Richard Shelby

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, I rise today to introduce legislation to reform the board structure of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The legislation that I am introducing with my colleague from Alabama would create a corporate structure to oversee TVA. This legislation expands the board from the current three members to 14 members, requiring the President to appoint two members from each of the seven states in which TVA operates. In addition to expanding the board, our legislation creates the position of a Chief Executive Officer who will be responsible for daily management and operation decisions. Under this new structure, board members would serve on a part-time basis, receiving a stipend for their services and the CEO would become the only full-time, paid position. It is no secret that TVA has suffered financial turmoil in the past and is still trying to work its way out of substantial debt. In my view, restructuring and reform are overdue. The goal of this legislation is to provide the Authority with board members that have a direct interest in the well-being of TVA and its rate payers and to place at the helm a Chief Executive Officer to make the difficult business decisions that will guide TVA through the impending challenges of an evolving energy industry. TVA is a multi-billion dollar entity. However, it continues to operate under the same administrative structure it did when Congress created the Authority in 1933. Senator Sessions and I believe that it is time for that structure to change. It is time for the Tennessee Valley Authority to step into the 21st Century and out of the bureaucratic stronghold that has guided its decision making process for so long. We believe that this new board structure will equip TVA to meet the challenges of the future and better serve the people of Alabama and the other States in which it operates. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. I would say to the Senators from Colorado and Oklahoma that I am certainly aware of the actions of the states on this and I would agree that their views are of utmost importance in any final designation. I would share with the Senators that I am hesitant for the Congress to designate routes when the process among the States to determine the corridor's working toward conclusion.

Mr. SHELBY. I thank the Senator from Tennessee for raising their concerns and I also will work with my friends from Tennessee to address their concerns during conference.

Mr. SHELBY. Likewise, I am well aware of your support for the program, and I know how important it is to rural areas including the community of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. I will work with the Chair during the conference to address the concerns you have raised.

Mr. SHELBY. I would concur with the Chairman and would say that it is my intent as well to minimize or eliminate Congressional involvement in this issue at this time.

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, the Federal Aviation Administration operates a critical program of proficiency and developmental training for air traffic controllers. It has been demonstrated that this training reduces operational errors and makes the skies safer for the flying public. Over the past several years the Senate Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee has required that the Federal Aviation Administration spend its appropriated funds on the Air Traffic Instructional Services, or ATIS, program and not reprogram these funds to other accounts without approval of the subcommittee. This has worked well in the past and has insured proper expenditure of these funds. I hope this support for the ATIS program will continue in fiscal year 2002. Is it your understanding that the operational account of the FAA fully funds the budget request for the ATIS program? Do you agree that these funds are to be spent only on this account unless expressly approved by the Subcommittee?

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, I rise to add some clarification to the unanimous consent agreement which will allow the Senate to proceed to consideration of the Export Administration Act (S. 149) with 2 days of debate. In discussions with Senator Thompson, he related to me that he was working with leadership on both sides to form an agreement in which we would permit S. 149 to be considered on or after September 4th, but that myself and Senators Thompson, Kyl, Warner, and Helms would be guaranteed 2 days to present, debate and have votes on our national security related amendments. This agreement will give the Senate time to consider amendments that I believe will make this bill better for our national security. I look forward to a healthy debate and exchange of views.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a dear friend, John Clemson Duckworth, of Tuscaloosa, AL. Clemson Duckworth died this past Tuesday, July 24th, at the age of 94. Clemson was born in Tuscaloosa in 1907 and attended the University of Alabama. He joined the National Guard at the age of 18 and served as his unit's commander when they were activated in 1940 for World War II. Clemson served in several areas of the Pacific. He rose to the rank of full colonel, earned a Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit. He returned to Tuscaloosa after World War II to his job as a loan officer at First Federal Savings and Loan. He eventually became President and Chairman of the bank, as well as Chief Executive Officer before he retired in 1979 after 50 years of service. During his years of leadership at First Federal Savings and Loan, he encouraged home ownership among the city's residents and guided Tuscaloosa in the city's long-term planning. He served as the first head of the city planning commission. In his church, First United Methodist, Clemson served as Chairman of the Administrative Board and President of the Board of Trustees. He served on several committees of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church. At the University of Alabama, he served as an adjunct professor, teaching economics and insurance. He was active in a number of philanthropic and social organizations on campus. Clemson Duckworth definitely left a mark on the Tuscaloosa community. In addition to his service to the City Planning Commission, he was also active in the city's Rotary Club. He was a member of the Druid City Hospital Foundation Board and played an active role in many of its fund raising projects. He served as Chairman and President of the Community Chest Drive, President of the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama and the Junior Chamber of Commerce, and Director and Treasurer of the Building Fund of YMCA. For his lifetime of service to his country and community, Clemson Duckworth was honored as Tuscaloosa's Citizen of the Year. Clemson also found time to raise a family. He and his wife Susie raised a daughter, Virginia Duckworth Cade; and two sons, John Clemson Duckworth, Jr. and Joe Brown Duckworth. They were also blessed with seven grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren. Clemson Duckworth was a good friend, a patriarch of the Tuscaloosa community, a decorated veteran of World War II, and a much-beloved family man. He will be greatly missed by many.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, over the course of the past several days, we have heard several Senators explain what they believe the North American Free Trade Agreement does and does not do. I believe this debate would be better served by reviewing the agreement itself. Part Seven, Chapter Twenty, of NAFTA establishes the Free Trade Commission which shall resolve disputes that may arise regarding its interpretation or application. NAFTA also establishes a dispute settlement process in the event that the Free Trade Commission is unable to resolve a matter or if a third party brings forth a cause of action. Under NAFTA in these cases, the Commission ``shall establish an arbitral panel.'' Again, I am quoting from the agreement. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the North American Free Trade Agreement Part Seven: Administrative And Institutional Provision be printed in the Record.

Mr. SHELBY. The amendment offered by the Senator from Texas that we have been talking about proposes instead to grant to the President of the United States the sole and final authority to determine what violates NAFTA in regard to highway safety. As much as I respect the office of the President of the United States and particularly this President, the office of the President is not--and should not be--put in this position. In addition, it is unnecessary because the Constitution, as we all know, already gives the President the power to veto legislation. I believe it is a slippery slope to pursue the concept that the President of the United States, or any other administration official, should determine whether acts of Congress are consistent with treaty obligations or other laws. I put my faith in the Founding Fathers and their wisdom to separate judicial and executive functions. The Senator from Texas, my good friend, makes some interesting and novel arguments. I would hope that his enthusiasm for his interpretation of NAFTA would not overwhelm our collective support for the constitutional separation of the executive and judicial branches of Government. The Senator from Texas has argued on several occasions that the Murray-Shelby provision contains what he alleges are four violations of NAFTA. While I believe that we should allow the processes set forth in the NAFTA agreement that I quoted from to determine that, let me assure the Senator from Texas that if his amendment is adopted there is without question one violation of NAFTA--because his amendment clearly creates a new dispute resolution process within the office of the President that appears to be inconsistent--totally inconsistent--with NAFTA itself. Mr. President, we have talked about this issue. I think we know what is going on. At this point, I move to table the Gramm amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SHELBY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 1180 to Amendment No. 1030 (Purpose: To require that Mexican nationals be treated the same as Canadian nationals under provisions of the Act)

Mr. SHELBY. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. SHELBY

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

Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, I just want to make a few points before we vote on cloture. It is unfortunate that we are even at this point, but if cloture is the only way to move forward on the Transportation appropriations bill, then I urge my colleagues to support cloture. This isn't a partisan issue--there is no such thing as Republican or Democrat roads. When the Transportation bill finally passes, I suspect that we will have all but a handful of Senators supporting the final bill. You have to ask yourself who the winners and losers are in the situation we find ourselves today. I think it is hard to pick the winners, but clearly the loser in this situation is the administration. The amount of time that we have had to spend on this bill to this point--and that we will have to spend to complete action on it--pushes the appropriations process into an area that is dangerous for the administration. The worst thing that can happen for the administration and budget hawks--I have been accused of being a budget hawk and a budget spender. I do not know how you do both--is to have appropriations bills back up against the end of the fiscal year. Unfortunately, the situation in which we find ourselves in this chamber today makes it much more likely that the President will be facing an omnibus appropriations bill. If we have learned any lesson from the past few years, it is this: spending will increase in an omnibus bill. I know this President is committed to limiting the growth in government spending but, unfortunately, the Senate is making his job harder by failing to expeditiously move these spending measures. Yesterday, the Department of Transportation, the Office of Management and Budget, and the White House all told me that Senators Gramm and McCain do not speak on behalf of the President--that the President speaks for himself. So even if we could come to agreement on the Mexican truck safety provisions, we have no assurance that we have addressed the concerns that the President has with this measure. The simple solution is to move this issue to conference. Although, I respect the rights accorded every Member of this body. I fail to understand why a small faction in the Senate to desire to tie up the Senate floor until this bill completely reflects their views. The Senator from Washington and I have spent a great deal of time trying to understand and work with those Senators and their staffs to resolve these issues in the finest traditions of the Senate. In fact, I remained hopeful that we could come to closure on a package that we could all support until shortly before noon this morning. Unfortunately, I believe we are at an impasse and it is time to let the Senate work its will. I urge my colleagues to vote for cloture. I yield the floor.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I move to table the Gramm-McCain amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

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

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

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, we have heard a lot about this debate in the last few days, what it is about and what it is not about. I believe the Senator from Texas, Mr. Gramm, my good friend, continues to define this issue as one about identical treatment of Mexican trucks, U.S. trucks, and Canadian trucks. Unfortunately, for my good friend from Texas, this is not about creating a rubber-stamp approach to trucks entering our country and driving on our highways. This is about providing an approach tailored to the out-of-service rates we see in Mexican trucks. Unfortunately, for the position put forth by my good friends from Texas and Arizona, under NAFTA, we have the right and we have the obligation to provide for safety on our highways in the United States and to regulate Mexican trucks entering this country as long as such regulations are ``no greater than necessary for legitimate regulatory reasons such as safety.'' This language came from the arbitration panel. The Murray-Shelby provision is clearly within the legitimate safety interests that we have an obligation to regulate in this country. Also, unfortunately, I believe, for my colleague from Texas, his argument that the Murray-Shelby provision violates NAFTA, violations of NAFTA are not judged by the Senate or even the administration. Alleged violations of NAFTA are ruled on by an arbitration panel. That is part of the agreement. His contention that NAFTA would be violated does not make it so. If you want to talk about discrimination, let's talk about discrimination against the American driver. Nothing in NAFTA should be misread to require that we give Mexican drivers a pass on safety standards while we strip our drivers of their licenses for infractions that may be honored in Mexico or which the Senator's amendment tells us that we should ignore because to do otherwise would violate a treaty that I never supported. This is about enforcing the safety regulations of the United States of America. That is within the purview of NAFTA, as it would be for the Mexican Government to do likewise. At the proper time, I will move to table the Gramm-McCain amendment.

Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of our time.

Mr. SHELBY. That is right. I have no objection.

Mr. SHELBY

Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, I know that we have and will hear a great deal about Mexican trucks during the consideration of the Transportation appropriations bill, and much of the information will seem to be inconsistent or contradictory. In the interests of a meaningful and productive discussion of the issue, I would like to summarize what we do know about Mexican trucks. According to the Department of Transportation inspector general, during Fiscal Year 2000, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reports show that Federal and State inspectors performed 46,144 inspections on Mexican trucks at the border and within the commercial zones. For those inspected, the out-of-service rate declined from 44 percent in fiscal year 1997 to 36 percent in fiscal year 2000. By comparison, United States trucks' out-of- service rate for fiscal year 2000 was 24 percent. Clearly, the data we do have indicates that the out-of-service rate for Mexican trucks in 50 percent higher than our own domestic truck fleet. Accordingly, we need to do more to inspect trucks entering the United States at the Mexican border. The President's budget request and the committee reported Transportation appropriations bill does do more: the President's budget requested $88 million for inspectors and new border inspection facilities and the committee reported bill provides a minimum of $103 million for inspectors, safety grants to states, and new border facilities--quite an increase. In the near term, developing an inspection capability that includes providing inspectors and inspection facilities at the border crossings is central to ensuring compliance with United States safety regulations. Unfortunately, those capabilities, necessary regulations, forms and facilities are not yet in place to provide an inspection and enforcement regime that can assure Americans that Mexican trucks entering the United States, including the commercial zone, can match the out-of-service rates of the United States trucking fleet, much less the Canadian trucks operating in the United States. No one should believe that Mexican trucks are inherently any better or any worse than trucks from any other country--the United States or Canada. But unless a Mexican inspection regime is in place in that country that can give Americans the confidence that trucks from Mexico are statistically as safe as trucks operating in this country, we must provide an inspection and regulatory system that insures that trucks entering from Mexico meet a minimum level of fitness to operate on our highways. There has been a clamor that somehow providing an inspection and regulatory regime for Mexican trucks entering the United States violates NAFTA. As a Senator who did not support NAFTA, I do not believe that NAFTA should dictate what the United States Congress can and cannot do regarding the safety of vehicles operating on our highways. In fact, NAFTA itself provides that motor carriers entering a NAFTA country must comply with the safety and operating regulations of that country. Accordingly, requiring that Mexican truck drivers have a valid commercial driver's license or that Mexican-domiciled trucks are safe is clearly within the spirit and the letter of NAFTA. The NAFTA arbitration panel held: The U.S. authorities are responsible for the safe operations of trucks within U.S. territory, whether ownership is United States, Canadian, or Mexican. It is the duty, I believe, of the U.S. Congress to provide the policy guidance for those U.S. authorities. The committee-reported bill takes the appropriate steps to provide that policy guidance. Let me briefly describe the Murray-Shelby language that is in the committee-reported bill and the amendment to that language currently before the Senate. In addition to the minimum of $103 million for inspectors, safety grants to States, and new border facilities, under the committee- reported bill: We require the Department of Transportation to only allow Mexican trucks to cross the border at inspection facilities where inspectors are present and on duty; Further, we require the Department of Transportation to allow the full opening of the border only--yes, only--when the inspector general certifies that all of the 80 new inspectors provided under the committee funding recommendation are fully trained as safety specialists capable of conducting compliance reviews; Further, we require the Department of Transportation to perform a full safety audit of each Mexican trucking firm before any conditional operating certificate is granted and then to perform a full followup compliance review again within 18 months before granting a permanent operating certificate; Further, we require that all safety audits of Mexican trucking firms take place on-site at each firm's facilities; We prohibit the full opening of the border until the inspector general certifies that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has implemented a policy to ensure compliance on the part of Mexican truckers with pertinent hours-of-service rules; Further, we prohibit the full opening of the border until the Inspector General certifies that the information infrastructure of the Mexican authorities is sufficiently accurate, accessible, and integrated with that of U.S. law enforcement authorities to permit the verification of the status and validity of licenses, vehicle registration, operating authority, and insurance of Mexican-domiciled motor carriers while operating in the United States; Further, we prohibit the full opening of the border until the Department of Transportation requires checks of Mexican-domiciled trucks by federally funded inspectors for violations of applicable Federal regulations; Further, we prohibit the full opening of the border until the inspector general certifies that there is adequate capacity to conduct a sufficient number of truck inspections to maintain safety; Further, we prohibit the full opening of the border until the Department of Transportation equips all Mexican border crossings with weigh-in-motion systems as well as fixed scales for enforcement action; Further, we prohibit the full opening of the border until the inspector general certifies that there is an accessible database containing sufficiently comprehensive data to allow for safety performance monitoring of all Mexican drivers entering the United States; and We prohibit the full opening of the border until the inspector general certifies that the Department of Transportation has published certain overdue regulations relating to motor carrier safety. In addition, the pending Murray-Shelby perfecting amendment improves the inspection requirement in the Mexican truck provisions in the committee-reported bill to require the inspection of all Mexican trucks that do not display a current Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance-- CVSA--inspection decal--and requires renewal of those decals every 90 days. This is the so-called California standard, and adding it to the underlying inspection and enforcement regime included in the committee- reported bill, we believe, improves the overall inspection process. According to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, current data and information on Mexican companies, who intend to travel internationally from Mexico to the United States, is quite limited. This is because: First, there have been few safety regulatory requirements placed on the industry until very recently; Second, there are a limited number of personnel trained and continually performing oversight functions; and Third, the information infrastructure has not been in place to capture and record the results of the current limited oversight being performed by the Mexican Government. Given the shortcomings in the inspection and regulatory regime for Mexican trucks and the immediacy of the Mexican truck issue, the Murray-Shelby approach is one way to move this issue forward while balancing the need to foster safety on our highways without closing the border to Mexican trucks. While this is an emotional issue for many, the Murray-Shelby approach is a dispassionate treatment of the core issues related to inspection, border and information infrastructure investment, and providing a rational playing field for international trucking activities. I stand ready, with the Senator from Washington, to work with interested Members and the administration to move this legislation to conference. In conference, we will continue to work with all interested parties to make sure that the requisite investments and safety protections are in place to further the Nation's interests in a safe, economically viable, and fair international truck inspection system. Madam President, I yield the floor.

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