Jay Rockefeller

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I join my colleagues, Senators Durbin, Hatch, Santorum, Byrd and Hollings in introducing the Fair Trade Law Enforcement Act of 1999. Unfortunately, because of the long and important debate on campaign finance reform last Friday, I was unable to make a statement with the rest of my colleagues when the bill was introduced. However, I stand today to praise this legislation which will take significant steps to update and enhance critical U.S. trade laws. It has been far too long, well over a decade in fact, since the last general reform of our trade laws, and current circumstances-- including global recessions, economic turmoil and our surging trade deficit--necessitate the prompt action of Congress. The trade laws in question, particularly the safeguard, countervailing duty and anti-dumping laws, are vital to the manufacturing sector of our economy. They are often the first and last line of defense for U.S. industries injured by unfairly or illegally traded imports. Companies, workers, families and communities rely heavily on these laws to prevent the ill-effects of unfair trading by our trading partners. Unfortunately, recent events like the steel import crisis have demonstrated how painfully inadequate our current trade laws are in responding to rapid import surges. The flooding of U.S. markets with unfairly or illegally traded goods causes severe and often irreparable harm to our workers and domestic injury, and it is high time we revisit our trade laws in an effort to make our laws more responsive to the changing landscape of the global economy and international trade. The reforms we are proposing today fall into three categories. The first are improvements to our safeguard laws. Current U.S. safeguard standards are often more strict than the corresponding standards in the WTO Safeguards Agreement. This means U.S. manufacturers are playing at a disadvantage to their foreign trading partners. Whereas a foreign trading partner must prove only that an import surge, like the steel import crisis we have seen since July of 1997, is a cause of injury, domestic producers are hindered by U.S. trade laws which require our domestic industry to prove that the imports are a substantial cause of injury. This inequity hampers the ability of our domestic industry to receive relief from unfairly traded imports, and creates an unequal playing field on which our foreign trading partners have an advantage. It also contributes to making the U.S. the dumping ground for illegal and unfairly traded imports. Our trading partners know the U.S. standard is high, and they exploit that fact. This bill simply brings U.S. safeguard laws with respect to causation standards and injury factors into line with WTO laws, and puts our domestic industries on equal footing with the rest of the world. Second, this legislation amends our anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws. It establishes a presumption of threat and of critical circumstances when imports surge and prices fall to an extraordinary degree. A critical circumstances determination, which is provided for under WTO standards, allows the ITC and the Department of Commerce to apply relief to imports entering before the preliminary determination in a trade case when investigating authorities find a history of injurious dumping or such a dramatic surge in imports that, absent retroactive relief, the effect of an anti-dumping measure would be severely undermined. One of the proposals in this legislation simply provides for the Department of Commerce and the ITC to apply these rebuttable presumptions when drastic import surges are coupled with sharp domestic price declines. Again, these presumptions are rebuttable, meaning all of our trading partners have the right to appeal the determination of threat or critical circumstances. All this provision suggests is that we give our domestic industry the benefit of the doubt regarding the injury they are suffering when huge spikes in imports are accompanied by a rapid decline in domestic prices. We saw first hand last year how effective the presumption of threat and critical circumstances can be. When the Commerce Department determined critical circumstances existed on numerous steel trade cases, the decline in imports for the following months was immediately visible. The specter of a retroactive tariff or duty is a powerful deterrent to continuing unfair and illegal trading practices. This bill makes still other improvements in our anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws. Our legislation will make it tougher for our trading partners to circumvent an anti-dumping or countervailing duty order. No longer will foreign nations be able to skirt around our laws by making slight alterations to the products they are exporting to the U.S. We clarify that these AD/CVD orders include products that have been changed in only minor respects. The captive production clarification is an important provision to ensure fainrness as well. Also, the Fair Trade Law Enforcement Act of 1999 prevents AD/CVD cases from being terminated by suspension agreements against the wishes of the injured U.S. industry. As we saw during the steel crisis, the Administration reached suspension agreements on trade cases that the domestic industry was confident of winning. Those cases would have provided significant relief for the injured U.S. steel industry by imposing tariffs and or duties which would have ``priced out'' many of our guilty trading partners from the U.S. steel market. Instead, foreign nations which were facing the prospect of having zero or very restricted access to the U.S. market were guaranteed a significant share of our market as a result of negotiated suspension agreements. The reforms in this bill will require the consent of a majority of the injured industry, both companies and workers, in order for the suspension agreement to be finalized. This particular piece of the bill has already been reported out of the Finance Committee, and it is critical to ensuring that any domestic industry injured by unfair or illegal imports is afforded proportional relief. Finally, this bill also creates a steel import monitoring program designed to act as an early notification system when imports begin flooding the U.S. market. When the steel import surge began in July of 1997 it was many months, even close to a year, before anyone in the Administration would even admit that the spike in imports was occurring and that it was potentially harmful to the domestic industry. During that time businesses went bankrupt and thousands of employees were laid off. The amendment we propose in this bill will make it much easier to track imports and will provide much quicker notification of potentially harmful import surges. Quite simply, the sooner we learn of unfair import surges, the sooner the Administration, Congress and the industry itself can take the necessary steps to provide the industry, companies and workers with the relief they deserve. This bill being introduced today provides much need adjustments to our trade laws. Too many of the provisions currently designed to provide relief to our domestic manufacturing sector have been antiquated by recent changes in the global economy and the structure of international trade. It is time we reaffirm our commitment to our manufacturing base by updating and enhancing the very laws designed to protect U.S. manufacturers from unfair and illegal imports from abroad. I should note to my colleagues that I remain an ardent supporter of open and fair trade. Exports have become an engine of growth for the U.S. economy. The numbers speak for themselves. Last year, Americans exported over $688 billion worth of goods and services. In saying this, I proudly can point to my own state's experience, and how it proves in a powerful way that we must pursue the opportunities of the global economy. In the past decade, West Virginia has gone about, deliberately and energetically, changing its perception of the outside world in a way that has had tremendous economic payoff. In just the past five years, our exports have increased by 40%. We have large and small companies alike exporting to China, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. These companies exported over $2.2 billion worth of goods just last year. In percentage of products made which are exported abroad, West Virginia ranks 4th among all 50 states. Perhaps the most stunning number to me is that every billion dollars in exports supports about 17,000 U.S. jobs--that means that more than 35,000 jobs in West Virginia are directly linked to exporting. I know that trade is critical to my state's continued economic development. West Virginia's case proves that even small economies can use expanded trade opportunities as a mechanism for further growth and prosperity. However, our increasingly globalized and ever expanding economy requires our finding new ways to adapt to change. Americans thrive in that environment and will therefore excel in this New Economy. But transitions are almost always hard. I think how a country deals with the dislocations of change says a lot about its priorities and about its ultimate success as we move into a new world and a new century. I fully recognize that much in this bill will provoke debate. I welcome it. The Finance Committee can and must begin to consider how best to update our trade laws. I am confident that as trade becomes unquestionably one of the most powerful economic determiners in our economy, we will do so. My efforts to deal with the real world consequences for West Virginia steel families, communities and manufacturers when they were hit with an unprecedented deluge of steel imports in late 1997 and 1998 resulted in my proposal of a steel quota bill that was considered on the Senate floor and rejected largely on the grounds that we weren't playing by the world's rules. I'm here to let my colleagues know that as the world changes, we must change with it--we must support the expanded opportunities for trade by guarding against the acquiescence to circumstances where our workers end up hurt with no recourse but to promote isolationism.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, millions of Americans live and work abroad. While living abroad, they continue to pay taxes and vote. They are Americans, and they want and deserve to be counted in the decennial Census. In order to achieve this important goal, we must plan and prepare. The legislation introduced today directs the Secretary of Commerce to use existing authority to conduct a special census of Americans abroad in 2003 to determine how to include this population in the next decennial Census in 2010. While we wish that Americans abroad could be part of the 2000 Census, there unfortunately not the time or opportunity to do so. But it is vital that we act now to ensure that plans are in place for the future. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, millions of Americans live and work abroad. While living abroad, they continue to pay taxes and vote. They are Americans, and they want and deserve to be counted in the decennial Census. In order to achieve this important goal, we must plan and prepare. The legislation introduced today directs the Secretary of Commerce to use existing authority to conduct a special census of Americans abroad in 2003 to determine how to include this population in the next decennial Census in 2010. While we wish that Americans abroad could be part of the 2000 Census, there unfortunately not the time or opportunity to do so. But it is vital that we act now to ensure that plans are in place for the future. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Oregon, there is no plot or underlying purpose not to accept the amendment at this point, but there may be others who have amendments that relate to this area. Let's see what we have. From this Senator's point of view, the Senator from Oregon has made a useful amendment and, at the appropriate time, should there not be any problems that arise--I do not anticipate them--I will have no problem. Amendment No. 2070 To Amendment No. 1892, Amendment No. 1920, As Modified, And Amendment No. 2071, En Bloc

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, obviously, this Senator from West Virginia is already a cosponsor of the amendment. There are very few people who would know the situation in this amendment as well as the Senator from Maine. Her State, as many rural States, has had a major reaction to deregulation. Economic development is always the first thing on the minds of States that are trying to grow and attract their population back. This is simply asking for a commission to study the effects of deregulation on economic development. I think it is very sensible. I think it highlights a real agony for a lot of States. It is highly acceptable on this side. Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I hope this money will be used to speed up the re-design project and finally bring some relief to the millions of Americans who use our air transportation system and live near our Nation's airports.

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

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I would just make a couple of comments in general and not direct it to those who are trying to decrease or increase slots at airports but some philosophical points. A lot of these rules were set, as has been pointed out, some 30 years ago. Of course, there has been a lot of technology which has developed since that time, and a lot of it which has been in place since that time which allows much more efficient use. We don't have so-called ``buy and sell'' situations anymore. We have slots. We also have, as I described in my opening statement yesterday, millions of Americans who fly every year, and 1 billion people will be flying in the next decade. We have a tripling of air cargo. We have an enormous increase in international flights. We have an enormous increase in letters and boxes, all of which require flights and all of which require slots. They go to different airports. But the point is everything is increasing. I don't think that any of us on the floor or colleagues who will be here to vote on various issues can pretend that we can turn around and say: All right, Mr. and Mrs. America. Yes, you are making more income. Yes, you are maybe vacation-conscious. Yes, this is a free market system. Yes, you live in a free country and you want to fly to more places and you have the money now to take your children with you. You are writing more letters. You are sending more packages because more services are available. We cannot pretend as though we are going to stop this process. I don't want to make the comparison to the Internet because the Internet has a life of its own. But it comes to mind. There are a lot of people who want to stop some of the things going on on the Internet. They can't do it. The Internet has a life of its own. It is the result of the free enterprise system that people decide to buy it or not buy it. That is their choice. But people also have the choice as to whether they want to fly or not. We are now coming to the point where we have the technology to allow a lot more of that to happen. I described a visit I made to the air traffic control center in Herndon, VA, which is highly automated and has the highest form of technology. If you want to say: All right. How many flights are in the air right now from 3,000 to 5,000 feet? How many are in the air now from 5,000 to 7,000, or 5,000 to 6,000? They push a button, and they can tell you every flight--because I have seen it--every flight in the country at certain levels. The whole concept of being able to increase flights is going to be there. No. 1, we have established the fact that Americans are free. This is not the former Soviet Union. People have the right to fly. They have the money to fly. The economy is doing better, and exponentially everything is growing. That case is closed. If somebody wants to say, let's stop that, let's just say we are going to pretend it was 30 years ago and only so many people can fly, only so many letters can be written, only so many international flights, the Italians and French are going to have to stop, it is OK the Japanese and Germans do it--life does not work like that. People have the right to make their decisions, and it is up to us in Congress to expedite the ability of the FAA to have in place the instruments, the technology, and the funding to make all of this work properly. I point out one economic thing that comes from the Department of Transportation which is very interesting. This happens to deal with O'Hare. That is an accident; it is not deliberate. But it makes an interesting point because it talks about the benefits if you open up slots and it talks about the deficiencies; there are both. If you open up more slots, you will get a benefit for the consumer that outweighs the total cost of the delays and, in short, the consumer will save a great deal of money, or a certain amount of money, on tickets. They will save money because there will be more competition, because there will be more slots, because there will be more flights. That is the free-market system. That is what brings lower costs. I do not enjoy flying from Charleston, WV, to Washington, DC, and paying $686 for a flight on an airplane into which I can barely squeeze. Let's understand, we have something which is growing exponentially and happens to be terrific for our economy. As I indicated, 10 million people work in this industry. You are not going to stop people from sending letters. You are not going to stop people from flying. You are not going to stop people from taking vacations. You are not going to stop international traffic. None of that is going to happen. We have to accommodate ourselves. Does that mean there is going to be somewhat more noise? Yes. Does that mean we have to improve systems, engines, and research that are reducing that noise? Yes, we do. Does that mean there are going to be more delays? Probably. But the alternative to that is to say, all right, since we cannot have a single delay and nobody can be inconvenienced a single half hour, then let's just shut all of this off and go back to the 1960s and pretend we are in that era. We cannot do that. We simply cannot do that. I introduce that thought into this conversation. There will be other amendments and other points that will be made about it. But we are dealing with inexorable growth, which the American people want, which the international community wants, which is now supported by an economy which is going to continue to sustain it. Even if the economy goes through a downturn, it is not going to slow down traffic use substantially because once people begin to fly, they keep on flying; they do not give up that habit. We are dealing with a fact of life to which we have to make an adjustment in two ways: One, we have to be willing to accept certain inconveniences. I happen to live in one place where the airplanes just pour over my house. I do not enjoy that, but I adjust to it. Let's deal in the real world here. Flights are good for the economy; flights are good for Americans; flights are good for the world. Packages and letters are all part of communication. There is nothing we are going to do to stop it, so we have to make adjustments. One, in our own personal lives, and, two, we in Congress have to make adjustments by being far more aggressive in terms of expediting funding for research, instruments, and technology that will make all of this as easy as possible. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, the chairman of the full committee is here. On the Democratic side, the amendment is acceptable, and I believe that is the case on the Republican side, but I will let the chairman of the full committee speak for himself.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I fully agree with Senators Harkin and Grassley and Chairman McCain. It is very important that service to small and mid-sized cities be improved. I believe that the Gorton slot provisions as originally proposed was good policy that I intend to support in conference. Both Senators Harkin and Grassley have worked hard toward the development of the slot amendment concerning O'Hare and the New York Airports and their interest is well noted and I intend to do what I can in conference to provide for a mechanism along the lines that they proposed be agreed to in the conference.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I want to speak a moment to my colleagues. The Senator from New Jersey has indicated he wants to send a strong message to the airlines. I do, too. In fact, over a period of a number of months, a number of us have negotiated a strong message. What we did not do, however, is prescribe exactly what it was that would take place with each and every one of the problems. We forced them to report to us through the Department of Transportation with the inspector general monitoring and watching. I have no objection to part of what is in this amendment, but what the Senator from New Jersey gets into is the most careful kind of mandating: If it is more than 2 hours late, such and such; if it is 4 hours late, such and such penalty. It goes on. Sometimes it is three times the value of the ticket--it just depends for what it might be. In other words, it is precisely the opposite of what we approached the airlines to negotiate with in a very hard fashion. For example, they are going to have to reply to us on notification of known delays, cancellations, diversions, and a lot of other subjects, and they are going to have to do it within a prescribed amount of time, to which they have agreed. We are going to increase penalties for consumer violations under which this amendment falls. I say to the Senator, I do not have any problem with him putting forward the purpose of his amendment. I do have a problem and urge my colleagues to have a problem with prescribing exactly how much would be paid according to which number of hours and how long the delay was. That is what we have tried to avoid. The Senator, from the beginning, has not been for that approach, but that approach is what we have agreed to with the airlines. I ask the Senator if he will be willing to take out on page 2, from line 9 through page 3, line 6--if he will be willing to modify his amendment to that extent?

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, each Member of the Senate will vote on the Robb amendment as they see fit. I want to simply make a philosophical statement, which I made earlier but will make it again. The fact that passengers, planes, parcels, international flight activities, planes in the air, and planes on the ground are either going to be doubling, tripling, or quadrupling over the next 10 years is obviously not now in effect but has everything to do with the future of what it is that our airports are willing to accept and what it is that those who live around our airports are willing to accept. To stop aviation growth, to stop aviation traffic, passengers, packages, new airlines, and new international flight activity is to try to stop the Internet. It is something you might wish for, but it is not going to happen. In fact, it is not something we wish for because it is good economic activity. Ten million people work for the airline aviation industry, and many of those people work in and around the airports where those airplanes land and take off. My only point is, we cannot expect to have progress in this country without there being a certain inconvenience that goes along with it. We have become accustomed to having our cake and eating it, too, and that is having our airports but then having a relatively small number of flights landing or a slotted number, in the case of four of our major airports, landing, but then the thought of others landing becomes very difficult. Atlanta, Newark, and many other large airports do not have any slots at all. The people who live around them survive. They hear the noise. They do not like it. The noise mitigation is getting much better as technology improves, and the safety technology, if the Congress will give the money, will get even better than it is. It is virtually a perfect record. I simply make the observation that slots are a difficult subject. They are very controversial because people prefer quietness to noise. But in a world that grows more complex in commerce, in which the standard of living is increasing enormously, one cannot have the convenience of travel, the convenience of packages, the convenience of letters, the convenience of getting around internationally, and the convenience of many new airplanes and expect to have everything the way it was 30 years ago hold until this day. I thank the Presiding Officer and the chairman of the committee and yield the floor.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer. I want to thank some folks because this is important to do. I thank Senators Hollings, Gorton, McCain, Daschle, Majority Leader Lott, and Senator Dodd, obviously, on the slot question. I thank very much Senators Schumer, Durbin, Harkin and Robb for their cooperation. On the Democratic Commerce staff, I thank Sam Whitehorn, Kevin Kayes, Julia Kraus and Kerry Ates, who works with me; and on the GOP Commerce staff, Ann Choiniere and Michael Reynolds; and on Senator Gorton's staff, Brett Hale. They have all done wonderful work and I thank them. Mr. CRAPO addressed the Chair.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I agree with everything my colleague from Washington has said. I should say that he and I began working on this amendment in earnest a number of months ago when we were in the midst of the summer and the headlines were full of all the problems of the air traffic control system, which were becoming manifest to anybody reading a newspaper, watching television, or listening to the radio. When I use the word ``troubled'' to describe our air traffic system, I need to be very careful and clear because the FAA, our air traffic controllers, the pilots, and flight attendants in this country have had an air safety record that is extraordinary. It is not only safe but it is a very secure air traffic operation. So people say: Fine. Then why worry about the future? As I explained in my opening statement, the future is going to bring double, or triple, or quadruple virtually everything--whether it is air cargo, letters, passengers, numbers of aircraft, international traffic, and the rest of it. Let me assure my colleagues that the word ``troubled'' is not about safety, although we always have to keep our eye on that, but it is about productivity, about capacity, about efficiency, about outdated equipment, about insufficient runways, and insufficient runways that are insufficiently distant from one another; if there happen to be two, or if they happen to be parallel, you can't use them efficiently to land two airplanes at the same time. It is about surging traffic demand, about fractured organizational structure, and it is about us in the Congress; it is about a highly unpredictable, highly irregular process of funding. Funding the FAA and its air traffic control operation is not at all unlike running IBM or Dell Computer. You are meant to have a business plan, a 5-year outlay of budget, and you are meant to know what kind of equipment you can buy 1 year from now, 2 years from now, 3 years from now, so you can begin to prepare for that. We in this Congress, have specialized in declining to make that ability available to the people who fly 2 million of our people around every day. So what Senator Gorton and I have done today is not to offer, as he indicated, dramatic reform or restructuring of the FAA, because we know there is a lot to be worked through, that it would be premature to do that today. In fact, on the floor of this body and in the Halls of this Congress, there is very little discussion, if any, on what ought to be discussed at great length about the FAA--about equipment, about computers, about what is the state of stress, or lack of stress, for the people who are in our towers, whom both the Senator from Washington and I have visited. So we are trying to decide how best to proceed on FAA restructuring, and we have decided to try to get as much consensus from the Congress and industry and across the Nation as we can. Now, some believe we should create an independent FAA, a privatized FAA. Some believe we should privatize air traffic altogether. Some believe user fee funding is the key to improving efficiency. Some believe the FAA is slow and cumbersome because it is a Federal agency. And some believe they are kind of on the right track already, so why intervene--again, no catastrophic actions. In any event, despite the fact that we are not ready to enact-- Senator Gorton and I--a so-called big-bang solution, in no way is there reason to do nothing. It is to take steps to make air traffic control next year better than this year or next year for the FAA to be better than this year. It is clear that the FAA needs interim reform and interim direction and encouragement. So as the Senator indicated, we are offering a package of incremental reforms that will, in a sense, send the FAA both the tools and the message to improve current management and operation of the system without prejudging what the final long-term broad change might be. The Air Traffic Improvement Act of 1999 is focused in two key areas, as my colleague discussed. The first is internal FAA management reforms, and the second is modernization of equipment and technology. Both are enormously important. On the management side, the bill builds on reforms enacted in 1996. It uses the management advisory committee, or MAC as it is called, which I will have to say the administration has not set records in putting in place, i.e., they have not. But they have said they are going to send the nominations for it very soon and designate a subcommittee to advise and oversee air traffic control services. We create in this amendment a chief operating officer position, and that is very important. There isn't any corporation of any size that doesn't have that kind of person. You have the person who runs it, the CEO, and you might have the chief financial officer, but you always have a chief operating officer. We don't. The FAA has 55,000 people for whom it is responsible. That is a very large corporation. We believe that, together, the chief operating officer and the ATC Subcommittee will have central responsibility for running and modernizing air traffic control, developing a strategic plan, and implementing it. I personally have enormous respect for the FAA and believe in and trust in the judgment, instincts, and actions of our Administrator, Jane Garvey. I think she is absolutely first class. I have spent a lot of time with her and talked a lot with her. She ran Boston airport. If you run Boston airport, you know what you are doing. She knows what she is doing. She has a strategic way of thinking. She listens a lot. She is around the country visiting people a great deal. We are very lucky to have her. But putting together a budget for air traffic services is very important and calls for a chief operating officer. Having said that, let me say the Administrator will continue to always have the final say and always the accountability for air traffic. This is not a dilution of responsibility; it is simply making an organization more efficient, with no dilution of responsibility for the Administrator. We have to make sure we can attract and maintain the highest caliber leadership in our system. Again, I make the comparison to IBM or Dell Computer, which are very large corporations. Public service does not pay very well. Senator Gorton and I believe it is very important that we have the highest caliber and that we retain the highest caliber leadership in running our system. That means including the possibility of a performance bonus for the chief operating officer and for the FAA Administrator at the discretion of the Secretary of Transportation. That is a very important point. Some people will say: Oh, that is going to be more salary. Again, I remind you that there are 50,000 people, 2 million passengers, and all of these airplanes going all over the country. I have a chart, which I will not hold up because I don't believe in displaying charts on the Senate floor. I never have, and I hope I never do. But if I did, I would show you a chart which is basically the entire United States colored in red. The red is made up of very fine, little red lines, each one representing a flight. At a specific hour of a specific day--if you pick, for example, 5 o'clock in the morning, I am not one who would eagerly seek the opportunity to fly at 5 o'clock in the morning, but there are many Americans who do--if you look even at the west coast, it is colored red. If you look at 8 o'clock in the morning, you might as well forget anything in the country other than the color red. I raise the suspicion that they must have left out West Virginia because we don't have a lot of flights at 5 o'clock or 8 o'clock in West Virginia. The point was made in clear logic that these are planes that are flying over the State of West Virginia and perhaps the State of Maine in the process. In any event, I believe in the idea, when you have a system that is complicated requiring that much technology, requiring that much efficiency, and requiring planning, that you get and you retain the best people possible. That means, in my judgment, and in Senator Gorton's judgment, the possibility of a performance bonus for the chief operating officer and the FAA Administrator. The bill also makes clear that the Administrator should use her full authority to make organizational changes to improve the efficiency of the system and the effectiveness of the agency. That is kind of a bland sentence, but within it is a lot of power. It is a little bit similar to HCFA. I have dealt now with I don't know how many HCFA Administrators. But they all say: Just give me four or five good lieutenants and I will be able to control this agency. They all failed because there are 4,000 health care experts in HCFA who look upon each HCFA Administrator as somebody who is going to be there for 2 years, and they are usually right; and be gone within 2 years, and they are usually right; that they will be there forever, and they are usually right. They know about health care. But they choose not to make decisions rapidly or efficiently. That means the Administrator and the chief operating officer, if we have one, need to have a lot more authority in a sense to shake up the system. Senator Gorton and I would encourage that because we think that efficiency within the system is tremendously important. We set deadlines. We set milestones. We can't tell you right now in this country how much it costs for an airplane to fly from Boston, MA, to Dallas, TX. Ask us that question. Ask the FAA that question. How much does it cost? What is the cost of that flight? Nobody can give you an answer. That is inexcusable. This is one of the things that has to be done. It is one of the things that the FAA desperately wants to be able to do. What does it cost to run the air traffic control system in order to allow that flight to take place? We need to know those answers so we can allocate these costs fairly among users. That is a very important principle. Not all airlines are the same. Not all airlines use the same approaches or have the same number of people or charge the same. There are differences in what they pay. Their obligations to the system, in terms of financial input, have to be based upon what their costs are. Therefore, we need to know what those costs are. With respect to air traffic modernization, the bill calls for a comprehensive review and design of our airspace on a nationwide basis. Are we using it effectively? Are there more creative ways of routing a plane safely? You can do that if you have new technology. They have the technology at Herndon, VA. But do they have it in all of the air traffic control centers across this country? The answer is no, they don't. Until they do, that is going to be hard. But Senator Gorton and I have an obligation to push, to push the Congress and to push the Senate to want to focus on these problems: one, to care about these problems; and, second, to do something about this. We have 29 million miles of national airspace. I don't know how many times that is around the world, but it is a lot. Twenty-nine million miles of airspace is an incredible amount. It is divided into more than 700 individually managed sectors. There are 25,000 of the 50,000 employees that I mentioned who use 575 facilities that run these individually managed sectors. And the air traffic control system manages 55,000 flights and almost 2 million passengers every day. That is an enormous management problem. In fact, it is quite a lot more difficult, I would think, than running Dell Computers or running IBM. Yes, they are international operations. I am talking about their national operations. There is so much more at stake. The life, the safety, the economy, and the convenience of passengers is what is at stake. There is so much more at stake in arranging for the planes to be flown safely and properly. Having said all of this, of course, I add on, as I always should, that the capacity is going to double in the next decade. We are looking at an ever increasing problem. The FAA has already begun to redesign the process. They are not sitting around. They are working hard. They have established a dedicated airspace redesign office. Thanks to Senator Lautenberg, they received $3 million last year to get started with the redesign work in the New York airspace. That in itself is a national service because it is far and away the most congested airspace in the Nation. Is $3 million going to do that even for the New York area? No, but again, it is a start. It is not the Big Bang theory. But $3 million is enough to get going. Once you start moving, then people start taking a little bit more notice. We need a nationwide approach to this problem--not just in New York but across the country--rather than doing it on a piecemeal basis, especially since segmented thinking is considered by many, in fact, to be a part of the problem; that we do things by chunks or segments of the country rather than thinking of the country as a whole and how we can best provide a safe air carrier service for people, for packages, for letters, and the rest of it. The amendment we have offered would do all of this. That makes me happy. It makes me feel that it is a very good amendment. We direct the FAA to engage in comprehensive nationwide space redesign. We insist that there be industry and stakeholder input. Stakeholder is not shareholder necessarily. Stakeholder means people who ride on these airplanes. And we give them the resources they need to complete the work in a timely fashion. To realize the full potential of an airspace redesign, we have to have all of the advanced air traffic control equipment in place. Of course, we don't. We are very slow in that today, partly because of the technology development and procurement problems the FAA needs to fix internally. We talk a lot with Jane Garvey about that. She is acutely aware of that and has been working to change that. It is partly because of the vagaries of Congress; that is, the Federal budget process. We are impossible. We have been through so many extensions of a couple of months. It is like we are going out of our way to drive the whole process of this planning and the FAA crazy. That is why Senator Gorton and I are so glad we have these 2 days, hopefully, to even discuss this. A month and a half ago I wouldn't have bet that we would even be able to take this up this year. And we are. That is a gift to the nation, I think. If we can't bring it up, then the FAA obviously cannot make budget changes. We are on our way. Our amendment puts in place what Senator Gorton referred to earlier, a new financing mechanism. This is a creative, good thing in this amendment. It is for more rapid purchase of sought-after air traffic control equipment. The amendment sets up a pilot program to facilitate public-private joint ventures for the purpose of buying air traffic control equipment. It is not for profit. It is the Air Traffic Modernization Association. It is a three-member executive panel representing the FAA, commercial carriers, and primary airports. A lot of airports are very aggressive. I suspect there are several in the State of Maine that want to get going and are being held up. Maybe they have a little bit set aside. Perhaps they want to use some of their passenger service fee. Maybe they want to take 25 cents of that and leverage it into a rather large purchase for some air traffic control equipment which, in their judgment, they need. This allows them to do that. Don't wait for the priority list to come to Bangor, ME, or Charleston, WV. If they have the gumption, they can save up or they can use part of the passenger service fee, say, 25 cents of it, and leverage it and buy modern equipment and jump ahead of the pack. That is what this is about. Obviously, the FAA will continue to oversee that process. This will not be just a creative exercise by a few happy souls. All projects would have to be part of the FAA's capital plan. There is a cap of $50 million in FAA funding per project. That is pretty good. Most won't use that much. Sponsoring airports can use a portion of their passenger facility charge to meet the commitment. I think that will be very important. I am sure the Senator from Washington remembers, I got in great trouble on this side of the aisle. I talked with Jane Garvey, Liddy Dole, and others. They said they spent 25 percent of their time as FAA Administrators working solely on concessionaire problems and negotiation problems at Dulles and National. If that was an exaggeration, give them 5 percent. That is when I broke away from our pack and said set up an independent, quasipublic-private authority and let National and Dulles go to the bond market; they will certainly get triple-A rating. They certainly did. We can see what happened to both airports. Dulles will have to do it all over again because they are so successful. That is what an airport needs to believe they can do. If an airline and its hub airport want new instrument landing equipment, six more precision runway monitors, and aren't on the FAA's list for that equipment or are still years away on the funding schedule, maybe they will decide to get together with the ATM Association on the proposal, the FAA will put up seed money and the airports will do the same. They go to the bond market, get financing for the whole project, and use 25 cents--the PFC charge--to pay for it over 5 or 10 years. That is a great idea. I am excited about this approach as I am sure is obvious. We have only heard positive feedback from all parties--the industry and the airport community. They say, given the change, they are ready to go if we pass the amendment. Finally, the Air Traffic Management Improvement Act also includes authorization up to $100 million to speed up purchases and fielding of modernization equipment and technologies. I am happy to note we have dropped that provision because of the agreement reached with the majority--thank you to the majority--to increase authorization for FAA equipment and facilities by $500 million annually. We are on the move if we pass this. Over time, we will have to spend even more of our Federal dollars on air traffic control and modernization effort. I know we will be considering some ideas for solving FAA's budgetary problems when we go to conference. I--and I suspect I differ with my friend and colleague across the aisle from me--am supportive of Congressman Shuster's idea of off- budget. I don't think we can mess around with this situation; it is fraught with danger, and catastrophe is around the corner if we are not willing to spend the money we need to spend. We did it with the highway trust fund. We can put up a firewall, do it off-budget. There are ways to do it. A person can go to some of the air traffic control facilities and see what they are doing, see the stress under which they are working. We have 2 million people in the air, and we want them to be safe. I am glad we are able to make a strong, tangible commitment to the needs of the system. I think these problems are all shared. We all bear some responsibility for them. We all need to step up to the plate to fix them. The FAA does a very commendable job with a very difficult task. They have a terrific safety record to show for it. I don't want to press their luck, ours, or the system's. The system, as it stands now, is not working as well as it could be or as it ought to be. We can't wait to do something about it. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside. Amendment No. 1899 (Purpose: To provide for designation of at least one general aviation airport from among the current or former military airports that are eligible for certain grant funds, and for other purposes)

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I fully agree with my colleague from Washington. In fact, I have a whole series of pages about various States, various airports, various Senators, and the problems they had-- and in one case may still have--with whom we worked out agreements. This was a very arduous process. An airport is a very large employer when one is talking about the number of planes that can fly in and fly out. Every flight, in fact, represents two slots, a landing and a takeoff. It was a very controversial subject. This is probably the most controversial subject, but we worked a long time to try to work this out. We did it, as the Senator indicated, with an expedited review process in certain places, we did it in good faith, we did it slowly, and we did it over a period of time. We did it, we thought, trying to accommodate as much as possible the needs of individual Senators who, quite naturally, take these things particularly seriously. The Presiding Officer and I wish we had problems of this sort, but for those who do, it is a real problem. We recognized that, and we tried to deal with it in a fair manner. First, I will not give the full explanation my colleague did, but I will say it is carefully crafted, it is based on compromise, and it balances both the questions of congestion and of noise. There are those who feel strongly about both or one or the other in various proportions. Obviously, all of them represent high-density airports, although it should be said there are a lot more than four high-density airports. Atlanta, for example, is neck and neck with O'Hare in terms of its density, but is not included in the high-density treatment. I thought the handling of Reagan National was good because we went from 48 slots to 24 slots; 12 outside the perimeter and 12 inside the perimeter. That is good for the Presiding Officer and the present speaker because that allows more entrants into National, and that is desirable. It also is a fact that this was in the original bill, and it was retained in the substitute. That speaks to something within the authorizing context. In other words, people on the Commerce Committee overwhelmingly believed this was a very important and fair treatment. We did not make the treatment of every airport exactly the same in terms of the phasing out of the high density rule because not every airport is the same. We did not do it as a collection of our own air genius or mathematical equations; we did it because the FAA advised us very carefully as to what we ought to do on that according to their best calculations. The idea was, instead of gradually phasing out the high density rule altogether, to, rather, establish some interim rules to allow small communities--this is a very important point--to allow small communities and to allow new entrants to get a head start on this process. If you come from rural America and if you believe in a competitive market system, that becomes extremely important. Small communities do get a head start to add flights and fill capacity in this compromise which has been worked out. I have explained the Reagan Airport situation. The amendment, again, specifically protects service to small communities--which is of interest to many of us--under slot exemptions that were previously granted by the Department of Transportation. It requires that airlines continue the service until 4 years after the lifting of the high density rule at O'Hare--until the year 2007-- and 2 years after the lifting of the high density rule at Kennedy and LaGuardia for that purpose. Understandably, some Members were very concerned. When we began to talk about this, they were very worried it would come off that the airlines, therefore, would have no incentive to keep any of their business in smaller communities or in smaller markets; that they could simply pick up their slots and take them elsewhere. This amendment prevents them from doing that. It prevents them from abandoning these markets unless, as Senator Gorton indicated, they can prove to the Department of Transportation--which will be under the majority of this body, which is rural or part rural in nature; a lot of pressure--that they are suffering, as they say, substantial losses on these routes. So that is a clear effort to protect service for small communities, and that is something which I value very much. As Senator Gorton also explained, this amendment expands the definition of a ``limited incumbent.'' These carriers are already serving one of the four high-density airports, but do so with only a very few number of flights. This was of particular value to many of our Midwestern colleagues. There are a whole series of them who, I think, are quite happy as a result of this. The new definition will give more low-fare, new-entrant carriers access to these major airports. Again, I go back to the philosophy of all of this that, after all, we do have 15, 18 major airports in the country, but fundamentally we are a hub-and-spoke system. And the Presiding Officer and the junior Senator from West Virginia come from States that are spokes; we are not hubs. We never will be. We depend upon carriers that are in the hubs coming out, as they compete in this most competitive of all businesses--in our market system--to compete for new passengers. So they, in classic fashion, have to increasingly come out into the rural areas to draw passengers into their hubs. There will be an amendment about the nature of these hubs to attract them, so they can put them into the bloodstream, so to speak, the flow stream of their business. In my opening statement, when I talked about the enormous increase in new regional jets which will be taking place in the next number of years, that is one of the reasons the number of these regional jets will be increasing--because they are being sent from hubs out to the smaller areas to pick up passengers, to bring them into the larger hub airports, and then going on to wherever they wish from there. One very important thing. I am not sure the Senator from Washington said this or not; he probably did, knowing him. There is an important caveat for any change in the high density rule. This is not just something the Congress has such power to decide that we just abrogate or pretend the FAA does not have ultimate understanding of what constitutes safety in a system. The FAA retains the ultimate authority for air traffic operations, and they have the ability to step in because of safety or delay. They can intervene. They can intervene when they think there is a problem or a crisis. And they can do so on a unilateral basis. In addition, I might add, both the General Accounting Office and a number of economists, over a lot of years, have pointed out that slot rules, in effect, act as a major barrier to airline competition. That new entry at four airports--there are a lot of people who cannot get into those airports because of the slot rule. Again, the FAA would have to maintain the sureness of safety, and the rest of it, but you want people to be able to get in and out of airports. As to new technology, if we would only make available the money, they have all kinds of new ways now of charting courses for airplanes, be they commercial or private, which allow a more efficient use of airspace, which we cannot now do because we do not have the technology. Each computer in all of these many centers across the country does not have the ability to differentiate the altitudes or whatever some of the other details are that allow the plotting of air courses. So there is room for more, and in not only the four high-density airports but also generally speaking. Then, finally, this amendment does require noise studies. Noise is a factor. Noise is not the only factor in life, but it is a factor. It gives priority to high-density airports. There is the allocation of money for those noise abatement studies. So I think it is a very good amendment. It certainly is a long- worked-at amendment. I urge my colleagues to join in the adoption of this amendment. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, for the Record, amendment No. 1899 was cleared by the majority. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I thank my distinguished colleague for those very generous comments. I feel no obligation to argue with him at this point. He and I have been on the floor many times before, sometimes successful, sometimes not. Today and tomorrow we hope to be more successful. Always I rely on the intelligence and the articulation of the good Senator from the State of Washington. We are dealing with a new bill and a substitute for it which will come up shortly. Ordinarily in these matters, one doesn't talk about either Senators or staff or anybody else until everything is over. However, I think it would actually set a good tone for this debate if I thanked a few of my colleagues upfront. One, it may put them in a better mood; two, it will discharge a duty which I believe I have. I have been very frustrated by this whole process because it has taken a long time and I don't like temporary extensions. We have had a history of short-term extensions. The FAA has suffered, the airports have suffered, my State has suffered, the Senator's State has suffered, a lot of it during the course of this past year. My frustration spilled over as far as the junior Senator from West Virginia is concerned a few weeks ago when I came to the Senate floor and poured out my frustrations about the whole troubled state of our air traffic control system and the potential impact on our national economy, as well as the impact on my State and a lot of other things which I characterize as being fairly scary in terms of delays and congestion on what I consider to be an already enormously overburdened system. I am frightened about the prospects for the future. What we will do today is by no means the end of what we must do in the future. Today I am feeling very good. It is very good to be on the floor. We are on the floor for a reason. We are on the floor introducing the Air Transportation Improvement Act of 1999, which we all know and love as the FAA and AIP reauthorization act. The chairman of the Commerce Committee, John McCain, and the ranking member, Fritz Hollings, have been working around the clock with Senator Gorton and myself--the latter two being on the Aviation Subcommittee-- to work out a number of long, lingering conflicts, some of which still linger but most of which do not with respect to this bill. The majority leader and the Democratic leader were both extremely helpful and were very personally involved, showing their strong commitment to aviation by finding time in a very busy fall schedule. I do not know how long it will last, but a potential 2 days is generous, and I respect and appreciate that. A whole host of other Senators have constituents who care enormously about this whole question from a variety of points of view--access to air service, lack of access to air service, noise, all kinds of other issues--and have been willing to roll up their sleeves and work very hard to find a compromise. I want to name some: Senator Schumer; the Iowa Senators, Harkin and Grassley; Senator Wyden from Oregon; the Virginia Senators, both Robb and Warner; the Illinois Senators, both Durbin and Fitzgerald. Everyone has had to give a little, and it hasn't been easy. I hope everyone has also gotten a little, and, in some cases, some have gotten quite a lot. First, I extend my thanks to my colleagues and to the leadership for putting the Senate in a situation for a fair debate. We have at least gone this far. There is a lot of work to do, but first things first. As we begin Senate consideration of the FAA reauthorization bill, I am optimistic we can proceed in good order. I think we can do this in a couple of days. I tend to think at a fundamental level the cooperation and hard work I have seen reflects a deep and abiding sense of responsibility on the part of my colleagues, which they can hardly ignore in the first place, for the continued safety and efficiency of our aviation system and the condition of our air traffic control system which is unknown to most but ought to be feared by all. We have a number of issues to debate here, some of which, as I indicated, are still in controversy. The vast majority--and I think my colleague will agree--have been fully worked out and have been agreed to on all sides. ``All sides'' become very important words. Not all, but a majority. Aviation, as my ranking chairman indicated, is a proven engine of economic growth in this country. People don't think of it that way. Similar to universities, sometimes people think of them in different ways. It is an enormous economic engine. Each day, 2 million people travel on U.S. commercial airlines and a quarter of million do the same thing on smaller, private planes that transport people for business. Sometimes they do it simply for the sheer pleasure of flying. Every day and night, U.S. airlines carry more than 10 million packages and overnight letters. Every day, more than 10 million Americans go to work in aviation-related businesses. Ten million Americans? Yes. That makes America among the largest manufacturing exporters of any enterprise. To the great credit of the aviation industry and the Federal Aviation Administration, projected growth for aviation is unparalleled. Within 10 years, U.S. airlines will be carrying more than 1 billion passengers each year; that is up more than 50 percent from the records that were carried last year. The number of aircraft in the air, on the ground, moving about, will increase by 50 percent in the next decade. That can make you happy; that can also make you nervous. The regional fleet, which is something I care about enormously, because that is the connection in the whole hub and spoke system, a connection which is very important, will grow by more than 40 percent. Worldwide, air cargo will more than triple. These are incredible figures, projections of which the FAA and the industry can and should be very proud. Of course, there is a catch. We have to be able to handle this air traffic, and we have to be able to handle it safely, in order to realize this growth. By most accounts at the FAA and at airports across the Nation, we are simply not ready to do this. In fact, we are having trouble staying on top of the system. With every year and every month that we allow ourselves to fall further behind in our modernization effort, there are times when one wonders will we ever catch up, will we ever understand what it means to put into place a full infrastructure for an air traffic control system so we can take this doubling and tripling I have talked about before. That is why, as Senator Gorton indicated, it is so critical we in Congress hold up our end of the bargain by making improvements where we can and provide a system with some kind of predictability. The FAA reauthorization bill is all about starting to chart a course for growth, with a focus on increasing efficiency, improving customer service, and facilitating competitive access, all the while staying focused on strengthening our strong safety record. This is a 4-year authorization bill. It will cost about $45 billion in total in aviation funding. That sounds like an enormous sum. It is, but it is not. It is because it is. It isn't because it will not do the job, but it will help us. It will get us started on the right path. Ours is an enormous and complex aviation system. People don't stop to think about it. They take it for granted. They did not take it for granted when there was enormous traffic congestion to get to the Redskin Stadium a couple of weeks ago, and they did take it for granted when there seemed to be none yesterday. I wasn't at either game so I have no idea. But people tend to take for granted things which they use frequently. That is not something we can afford to be doing in Congress. For now, let me note this $45 billion authorization includes roughly $10 billion for airports under the Airport Improvement Program, $24 billion for the FAA's nearly 50,000 employees and for air traffic control operations, and $10 billion for air traffic equipment as part of the whole modernization effort. Let me share some of the highlights of the bill and the agreed-upon committee substitute, which I believe Senator Gorton and I will want to introduce momentarily. In terms of changes in aviation law and policy and innovative new programs, the package includes some of the following: an important agreement worked out with the majority to authorize an increase of $500 million for the FAA's Air Traffic Control Modernization Program. We are grateful for every $50 million, $100 million, and $1 billion we can get our hands on. Mr. President, $500 million is an increase; it is more than it was, and we are glad. There is an emphasis on improving air service to something we call small communities, which I imagine would be of interest to the Presiding Officer. That increase will take various forms such as an increase in the minimum Airport Improvement Program entitlement from $500 million to $650 million annually, a new $80 million pilot project to assist small communities that are struggling to restore air service, and an immediate and, hopefully, lasting priority for new service opportunities at the four slot-controlled airports: O'Hare, LaGuardia, Kennedy, and Reagan National, and a ban on smoking on all international flights to and from the United States. Here, actually, I give special thanks to the tireless efforts of Senator Durbin. There is whistle-blower protection for airline and FAA employees so none will fear losing their jobs for pointing out safety violations or concerns that are pertinent. This is an item Senator Kerrey from Nebraska has been preaching on for quite a while. There is a series of specific safety improvements such as new runway incursion technologies and stronger enforcement of hazardous materials regulations, and a significant new agreement on noise and environmental issues arising from aircraft that fly over our National Parks. In one case, we have an airport in a National Park--only one, thank heavens. This reflects several years of very tough negotiations among Senator McCain, Senator Bryan, and others. In addition, through the amendment process, I know we will be considering, and hopefully taking action on, several other very important provisions. For example, Senator Gorton and I will offer a painstakingly negotiated agreement among all parties for an overhaul of the slot rules at the four high-density airports: Reagan National, Chicago O'Hare, New York Kennedy, and LaGuardia. Under this deal, the slot rules will be phased out over time--phased out over time--in New York and Chicago. This was a rather bold idea at the time, put forward, actually, by the Secretary of Transportation last spring. Most important, from my perspective, these changes offer us an opportunity to increase access to these key airports. Once again, I am thinking of the constituents of the State of the Presiding Officer, and that is the name of the game: Can you get into some of these larger airports? This will give an extra boost of service to small communities and to new entrant airlines. Several of us, further, will join together to offer an amendment to protect airline passenger rights--Senator Gorton and I and others will do that--to hold the airlines' feet to the fire on their promise to improve customer service and to reduce customer complaints. This last summer, I thought, was almost historic, not that it seemed to have enormous effect but it was a historic example of what happens when you get gridlock in the air. People were held up. It was all during the summer travel months. That period of time is going to keep growing as the congestion grows greater and greater. Another amendment Senator Gorton and I will offer will propose incremental FAA management reform--that is something we feel very strongly about--and an innovative financing piece for air traffic equipment. Finally, I expect we will see some amendments and debate related to airline competition. That will be controversial, the question of whether and how we should strengthen Federal competition laws and policies as they apply to the airline industry. In closing, obviously, there are other important provisions in this bill. I will not go through them in full. Suffice it to say, Senator Gorton and I believe this is a truly balanced package, an inclusive FAA and AIP reauthorization package. There has been a lot of consulting, a lot of negotiating--an enormous amount of negotiating. I think it is a good bill. I am glad to join my colleague, Senator Gorton, in offering the committee substitute today on behalf of ourselves, the chairman and ranking member, at the appropriate time. I look forward to the debate on it. I thank the Presiding Officer.

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

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I strongly agree with the words our Democratic leader has offered, and I congratulate him for mobilizing this effort, but it is a mobilization not so much of Democrats as it is of Senators in general. Hospitals and patients and skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies are not Republican or Democrat. The shortages, the closings, the health care denied is not Republican or Democrat. It has to do with the people of our States and of our country. This is a bipartisan matter. I know, without even having talked to but five or six of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, when they went back to their homes during the August recess and when they have been back since, this has been the subject with which we have all been, in a sense, lobbied in the best sense; that is, lobbied by our own constituents, by our own voters, by people who are patients, by people who have had these problems. It is right; we should be fixing this because Congress, in 1997, when we passed the Balanced Budget Act, made changes that were larger in Medicare than any in the history of the program, and we made mistakes. This is actually one of the reasons our colleagues on the other side of the aisle often criticize congressional action because we are trying to play doctor. We often try, but we often do not do it very well. In this case, we did not. We made mistakes. When we make a mistake, we are causing skilled working facilities, home health agencies, and hospitals to close; we are putting in jeopardy margins of profit, which have gone into the red already, of other hospitals, particularly rural hospitals. We have to correct it. There is nothing more self-evident to me than the need for this Congress to take up the BBA corrections and, in fact, do them on a bipartisan basis. We do not have very much time. There seems to be quite a lot of anxiousness to get out of here. That is not shared by the junior Senator from West Virginia. In that case, it puts more pressure on us to do it. We need a date. We need to do this. This is not makeup stuff. These are real problems. In my State of West Virginia, which is not large but our citizens are no less important than anybody else's, and to me they are more important, in the next 4 years our hospitals are going to face an almost $600 million cut in payment because of mistakes we made in the 1997 Budget Act. They did not make the mistakes. They have not been keeping their books incorrectly. They have not been trying to be inefficient. We made the mistakes. We made the mistakes in Congress, and it is up to us to correct them. Many critical public health services will be cut back. That has happened already. It will continue to happen. Home care agencies in my State expect there will be almost 5,000 less Medicare patients being admitted for their services than before. Eleven home health care providers in West Virginia have closed. That is not a lot, but that is a lot in West Virginia, and it is in a lot of places. We have 55 counties and 1.8 million people. Eleven home health agencies is a lot; 2,500 on a nationwide basis are closed. They are not thinking about closing but have closed because of mistakes we in Congress have made in making these enormous changes to Medicare. They have been forced to close down because the current payment system does not adequately reimburse them for what they have to do. CBO originally estimated home health reimbursement reductions would be $16 billion. It turned out the reduction was $47 billion. That was not the hospitals' fault; That was not the home health agencies' fault; that was our fault. We made that mistake. We have to correct that mistake. The $1,500 cap on therapy is having bad results on nursing home patients with Parkinson's disease, burns, and other things. We need to correct that because we made the mistakes. I will end by saying, I agree on teaching hospitals. We have three teaching hospitals in West Virginia. Whatever happens in general happens in a much worse way in rural States. That is by definition, that is by nature, whether it is hospitals, nursing homes, or anything else. That has always been the case. Rural hospitals have very little to fall back on because they do not have margins. They depend on Medicare more than those in larger and more urban States. These were unintended cuts we made, but we nevertheless made them. The mistake is ours. It is a bipartisan mistake. It came along with a very good bill, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Within it, there was some cancer, and the cancer was caused by us, and it is the mistakes we made which are causing havoc all over the health care world. We can change it easily and change it before we leave here, and surely we should. I yield the floor.