Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Yes. The term I use over and over again is that these are inspectors, not investigators. These are not detectives. This concept that inspectors will find a smoking gun is absurd. It is absurd. They will not because they are not looking for a smoking gun. It is not their mission to find a smoking gun. They are there, as the Senator from Arizona quoted our people at the Defense Department--Paul Wolfowitz--they are there to determine whether Saddam is telling us the truth in the information he has given us. Since he has not given us any information as to what he has done with his weapons of mass destruction, it is very difficult for them to determine whether he is telling the truth. So this whole concept, No. 1, that the burden of proof is on the United States of America or on the United Nations or on these weapons inspectors to find what Saddam has is false. And the expectation that there is some smoking gun we must show Members of the Senate, people in America, or people around the world, as some countries have indicated, is absurd on its face. Certainly, the countries that are involved in this action and have been involved in these negotiations at the United Nations know it. They know these inspectors are not there to find a smoking gun, are not there to find weapons of mass destruction. That is not what they are there to do. They happened to stumble onto 16 warheads that could use chemicals, that could contain chemical and biological weapons. They stumbled onto them. It just tells you how many of these things are probably lying around where even inspectors who are not looking for them can stumble onto them. So the basic point I am trying to make is nothing has fundamentally changed, except two things: No. 1, more of the same; more of the same; Saddam Hussein is not disarming and he is not cooperating, which he is required to do under the United Nations resolution. That has not changed. And the threat to the United States as a result has not changed. That was a threat when we debated this in September. It is a threat today. So those things have not changed. One thing has changed: We have begun, along with our coalition partners, to begin to deploy force in the region with the express purpose of giving Saddam every opportunity to understand the seriousness of our commitment. We should not at this time back down from that commitment. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM. Please.

Mr. SANTORUM. It seems to me what Senator Kennedy put forward is what many in the press have put forward, which is really a change of expectations and putting up, I would argue, the straw man; that is, it is our obligation to show Saddam is not in compliance by finding a weapon of mass destruction; the fact we haven't found one is somehow a breach on our part, or a problem; and a level of evidence we haven't been able to meet. Of course, just the opposite is true. As the Senator from Arizona just read, it is his obligation to prove he is in compliance, not our obligation to prove he is not in compliance.

Mr. SANTORUM. Another point that is being made is these inspectors are not finding anything, and that there is this undercurrent of expectation that it is their role to be detected or investigated; that they are over there to find the proverbial needle in the haystack; that they are there to be Sherlock Holmes when, of course, that is not their mission. Their mission there is not as detectives. They are inspectors. I use the example of someone who runs a gas station. Someone from the Bureau of Weights and Measures comes in and determines whether your scales are operating correctly. Are you running a legitimate business? You show them the record of what your pump is pumping out in gas, and they check it to make sure it is valid. That is what these inspectors are doing. If you are conducting illegal activities and siphoning off gas somewhere, they are not going to find that by checking whether your pump is working right. So that really is the case with these inspectors, is it not, that they are there to check as to what Saddam is telling us where his weapons of mass destruction went, if they actually went there, or were destroyed. Since he has not provided us any of that information, it is very hard for them to be able to find any smoking gun or deposit of weapons, when their job really isn't to do that; it is just to validate what he is telling them.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 26, submitted earlier today by Senators Nelson of Florida and Graham of Florida.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution and preamble be agreed to en bloc, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record at the appropriate place as if read.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. If there is no further business, I ask unanimous consent the Senate stand in recess under the previous order.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in recess until the hour of 8:30 p.m. this evening, to allow for the President's State of the Union address; further, I ask consent that immediately following the joint session, the Senate automatically stand in adjournment until 12 noon, Wednesday, January 29. I further ask consent that on Wednesday, following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there be a period of morning business until 4 p.m. with the time equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, with Senators limited to 10 minutes each, and the first hour under the control of the Democratic leader or his designee, and the second hour under the control of the Republican leader or his designee.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. For the information of all Senators, when the Senate convenes tomorrow, there is a period of morning business until 4 p.m. The Senate may consider any legislative or executive item that becomes available. In addition, the Senate will need to address a short-term continuing resolution this week, as well. Members, therefore, should expect the possibility of rollcall votes during tomorrow's session.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent the Senate stand in recess under the previous order.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator from Iowa. I take this opportunity today to keep the Senate updated as to the ``spendometer'' that is flying now at a very high rate of speed as a result of the last few amendments. We have been going through all the different amendments, and now they are at such a level I will not detail them all, but as of the last time I spoke with this chart, we were at $341 billion. That was yesterday at about this time. So within a 24-hour period, we have gone from $341 billion added to the deficit, with the inclusion of the amendments that have yet to be voted on--which are the Clinton, the Kennedy, the Cantwell, and the Bingaman amendments--with those votes we will be almost to the grand total of a half a trillion dollars in new spending being proposed over the next 10 years by Members on the other side of the aisle. These are additions to the baseline which CBO will score as an amount that will be added to with inflation, plus the interest costs of carrying this additional deficit. So when we hear the other side talk about how we cannot afford any relief for the taxpayer, we cannot afford any economic stimulus package because we will add to the deficit, this is money they want to add to bills that should have been passed 3 months ago. In a matter of a month or two, we will consider the 2004 budget. I suspect we will see amendments probably double or triple this amount to add to the 2004 budget on top of what they wanted to add to the 2003 budget. We are looking at an enormous expansion of Government that has been voted on almost unanimously by the Members on the other side of the aisle. Some of them, I agree, have been voted by us and I condemn us for the ones that we have voted for, but they have been rather small amounts of money. I argue that we are heading down a path of Government growth in spending that is simply not sustainable in this economy, and we need to focus on growing the economy, not growing Government. This is a fundamental difference between the two sides of the aisle. We are about growing the economy through putting more money out in the private sector. They are about growing the Government in the last week to the tune of almost a half trillion dollars in new spending over the next 10 years. That is fine. If they want to go out to the American public and say we think the answers to the economic woes this country is suffering are going to be met with more Government spending to the tune of a half trillion dollars over the next 10 years, go out and make the case, but do not make the case that we do not have money to help this economy grow because we are concerned about deficits. No one who proposes half a trillion dollars in new spending--and, by the way, votes for it almost unanimously--can make a legitimate claim that they are worried about deficits. One cannot be worried about deficits and vote unanimously, almost to a person on the other side, for almost half a trillion dollars in new spending over the next 10 years. It is inconsistent. It is not honest. Let's be consistent. We are either for more spending, we are for higher deficits, or we are for growth in the economy. That is the difference between the two parties. Let's face the facts. I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I wanted to know if the Senator from Pennsylvania happened to agree with my analysis.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Specter amendment. I understand, just listening to the Senator from Arizona, that this is a complex issue and there are a lot of carriers involved in bankruptcies or financial distress. For this carrier timing is the issue. They have to file this complete reorganization by the end of March. We have a situation where hearings and study by the Commerce Committee, Finance Committee, HELP Committee--whatever--are great for looking at the overall picture of pensions and what we are going to do with funding of distressed plans, but that doesn't solve the problem of US Airways. US Airways went about solving their own problem, and they did so by working in a very aggressive fashion with a labor union that is most involved, which is the pilots, and got enormous concessions. They got enormous concessions from the pilots union, in this case, to dramatically reduce their pension benefits in order for the airline to survive. This was actually a model of labor-management cooperation. They came to the administration believing--as Senator Specter has outlined, justifiably so--because their counsel, who is a former PBGC lawyer, suggested they had the discretion to do so--they could get this plan approved. That is because it was a model of how to restructure a pension plan to: No. 1, provide a reduction of expenses to allow the company to go forward and emerge from bankruptcy--and that is what this plan does; it reduces US Airways' expenses to allow them to emerge from bankruptcy; No. 2, provide the best possible compensation for a pilots union, for pilots who obviously have very good benefits, but they were willing to take a hit, but not as much as would be the case if the PBGC took over the plan. So it was a good compromise; and, No. 3--and this is something our colleagues should be concerned about--it doesn't cost the Federal Government any money. If the PBGC takes over the plan--if the plan is terminated and the PBGC takes over this plan, it is a half a billion dollars. That is what is going to be the cost if we don't agree to this amendment and don't give the administration the flexibility to adopt the US Airways-pilots union agreement. So we have here a situation where we would be encouraging positive cooperation between labor and management; saving the Federal Government money; and, according to the provisions we enacted here after 9/11, where airlines effectively were eligible for these loan guarantees but we wanted to be sure if these guarantees were given, the companies would do the things necessary to run a good financial operation, US Airways has dramatically reduced their costs at the direction of the board we set up to help stabilize the airlines. So US Airways has done everything we would want a company to do: Reduce costs to make them competitive; get agreements with their labor unions to reduce costs but at the same time not in a draconian way; and save the Federal Government money. The administration has come back and said: That may be all well and good, but we don't have the authority to do this and we just don't think it is good policy. But even if we did think it was good policy, we don't have the authority to do it. Fine. This amendment gives them the authority to do it. It doesn't force them to do it. So I say to my colleagues who suggest what we are doing here is opening Pandora's box by allowing other companies to come in under this USAir exemption, all this does is give them the flexibility to deal with this situation. It doesn't force them to adopt the US Airways proposal. So I think this is a prudent step. It is in response to the PBGC saying they do not have the authority. I am not sure--and I don't know whether Senator Specter has commented on this--whether they would even exercise that authority if this amendment is agreed to. But what it does is it gives them the opportunity, or hopefully the incentive, to relook at their decision based on the facts as to what would be in the best interests of the fund, the people who actually contribute to the pension system. So it is not taxpayers' dollars but it is employee contributions. So it would, in fact, be beneficial, I believe, saving money, encouraging labor-management cooperation, and encouraging companies, airlines in particular, to restructure in a way that is going to give them the chance to be profitable over the long term. That is a win-win-win for us. Hopefully, we will be successful in agreeing to Senator Specter's amendment.

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator. I want to make a point, too, that this is not a pension fund that has been underfunded for a long period of time. This isn't like a lot of the industries that have been in bad shape for years. I believe this pension fund is overfunded as recently as 2\1/2\ years ago. So this is not a chronically bad pension fund that all of a sudden is now coming into bankruptcy and asking for help. This is a fund that has been dramatically affected by two things: No. 1, obviously, September 11. One can make the argument that no other airline was affected more by 9/11 than US Airways. Why? Because they closed the most profitable place they operate--Reagan National Airport. Who did that? The Federal Government. They closed their most profitable center at Reagan National Airport for an extended period of time--the place that was the most effective with air travellers for US Airways. That is where the traveling fell off most dramatically. That had a huge impact on their ability to pay into their pension. No. 2, obviously the decline in the market. The ``perfect storm,'' if you will, hit US Airways and put them in a particularly bad situation. And for them to come to the PBGC and say: Look, this is not a long-term problem, this is a problem that happened which is a very unusual event. Give us an opportunity to work ourselves out of the hole.

Mr. SANTORUM. I just wanted to know if the Senator from Pennsylvania agrees.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, as a proud Pennsylvanian, I want to express my strong support for Governor Tom Ridge and to applaud the President for his nomination as the first Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. Unfortunately, scheduling prevented me from introducing Governor Ridge during the nomination hearing in the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. I would like to commend the Committee for its expedited consideration of this important nomination in order to facilitate the establishment of this critical new agency and the Senate for the quick consideration of his nomination today. Governor Ridge has served the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for many years and the Nation since shortly after the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001. This period of challenge has shown the greatness of our Nation in the immediate response of heroic Americans such as Todd Beamer and others who gave their lives flying over Pennsylvania in United Flight #93 and the many who have heeded the call to service and sacrifice since then. I would especially like to thank Governor Ridge today for heeding the President's call and agreeing to help in this new way to better prepare and protect our Nation from old and new threats in the midst of a changing world. Governor Ridge was born in Munhall, PA, just outside of Pittsburgh and grew up in Erie in northwestern Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harvard University and then attended my alma mater, Dickinson School of Law. He served in Vietnam as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army and was awarded the Bronze Star for Valor. He practiced law in Erie after completing his law degree and then served as assistant district attorney. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 where he served 6 terms. He was then elected for two terms as Governor of Pennsylvania where he served from 1995-2001. Governor Ridge has prepared well for this responsibility in his service to Pennsylvania and his service to President Bush as the homeland security advisor. We are fortunate that Tom has agreed to serve the country in this new way. I also want to congratulate his wife, Michele, and their two children. I strongly support his nomination and look forward to supporting him in his new responsibility as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and encourage all of my colleagues to support his confirmation.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 67

Mr. SANTORUM

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

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, during the last few session days, I have been rising to bring the Senate's attention to an issue which I think is very important. We have had a lot of discussion in this body about the concern for deficits. I share those concerns about how much money we are going to be borrowing in the future. One of the principal reasons for these discussions, particularly from Democratic Members, is their concern that because of these deficits going forward, we cannot give or--let me put it this way--let people in America keep more of their money and provide tax relief, as the President has proposed, to try to stimulate this economy. The President has proposed in the area of $600 billion in tax relief over the next 10 years to try to help put more money into the private sector to help create jobs, secure jobs, and grow this economy. I think that is a very worthy goal. Economic growth is vitally important for all of us in America. It creates job security. It creates new opportunities for advancement. It increases our standard of living. I believe everybody in this Chamber would agree that one of our priorities should be to create more jobs and create a stronger economy. The President has put forward a package which he believes will do that. One of the major criticisms against the package is that it adds too much to the deficit; that while maybe some of these ideas are good ideas--letting people keep more of their money, providing incentives for people to invest, businesses to invest in capital equipment, stopping the double taxation of dividends--all those may or may not be good ideas, depending on to whom you listen--even if they are good ideas, we cannot afford it, we simply do not have enough money; frankly, we are running these deficits, so we have to be fiscally responsible--I am talking about the Democratic conversations of late-- that we have to be fiscally responsible and not provide this tax relief. What I am going to do in the next few days as we continue to debate this year's appropriations bills, the 2003 appropriations bills--not next, but this year, since we did not get our job done last fall and pass the appropriations bills for this year--is I am going to detail all of the amendments the Democrats are offering and begin to add up the 10-year costs of these amendments. We have the first amendment offered by Senator Byrd on homeland security, which is $70 billion over the next 10 years. Senator Kennedy's amendment on education was $84 billion, which brought the total to $154 billion. Senators Hollings' and Murray's amendment on Amtrak, that was $5 billion over 10 years. Senator Harkin's amendment, $7 billion over 10 years, and then Senator Byrd's amendment, which was to basically strip away what was a mechanism to try to pay for some of these increases such as education and others, which was an across-the-board reduction, he eliminated the across-the- board reduction which basically put $154 billion on to the deficit over the next 10 years. Pending is Senator Dodd's amendment, which adds $21 billion over the next 10 years in the area of paying for education for people with disabilities. We have already had a majority of Democrats, in fact almost every single Democrat, vote for $320 billion in new spending and now we have another $21 billion on which to be voted. There are a whole host of other amendments which have to be filed by 6 p.m. today, which will add robustly, I suspect, to this total of $341 billion to date that have been offered by Members on the other side of the aisle who have come to this Chamber repeatedly and suggested that, we cannot provide tax relief to spur this economy to create jobs and to put more money out on to the private sector into taxpayers' pockets but we can afford almost half of what the President's tax reduction measure will cost. It is important to show where the priorities are of the respective parties. What we have suggested is that to help this economy get going we need to put more money in taxpayers' hands so we can create a stronger economy and a better quality of life for people in America. Many on the other side, not all, have said that is not acceptable. What is their alternative? Well, this appears to be their alternative: To grow the size and scope of Government in increasing amounts. We made a mistake. We made this chart too small. My guess is by the time we are done we are going to have a line of charts as to how much money we are going to add to the deficit at a time when we are hearing all this gnashing of teeth about the President's tax plan that is simply too expensive, that it adds too much to the deficit. Yet time after time Members on the other side are more than willing to add money to the deficit. As long as we spend it on Government programs, as long as we spend it on growing the size and scope of the Federal Government, they are willing to spend taxpayers' dollars and willing to put the deficit to even higher levels. To set the record straight, when we hear the debate on taxes, as we will later this year and we will hear Members coming to the Chamber saying we cannot afford this tax reduction, remember what they thought they could afford and that is a much bigger Federal Government, more tax dollars being spent in Washington, DC, and higher deficits as a result. I will be back after each series of amendments we vote on and we will be adding to this chart. I am hopeful this number of votes for these amendments will begin to change. Where we look at almost every single Democrat voting for these large increases in spending, I am hopeful that at some point there will be a recognition that it is important to control the growth of Government spending, it is important not to have big deficits in ever increasing amounts, and we will see some contraction in these numbers. Time will tell what will happen in the Senate over the next several days as we begin to debate more amendments offered by the other side of the aisle to add more money to the deficit which they decry as already too big in the first place. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I think all of us in the Senate would love to see equal opportunity for all students. One of the great advances we have made is to eliminate discrimination--formal discrimination--that we had in this country for a long time against people of color, but I do not believe the answer to that is by instituting something that, in fact, discriminates the other way. That is what the University of Michigan system does, to give someone, because of the color of their skin, 20 points toward the admission score and someone with a perfect SAT score--to me the values that the admission process should consider are where the person came from, the obstacles they had to overcome in their lives, their economic condition, and their family situation. There are many issues that are intangibles that should be considered in an admissions process. But when you compare this young girl from Michigan, who was the plaintiff in this case, who happens to be white and has overcome a lot in her life to reach the point where she could apply to the University of Michigan and potentially be accepted, and you may have someone who happens to be Hispanic or African American and may have come from a privileged background, went to the finest private schools, and for them to get an advantage over someone who scratched and clawed through a very difficult situation seems to be unfair. What the administration has done is tried to focus, as the President did at the University of Texas when he was Governor of Texas, on trying to provide opportunity for all without putting forward discriminatory impediments to people simply because of their gender, their ethnic background, or their race. To me, it is an opportunity-based system for people who have had a disadvantaged life and I believe is a healing balm on this very difficult undertone of racism that we have seen in this country. Madam President, I think the administration is moving in a positive direction, so I object.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, we have heard a lot of talk on the floor in the last few weeks about the deficits we are facing and about the irrational conduct of the President proposing reductions in taxes. I want to point out the exercise we are engaged in right now. As the Senator from Massachusetts said, we are talking about real money. It is real money. What is being proposed in these amendments is real money that will add real dollars to the deficit. I am going to start a process with every amendment we vote on. We are going to keep a running tally of how much money--over this period of time we are proposing amendments to add spending--we will add to the deficits over the next 10 years. The Byrd amendment, which got 45 Democratic votes, adds $5 billion for this year. People have to understand when you add $5 billion this year, it becomes part of the baseline, which is $5 billion not just this year but for 10 more years, plus inflation and the interest costs it takes to finance that deficit; that is $70 billion over 10 years. That $5 billion you voted for this year is $70 billion over 10 years. We don't know what the vote is yet on the Kennedy amendment, but it is $6 billion; over 10 years, it is $84 billion. So these two votes add up to $154 billion. And we are just starting, folks. It is $154 billion added to the deficit. So let's look at the folks who are crying about how we don't have enough money to let people keep some of it, but we certainly have enough to spend more of it. I am going to warn my colleagues that this is the starting of a, hopefully, short but presumably long process of adding the numbers of how much our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to add to the deficit; and when we reach about $600 billion--and I would not be surprised if we do--you will be at the amount the President wants to give back.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I am disappointed that we were not able to get unanimous consent. I certainly understand the position of my colleagues from Montana and Iowa. But I just want to reemphasize that the reason we sought to submit this extraordinary act is because of the timing of the judicial submission a week from now. A revenue bill is being generated in the House. As an old House Ways and Means Committee member, I was very jealous of that prerogative and wanted to make sure that we enforced it with regularity if the Senate got out of constitutional control. I thought it could act on these things unilaterally. But, again, I think there is a certain support on the Ways and Means Committee for dealing with this issue. The request of the Senator from Pennsylvania, hopefully, will not only be one communicated to the Finance Committee but also would be communicated to the Ways and Means Committee in the House to seriously look into this. I know many of my colleagues from Pennsylvania and other Congressmen from other states are going to be adversely affected--potentially affected--by what happens next Thursday. I hope a request will be made to the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee to take a very significant look at this. I hope they will be moved to act in a way that would be beneficial to this situation, and again other situations around the country of pensions failing. But the point I want to reiterate is if this legislation were passed there would be no cost to the Federal Government by picking up the pensions of the pilots and others in the union of US Airways. Without this legislation, the cost to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and, therefore, to the taxpayers of the United States would be about $3 billion. So this is a measure that will save $3 billion over a set number of years. That is not pocket change, even in Washington, DC. I think there has been an attempt to try to address this issue in a way that does not--as the Senator from Iowa said--create an incentive for companies not to fund their legal obligation. I don't think this narrow provision is an incentive for any other corporation to not do what is required of them under the pension laws. But what we have is an extraordinary case where union and management come together to dramatically reduce the benefits of the pilots. And I underscore the words ``dramatically reduce'' the benefits to the pilots. The pilots signed off on it. They have signed off on this as a way for the company to continue to operate. It will save the taxpayers money, and it will save these airlines and all of the employers--as well as the traveling public in the Northeast and throughout the eastern part of the United States. I think this is a narrow exception. I think this is a special circumstance. Whether we can effectually change something that would allow the kind of flexibility under very stringent rules--I would agree with the Senator from Iowa. It allows the flexibility of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to look at the unique circumstances of these petitions of companies and unions. I just remind everyone, this is not the management going in unilaterally saying: We are going to cut benefits and restructure the program. This is the union and the management saying: This is what we want to do. This is a very rare circumstance, indeed. So I do think we have unique circumstances. Again, I understand the precedent that this sets, but I am hopeful we can work out a change in the law that will give the PBGC the flexibility to look at these unique circumstances, and unique circumstances in the future with respect to other companies, to come up with a solution that is best for the taxpayer as well as best for the companies and unions involved in these very difficult times. Mr. President, with that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about an issue that is of acute importance to my State, the State of Pennsylvania, and, I argue, to the traveling public throughout the east coast, in particular. That is the situation of US Airways and the problem that US Airways is encountering in reorganizing the company and trying to get the government loan provided here by legislation enacted after September 11. The Air Transportation Stabilization Board has set forth criteria that US Airways must meet in order to secure that loan and continue to operate. They are under a relatively tight timeframe and have to go to court next Thursday, I believe, to get the reorganization plan approved. There are several issues out there, but the most important and major issue is the issue of the pension plan that US Airways has and the expense associated with that, and in particular, the pilots' plan. US Airways has been working now for a better part of a year to work with the union and within its management to find cost savings, money dictated by the Air Transportation Stabilization Board, and they have done an excellent job. I will say that the US Airways unions have done an outstanding job in working with management to try to get the company to be an efficient and lower cost airline to survive in these very difficult times in the airline industry. One of the most important aspects of the reorganization, as I mentioned before, was the rather significant pension liability and, in particular, because of the higher salaries of pilots, the pilot pension program. US Airways has been negotiating with the pilots now for quite some time, and within the last month or so came up with an agreement to restructure the plan--in fact, to terminate the plan and then restart the plan--with a different benefit structure and having the cost of those benefits amortized over a 30-year period. They went to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the government agency that oversees the pension plans and guarantees those plans, and asked for an approval to terminate and restart the plan with a 30-year amortization. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation informed the company and union they believed they had no legal authority. Any time you get two lawyers in a room you have five opinions; but in this case, some lawyers on both sides suggested there was, and some suggesting there was not, legal authority to terminate and restart. I will say, for the purpose of the taxpayers, had the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation decided to accept the US Airways pilots' union plan, there would have been no liability to the PBGC, and no cost associated with it. The airline would have terminated the plan but maintained all the liability and simply amortized that cost over a 30- year period. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation proposed in the alternative that they terminate the plan; PBGC take over the responsibility for that plan; and US Airways move forward without a pilot pension plan. Such a plan, which I think you could make the argument, would be to the financial benefit of US Airways and the management because they would be released of this rather significant, roughly $3 billion, obligation of paying pilot pensions. But, US Airways management, working together with their unions in a great spirit of cooperation, did not want to have their pilot pensions reduced in the area of 75 percent. That would be the result of a takeover by the PBGC. So they have pled with the PBGC to approve their plan which would result in, again, a drastic reduction in the benefits of the pilots, but not as draconian as the PBGC change. Having said all that, they have been back and forth and back and forth and we are now at a point where there does not seem to be any hope for an agreement. We have been working together, myself and Senator Specter from Pennsylvania. I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished Senator from North Carolina, Senator Dole, be added as a cosponsor to S. 119--the bill I will call up in a minute.