Jay Rockefeller

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Sessions amendment No. 3453 be modified with the changes at the desk.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Then I would further inquire: I don't see any possibility of the House changing a bill, which would have to come back over to the Senate, because it would be highly unlikely the Senate would be able to pass that bill. So I don't think that will be the process. I think what the House will do--and they said they haven't done it; therefore they can't do it--well, they said that about the Senate bill in the Senate, too, and we did, and it was very close for reasons that it got no votes from your side. But that is not the point. The point is, reconciliation on 16 percent of the GDP, if they pass it--and this is all in the full time of working out the process on the House side the Senate bill, which is what they want to try to do, and then the reconciliation is not done on their side, it is done on our side, in which we put in a few things to--whatever will be attractive to Republicans as well as some things which will help with liberals on the Democratic side in the House because they are more liberal than we are. That, I would say to my good friend from Utah, is not reconciliation, but it is put that way for months now. I am on the floor and I have this microphone and you are being kind enough to be patient with me, but it isn't reconciliation. The Senator from South Dakota said it is 16 percent of the gross domestic product. It isn't. It is probably about 5 percent, 6 percent.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. As I understand it--and I am presiding over the Federal Aviation Administration legislation, so this is a little offtrack, but it is very hard for me to listen to this kind of dialogue week after week without having these thoughts and questions.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Right--which is now on the way over to the House. The House has it.

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. The Senate passed with 60 votes the health care bill which is now----

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the list that I will send to the desk shortly be the only first-degree amendments in order to H.R. 1586 other than any pending amendments; that the first-degree amendments be subject to second-degree amendments which are relevant to the amendment to which offered; that managers' amendments be in order if they have been cleared by the managers and leaders and, if offered, they be considered and agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; further, that upon disposition of all amendments, the substitute amendment, as amended, if amended, be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and the Senate proceed to vote on the passage of the bill; that upon passage, the title amendment, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I thank the Senator.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``A Fair Share for All: Pay Equity in the New American Workplace'' on March 11, 2010. The hearing will commence at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 11, 2010, at 11 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``New Border War: Corruption of U.S. Officials by Drug Cartels.''

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 11, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on March 11, 2010, at 10 a.m. in SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 11, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 11, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 11, at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Business as usual.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I yield proudly to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I am very happy to be here this afternoon with the most excellent ranking member of the Commerce Committee, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, to lay down our Transportation bill, and in so doing we say that our transportation system is at a crossroads, and not a comfortable one. For decades, the Federal Aviation Administration has done an excellent job of operating the world's most complex airline system. Nobody else comes close. The system has served us very well. Not only is it the safest airspace system in the world, it is a critical component of the national economy. I cannot overstate the importance of a vibrant and strong aviation system. It is fundamental to our Nation's long-term growth--from the largest cities to the very smallest of towns--because it connects our citizens and it connects our businesses with the global economy. Increasingly, however, our air transportation system and the FAA--the Federal Aviation Administration--are strained beyond capacity. Our skies and airports have become plagued with congestion and delay, and what is more, on a pretty regular basis. Over the past decade, we have seen passengers delayed for hours on runways, and we hear about it. During peak times, such as the holidays, the system is often paralyzed--stopped. Disruptions at just one key airport--maybe JFK, maybe O'Hare, maybe Los Angeles, should they be in trouble at any one of those places--can quickly cascade throughout the entire system. With airline capacity cut, these delays can easily extend to days for passengers who cannot find flights with empty seats because the capacity has been reduced. Our constituents are frustrated about flying and, frankly, rightly so. When our economy recovers, and I believe that growth has slowly begun--we shall see--congestion and delay will only get worse. The FAA predicts that commercial air traffic will increase by nearly 50 percent over the next decade. Putting that in other terms, from our current level of 700 million passengers a year, it will be well over a billion passengers per year. In a complex system as ours, everything has to work so the possibility of a meltdown of the air traffic control system may in fact become a reality and this will put passenger safety at extreme risk. These are not the only troubling signs; there are more. While aviation has an excellent safety record, as I have indicated, the Federal Aviation Administration and the industry's focus on safety and vigilance in maintaining it as the highest priority, has come into question--the question of safety. The grounding of thousands of aircraft throughout the system in 2008 raised questions about the quality of airline maintenance practices and the FAA's ability to provide sufficient oversight of air carriers. The tragic accident of flight 3407 has exposed problems with pilot training, crew fatigue, and the ability of the industry to assure the traveling public that there is one level of safety throughout the entire system, and that does not exist. For all these reasons I stand here, along with my distinguished colleague, and encourage my colleagues in as strong a fashion as I can possibly muster to move forward and pass S. 1451, the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act. I will only say that once. I want to spend a few minutes discussing how and why we have made so little progress in addressing the issues facing our Nation's aviation system. In 1999 and 2000, the aviation system was experiencing the worst congestion and delays in its history. There was, indeed, a growing recognition that fundamental change was needed. Nonetheless, I worked with Senator Lott to author Vision 100, in effect the 2003 FAA reauthorization bill. This bill laid the foundation to build a modern digital satellite-based air traffic control system. We created the joint planning and development office and authorized a significant increase in FAA's capital budget to meet the specific air traffic control modernization needs--a lot of what I say will be based on that--an increase based upon the administration's own budget requests. But instead of investing in the system in 2004, 2005, and 2006, the previous administration proposed dramatic cuts in the FAA's facilities and equipment, the F&E account, the account that funds air traffic control modernization. The urgency of 2000 understandably but regrettably waned as air traffic fell after 9/11. Today we find ourselves in a similar situation. The recession has prevented widespread delay--temporarily. We must not let this temporary reprieve keep us from taking action to address these concerns once again. Our economy has begun, as I indicated, to slowly turn around and I am confident that demand for air travel will soon begin to grow. If we do not act quickly, our system will simply not have the capacity to cope with the growth in demand. That is where you get in trouble. I believe everyone in aviation recognizes the need to modernize our national air transportation system in order to meet the growth in passenger traffic. In addition to creating much more capacity, a new satellite-based air traffic control system, an ATC system, will allow airplanes to move more efficiently by taking more direct routes, being able to be closer to each other but without danger. These improvements will save our economy millions of dollars annually. Most importantly, the next generation air transportation system, which we refer to as ``NextGen,'' will dramatically improve the safety of air transportation by providing pilots and air traffic controllers with better situational awareness. They will be able to see other air traffic and detailed weather maps in real time. President Obama clearly recognized the value of investing in our air transportation system and this is, in fact, reflected in his fiscal year 2011 budget request. The administration has proposed spending a total of $1.1 billion in fiscal 2011 on the NextGen program, which is more than a 30-percent increase. That is not in line with the so-called freeze. So it is a 30-percent increase over 2010. We oversee all of transportation--trains, cars, airplanes, trucks, whatever you have. I will say at this point for the record that the same financial requests or needs for the Surface Transportation Board, which interacts with railroads and shippers, has not been increased sufficiently. It is $31 million and it needs to be closer to $44 million. These efforts, however, are only the first steps in a long journey. Modernizing the ATC system will require sustained focus and substantial resources. S. 1451 takes concrete steps to make sure that the FAA accelerates the NextGen--that is the modern system--programs, and that the agency implements modernization efforts in an effective and efficient manner over the long run. The FAA estimates that NextGen will cost the agency $20 billion through 2025, and the airlines another $20 billion in aircraft equipage--how they, as individual airplanes, respond and react to that system so it can work. I have worked with Senators Inouye and Baucus to reach a deal that I believe moves us in the right direction. S. 1451, the bill under discussion, will create a new subaccount with the aviation trust fund to fund FAA's modernization efforts. This modernization subaccount will dedicate $500 million annually to NextGen efforts. I appreciate the hard work of my colleagues on this provision, to develop it, to make it become possible. I wish to spend some time talking about the highest priority in aviation and that is called safety. Statistically, the United States has the safest air transportation system in the world. I indicated that. But statistics do not tell you the whole story. It has been a little more than a year since the tragic crash of flight 3407 in Buffalo, NY, that took the lives of 50 people. It is clear from the National Transportation Safety Board investigation that we need to take serious steps to improve pilot training, address flight crew fatigue, to make the cockpit isolated from extraneous conversation, and reform air carrier employment practices. I commend Senator Dorgan in particular for the work he has done to promote the safety in the aftermath of this accident. He has attached himself to this cause ferociously. The committee's work has prompted the FAA to initiate a number of activities to improve aviation safety. The agency has been able to get many air carriers to make voluntary commitments to implement important safety measures and the agency has committed to initiate new regulations on flight and duty time regulations in coming months. Despite this progress, our work remains far from complete. We must also make certain that the FAA remains as vigilant on other safety priorities--the oversight of airline operations and the maintenance, reducing runway incursions, and air traffic controller staffing issues. Just as with modernization, we must make sure the FAA has the tools and the resources to accomplish these safety objectives. I am especially proud of the safety title we have developed and included in this bill, S. 1451. This title will do the following, in part: address pilot fatigue by mandating the FAA revise flight and duty time limitations based on the latest in scientific research; ensure one level of safety exists throughout commercial aircraft operations by requiring that all carriers adopt aviation safety standards. The bill also requires stronger safety oversight of foreign repair stations, which is a very controversial subject. They are a relatively small percentage of air maintenance. Most of it is done in this country. But there is some argument as to how well it is done overseas. These are critical measures that will help us identify safety issues and prevent problems before they occur and this is the best way to address safety. A word on small community air service. The State I come from is not large. In fact, it is small and it is rural. But it is important and it is a good place. We need to keep America's small communities connected to the rest of the world. If one lives in a rural State or in a rural part of a rural State, one is no less important than if one lives on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The nature of the individuals may be the same, the entrepreneurship may be the same, but access to international aviation or transcontinental aviation is not the same. The continuing economic crisis has hit the United States airline industry very hard. They are in and out of bankruptcy. We have all read about that. They are cutting back on things they offer that they used to offer in flight and do not now. We grump about it but there is a reason they do that so I don't grump about it, and this affects the future of hundreds of rural communities across our country. In their effort to cut costs, air carriers have drastically reduced service to small or isolated communities. From a business point of view, I guess that makes sense. From my policy point of view, that does not make sense and it is not fair. They are the first routes to go, the rural ones. They go in tough economic times, and that is where we are right now. The reduction or elimination of air service has a devastating effect on the economy of a community. Having adequate air service is not just a matter of convenience but also a matter of economic survival. Without access to reliable air service, no business is willing to locate their operations in these areas of the country, no matter how attractive the quality of life. Airports are economic engines that attract critical new development opportunities and jobs. The Federal Government needs to provide additional resources and tools for small communities to help them attract adequate air service. Our legislation does this by building on existing programs and strengthening them. Authorizing funding for the Essential Air Service Program is increased to $175 million annually. The bill also extends the Small Community Air Service Development Program--incredibly important for small airports. This program has provided dozens of communities with the resources necessary to attract and retain air service. In conclusion, when I began work on this bill, I had four simple goals: No. 1, take steps to address the critical safety concerns--that was always No. 1 and always will be; No. 2, to establish a roadmap for the implementation of NextGen and accelerate the FAA's key modernization programs; No. 3, make certain we adequately invest in airport infrastructure; and, No. 4, continue to improve small communities' access to the Nation's aviation system. I believe we have worked hard in a truly bipartisan fashion with Senator Dorgan, obviously Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison from Texas, Senator DeMint from South Carolina, to develop a bill that I think advances these goals and which all of my colleagues can support. This bill is not being held up. There is a reason for that. We worked out our problems early. This bill takes the steps needed to advance the system. The FAA must be provided with the tools, the resources, and the clear direction and deadlines to make sure the agency provides effective oversight of the aviation industry itself. I think we all recognize the United States must significantly expand the capacity of our Nation's transportation system. There are no quick or easy solutions to the problem, and I believe our situation is going to get worse before it gets better. But we do have to take the actions we can right now. We cannot ignore the aviation system anymore. We cannot float on nice memories of a glorious past. The United States is losing its position as a global leader on aviation. The American public is not happy with the aviation system or with us. We must move boldly, just as we have with our investments in high-speed rail, or risk losing our leadership in the world. Given the challenges our Nation's aviation system faces, we must act now to pass S. 1451, the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act. Is it the order that the Senator from Texas will have the floor? The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken.) There is no order to that effect.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to Calendar No. 36, H.R. 1586, and that once the bill is reported, I be recognized to offer a substitute amendment.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Finance Committee fellows and interns be accorded floor privileges for the consideration of the FAA bill: Aislinn Baker, Mary Baker, Brittany Durrell, Scott Matthews, Greg Sullivan, Maximilian Updike, Meena Sharma; as well as Jim Connelly and Rajat Mathur, both detailees for the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

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