be able to engage in economic relations with Albania on a bilateral basis. Mr. President, for the reasons I have outlined--moving beyond the Cold War, supporting development of a market economy and democracy in Albania, and providing WTO protection of market access for American businesses--I hope the Congress will enact this legislation. The United States has been a leading advocate for Albania's accession into the WTO. We should continue that support by passing this legislation. I would ask the Finance Committee and the full Senate to act expeditiously so this bill can be signed into law before Albania becomes a WTO member. At this point, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill authorizing the President to grant permanent Normal Trade Relations status to Albania, overcoming the so-called Jackson-Vanik restrictions in Title IV of the Trade Act. This legislation is urgently needed so that when Albania joins the World Trade Organization later this year, the United States can enter into full WTO relations with this market- oriented country in the Balkans. Mr. President, I offer this legislation and seek the support of my colleagues for three reasons: First, the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik restrictions are no longer relevant for Albania. We should free our relations with Albania from restrictions applied to communist countries. The Jackson-Vanik restrictions applied to countries with non-market economies which limited emigration. Albania now has a market economy which some may argue needs more regulation. Albanians are now also free to emigrate, sometimes much to the chagrin of Albania's neighbors. The President certified Albania to be in compliance with the Jackson-Vanik requirements in January 1998 and has continued to report that Albania remains in compliance. The certification process is simply a relic of the Cold War. Second, granting Albania permanent Normal Trade Relations, or NTR, status through the WTO will encourage and support Albania's free-trade orientation and integration into the global trading system. Little more than a decade ago, Albania was closed off from the rest of the world by a severely Stalinist regime. Today, all major political forces in Albania--including the governing Socialist Party and the opposition Democratic Party, which led the first post-Communist government-- support democracy, free trade and integration with the West. A delegation from Albania's Parliament made clear the breadth and depth of support for Albania's WTO membership. Albania has enacted virtually all the necessary legislation and implementing regulations necessary to meet WTO standards and will implement the rest prior to its WTO accession. They will not even require a transition period. We should reward this tremendous positive change by welcoming Albania into the WTO and opening our markets to Albanian goods on a fair basis negotiated through the WTO. Third, this bill will benefit U.S. firms by securing Albania's commitment to WTO standards and giving the United States access to WTO dispute settlement mechanisms with regard to Albania. The annual certification requirement under existing law would require the United States to demur from entering into full WTO relations with Albania when that country becomes a member later this year. Thus, without the enactment of this legislation, we will not have access to WTO dispute settlement mechanisms and will only be able to engage in economic relations with Albania on a bilateral basis. Mr. President, for the reasons I have outlined--moving beyond the Cold War, supporting development of a market economy and democracy in Albania, and providing WTO protection of market access for American businesses--I hope the Congress will enact this legislation. The United States has been a leading advocate for Albania's accession into the WTO. We should continue that support by passing this legislation. I would ask the Finance Committee and the full Senate to act expeditiously so this bill can be signed into law before Albania becomes a WTO member. At this point, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, let me begin by commending Senator Specter and Senator Harkin for their hard work on this bill. Although it's far from perfect, it's a big improvement over the House version, and I know Senators Specter and Harkin have worked diligently to fund critical education and health priorities within the constraints they have faced. I intend to support this bill, Mr. President. But I also need to point out that it's apparently part of a broader plan that would lead to using Social Security surpluses. And I think that would be a mistake. The additional money for this bill has come by shifting allocated funds from the Defense Appropriations bill. But rather than finding savings in military spending, the leadership intends to declare much of the extra spending as an emergency. What we have here, Mr. President, is a shell game. The Republican plan may succeed in circumventing the discretionary spending caps, as they are trying to do. But it doesn't get around another critical problem. It still leaves us on course toward using Social Security funds to run the government. Mr. President, for many months now, we've heard our Republican friends declare their commitment to protecting Social Security funds. They've put together a Social Security lock box in an effort to appear committed toward that goal--though, I must add, it's a lock box with a huge loophole, and one that does nothing for Medicare. But while declaring their commitment to protecting Social Security, Mr. President, the Republicans are actually moving to spend Social Security surpluses. At their current rate, they're going to spend roughly $20 billion in Social Security surpluses. And that total could well go higher. Mr. President, I know that many people around here privately believe that there's no alternative to spending Social Security surpluses, and we need that money to fund government adequately. But that's just wrong. There's a better alternative. If we simply ask the tobacco industry to fully compensate taxpayers for the costs of tobacco-related diseases, we almost certainly could avoid spending Social Security surpluses. Every year, Mr. President, tobacco costs taxpayers more than $20 billion. To its credit, the Justice Department is trying to recoup these costs through civil litigation. But that could take years. Meanwhile, Congress can act now to make taxpayers whole. And we should. Mr. President, I've heard Republicans argue for months that pursuing more tobacco revenues is just, and the word they usually use is, ``unrealistic.'' It's a clever way to avoid responsibility. It's as if some force outside themselves is preventing Congress from asking anything of the tobacco industry. But that's obviously wrong. If the Republican leadership simply decided to ask Big Tobacco to compensate taxpayers, they could do it. It's completely realistic, if they just summon the will to do it. Now, given the close relationship between the Republican Party and the tobacco industry, I realize that's not a politically easy decision for them. But this is a different world than last year, when the tobacco legislation went down. Now we have a Republican Congress about to embark on a money grab of Social Security funds. Compared to that, asking the tobacco industry to pay their fair share should be less difficult. In any case, Mr. President, it seems clear that the real debate this fall is going to be between tobacco and Social Security. And if we end up using Social Security funds to run the government, it will because the Republican Congress put Big Tobacco first, not Social Security. I think the American people would be outraged at that. And that's why I'm hopeful it won't happen. So, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to do the right thing, and choose Social Security over Big Tobacco. Let's end this money grab, reduce youth smoking, and protect Social Security.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I offer today a sense-of-the-Senate amendment on an issue that, unfortunately, is becoming more of a problem for American travelers; that is, the experience of passengers with paid reservations being bumped from overbooked plane flights. Our skies are more crowded than they have ever been. People need to move quickly between different cities to do business and also for a wide variety of personal reasons. As this need has grown, people who fly find themselves increasingly at the mercy of casual airline booking practices. In such cases, airlines do not treat people as they should. These are passengers with paid reservations. They have a right to expect a seat on the flight they book, but too often they discover that having a ticket does not mean much when they get to the gate. Nothing ruins a business trip, a vacation, or other trip more thoroughly than being bumped from a flight. It is sometimes impossible to make up for the lost hours and the lost opportunity, let's say, to attend the funeral of a friend or relative. That opportunity is never again presented. There is the frustration of rearranging longstanding business or personal plans or rearranging the connection that one takes from a city a couple hundred miles away from a major hub, and then missing a flight to Europe or to the Far East. I understand the airlines have a problem. I respect that they would like to find a solution to the problem. They should not have to fly with empty seats without an opportunity to cover their costs. Perhaps a deposit on a flight reservation, or something of that nature, ought to be done. But it sure ought not to be simply at the whim of a gate attendant to decide who is going to fly and who is not. On a personal note, I had that experience. I had paid for the tickets. I had a reservation number--with two tickets. I got to the airport, and they said: The flight is full. There was about 15 minutes left before departure, and they said: Well, sorry, just too many people showed up. What happened is they oversold the flight. The airlines should not be able to act as an elitist business. They should have to treat their customers with respect. They are the only legitimate business I know of that deliberately sells a product that they know they can't deliver. When people attend a sporting event or a concert or the theater, they know when they get there that they are going to have the seat for which they paid. They deserve the same assurance when they fly. This sense-of-the-Senate amendment should encourage the airlines to act more responsibly, by allowing travelers who are bumped from a flight to receive greater amounts of compensation for the airline's casual action. The amendment calls for the applicable penalties to be doubled from those under current regulation. The goal is to hold the airlines accountable when they put profits ahead of their friendliness and respect for their customer. People who travel for business or personal reasons should not miss out on an event they planned because the airlines decided to treat them like baggage and said: Well, we can't take all this baggage. So I plan to continue to fight to ensure that airlines are accountable to the American public. I want to acquaint my colleagues with current regulations pertaining to passengers that are bumped involuntarily. Currently on the books, an airline must first request passengers with paid reservations to voluntarily give up their seats. We know that. If a passenger is involuntarily bumped and delayed less than an hour, the passenger is not entitled to any compensation--if you can make the trip within an hour from the scheduled time of departure. Delays between 1 and 2 hours, the passenger can receive 100 percent of the cost of the remaining ticket to the destination but not more than $200; delayed more than 2 hours, the passenger can receive 200 percent of the cost of the remaining ticket but not more than $400. Other details: Instead of cash, the airline can offer free or reduced air transportation at equal or greater value than the amount of the cash compensation. So what we are doing is we are saying: A, these rules are not adequately enforced; B, the public is ignorant of what kind of redress they have if they get bumped off a flight and the airlines are not adequately informing them of what they are entitled to; and C, the airlines must act more responsibly, toward the passenger and be more concerned about what is happening with the passenger. The airlines owe this to the public. They use our national resources. They use the nation's airspace. They use the FAA system. They use our taxpayer investments in airports. They are using public money all over the place. They ought to be more cognizant of what it is the flying public should have in return. With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I have an amendment that I send to the desk and ask unanimous consent that it be considered in order.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the manager.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 1680

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, we have a sense-of-the-Senate resolution by the Senator from Louisiana. She asked for a study, which in this place is a relatively harmless gesture. But what I hear in response is that suddenly the Senate wants to be an expert on airlines. No. I don't see it that way. What I see is that we are experts on protecting the public. That is our responsibility. That is why we are sent here--to take care of the public and not to take care of the airlines ahead of the public. The airlines are wonderful companies. But they are not beyond criticism. They have what amounts to a very uneven playing field. They get their slots. The facilities are paid for by the airline passengers, not the airlines. The airlines have unlimited use of our nation's airspace. They get preferential treatment. They have an air traffic control system paid for by the taxpayers in this country. There is an objection that I hear to this study that is proposed by the Senator from Louisiana. When we get discount tickets, that is not a freebie. It is a marketing calculation. The airlines say you can buy a discount ticket, and we are going to make it up elsewhere, and make it up elsewhere they do. No one is objecting to that. That is their marketing scheme. I have some objection to the fact that in one case flying down from the New York area costs, at a government rate, $165, and if you fly out of another airport right nearby it is $38. Why? Because one airline has a stranglehold on the traffic at the costlier airport. I am going to relinquish the floor momentarily. I want it abundantly clear that this Senator makes no apology for defending the public first before defending the airlines. I hope the public will take note of this debate. I yield the floor. Several Senators addressed the Chair.