Patty Murray

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Senate from Illinois. I would reiterate, again, that we are ready to go to final passage at a moment's notice. We could wrap this bill up in the next half hour quite easily. We have a managers' package. I do not believe there is any other Senator who has any requests out there. We could pass the managers' package and move to third reading within a few minutes and Senators could go home for the weekend. I know many Senators have called and said: Can we finish? I have a noon flight I need to catch. I know that planes are leaving and people have plans for this weekend. I certainly would like them to be able to go home and see their families. I would like to go home and see my family, of course, but I am willing to stay here if that is what we need to do. And I will stay here because what is in this bill is so critically important to my constituents at home who are now sitting in traffic at 7:30 in the morning. Many of them are traveling to work right now, probably sitting in traffic on the Alaskan Way Viaduct or the I-5 corridor because we have failed to do our job.

Mrs. MURRAY. So every minute we delay here means that a family farmer in Yakima, WA, who is suffering under severe financial distress, is going to have to sit through an August break--a month-long August break--not knowing whether or not they are going to get help from the U.S. Government.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Illinois is absolutely correct. What is in this bill is extremely important to my constituents. We have some of the worst traffic in the Nation. I know the Senator from Illinois has severe traffic problems. We share airport concerns in our home States for which this bill has improvement funding. We are ready to go to final passage. I would just add, I say to the Senator from Illinois, we have a managers' package ready to go. We could be done in the next half hour, move this bill out, and go to the Ag bill to which the Senator referred. I am deeply concerned that we have delayed its passage. I have apple farmers and tree fruit farmers in central Washington who are in severe financial straits. They have suffered through a drought that has hurt their crops. They have suffered through the impact of an Asian market that has declined tremendously in the last several years. Many of them are having to sell their farms. To me, it is devastating to watch these poor families. We have help for them in that Ag bill. We have help for them in it, but they will not have that help until we pass this bill and move it on. And we need to do that, as the Senator from Illinois knows, before we leave next Friday. We have to get it to conference. I ask the Senator from Nevada, am I correct that we need to get the Ag bill to conference, out of conference, and back to the floor?

Mrs. MURRAY. Yes.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Illinois is correct. After sitting here all Friday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, it was determined, since Senators were unwilling to offer amendments and have them voted up or down, we needed to move along. As the Senator from Illinois knows, serving on the Appropriations Committee, we have a number of other appropriations bills that need to pass in order to meet the October 1 deadline. There are many other priorities of Senators. We decided the best way to move forward was to have a cloture vote, which then allows us to move along and finish this debate. Seventy of the 100 Senators said: Yes, it is time to move along; We are done with offering amendments; We want to get this bill passed; We want the infrastructure improvements that are in this bill; We support the safety requirements; Move it out of the Senate so we can get to a conference and pass this bill.

Mrs. MURRAY. Absolutely. The Senator from Illinois is correct. We are here. Senators have a right to offer amendments. We are happy to consider their amendments. In fact, we have had several amendments on both sides that were adopted by voice vote. We have been waiting in this Chamber. Our staffs have been working diligently until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning every night in negotiations with Senators concerned about the safety provisions, as well as working with Members who have provisions within the bill. We could have finished this easily Monday evening with the number of amendments we have.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator is correct. Senator Shelby and I have been here. In fact, I got up at 4 o'clock Monday morning to come back from my home State of Washington to be on the floor Monday afternoon and ask Senators to bring their amendments forward. We waited. We have had a few amendments. I believe we have had four or five with which Members came to the floor and finally offered. We were here Monday evening: I came back on Tuesday morning, ready and begging and telling Senators: We are ready to move this bill along. Offer your amendments. We will vote them up or down. In a week, we have only passed a handful of amendments that Senators have brought to the floor. I would have been happy if there were 20 amendments. Send them forward. We will vote them up or down.

Mrs. MURRAY. Yes. This bill has been debated in the Senate for an entire week now. We began debate last Friday morning. I made my opening remarks. Senator Shelby and I have worked very closely on this bill. He made his opening remarks. We opened it up for debate. We have one amendment that is now pending on the bill that Senator Shelby and I put forward which adds additional safety requirements to the underlying bill. It is, frankly, supported by every Member of the Senate, and by the White House, which has been requesting improved safety conditions as well. That began last Friday. We asked Members to come to the floor to begin the debate, and we offered our bill up for amendment.

Mrs. MURRAY. I think it was 2 weeks ago that the Senate Transportation Subcommittee unanimously passed a Transportation bill. The Senator from Illinois serves on that committee and has been working with us. I appreciate his concern. He has a number of projects in Illinois that I know he wants to have put in place, but he doesn't want them hung up by a long and protracted debate over another issue in the Senate. I know the Senator from Illinois, who serves on our subcommittee, worked well with Members on the other side several weeks ago. It was a little more than a week ago that it passed out of the full committee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. We worked in a bipartisan way and unanimously voted out the provisions of this bill that fund the infrastructure needs of all 50 States, which include the safety provisions we are discussing this morning. We went to this bill last Friday. I believe it was around 2 in the afternoon.

Mrs. MURRAY. I am pleased to yield to the Senator.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, the Senate is now considering the Transportation appropriations bill that has now been before the Senate for a week. There are a number of provisions in this bill that are extremely important to our Nation's infrastructure. This is a bill that I have been very proud to work on in a bipartisan way with the ranking member of my committee, Senator Shelby. I will take a moment this morning to recognize the tremendous work and help of Senator Shelby and his staff and our staff. They have spent long nights negotiating this bill this week, working to a point where we could get this bill out and do it in a way that provides the infrastructure we think is so important, whether it is for our airports, our railways, whether it is for our roads or waterways. There are extremely important provisions in this bill for many Members of the Senate. We have had considerable requests from every Member of the Senate for important infrastructure improvements in their State. I am very proud of the work Senator Shelby and I have done. We have worked extremely hard for the last 5 months to put this bill together. I think we have done a very good job. We have met and exceeded every request of this President, unlike the House, and we have done a good job, I believe, of meeting the transportation requirements of every Senator who has come to us. I was pleased yesterday we were able to come to cloture on this measure on a very strong vote from the Senate of 70-30. I realize there are some Members of the Senate who think the provisions do not meet their requirements, but I think we have done a very good job of not doing what the House did, which was to absolutely prohibit any truck from coming across the border, and not do what the President has asked, which was to simply open up the borders and let trucks come through at will, but to put together a comprehensive piece of legislation which I believe will clearly mean we will be able to have a bill that is passed that assures constituents, whether they live in Washington State or constituents living in border States, when they see a truck with a Mexican license plate, they will know that truck has been inspected, that its driver has a good record, that it is safe to be on our highways, as we now require of Canadian trucks and American trucks. Can we do better for all trucks on our highways? Absolutely. But it is clear we need to make sure, as NAFTA provisions go into place and we do start getting cross-border traffic, we can assure our moms who are driving kids to school, or our families who travel on vacation, or each one of us as we drive to work today, that we know our highways are safe. I believe the provisions we have put into this bill do make sure that happens. I understand from the Senator from Nevada we will have a vote sometime this morning. I will take some time between now and then to walk through again what the compromise provisions are. I think they are very solid and give a lot of assurance. It is important we understand what we are passing out of the Senate. The DOT plans to issue conditional operating authority to Mexican truck companies based on a simple mail-in questionnaire. All that Mexican truck companies will need to do is simply check a box saying they have complied with U.S. regulations and then their trucks will start rolling across the border. In fact, under the Department of Transportation plan, Mexican trucking companies will be allowed to operate for at least a year and a half before they are subjected to any comprehensive safety audit by the DOT. So under the committee provisions that we have written in a bipartisan manner with the members of Senator Shelby's staff, under the subcommittee's unanimous vote, and under the full committee's unanimous vote, no Mexican trucking firm will be allowed to operate beyond the commercial zone until inspectors have actually performed a compliance review on that trucking company. This review will look at the conditions of the truck and the recordkeeping. They are going to determine whether the company actually has the capacity to comply with United States safety regulations, and once they have begun operating in the United States, Mexican trucking firms will undergo a second compliance review within 18 months. That second review will allow the Department of Transportation to determine whether the Mexican trucking firm has, in fact, complied with United States safety standards, and it will allow them to review accident breakdown rates, their drug and alcohol testing results, and whether they have been cited frequently for violations. The ratification of NAFTA 7 years ago anticipated a period when trucks from the United States, Canada, and Mexico would have free rein to service clients across all three countries. This was not really a change in policy as it pertained to Canada since the United States and Canada had reciprocal trucking agreements in place long before NAFTA was ever required. But it did, as we know, require a change when it came to truck traffic between the United States and Mexico. Let me say that again. We have had a long-time policy that pertains to Canada because we have had reciprocal agreements in place for some time. But with the ratification of NAFTA, and now with the January deadline coming upon us, we knew we had to take action when it came to truck traffic between the United States and Mexico. For several years the opening up of the border between these two countries was effectively put on hold by the administration because they had great concern over the absence of reasonable safety standards for trucks that were operating in Mexico. While Mexican trucks have been allowed to operate between Mexico and a very defined commercial zone along the border--20 miles--the safety record of those trucks has been abysmal. In fact, the Department of Transportation's own inspector general, the General Accounting Office, and many others have published a number of reports that have documented the safety hazards that have been presented by the current crop of Mexican trucks crossing the border. At a hearing of the Commerce Committee just last week, the inspector general came to that committee hearing and testified about instances where trucks have crossed the border literally with no brakes. Think about the impact of that, if you are a mom driving your kids to school, or if you are driving a bus carrying a busload of kids to school, or driving on vacation, or if you are going to work: A truck that has no brakes and it has crossed the border because we have lack of inspectors, we have lack of inspection, and we have the lack of ability to assure the safety of those Mexican trucks. Officials with that IG office visited every single border crossing between the United States and Mexico, and they have documented case after case of Mexican trucks entering the United States that were grossly overweight, that had no registration or insurance, and that had drivers with no licenses. We have an obligation to assure that the trucks that drive on our roads have registration, have insurance, have drivers with licenses, and that meet our weight requirements. These are simple, basic safety measures that we have to reassure every family who drives in our country. In fact, according to the Department of Transportation's most recent figures, Mexican trucks are 50 percent more likely to be ordered off the road for severe safety deficiencies than United States trucks. And Mexican trucks are more than 2\1/2\ times more likely to be ordered off the road than Canadian trucks. Equally troubling to all of us is the fact that Mexican trucks have been routinely violating the current restrictions that limit their area of travel to the 20-mile commercial zones. Knowing these things, we knew we had an obligation as we passed this bill in the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee to make sure we put in safety requirements. Knowing that Mexican trucks are 50 percent more likely to be ordered off the road, we knew we had to put in safety requirements to assure, as trucks begin to travel beyond that 20-mile limit, even though as some of our colleagues have pointed out they are already doing so illegally--but once they are allowed to do that under the President's order, we need to make sure those trucks are safe before they come in. The DOT inspector general found that 52 Mexican trucking firms have operated improperly in over 26 States outside the four southern border States. Already, in 26 States of our country, we have these trucks coming in. That is one reason Senator Shelby, the ranking member of the Transportation Subcommittee, and I put the money into this bill that the House had stripped out--$15 million more than the administration had requested--in order to ensure that we have inspectors in place and inspection stations and weigh stations, so we can monitor the traffic crossing our southern border. An additional 200 trucking firms violated the restrictions to stay within that commercial zone in the border States. We know Mexican trucks have been found operating illegally as far away from the Mexican border as New York State in the Northeast and my own State of Washington in the Northwest. We know the trucks are coming in now illegally to 26 States from 200 trucking firms. We want to make sure that as it becomes legal for them to be crossing the border, they are safe; that is a basic safety requirement, that we have an obligation as Senators to be able to go home and say to our constituents as the NAFTA provisions take effect. Let me just take a moment to remind my colleagues, I supported NAFTA. I support free trade. I believe this NAFTA provision will raise the safety and health standards and labor standards for all three countries as it goes into place. But it will not do that if we lessen the safety requirements of the United States as it is implemented. That is why this provision is so critical. One thing I found shocking was that the inspector general reported on one case where a Mexican truck was found, on its way to Florida to deliver furniture, and when that vehicle was pulled over, that driver had no logbook and no license. As I said, this is not unique; there have been experiences such as this in half of the States of the continental United States. Given that kind of deplorable safety record, the official position of the U.S. Government since the ratification of NAFTA was that the border could not be opened to cross-border trucking because of the safety risks involved. Why has that changed? Why are we now dealing with this provision on the floor of the Senate? Two things have basically changed that policy of restricting those trucks to within that 20-mile border. First of all, of course, a new administration has come into power and they have said they want our borders opened. Second, the Mexican Government successfully brought a case before the NAFTA arbitration panel. That panel has ruled the U.S. Government must initiate efforts to open the border to cross-border traffic. So in order to do that, a frenzy of activity occurred at the Department of Transportation so the border could be open to cross-border trucking, as soon as this autumn, they said. The Department of Transportation has cobbled together a series of measures that was sort of intended to give us, as United States citizens, a sense of security, but I really saw it as a false sense of security as this new influx of Mexican trucks is coming across the boarder. Both the House and the Senate Transportation Appropriations Subcommittees have looked at what the Department of Transportation is doing very hastily to allow these trucks in, and we determined it was woefully inadequate. When the House debated the Transportation appropriations bill for fiscal year 2002, its concerns about the inadequacy of the Department of Transportation's safety measures were so grave that it resulted in an amendment being adopted on the floor of the House that prohibited the Department of Transportation from granting operating authority to any Mexico-domiciled trucking company during fiscal year 2002. That amendment passed by a 2-to-1 margin. It is an amendment that prohibits the Department of Transportation from granting operating authority to any Mexican domiciled truck. That amendment passed 2 to 1 by a vote of 285-143. By the time the Transportation bill left the House, it was in pretty bad shape. Not only did they pass that amendment 2 to 1 to prohibit any truck from coming across, but they stripped every penny of the $88 million the administration requested to improve the truck safety inspection capacity of the United States- Mexico border. That bill, I believed, and Senator Shelby believed, and others who worked with us believed, was simply the approach that went too far by taking all of the money away so there were no inspectors, no inspection stations, no weigh stations, and no ability to allow the NAFTA provisions to go through. We believed that the administration's position, on the other hand, was also woefully inadequate. Their position was to allow Mexican trucks to come in, come across our borders, traverse all our States, and inspect them later. The House has one extreme and the White House has another extreme. That is why Senator Shelby and I sat down and worked with members of the appropriations subcommittee and the full committee. I commend Senator Stevens and Senator Byrd who have been working diligently with both of us. They care deeply about the many provisions in this bill, from the infrastructure improvements that affect all of our highways and our waterways. The Coast Guard and the FAA have worked with us to move this bill to a point so we can get it passed in the Senate, get it to conference, work out the differences between us and the White House, and move to a point where we can fund the critical infrastructure, as many of our constituents sit in traffic this morning and listen to this debate. What Senator Shelby and I have done is to really write a commonsense compromise that will inspect all Mexican trucks and then let them in. Let me say that again. The compromise position between the House at one extreme and the White House at another is to make sure that all Mexican trucks are inspected, and then let them in. Just as we require Americans to pass a driving test before they get a license, the bipartisan Senate bill requires Mexican trucks to pass an inspection before they can operate on our roads. As I said, our bill includes the $103 million. That is $15 million more than the President's request. The reason I say that again pointedly is the administration has said that with the provisions Senator Shelby and I have put into this bill, they will not have the money to implement it. I remind the administration that they asked for $15 million less than we appropriated. We put $103 million into this bill for border truck safety initiatives. If the Department of Transportation, the OMB, and the President determine when this bill gets to conference that we do not have enough money for the truck safety activities and that should be part of our discussion, they need to request more money in order to put that in place. We are happy to work with them on that request. But just to say we have not appropriated enough money and we can't ensure the safety of trucks coming in, to me, is a woefully inadequate response. The bill we have before us establishes a number of enhanced truck safety requirements that really are intended to ensure that this new cross-border trucking activity doesn't pose a safety risk to our families and the people traveling on our highways, whether it is in a southern border State or a northern border State. None of us wants to be sitting here several months from now or a year down the road and have a horrendous accident occur in our States and find after the fact the truck that was involved in the accident was never inspected at our border because of lack of inspections, was never weighed, or that the driver had an invalid operating license or a poor safety record. None of us wants to face our constituents with that kind of tragedy. Senator McCain has been a wonderful help to me in the past. We worked together on a bill on pipeline safety after a tragedy occurred in my State where three young people were killed when a pipeline broke. Oil from that pipeline traveled down along a 1-mile stretch of river in Bellingham, WA. Three young boys were fishing by that river and playing by that river. Tragically, one of them lit a match and the entire mile of that river burst into flames. Three young boys were tragically killed on that day. As the ranking member of the Commerce Committee, Senator McCain has been just absolutely wonderful in working with us on that provision and working to pass a bill out of the Senate. But, unfortunately, it is now hung up in the House, and it has been for some time. I hope they can move it forward to ensure that our pipelines are safe. But we did that after a tragic accident. I think it is much more effective, much more wise, and the right thing to do to put the safety requirements in place before we are reacting to a tragic accident. The safety provisions that are included in this Senate bill were developed based on the recommendations the committee received from the DOT inspector general, the General Accounting Office, and law enforcement authorities, including the highway patrols of the States along the border. The provisions we put in this bill didn't just come from matching. We worked very closely, looking at what the DOT inspector general recommendations were, the GAO, law enforcement authorities, and highway patrols working along the southern border. We used their recommendations to draft and put in place what we believe are very strong safety provisions within the underlying bill. Once again, I was very pleased that 70 Members of the Senate affirmed that we do indeed need to have these safety requirements in place and to move this bill along to final passage so we can put in place the important infrastructure requirements that this country is demanding and that our constituents are demanding.

Mrs. MURRAY. I will be happy to yield to the Senator from Texas for a specific period of time. If we can't work that out, then I will make the motion to table.

Mrs. MURRAY. I call up amendment No. 1165.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, then I will continue my remarks at this time. Madam President, in a moment I am going to review the committee's safety recommendations in detail. But first I want to address the issue of compliance with NAFTA because it has been an issue that we have been talking about for some time. I have heard it alleged in this Chamber that the provision that was adopted unanimously by the committee is in violation of NAFTA. I want the Senators in this Chamber to understand that nothing could be further from the truth. I voted for NAFTA. I support free trade. My goal in this bill has always been to ensure that free trade and public safety progress side by side. Rather than take my opinion on this issue or that of another Senator, we have a written decision by an arbitration panel that was charged with settling this very issue. That arbitration panel was established under the NAFTA treaty. That panel's rulings decide what does and does not violate NAFTA. I have heard many Senators say that provisions violate NAFTA or that the President should decide what violates NAFTA. In fact, I believe the amendment that is pending before the Senate says the President should decide what violates NAFTA. We do not decide that here. The arbitration panel decides what violates NAFTA. I will read to the Senate a quote from the findings of the arbitration panel. That quote is printed right here on this poster. I will take a minute to read it.

Mrs. MURRAY. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on my motion to table.

Mrs. MURRAY. How much time would the Senator like?

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, with that, let me quickly read this and remind my colleagues that the arbitration panel has stated that: The United States may not be required to treat applications from Mexican trucking firms in exactly the same manner as applications from United States or Canadian firms. . . . In other words, we have the ability within this country to write the safety provisions that we have written under these provisions to ensure the safety of the people who travel on our highways. That is the premise we have made. The amendment that we will be voting on shortly says that the President can decide what violates NAFTA and what does not. Clearly, the arbitration panel makes that decision. The Senate effectively, I remind my colleagues, voted on the pending amendment when we tabled the Gramm-McCain amendment by a vote of 65-35. That amendment, as the amendment we will vote on shortly, is really a wolf in sheep's clothing. It is designed to gut the safety provisions in this bill by allowing the President to waive whatever safety provision in the bill he does not like. If the Appropriations Committee thought that the DOT's plans to address the safety risks posed by Mexican trucks were adequate, we wouldn't have put the important safety provisions into this bill. What this amendment does say is, OK, administration, whatever safety requirements in this bill you don't like, find a White House attorney who will say it is a violation of NAFTA. Which provision will they choose to throw away? Will it be the requirement to verify that a Mexican truck driver's licence has not been revoked? Will it be the requirement to inspect trucks when they come across the border? Will it be a requirement to demonstrate that the Mexican trucks have insurance? Under the amendment we will vote on, we won't know. It simply says we will allow the President to gut whatever safety requirement he would like. I voted for NAFTA. My goal is not to stop free trade. My goal is to see that free trade and safety progress side by side. I yield the floor to the Senator from Arizona.

Mrs. MURRAY. I am happy to yield for a question.

Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Senator for the question. I would be happy to enter into negotiations to talk about accepting this amendment if it didn't actually gut the provisions we have before us. This administration basically says to the President--actually the White House attorney would designate it--the provision of the underlying bill violates NAFTA. That is their position, not ours. It is their decision. They could revoke the Mexican driver's license provision we have, or the inspection of the trucks across the border and the insurance issue on Mexican trucks. At their whim, they could say we think that violates NAFTA. I think the Members of the Senate have spoken quite loudly, 70-30, that we believe the provisions in this Senate bill are ones that we believe will protect drivers in the country. We have already seen what the DOT protections were. I believe the underlying amendment certainly as written is not safe for American drivers.

Patty Murray

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