[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 24 (Tuesday, March 8, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, I believe it was a year ago last January 
when we had on the floor of the Senate a bill to create a commission to 
study the state of the airline industry in the United States, and the 
aircraft manufacturing industry.
  During that debate I brought to the floor of the Senate boxes of 
existing reports on the subject of the airline industry and the 
aircraft manufacturing industry. During my speech, I was standing at 
this desk, and I took out volume after volume of existing reports, all 
since the mid-1980's, from various parts of the Federal Government on 
the question of airlines and aircraft. Some of them were DOT studies, 
some of them were GAO studies, and some of them were committee reports 
from various committees in Congress.
  It was a stack of reports that reached from this desk just about to 
my nose. So at the end of the speech it was as though Kilroy were 
making the speech.
  The point that I was trying to make was that we have had report after 
report after report after report on the condition of the airline 
industry and on the condition of the aircraft manufacturing industry 
and that nothing has come of those reports. The problem has not been 
lack of analysis; the problem has been lack of action. All we do is 
have reports. All we do is have commissions. All we do is make studies. 
So I attempted to make the point during that debate that this Airline 
Commission will just be yet another study and nothing will come of it, 
that it will take more time, and that the time has come for action.
  That argument got nowhere, and we proceeded to set up the Commission 
that was headed by former Governor Baliles of Virginia. That Commission 
dutifully met and had a report, and it issued that report. As I recall, 
it was sometime last summer when the report was issued. After that 
report was issued, exactly what I predicted came to pass. I predicted 
that when the report was issued, the administration would then say that 
it had to study the study, and that is precisely what the 
administration did.
  So the administration began studying the study. And having studied 
the study, the administration said with respect to the product 
liability issue on general aviation--the question that is now before us 
in the form of the Kassebaum amendment--the administration said, well, 
this issue should now be referred to the Justice Department for study. 
So, in other words, we had a Commission which was established a year 
ago January for the purpose of studying these major parts of our 
economy--airlines and aircraft--and the Commission recommended that we 
move ahead with product liability legislation, statute of repose 
legislation, for the manufacture of general aviation aircraft. And then 
that Commission's report, or study, was studied, and the administration 
has proposed a study.
  Some people have commented on deadlock in Government. This is not 
just deadlock, because something is happening; there is some motion. At 
least papers are flying around. It is more like wheelspinning, I think, 
than deadlock. It is just studying for the sake of studies.
  Now we have an amendment before us, and I believe that on a couple of 
past occasions this same issue has been before the Judiciary Committee. 
But now we are told that this matter should be before more than the 
Senate Commerce Committee; it should be referred to the Judiciary 
Committee. And this morning, the Senator from Alabama informed us that 
perhaps it should not only be before the Judiciary Committee, it should 
be before the Armed Services Committee, because there was said to be 
national defense implications.
  So it could be that we have had a matter that has been studied by the 
Airline Commission, studied by the administration, and will be studied 
by the Justice Department, and has been studied by the Commerce 
Committee, and will be studied by the Judiciary Committee, and studied 
further by the Armed Services Committee. There could be no end at all 
to the studies. So the lawyers that my chairman referred to today, 
during the lunches at all the restaurants they try, would have a lot to 
meet about. They could meet about who was going to conduct the next 
study of the same problem.
  Mr. President, it seems to me that it is reasonable to assume that at 
some point in time, we in Government actually act, just every now and 
then. I am not asking us to do anything that would be viewed as 
precipitous, or going off halfcocked; just every now and then, after a 
few years of studying a subject, to actually do something.
  Senator Kassebaum has offered an amendment to do something. I think 
that what she has asked us to do is very reasonable--a 15-year statute 
of repose. She has made a good argument for doing that. Shipments of 
new light-piston engine aircraft have declined from 17,000 in 1978 to 
555 last year. The head of one company--Beechcraft, I believe, 
manufactures these planes--says that if we act and if this statute of 
repose problem is solved, 25,000 new jobs will be created. Those who 
argue for S. 4 say that it makes our economy more competitive. I do 
believe that it is germane to this legislation to try to make the 
economy more competitive by creating 25,000 additional jobs in the 
aircraft manufacturing industry, general aviation aircraft. It was an 
industry that has been in decline, and if a Commission appointed by the 
President has recommended how to fix the industry, I believe we should 
fix it.
  So I understand the need to study things. But it really does get down 
to a point where the studies reach the state of being ridiculous, not 
to mention redundant. We have long passed that point.
  I compliment Senator Kassebaum for offering the amendment. I 
especially want to pay my respects to Senator McCain, who really made 
an excellent speech and had some very good charts explaining the 
situation with respect to general aviation aircraft. Here is a sector 
of our economy that could be fixed, and I believe we should fix it.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hollings] 
is recognized.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I would like to respond to my 
distinguished colleague relative to the Airline Commission report, and 
his call to get something done. Right to the point, there was in the 
morning news mention of a proposal to create a private entity, a 
special commission. Just get rid of the Government in this.
  In essence, if you can get that private commission, what you really 
can do is spend more money. If you think that politicians can spend, 
you ought to go to the private sector. I have worked with them.
  I will never forget the role I had as Governor. We did not have those 
automatic signature machines back then, so I would spend Saturday 
mornings on the State bonds that we issued, whether for highways, 
colleges, universities, the public buildings, and so on.
  I know the private lawyer group plus the aircraft lobby that made up 
this commission. Sure enough, one of the big recommendations, that 
incidentally they have accepted, is to create a private group empowered 
to issue bonds and spend more money.
  That is repugnant to this Senator, who has been trying to pay the 
bill with spending freezes, with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings and, now, with a 
value-added tax to pay for health care. I have had a bill on file since 
January of last year, for a value-added tax to pay for health care, the 
deficit, and the debt.
  I will never forget when the distinguished leader made such a good 
talk. I was voting on the other side. I did not want to disturb him. He 
said that none of those voting for the balanced budget amendment had 
proposed a way to pay for it. There is at least one exception, I can 
assure you, because I have voted and will continue to vote for spending 
cuts. I will vote against new initiatives such as the Community Service 
Program. And I will also champion new taxes because we are into that 
particular financial fix in this country.
  You need to cut spending. You need to withhold otherwise well-
considered programs but programs not needed at this time.
  I helped start the Peace Corps--and we can go into that record--but a 
domestic Peace Corps. I will never forget. I regretted having to vote 
against President Clinton's Community Service Program. But the White 
House gentleman called me and with persuasion said, ``Well, Senator, 
now we've got 2,000 people volunteering in this particular program.''
  This was during the terrible Midwest floods, so I said, ``Son, you 
got 2 million volunteering not in your program.''
  I know from Hurricane Hugo in my own backyard that volunteers came 
from 38 different States, all down there to South Carolina to help us 
after Hugo.
  Americans similarly volunteered when they had the earthquake out 
there in Oakland, after Hurricane Andrew, after the Los Angeles 
earthquake most recently. After Hurricane Andrew, South Carolinians 
were the first on the scene with the police force from my Charleston 
area. We did not need a special program to volunteer. The people of 
America know all about voluntarism.
  We have to withhold programs that are popular but unaffordable. They 
never ask that in a poll ``Do you want to pay for it?'' They just ask 
whether you are for this or that. You can get a majority vote. Of 
course, in a poll you will never find the word ``taxes'' because the 
Reagan-Bush crowd made tax a poison word in politics.
  That is finding its way down to my local level, which I regret. I 
find now that they are trying to cut the revenues, and when you ask how 
are they going to compensate for it down in South Carolina, they say 
growth, growth, growth--the same disease we had in 1981 and 1982 with 
Kemp-Roth. I can go back to where Senator Dole even opposed that 
initially, and then came out leading it, calling it Reaganomics, and 
growth, growth. What grew, the growth we had and continue to have, is 
in the deficit, the debt, and the interest costs on that national debt.
  I am ready to vote at any time, because I want to move this bill 
forward on those things related in the bill and not adopt every little 
nuance and interest that people have. General aviation does not even 
belong on this particular technology bill.
  A more relevant issue is the abuse of the highway and airport trust 
funds. Moneys from these trust funds are allocated to the deficit and 
debt and not to the highways and airports of America.
  If I bring the figures up to date, I would say that we might get 
about $19 billion from the Federal highway tax and we spend about $12 
billion on the highways and the other $7 billion we spend on the 
deficit and the debt.
  Similarly, with the airport and airways improvement fund. We spend 
less than $2 billion a year of what we need. I asked the FAA 
Administrator, after attesting to that fact. I said, ``Give me your 
program and I will be glad to try, and we will get the money and let us 
go with it.''
  The White House never would let the FAA Administrator do it. But if 
you can at the White House now appoint a separate commission, you 
cannot only continue to spend the moneys but then you can go--now it 
becomes clear--you can issue bonds, you can really spend way more money 
than you ever spent before.
  I held up out here the National Airport and Dulles that particular 
Commission for 4 years running because what we needed at the time was 
$250 million. Instead, with the Commission that we got, I had to 
finally yield because nothing was going to be done. They are going to 
spend anywhere from $750 million to $850 million issuing bonds.
  So there is one thing to do, something that they recommended that I 
hope I can block because we do have an FAA Administrator. He is going 
into the records now and finding out the tremendous waste in the 
contracts that have been given out over there over the years during the 
past administration. He is cleaning up those contracts, and if we can 
take the tax revenues that the air travelers are being charged in air 
travel each day and allocate them to the airport airways and 
improvement, we do not need a commission and we can get the program. It 
is well conceived. But understand, these commissions do not give any 
sanctity because the private crowd they say, well, nothing is getting 
done. When we get it away from the Congress, we can issue bonds. When 
we issue bonds we can spend more money. That is exactly what has 
happened.
  Another finding that they failed to make was that the problem was 
deregulation. Everyone knows deregulation is the culprit. The fetish 
and fever in this Congress has been for several years now 
competitiveness, competitiveness; competition, competition. You do not 
invent competition on the floor of the Senate or the House. You have it 
out there where you want to compete. I can tell you that right now.
  And that was proved by the deregulation of airlines in America. Once 
we deregulated, yes, competition went in for the long hauls, and the 
short hauls and the connector routes were totally abandoned or priced 
out of the question.
  And so it is that when I came here almost 27 years ago, I had three 
direct flights from my hometown Charleston to Washington National. It 
was $34 at that time, so it was $68, round trip.
  I get a Government rate, but my wife, in order to travel coach class 
from Washington, DC, to Charleston, SC, and back, pays $698. Usually, 
instead, we get one flight coming up, rather than three flights, so 
usually we have to go through Charlotte. Maybe I ought to run for mayor 
of Charlotte, because I am in Charlotte more than the people down 
there, just sitting around waiting making that particular connection.
  My point is, the long hauls pay the money and that is where the 
competition went. Yes, you can fly from here to Frankfurt, Germany, and 
back for $279. We will find you the ticket. We got hold of one of them 
and I kept it on my desk to show how you could do it for the long 
hauls.
  But what really occurred, then, was 85 percent of America--small- and 
medium-sized communities--was subsidizing and financing the long hauls. 
Along with that long-haul competition went everything that you could 
think of, from movies, to chances for a bottle of champagne, to bigger 
and better meals, to bigger and newer equipment that they started 
ordering, and they all thought they had a wonderful idea. We are going 
to put all the new equipment in, and we have the clean plane and all 
the different services and the prizes you can win and the contests and 
the free flights that you can win, and they all just went overboard. We 
looked around, and the airlines are broke.
  Do you know what, Mr. President? The regulated have taken over the 
deregulated. KLM is financing Northwest. British Air is financing U.S. 
Air. Here comes the regulated airlines out of Europe--this is meeting 
yourself coming around the corner now, and still you get 50 different 
commissions in Washington.
  They do not want to speak the truth and have any hearings on really 
what is happening. But, they are trying their best to recover with the 
financing of the regulated. They went right back to where we were 
regulated. It was a wonderful situation. We had the local communities 
financing and building the air fields.
  I know, I was a lawyer at that particular time. We would make 
appearances and help the communities get the service. So once we had 
the facilities built by the local community, we then went to an airline 
that was willing to provide the service. And on the basis of public 
convenience and necessity, on the basis of the public interest--not 
competition, competition, competition--on the basis of public 
convenience and necessity, we would come to the Civil Aeronautics Board 
and prove our case and say, ``Here are the facilities. Here is the 
airline. Here are the services they are willing to provide for us.''
  That is how air travel developed in America. Generally speaking, the 
banks and insurance companies owned the equipment and good operators 
operated the thing in a very competitive way. We had hearings. You had 
competitive prices. They were all solvent, they were all strong, until 
the disease and virus started here up on the floor of the National 
Congress that somehow they were not competitive. If we could get 
competition into it instead of public convenience and necessity, we 
really could let those market forces and venture capitalists come in.
  Now no venture capitalist wants to invest in the blooming thing and 
they are going to employees, saying, ``Please, if you want to save your 
job, why don't you put up some money? Go to your little piggy banks, 
employees, and put up your money, because we have done it. We have 
cleaned their clock with so-called venture capitalists and market 
forces.''
  Now why did they not recommend this and why does the White House? 
Nothing happened because it should not happen. They did not have at 
this particular commission any testimony whatsoever from consumers. 
They had no testimony from those who handled or are involved in 
aircraft accidents.
  They had the aircraft people there who were writing out their ticket. 
Of course, they wrote down this thing because, yes, in 1978, what was 
it, 17,000 planes. The 17,000 planes are still around. With prosperity 
and the way they built them, thank heavens, they are still here and 
they are all ready to fly. We just do not have the need.
  Air travel has gone down with the recession. It is coming back now. 
It is back up from the 1993 figure given by the distinguished Senator 
from Missouri over 1992. We have given the facts on how they are all 
coming back, Beechcraft and Cessna and all the rest of them.
  But that is not to say that we here are trying our best to produce 
airplanes. I think our primary responsibility--salus populi suprema 
lex--the safety of the people is the supreme law. That is old common 
law from Roman days.
  Yes, we have made it safe with product liability, and product 
liability has worked. We have put in the facts and figures from the 
National Transportation Safety Board how they finished in accidents and 
got greater safety and greater confidence.
  Now we are creating that and we have airlines that are trying to 
recover. Some have got the employees to come in. Like I say, some 
others have got the regulated Europeans financially to save them.
  The one in my back yard is on the front page of the business section 
this morning, trying to regroup before British Air puts its money in. 
It was going to put in millions and millions more. They are holding up 
because my particular airline that serves my backyard did not retrench 
with respect to the employees. They made a representation, as I 
understand it, not to have any discharge or what they call downsizing, 
layoffs.
  Downsizing is the polite word for firing the poor folks. But that is 
what is going on. Hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of 
jobs. They are having to downsize on account of the monkeyshines of the 
National Government, namely deregulation.
  That is what wrecked the airlines. I have been here. I have seen it. 
I have worked with the airlines. I have helped represent them. I have 
represented others. I know from hard experience, deregulation--and you 
will not find it in these nice pretty magazines or the glossy little 
charts that they use at the Airline Commission. They brought the glossy 
charts and the glossy pictures, but did not hear from anybody in the 
business that was really handling these accidents and saying we ought 
to do something about product liability. They sneaked in this 
particular endorsement.
  Well, I am glad the White House has got better sense on this 
particular score. They met with the preordained conclusion. And one of 
the conclusions that upsets this particular Senator is a matter of 
begging the question when it comes to deregulation.
  My distinguished friend, the former Governor who chaired the 
commission, Governor Baliles, wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington 
Post. When I read that, I said, ``Katie bar the door. He has been taken 
over,'' because that is not the case at all.
  They need money, and why they need money is that they went 
immediately for where the competition was, the long hauls, and they 
just had a free for all, like the Katzenjammer kids falling all over 
each other. Like you see the Bell companies doing right now, trying to 
invest hither and yon. They are saying, ``We got to hurry up. We 
understand there are only going to be five of us left, and we want to 
be one of the five.''
  They keep putting in the money for the new equipment, and ordering 
the planes, and putting on the prizes, and putting on the free 
champagne and the free trips and everything else that they could think 
of. Now they look around and they are all broke. If we had kept the 
regulations on we would have a strong airline industry like they have 
had in other countries, and like we had in the United States of 
America. So as we are waiting for the negotiations, I do not mind 
discussing, at any time, the airline industry because I have been on 
this committee 20-some years. We have worked with them. We have heard; 
we have watched these reports.

  The product liability has achieved at least that. We might not have 
all the equipment we want at the airfields; we might have a pilot--and 
this Senator fought alongside the distinguished Senator, side by side, 
to have random drug and alcohol testing in transportation: Railroad 
conductors, bus drivers, truck drivers; and, yes, airline pilots.
  Yes, we fought and we fought and we fought, and we finally got random 
drug and alcohol testing. We had to pass it 11 times, over there, to 
the House side. Finally, we only got results when we put a rider under 
the appropriations bill.
  But I worked with my colleague here and I admire him greatly. We have 
the safety with respect to the pilots. We definitely have safe 
equipment as a result of product liability. Now we need to go to work 
on the airports, which we are doing in Denver. We are behind the curve 
there on that particular billion-dollar development. I welcome it. But 
we need that. It is the first one in 20-some, 30 years, almost. We 
need, all over this country, new airport facilities of that kind. But 
it has not been because we just get something done. That is a pretty 
good plea, to get something done. That is what our plea is with respect 
to the subject of this bill. This bill has to do with the advanced 
technology program. It is peer reviewed; industry initiated; and, in 
the major part, industry financed.
  We do not pick winners and losers. That industry has to come. It is 
not us picking anybody. Once they come with a particular idea, they 
have to say they are going to finance at least 50 percent. And the 
practice has been over 50 percent, over half of it. And we say, still, 
that is fine business, but we have to have the National Academy of 
Engineering peer review this thing. There is to be no political 
decision of winners and losers. And once that is done, it has been 
highly successful.
  Similarly, with the regional research outreach of the manufacturing 
centers. Now we have seven; we hope to start catching up more with the 
Japanese. That is the global competition. They have 170. This 
administration talks about, by the end of the century, they hope to get 
100. We do not know whether we are going to get the money. But we know, 
moneywise, this is less than 2 percent of what the Federal Government 
expends on research. Less than 2 percent of the $70 billion the Federal 
Government spends--$40-some billion over in Defense; so much over in 
Energy; so much in Agriculture, and so on. This is the least amount: 
Tested, tried, and true; checked off by the Small Business 
Administration; checked off by the National Science Foundation, and 
checked off by the National Academy of Engineering. And in a very 
deliberate, positive, tested way.
  It passed unanimously the year before last. It went to the House. We 
had in the committee, Republicans and Democrats, signed off on the 
conference report. But it was held up politically here on the floor of 
the Senate.
  We came back again in May of last year and it passed unanimously: 
Every Republican vote, every Democratic vote in the Commerce Committee. 
It was put on the floor. And now, when we should have passed this last 
night by unanimous consent, they have instead turned it into open 
sesame: Let us put everything and anything we can think of on this 
particular bill.
  That would be most unfortunate. There has been a lot of 
reconciliation, giving and taking. There has been a lot of good study, 
and predominantly the overwhelming support of the business, science, 
and technology competitiveness community. I do not know of any who 
oppose it. They have all worked on this hard. Staff worked around the 
clock over here. Over the last several years, they have worked 
developing this.
  Now, when we want to do something, they want to muck it up with any 
and every little pet bill they have in their minds. Whatever the 
dispute is with the Judiciary Committee--fine. Let them settle it. 
Whatever dispute they may have on their particular bill, they have a 
vote in our committee and it has been out for quite some time. Whatever 
dispute they might have on international trade and GATT--fine. Let them 
take that up. But I am getting reports through the staff that they have 
all kinds of amendments coming up here. That would be disastrous.
  I am given a list. They tell me that they have--I do not know, but 
that is what we are talking about: A Danforth amendment on 
greenlighting subsidies on GATT; a Grassley amendment on product 
liability reform; a Cochran amendment on EPA regulations; a Wallop 
amendment on regulatory flexibility analysis; a Nickles amendment on 
transportation-related regulatory reform; a Kassebaum amendment on 
general aviation liability; and a Simpson substitute that is inclusive, 
all wrapped up in one. If you want to know why nothing gets done, here 
is where you can bet your boots nothing will happen on this bill, or it 
could go anywhere--Brown, Davis-Bacon and service contract repeal; 
Coverdell, U.S. Postal Service intrusion bill, Paperwork Reduction Act; 
Wallop-Boren, Rural Community Reinvestment Act; Kempthorne, Hero Act; 
Nickles-Reid, Economic and Employment Impact Act; Dole, Private 
Property Regulation Act; Hatch, Regulatory Accountability Act; Gramm, 
to be announced. And on down the list. On down the list.
  I plead with the common sense and understanding and fraternity of the 
body that we just withhold these. Let them come up in their normal 
order, or whatever it is, because it is quite obvious, if that is the 
strategy--let us call it that--if that is the strategy, nothing is 
going to happen on this bill or any other bill.
  If we passed all these measures and put it on the bill, that would 
never pass muster on the House side. It would kill the bill. I do not 
know if you would have a majority vote for this bill even though you 
had a unanimous vote for it on two occasions from this House and out of 
the committee and on a bipartisan basis.
  Those who talked eloquently--and the reason I comment as I do is 
because I have not had any of my Republican colleagues who worked on 
this bill come forward and talk in favor of these bills. All we had 
was, ``Hush, don't you say anything. We have all these other 
amendments, and that is what we will put up.'' That will destroy this 
bill; and if that is the argument of why we cannot do something, that 
is the best example. It is all political; not germane whatsoever. We 
considered everybody when we were within the committee, Republican and 
Democrat. They never mentioned GATT; they never mentioned regulatory 
reform; they never mentioned general liability on aircraft. They never 
mentioned any of these things.
  So we know our bill. We know our measure. And we know also how 
nothing can get done if that is their wish.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from South 
Carolina would allow me just a few comments to express----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas [Mrs. Kassebaum], is 
recognized.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I am not part of any strategy. I have greatly 
respected the chairmanship of the Senator from South Carolina of the 
Commerce Committee. For a number of years, although I know he has not 
been a supporter of general aviation product liability----
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the distinguished Senator yield?
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. He has tried to be accommodating to at least let me 
have a voice. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. What the Senator does is give prestige and dignity and 
credibility to the statute because she is known as one of the 
outstanding bipartisan Senators, ultimately fair. And when the Senator 
comes with her particular amendment, they all sort of join in and she 
gives credibility and dignity and prestige to the strategy. That is 
what is occurring.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I very much appreciate those comments. 
I would just like to say all I really want is a vote and for some time 
have tried to make the case why we do need to have general aviation 
product liability.
  I would make the case also, Mr. President, it is germane to S. 4. S. 
4 is an effort to speak to technology, to speak to the needs of 
competitiveness in this country in the future. The general aviation 
product liability bill speaks to the same means except it does 
something--it really will add production.
  This morning there were comments made about how well the general 
aviation industry was doing, and it has had a rebound, Mr. President, 
that is true, but not in piston-powered planes. It has been the top-of-
the-line jet planes that obviously have done well in recent years.
  But that is not where we are losing the industry. Where we are losing 
the industry is most Americans really want to be able to buy the 
smaller, light planes. So I think it is germane. I think it speaks to 
jobs. I think it speaks to technology. I think it speaks to the ability 
of workers who may be dislocated for one reason or another, even those 
who may need retraining, to be able to find a number of jobs in an 
industry that has lost a lot through the years.
  I believe the case can be made in fact that it has largely been lost 
because of cost, cost that is directly due to having to meet the high 
price that comes from settling a case, many times settled when it has 
not been the fault of the manufacturer but money having to be spent in 
order to address the issue that has been raised.
  It has a logical place on this bill, Mr. President. I hope we can 
continue the debate. I think it has a great deal of merit. I would be 
the first to say, as would everyone else, that if there is defective 
manufacturing which has caused an accident, then those victims 
certainly should be compensated--if it is due to manufacturing within 
the 15 years. Any plane that has withstood for 15 years, solid design 
and manufacturing, is not going to face that kind of situation.
  But I would also say manufacturers should not pay for pilot errors, 
and they should not pay for air traffic control errors. These are 
things over which they have no control. But because they have the deep 
pockets to pay, they are then sued. This is why I believe it is 
important for us to address this now. Manufacturers should not pay when 
their planes are improperly maintained or repaired or modified by 
others. There are strict standards that have to be met.
  For those who are fliers and have not flown but kept a little plane 
in the hangar that has not been properly maintained, have not flown for 
a couple years and decide to take the plane up and because of their own 
errors have had a crash and lives have been lost or serious injury 
occurs, it is not the manufacturer's fault in that instance, and that 
is the difference. It is a difference which I think needs to be clearly 
understood and clearly made.
  There should and would be just and fair compensation if it would be 
the manufacturer's fault within the framework of the limitations that 
would be imposed on a manufacturer. But where there is a faulty part, 
any good pilot is going to replace that part, and a whole new 15-year 
cycle starts once a part has been replaced.
  So there are many just and fair reasons why this should be a part of 
this bill, S. 4. We have debated this many times.
  I further add, Mr. President, only 1 percent of all general aviation 
accidents are caused by design or manufacturing defects, and almost all 
of those accidents occur within 8 years from the time the plane is 
built.
  An analysis by the National Transportation Safety Board shows that 
from the years 1983 through 1990, 99.9 percent of all general aviation 
accidents were caused by something other than a design or manufacturing 
defect in a plane that is over 15 years old. Nevertheless, the 
manufacturers are constantly being sued for their older planes.
  I feel very strongly, Mr. President, that we end up debating these 
points which I believe most of us would feel are very logical points, 
but there are those in the legal profession who view this as a camel's 
nose under the tent and see this as an opening in tort reform that they 
do not wish to address.
  It is not that. I think we should take it for what it is. It is a 
fair way to address a problem that has existed for the manufacturing of 
light airplanes and, if we can pass this legislation, will mean exactly 
what the chairman of the Commerce Committee is trying to address with 
S. 4, stronger industry, advancing technology, jobs for those in a 
field that will again make the United States a leader in general 
aviation aircraft. I believe that in a very simple way we have answers 
here that will mean a great deal to the very issues the Senator from 
South Carolina has been addressing.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I would be happy to do so.
  Mr. DANFORTH. I ask the Senator to respond to a point that was made 
just before the break for lunch with respect to the effect that this 
amendment might have on safety in manufacturing general aviation 
aircraft. The point that was made by opponents was that this really is 
a safety issue and that somehow manufacturing would be less safe if 
this amendment were adopted.
  But what I hear the Senator saying is that most accidents in general 
aviation are not related to the construction or the design of the 
aircraft, and that the overwhelming percentage of those accidents that 
are related to manufacturing/design occur in the first 8 years of the 
aircraft's operation, and that a tiny percentage have to do with 
anything that happens after 15 years.
  So my question to the Senator is, In the real world of manufacturing 
and the exercise of care in putting a product on the market, is it the 
Senator's view that this amendment would have anything at all to do 
with the real world of safety?
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I appreciate the question from the 
Senator from Missouri, the ranking member of the Commerce Committee.
  It would not jeopardize safety at all. The aviation industry and 
general aviation is guided each step of the way from the beginning 
design to the completion of the plane by Federal safety guidelines. 
There are various steps of certification that have to be met. There are 
manuals that lay out exactly what needs to be done to maintain a plane, 
approval along each step of the way. In no way will safety be placed in 
jeopardy.
  The Senator from Missouri is exactly correct when he said that 99.9 
percent of all general aviation accidents were caused by something 
other than design or manufacturing defects. As you say, those would be 
with 8 years or less.

  I think this is an industry that has to meet such stiff requirements 
for safety all along the manufacturing process that the safety will 
never be placed in jeopardy. One of the reasons that we have a higher 
safety record today is that we have imposed and continue to impose such 
high standards for safety. We have lights on runways now, we have the 
ability to project with the highest technology from the air traffic 
control system--we are constantly seeking to improve that--plus pilot 
training.
  Those are things that we can continue to do. Hearings have been held 
many times over the years in the Commerce Committee regarding aviation 
and the safety of aviation. Those are things that will not be affected 
at all by this legislation.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. HEFLIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama [Mr. Heflin], is 
recognized.
  Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. President, I am delighted to agree with Senator 
Hollings on his evaluation of Senator Kassebaum. We all have the 
highest respect and regard for her.
  She, of course, says that she is not a lawyer and does not have legal 
training. I think she does a great job of articulating her position. 
But she may not, therefore, be in a position to evaluate certain 
aspects of this bill.
  It was interesting to me to see that she did admit that the general 
aviation industry is on the rebound and is doing well, but that the 
piston-powered aviation is in trouble. She recited the number of 
instances where there has been a reduction in the number of units that 
have been manufactured.
  It would appear to me that this bill might not have as much 
opposition if it was limited to piston-powered aircraft. But included 
in it are jets, helicopters, military planes, Medivac. I do not believe 
you would have a choice if a Medivac plane came to you, and it had a 
big sign on it: ``Enter at your own risk because this plane is 15 years 
old,'' and therefore no one can recover if there are manufacturer's or 
design defects.
  This bill has been changed tremendously. That is one of the reasons 
why I think it ought to be referred to the Judiciary Committee for a 
sequential referral. Nothing really in previous bills is contained in 
this bill. It is entirely new. There was a previous bill with a much 
higher statute of repose. There is nothing in this bill to prevent 
frivolous lawsuits, as the argument has been made many, many times that 
we must stop these frivolous lawsuits.
  There is nothing in this bill; only one thing: The statute of repose. 
If there is a frivolous lawsuit brought when there is a defect, a 
design or manufacturing defect, failure to warn defect, whatever it 
might be, if it is 10 years old, if it is a frivolous lawsuit, there is 
nothing in this bill that stops it.
  We hear a lot about punitive damages; that they have gone out of 
control, and we have these punitive damages. I thought Senator Hollings 
was very much on point when he pointed out that, not personal injury, 
business versus business is where most of the punitive damage lawsuits 
arise, and the big verdicts such as he cited in that case in Texas.
  There are no caps on damages. We hear a lot about a need for caps on 
damages. There is nothing like that in this bill. We hear that there is 
a great danger today, and it is an injustice some people say in regard 
to joint and several liability--there is no joint and several liability 
limitation in this bill. It is still a 15-year statute of limitation.
  We hear a lot about, there ought to be caps on noneconomic damages 
such as pain and suffering, and that therefore that is where a lot of 
the ills and product liability suits have occurred, and the juries have 
awarded money that causes noneconomic values. There is no effort made 
in this bill relative to that.
  We hear a lot in regard to the English rule, that the loser ought to 
pay. There is nothing in regards to that.
  You start tracing the history of the legislation that has been 
proposed, and the reasons that came out about it, and you have seen 
drastic changes take place.
  Now we are down to just one issue, one issue, and that is the issue 
of the statute of repose, which is different from a statute of 
limitation. It says under no circumstances can you bring a lawsuit to 
recover for manufacturer's defects or manufacturer's design problems. 
Any of those things can occur.
  Regardless of age, they are talking about the number of years. I am 
trying to remember. Maybe I have it somewhere. I think I have, and I 
will refer to it later. But it is something like this: That in 1958, a 
manufacturer of a small plane, which would have been under the 
classification of general aviation, had brought to its attention that 
the design of that plane could cause the plane to break apart. They did 
not do anything about it. They sat back, and they were willing to 
gamble rather than recall the planes that they made and change the 
design.
  A jury case was brought, and the verdict was against the manufacturer 
for its failure to heed the warning of its own people that the 
airplane's design could cause it to break apart. They did not do 
anything about it. Finally, after a verdict, they did something about 
it. But it was, if I remember, something like 29 years after they had 
knowledge of it, before they did anything.
  I want to get the facts of that case, and bring it up. When they did 
not do it, you have a situation where you are asking that, therefore, 
if we discover something that is in the design, or the way one part of 
it reacts with another, we are in a situation where you should have 
known and should have done something to correct it. And they did not do 
it. But they say, all right, after 15 years we just sit back and wait 
until the 15 years run, and we will not have any problems with it. We 
will not do it.
  I listened to the colloquy, and I really think they are a little 
naive in regard to the fact that they would take out all safety and 
there will not be any problems in aviation. But there are many 
instances in the manufacture of others. I remember an automobile 
manufacturer in a case where it was brought to their attention that the 
gas tank was located in a certain locality and it would be very 
dangerous, particularly in a rear-end collision. The evidence was that 
there was a memorandum that: We can save money by going ahead and 
paying the costs of those who get injured or killed and who, therefore, 
sue us.
  They calculated what the recovery would be, as opposed to what it 
would have to be to take the automobile off the market and make a 
redesign. And on a pure dollars-and-cents basis, they said: We will pay 
the damages, suffer the lawsuits, and it will come out a lot cheaper if 
we follow that. There was a complete disregard to the deaths, the 
injuries, the family suffering, and the consequences which could have 
occurred.
  There are things that, as we think about this, cause us a lot of 
concern. I think that we are going to have to look sort of carefully as 
to what may happen in the military. I discussed this briefly before, 
but the helicopters, the fixed wings today that are being used--if you 
go to a military base and you see the planes that are generally being 
used, particularly the training planes, they are practically all over 
15 years of age. We do not know what had gone on pertaining to the 
design; we do not know whether there is metal stress, which is a matter 
that occurs after years; it does not occur during the first 8 years or 
10 years. Most of those planes are sold under the idea that they can be 
used for 30, 40 years. I wonder how many planes we could look at in the 
military today and find they are not at least 30 years old.
  We have a situation in which you in effect are saying, all right, if 
you go into the service and get into this helicopter, then because of a 
defect that occurred in the design, or a manufacturing defect, or metal 
stress, or numerous other instances, a person is injured; but they do 
not have any right of recovery against the manufacturer who has 
designed it or whose manufacturing activities created the problem that 
caused the death. Those people usually will end up costing the 
Government money.
  We are downsizing the military today, and I do not anticipate that we 
are going to be buying a great number of new planes. We are going to 
have to rely on the older ones. It seems to me that the safety of the 
various people in the service ought to be of paramount concern to the 
Members of this Congress.
  I will have other things to say. There may be others who want to 
speak on it.
  I yield the floor at this time.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, to make a couple of points in answer 
to the Senator from Alabama when he asks whether or not there would 
perhaps be a separation, and does the 15-year statute of repose cover 
piston-powered planes, and not jet-powered.
  I just suggest, Mr. President, that the 15 years, when you have gone 
without manufacturing or design defect, applies the same to piston-
powered or jet-powered. I think that whether it is the military or 
civilian, if you have flown a plane for 15 years and there has not been 
a defect, then clearly the plane is going to survive. I grant that 
there would be an exception, but are we going to close down one aspect 
of an important industry that has always been at the cutting edge of 
aviation just because of those exceptions? There will be those and they 
will have to be answered.
  I feel that we are missing the point here when we try to bring in all 
these other aspects. I am not quite sure about the military. I think 
the military is going to keep their planes in good repair. They are 
constantly being flown. During any stress tests, if they show a part 
needs to be replaced, it will be replaced, and a new 15-year statute of 
repose would go into effect. So it is a rolling sort of limitation.
  I think just in answer to the sequential referral and the comments 
about the Judiciary Committee--and perhaps I mentioned this this 
morning, Mr. President, but I know what would happen in the Judiciary 
Committee. It has been there twice before, and both times it was 
reported out unfavorably. While the Senator from Alabama mentioned this 
is very different, the statute of repose has been addressed before in 
the Judiciary Committee. Yes, I think in 1990 it was a 20-year statute 
of repose. We have changed that to 15 years because we have given up a 
lot of other things that were in that bill at that time, such as joint 
and several liability and the ability to have Federal standards. These 
were things that we gave up.
  We certainly did not address punitive damages because that was 
clearly objected to. That is why we decided to make it as narrow and 
specific and as reasonable as possible. That is what I think we have 
done, Mr. President. I do believe the Judiciary Committee certainly has 
addressed itself and has said in the past that statute of repose was 
not something that most of the Members of the Judiciary Committee could 
support in any form. So I know well what the views of the Judiciary 
Committee would be, and I think they have been expressed in the past.
  That is why it seems to me the debate really comes down to the fact 
that a plane manufacturer, whether jet-powered or piston-powered, after 
15 years, should be sued for a design or manufacturing defect. If it 
has been flying for 15 years, I think it is proven that there is not a 
manufacturing or design defect.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Wellstone). The Senator from South 
Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I will complete the record with respect 
to the cases that were cited by my distinguished colleague from 
Alabama, because these things continually occur. It has been my 
contention throughout that product liability is working, is necessary, 
and should not in anywise be weakened or diminished with respect to 
verdicts being had against clients.
  I will elaborate on that, because that is not the case, and 
manufacturers should not be held responsible, as the distinguished 
Senator from Kansas points out, with respect to maintenance. But that 
is not the issue. The issue is about the manufacture itself. I read 
from an article December 8, 1992, of the Washington Post, and I ask 
unanimous consent that this article in its entirety be printed in the 
Record.

  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       Investigation of GM Trucks

                           (By Warren Brown)

       The government will open an investigation today into 
     allegations that General Motors Corp. made pickup trucks with 
     improperly positioned gas tanks that can rupture and burn in 
     side-impact collisions, sources said yesterday.
       At issue are GM's 1983-87 C/K model pickups, which some 
     consumer and auto safety advocates say have caused 300 deaths 
     in fiery crashes. An estimated 8.8 million of those trucks 
     were made; some 5 million remain in service today.
       The trucks in question, such as the GMC Sierra and 
     Chevrolet C/K 1500 series, are equipped with ``sidesaddle gas 
     tanks,'' whose location on the trucks contribute to crash 
     hazards, the safety groups claim. The tanks are positioned 
     outside of heavy metal, ladder-frame rails, and those rails 
     support the truck's cab and cargo bed. By locating gas tanks 
     outside of the rails, GM made them more prone to explode when 
     the trucks are struck from the side, the consumer groups 
     contend.
       Two of those groups, the Center for Auto Safety and Public 
     Citizen, both based in Washington, have petitioned the 
     National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to 
     open an investigation into the matter. Today, according to 
     government and industry sources, NHTSA will announce the 
     beginning of an engineering analysis, the first phase of a 
     federal probe into potential auto defects.
       GM has denied that its 1983-87 C/K pickups are defective 
     and has issued detailed rebuttals of the consumer groups' 
     charges, which have been aired on several network television 
     news shows.
       The opening of an engineering analysis does not mean NHTSA 
     actually has reason to believe a defect exists. The agency 
     opens up dozens of such investigations annually, sometimes in 
     response to intense public pressure, as in this case. NHTSA 
     has until next Monday to answer the consumer groups' petition 
     and decide if it will proceed with a study of the C/K truck 
     charges.
       GM in 1988 changed the location of gas tanks on its 
     pickups, placing them inside the ladder-frame rails. But GM 
     officials said yesterday that the change had more to do with 
     an overall redesign of the trucks than it had to do with 
     safety.
       GM's newer pickups have wider spaces between the frame 
     rails, which allow for easier placement of gas tanks inside 
     the rails, GM officials said. Also, the wider stance of 
     the newer trucks helps them to ride and handle more like 
     cars, a characteristic desired by consumers nowadays, GM 
     officials said.
       GM's older C/K trucks are safe, spokesman Ed Lechtzin said. 
     ``The chances of being involved in a fatal accident in that 
     truck'' in which a fuel tank explodes ``are about the same as 
     being in a fatal accident in any truck, which is pretty 
     small,'' he said. The consumer groups' claims that C/K trucks 
     caused 300 fire-crash deaths are ``vastly exaggerated,'' he 
     said.
       NHTSA officials say there is no official confirmation of 
     the cause or the number of deaths cited in the consumer 
     groups' claims.
       However, the consumer groups claim that much of the safety 
     information regarding the C/K pickups is contained in volumes 
     of court documents filed in conjunction with a 1990 product 
     liability suit in Fort Worth, Tex.
       The suit by Rose Zelenuk of Arlington, Tex., alleges that 
     her husband burned to death in a 1989 accident in which his 
     1987 C/K truck was struck in the side.
       NHTSA's safety investigation could lead to a court-ordered 
     recall of GM's trucks. But such recalls are rare. More often, 
     the investigations have been dropped for lack of evidence, or 
     the agency and the automaker have agreed on a voluntary 
     recall.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. I read as follows:

       The government will open an investigation today into 
     allegations that General Motors Corp. made pickup trucks with 
     improperly positioned gas tanks that can rupture and burn in 
     side-impact collisions, sources said yesterday.
       At issue are GM's 1983-87 C/K model pickups, which some 
     consumer and auto safety advocates say have caused 300 deaths 
     in fiery crashes. An estimated 8.8 million of those trucks 
     were made; some 5 million remain in service today.

  Then following that particular article, Mr. President, I ask 
unanimous consent that a November 5 article in the New York Times, be 
printed in the Record in its entirety.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Nov. 5, 1993]

               Settlement Backed in Texas on G.M. Pickups

                            (By Barry Meier)

       A Texas state judge approved a settlement on Tuesday under 
     which the General Motors Corporation will give $1,000 coupons 
     to 645,000 owners of older pickups that Federal safety 
     officials say may pose a fire hazard.
       The settlement resolves a class-action lawsuit bought in 
     1992 on behalf of Texas owners of full-sized G.M. pickups 
     built between 1973 and 1987. The plaintiffs claimed that the 
     fire risks posed by the vehicles' side-mounted fuel tanks had 
     reduced their resale value. A similar case involving 5.7 
     million G.M. pickup owners nationwide is pending on Federal 
     court in Philadelphia.
       In April, the National Highway Traffic Safety 
     Administration made a preliminary finding that G.M. pickups 
     with side-mounted tanks were more prone to catch fire when 
     hit in the side than competitor's pickups made in the same 
     years. G.M., however, said the trucks were safe and rejected 
     the agency's request to recall the pickups voluntarily and 
     repair them.


                           $500 Certificates

       Under the Texas settlement, the coupons can be used by 
     owners of the pickups toward the purchase of a new G.M. 
     pickup or light truck. The coupons can also be exchanged for 
     $500 certifiicates that pickup owners can sell.
       In approving the settlement, Judge Bonnie Leggat said she 
     believe it was fair and reasonable. Pickup owners who accept 
     the offer do not lose their right to sue G.M. in case of a 
     product-related accident, nor are they prevented from taking 
     part in any future recall to repair safety defects, should 
     the Government eventually order one.
       In Philadelphia last month, Judge William Yohn Jr. of 
     Federal District Court heard arguments in support of the 
     $1,000-coupon settlement from lawyers representing G.M. and 
     pickup owners. Dozens of lawsuits from around the country 
     were consolidated in the Philadelphia case.
       Though some consumer groups oppose the coupon settlement, 
     only 11,653 of the 5.7 million truck owners who were notified 
     of the proposed settlement in the Philadelphia case have 
     formally criticized or rejected it.
       A formal investigation of G.M. pick-ups by Federal highway 
     safety officials is continuing.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I cite from that:

       A Texas state judge approved a settlement on Tuesday under 
     which the General Motors Corporation will give $1,000 coupons 
     to 645,000 owners of older pickups that Federal safety 
     officials say may pose a fire hazard.
       The settlement resolves a class-action lawsuit bought in 
     1992 on behalf of Texas owners of full-sized G.M. pickups 
     built between 1973 and 1987. The plaintiffs claimed that the 
     fire risks posed by the vehicles' side-mounted fuel tanks had 
     reduced their resale value. A similar case involving 5.7 
     million G.M. pickup owners nationwide is pending in Federal 
     court in Philadelphia.

  Then, of course, Mr. President, these are cases that come down to the 
safety officials having to go into them that act like manufacturers are 
being found against and damages awarded.
  There is the case, of course, very recently here in October, the fall 
of last year, where:

       One of the world's largest health care products companies 
     has pleaded guilty to violating federal statutes governing 
     the safety of medical devices and agreed to pay a record $61 
     million fine, federal officials said yesterday.
       C.R. Bard Inc. of Murray Hill, N.J., deliberately sold 
     faulty surgical devices and used unsuspecting heart patients 
     as ``guinea pigs'' to test new products, federal health and 
     justice officials said.

  I ask unanimous consent that the entire article be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Oct. 18, 1993]

             Firm Fined for Selling Faulty Surgical Devices

                           (By John Schwartz)

       One of the world's largest health care products companies 
     has pleaded guilty to violating federal statutes governing 
     the safety of medical devices and agreed to pay a record $61 
     million fine, federal officials said yesterday.
       C.R. Bard Inc. of Murray Hill, N.J., deliberately sold 
     faulty surgical devices and used unsuspecting heart patients 
     as ``guinea pigs'' to test new products, federal health and 
     justice officials said. According to federal grand jury 
     indictments handed up late Thursday and announced yesterday 
     in Boston, the products failed in about 50 operations, 
     causing one heart attack and one death.
       In one of the biggest health care fraud investigations in 
     the history of the Food and Drug Administration and the 
     Department of Justice, Bard agreed to plead guilty to 391 
     counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, lying to regulators and 
     shipping ``adulterated products'' that were not approved by 
     the FDA. The $61 million in criminal fines and federal civil 
     claims is several times larger than any in the history of FDA 
     enforcement cases.
       The charges concern angioplasty catheters manufactured by 
     Bard's Massachusetts-based USCI division. The devices use 
     tiny balloons that are inflated to push open clogged arteries 
     and then deflated before removal.
       In the plea bargain, the company admitted that from 1987 to 
     early 1990, it violated the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics 
     Act and other statutes by distributing catheters that had not 
     been properly tested or approved, and by routinely making 
     changes in the materials and design without notifying the 
     FDA, as required by law. The company admitted it did not tell 
     doctors, their patients or the FDA about problems they 
     encountered with the products.
       The company covered up problems, including arterial damage 
     and a tendency of the tips of some devices to fall off. The 
     defects created a risk of heart attack and in 22 cases 
     required emergency bypass surgery--the very procedure 
     angioplasty is usually intended to avoid.
       William G. Reilly Jr., a spokesman for Bard, said ``The 
     management of C.R. Bard Inc. sincerely regrets the activities 
     that led to this plea agreement. . . . Bard and USCI 
     products, including all angioplasty products, have received 
     all necessary FDA approvals. All Bard products on the market 
     today can be used with confidence.'' The company earned $75 
     million in 1992 on sales of $990 million.
       As part of the plea bargain, the company has agreed to a 
     series of stringent remedial measures, including scrutiny by 
     an outside consultant who will report to the FDA. The company 
     said it ``reorganized and restructured its management team'' 
     in 1990, and withdrew all products deemed out of compliance.
       U.S. Attorney A. John Pappalardo, who investigated the case 
     with the FDA, said yesterday in Boston that ``this 
     extraordinary settlement with Bard is a reflection of both of 
     the severity of the criminal conduct of [USCI] . . . and 
     Bard's desire to assure that this unfortunate episode in its 
     past is never repeated.''
       The Boston grand jury also handed up a 393-count indictment 
     charging George T. Maloney, chief executive officer of Bard, 
     and five other former officers of the company with violating 
     federal laws. If convicted, the defendants face sentences 
     totaling more than 1,000 years in prison and millions of 
     dollars in fines. Maloney has left Bard ``to help prepare his 
     defense,'' the company said yesterday.
       Balloon angioplasty is one of the medical success stories 
     of the 1980s, allowing obstructed arteries to be treated 
     without opening the chest. Making only a small incision in 
     the groin area, a doctor snakes a catheter through a large 
     blood vessel in the leg to the blocked artery. The balloon is 
     then inflated, flattening the obstructing material on the 
     artery walls and opening the passageway.
       Between 1980 and 1990, the number of angioplasties 
     increased ninefold, according to a report in the Journal of 
     the American Medical Association. In 1991, doctors performed 
     nearly 300,000 of the procedures, according to the National 
     Heart Lung and Blood Institute.
       Bard rode the angioplasty wave. From 1980 until 1985, it 
     was the only U.S. company with FDA permission to market heart 
     catheters. By the mid-1980s, however, other companies had 
     jumped in; by 1988, Bard's share of the burgeoning market 
     dropped to 50 percent.
       The federal indictment alleges that from roughly 1987 to 
     1990, Bard began to ``improve'' its product--but without 
     following the FDA's complicated procedures that are intended 
     to ensure safety and effectiveness. The indictment alleges 
     that by around 1988, the company had received at least 62 
     complaints that it balloons weren't deflating or were 
     wrapping themselves around the catheter. The company changed 
     the design, creating the ``B Probe,'' and distributed about 
     30 of the new devices to hospitals and clinics around the 
     country for evaluation, again without notifying the FDA. 
     Meanwhile, the company had applied for FDA approval for the B 
     Probe.
       By December of 1988, complaints began to come in about the 
     B Probe's tips breaking off, but the company again did not 
     tell federal officials, the indictments said. In January 
     1989, the FDA approved the B Probe for human use. By May 
     1989, tips had broken off in about 50 procedures. By 
     September of 1989, Bard had sold approximately 18,000 of the 
     B Probe and newer devices.
       The indictments also state that company officials hid the 
     existence of an entire plant from the FDA, packaging and 
     distributing catheters from a Haverhill, Mass., plant that 
     had not been inspected or approved by the agency. The company 
     told federal officials the devices were coming from an 
     approved plant in Billerica, Mass., and labeled them 
     accordingly, according to the indictment.
       FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler said yesterday ``for a 
     company to engage in a pattern of using unsuspecting patients 
     as guinea pigs and operating rooms as laboratories for 
     unapproved products shows a blatant disregard for the health 
     and safety of the patients who literally entrusted their 
     lives to the company's products.''

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, one other little one--I am just getting 
up to a recent one. We have a whole glossary of these. But here again 
in the midyear of last year a Wall Street Journal article entitled 
``Jury Awards $11.3 Million In Fatal GM Truck Fire,'' and I read the 
little article in its entirety.

       A federal court jury took less than three hours to return 
     an $11.3 million judgment against General Motors Corp. for a 
     truck fire that killed a woman.
       Jurors decided Friday that gasoline spilling from a 
     defective fuel pump caused a 1985 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer to 
     explode on Feb. 23, 1990. They also ruled that the explosion, 
     not a preceding head-on collision, killed Beverly Sue Garner 
     of Bevier.
       The lawsuit filed against GM on behalf of Ms. Garner's two 
     teenage sons claimed GM knew the fuel pump was defective.
       For the first time in a case against GM, jurors were shown 
     a 1973 company report that estimated that ``for GM it would 
     be worth approximately $2.20 per new model auto to prevent a 
     fuel-led fire in all accidents.''
       GM attorneys declined to comment after the verdict. They 
     had argued that the fire was caused by fluids from the other 
     car involved in the crash.

  You see these show the jurors are looking at those facts and studying 
them very carefully.
  I ask unanimous consent that a November 1993 article of Business Week 
be printed at this point in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  [From Business Week, November 1993]

 Should Business Be Afraid of Juries? The Stereotype of Out-of-Control 
                      Robin Hoods May Be Outdated

                         (By Linda Himelstein)

       What do an investment bank, an auto maker, and a law firm 
     have in common? The answer: They all suffer from some strain 
     of juryphobia.
       Salomon Brothers Inc. asks business partners to waive a 
     jury trial should a disagreement arise--preferring instead to 
     face only a judge. General Motors Corp. settles disputes with 
     its Saturn dealers before an arbitration panel made up of 
     Saturn employees and retailers. Its decisions are binding. 
     And the New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & 
     Garrison paid $45 million in September to settle a civil case 
     with the government--even though the firm's lawyer contends 
     his client would have fought the charges had the government 
     agreed to drop its demand for a jury trial. These companies 
     and many others are working hard to sidestep juries--a legal 
     vehicle considered by many to be too costly, too time-
     consuming, and just too risky. ``It's like playing with 
     loaded dice, and you're on the wrong side.'' says Jonathan A. 
     Marshall, a New York patent attorney.
       Much of the uneasiness has been fueled by megaverdicts and 
     the publicity that follows. Remember the $1.2 billion award 
     Litton Industries Inc. won in September from Honeywell Inc. 
     in a patent case? Or when GM was hit in February with a $105 
     million verdict awarded to the parents of a teenager killed 
     in one of its pickup trucks--of which $101 million was in 
     punitive damages? Or the granddaddy of them all, the $10.5 
     billion awarded to Pennzoil Co. in 1985 in its fight with 
     Texaco Inc.? ``The jury is probably the No. 1 factor that 
     swings all of the parties to look at alternative means of 
     settling disputes,'' says Julie A. Welborn, litigation 
     management director at Liberty Mutual Insurance Co.
       Overblown? Corporate fears are explained by one viewpoint 
     perennial in the business world: Juries are sympathetic to 
     plaintiffs, and they distrust defendants. They maintain that 
     jury trials too often are used to force monied defendants to 
     redistribute the wealth. ``A lot of people feel that if you 
     can't win the lottery, maybe you can win a good lawsuit,'' 
     observes Donald Vinson, chairman of Decision Quest, a 
     consulting firm that helps lawyers analyze jury pools.
       But Corporate America's fear of juries may be overblown. 
     Three independent studies of jury verdicts and jurors' 
     attitudes completed within the last year suggest that the 
     litigation explosion is on the wane. In fact, the studies 
     show that plaintiffs are actually losing a greater proportion 
     of cases today than they have in many years. Plaintiffs won 
     63% of all personal injury claims against businesses in 1988; 
     in 1992, they won only 54% of them, according to a study to 
     be released in November by Jury Verdict Publications. In 
     every category of personal injury litigation over the past 
     five years, except those involving automobile accidents, the 
     percentage of plaintiffs' victories have decreased.
       Jury Verdict's study, which looks at everything from 
     product liability to sexual harassment in the workplace, also 
     refutes the popularly held notion that juries' monetary 
     awards are increasingly out of control. On the contrary, 
     awards have remained relatively constant in the past five 
     years. The notion that juries are wild, unpredictable, and 
     capricious is just not true,'' says Marc S. Galanter, a 
     professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. ``People 
     have very distorted views about what juries do.''
       In the area of product liability, the most controversial 
     and high-profile legal arena, the data are even more 
     startling. Defendants last year won 57% of those cases 
     brought by individuals, compared with only 46% in 1989, the 
     study shows. The number of product-liability suits filed is 
     also down. Excluding asbestos matters, cases filed in federal 
     court dropped to their 1985 level in 1991 with 12,413 
     filings, down from a high of 18,679, another study reveals. 
     For many plaintiffs' lawyers, the news on juries merely 
     supports what they have known all along. ``Juries don't give 
     away the kitchen sink,'' says Lee S. Kreindler, a New York 
     plaintiffs lawyer. ``Plaintiff bias has been overstated.''
       The apparent trend away from skyhigh verdicts and 
     escalating litigation is so palpable that even tort 
     reformers, whose arguments are undercut by evidence of sane 
     juries, are acknowledging it. In fact, they are taking credit 
     for it, pointing to their campaigns to educate the public 
     about the economic consequences of excessive verdicts. But 
     William D. Fay, executive director of the Product Liability 
     Coordinating Committee, cautions his allies from getting too 
     excited. ``The trend we see can always reverse the other 
     way,'' he says.
       For now, it appears that jurors are indeed focusing more on 
     the financial implications of their decisions. Valerie P. 
     Hans, a professor of psychology at the University of 
     Delaware, interviewed hundreds of jurors and concluded that 
     they are generally probusiness. Hans says jurors are very 
     concerned about what role plaintiffs may have had in 
     contributing to their injuries as well as the economic impact 
     of verdicts on the marketplace and their own wallets. 
     ``Jurors are not Robin Hoods,'' she says. ``Americans 
     generally believe that what's good for business is good for 
     the country.''
       A third study dispels yet another widely held view--that 
     judges are more prodefendant than juries. A Cornell Law 
     Review study of verdicts in federal courts reveals that 
     plaintiffs in product-liability cases win 48% of the time 
     before judges, compared to only 28% with juries. The evidence 
     is much the same in medical malpractice suits, with judges 
     ruling half the time for plaintiffs, while juries find 
     liability in only 29% of the cases. The study finds little 
     difference between the outcomes of other types of cases tried 
     before judges and juries. ``I attribute the results to the 
     fact that plaintiffs' lawyers have too much faith in juries 
     and defendants' lawyers have too much fear,'' says Theodore 
     Eisenberg, a Cornell Law School professor who cowrote the 
     study.
       Still, no academic endeavor can provide the definitive word 
     on how fair--or unfair--juries are. They don't take into 
     account suits that may be frivolous but are settled anyway by 
     defendants to avoid costly and protracted litigation. They 
     don't reflect the diverse attitudes of jurors from different 
     geographical areas. And, as with any disputed theory, studies 
     can be found to show that business is in as much legal 
     trouble as ever. Vinson, the jury consultant, says his 
     research indicates that more than half of all jurors hearing 
     product-liability cases come into court believing 
     manufacturers are guilty of wrongdoing. In employment 
     litigation, the presumption of guilt is about 70%. ``Having 
     been in the line of fire, working with real litigants on real 
     cases. I can tell you that Corporate America has a lot to be 
     worried about ``Vinson says.
       Maybe so. But if these studies are any indication 
     businesses are becoming more adept at overcoming many of the 
     innate biases of juries. That's one sign that the system, 
     flawed though it may be, is working--welcome news for anyone 
     heading to court, no matter which side they're on.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Now, Mr. President, just not the entire article, but it 
is in the Record here:

       Corporate fears are explained by one viewpoint perennial in 
     the business world: Juries are sympathetic to plaintiffs, and 
     they distrust defendants. They maintain that jury trials too 
     often are used to force monied defendants to redistribute the 
     wealth. ``A lot of people feel that if you can't win the 
     lottery, maybe you can win a good lawsuit,'' observes Donald 
     Vinson, chairman of DecisionQuest, a consulting firm that 
     helps lawyers analyze jury pools.
       But Corporate America's fear of juries may be overblown. 
     Three independent studies of jury verdicts and jurors' 
     attitudes completed within the last year suggest that the 
     litigation explosion is on the wane. In fact, the studies 
     show that plaintiffs are actually losing a greater proportion 
     of cases today than they have in many years. Plaintiffs won 
     63% of all personal injury claims against businesses in 1988; 
     in 1992, they won only 54% of them, according to a study to 
     be released in November by Jury Verdict Publications. In 
     every category of personal injury litigation over the past 
     five years, except those involving automobile accidents, the 
     percentage of plaintiffs' victories have decreased.
       Jury Verdict's study, which looks at everything from 
     product liability to sexual harassment in the workplace, also 
     refutes the popularly held notion that juries' monetary 
     awards are increasingly out of control. On the contrary, 
     awards have remained relatively constant in the past five 
     years. ``The notion that juries are wild, unpredictable, and 
     capricious is just not true,'' says Marc S. Galanter, a 
     professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. ``People 
     have very distorted views about what juries do.''
       In the area of product liability, the most controversial 
     and high-profile legal arena, the data are even more 
     startling. Defendants last year won 57% of those cases 
     brought by individuals, compared with only 46% in 1989, the 
     study shows. The number of product-liability suits filed is 
     also down.
  Then going on, and we could use other quotes here:

       The apparent trend away from sky-high verdicts and 
     escalating litigation is so palpable that even tort 
     reformers, whose arguments are undercut by evidence of sane 
     juries, are acknowledging it.

  Going down further:

       Americans generally believe that what's good for business 
     is good for the country.
       A third study dispels yet another widely held view--that 
     judges are more prodefendant than juries. A Cornell Law 
     Review study of verdicts in federal courts reveals that 
     plaintiffs in product-liability cases win 48% of the time 
     before judges, compared to only 28% with juries. The evidence 
     is much the same in medical malpractice suits, with judges 
     ruling half the time for plaintiffs, while juries find 
     liability in only 29% of the cases.
  The reason I include those in the Record is I am in agreement with 
the statement made by the distinguished Senator from Kansas that 
manufacturers should not be held responsible-- she is exactly right--
for faulty maintenance or other cases that are not proved by the 
preponderance of the weight of the evidence to the satisfaction of all 
12 jurors. They must allocate to the defense counsel in America the 
role of stupidity or morbidity, or whatever, because when you get a 
case the burden is on you with respect to it because you can bet your 
boots any lawyer worth his salt, and heaven's above, the manufacturers 
of aircraft are certainly astute as shown by the record of the life 
span now of these particular planes, which averages 27 years. They 
necessarily would have the best of the best attorneys. But the 
assumption is that all you have to do is bring the case and show the 
jury and walk away with the money.
  I know with respect to one particular medical malpractice case in my 
own backyard they tried that for 3 weeks. It was a famous helmet injury 
case. The distinguished Senator from Missouri had an earlier debate 
relative to helmets, and they are still made. In fact, I once brought 
one here to the floor. But I remember that particular case where they 
tried to make a product liability case of a defective helmet and after 
3 weeks the jury said, ``No way, Jose.'' They found for the defendant.
  So, I know how jurors work. You have to come in and prove by the 
greater weight of the preponderance of the evidence.
  This is not a tie-tie case, where you put in enough proof to give 
them money for the injury, but you have got to prove it by the greater 
weight of the preponderance of the evidence to every one of those 12 
jurors; not just to 9, or not just to 10, but to all 12 of the jurors' 
satisfaction.
  So that is why I read these cases in there, because you can see they 
are egregious kinds of cases that could easily have been avoided by 
corporate America. Thank heavens, the general aviation industry is 
avoiding them. They are producing a sound, safe product.
  Which brings me, Mr. President, to the statement made by our 
distinguished colleague from Kansas that this bill does exactly what 
the chairman of the Commerce Committee wants done; namely, this 
particular Senator. Not at all.
  I know what we have now. I know what we have is the highest degree of 
care on a manufactured product technologically lasting 27 years. And 
the amendment of the Senator from Kansas says, go in the other 
direction and reduce the technological safety of that particular 
device; namely, here, an aircraft, to 15 years. It goes in the wrong 
direction.
  What we are trying to do is get advanced technological programs--that 
is the name of it, ATP, advanced technological programs--to have 
greater safety, to have greater, higher quality. That is the global 
competition.
  When we are talking about those products that we are in competition 
with in the global economy, in the global competition, we are always 
being told quality, quality, higher quality products. So the advanced 
technological program is to take regularly produced products and make 
them advanced technologically, not retrenched technologically from 27 
years down to 15 years. That is not what this Senator or the chairman 
of the Commerce Committee wants at all.
  No, this amendment is not germane, and if it were germane it puts us 
really in the wrong direction. Here we have come through with the 
National Science Foundation, we have come through with the best of the 
best of American industry, we have come through with all of the 
entities looking at the manufacturing processes and trying our best for 
improvement in quality, improvement in safety, and here comes an 
amendment that says, ``Let's not improve. Let's retrench. Let's cut 
from 27 years to 15 years. Whoopee, after the 15 years, you can put in 
any kind of part. Don't worry about it lasting. You are home free.'' 
That is what this particular amendment says.
  So it is not in consonance with the subject matter of the bill. This 
never was brought up in 1992 when we unanimously passed it out; never 
even considered; even though we considered separately general aviation 
liability, never a suggestion that it be on this bill.
  Again, in 1993, when we discussed and went over everything in this 
particular bill, all Republicans, all Democrats, never a suggestion 
about general aviation liability, even though that very same committee, 
all Republicans and all Democrats, reported out the general aviation 
liability bill. But it was not on this one.
  Now they come and say it is germane. And now they come and say it is 
in the direction of S. 4. Not so, Mr. President. Not at all. This is 
not germane. It is political strategy when you put it together with the 
rest.
  They have to send the distinguished Senator from Kansas downfield 
blocking with her prestige. Yes, she has the prestige, but she does not 
have the bill. She does not have the amendment. It is not germane. This 
is not in the direction of advanced technology, whatever. It is a 
retrenchment, at best, and certainly a subject matter that ought to be 
treated separately, because it goes into fundamental tort law; namely, 
the statute of repose.
  You can read this voluminous bill here and you cannot find anything 
that says ``repose'' or ``statute'' in this particular bill--121 pages. 
There is nothing that alludes to any kind of statute of repose or 
bringing tort action and so forth.
  To come now and say this is germane is begging the question. They 
really ought to be ashamed to put these amendments up because they know 
that, but they just try to make the connection by using the word 
``jobs.'' As I stated earlier today, you might as well put in welfare 
reform, because we are going to give those on welfare jobs.
  So, yes, we hope that this will have quality production and that we 
can begin to commercialize America's technology and thereby create 
jobs. Over here, we hope we get them off of welfare and get them onto a 
job. So let us bring up welfare reform.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DANFORTH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, I would like to compliment Senator 
Kassebaum for her persistence in attempting to get this general 
aviation product liability legislation enacted by the Congress of the 
United States, or even past the Senate.
  It really has been a tremendous act. Like Sisyphus pushing the rock 
up the hill, she has pushed and pushed and pushed and she has never 
gotten it up the hill.
  This is not a new idea which Senator Kassebaum has sprung on the U.S. 
Senate. This has not been a question of Senator Kassebaum stealthily 
lying in wait to pounce on the Commerce Committee when it least 
expected it.
  Rather, this is legislation that goes back to the 99th Congress. This 
has been before us now five consecutive Congresses. This is not a 
matter that has not been studied. As I pointed out earlier, it was 
studied by the Presidential Commission on Airlines and on the aircraft 
manufacturing industry, and it was recommended by that Commission.
  But leave aside the Presidential commission that recommended this, 
and leave aside the various supporters of it, various parts of the 
aircraft manufacturing industry, the Owners and Pilots Association, the 
General Aviation Manufacturers Association, the International 
Association of Machinists--all of which support this legislation. Leave 
aside all of the groups that have studied it, and the commission that 
studied it. The U.S. Senate has studied this, now, ever since the 99th 
Congress.
  In previous iterations, this statute of repose was incorporated in 
broader legislation dealing with various aspects of general aviation 
product liability. Senator Kassebaum has tried mightily to get the 
broader version of this legislation enacted into law. She has not 
succeeded.
  So now she is making an effort to enact a stripped-down version of 
her previous legislation dealing only with one subject and that is the 
subject of the statute of repose. But this issue, the issue of the 
statute of repose, was also included in the legislation that was 
introduced in the 99th Congress, in the 100th Congress, in the 101st 
Congress and the 102d Congress, in addition to this 103d Congress, the 
only change being that the statute of repose was 20 years in the 
earlier versions. It is 15 years in this version. But the subject is 
the same. The issue has been before us repeatedly.
  Now it is said we should not rush into this just on the basis of the 
Commerce Committee legislation. This should be a matter that has been 
before the Judiciary Committee. Let me describe the history of this 
legislation. In the 99th Congress, a hearing was held in the Commerce 
Committee and the bill was reported out of the Commerce Committee.
  In the 100th Congress a hearing was held in the Commerce Committee 
and the bill was reported out of the Commerce Committee and the bill 
was referred to the Judiciary Committee. The 100th Congress, the 
Judiciary Committee got this issue, including the issue of the statute 
of repose. It was referred to the Judiciary Committee. What did the 
Judiciary Committee do with this in the 100th Congress? The answer to 
the question is it did not do anything. It did not report out anything, 
to the best of my knowledge. It did not vote on the subject.
  Then came the 101st Congress. Again, it was a bill that was 
introduced. It was referred to the Commerce Committee, a hearing was 
held yet again in the Commerce Committee. The bill was reported out of 
the Commerce Committee and again it was sequentially referred to the 
Judiciary Committee. On this occasion, the Judiciary Committee was 
moved to action. It was not a positive action. Two votes were held in 
the Judiciary Committee in the 101st Congress. The first vote was on a 
motion to report the bill without recommendation. That lost 6 to 7. 
Then there was a vote to report the bill with a negative 
recommendation. That was agreed to by 10 to 2.
  So it is not that the Judiciary Committee has not had opportunities 
to deal with this. The Judiciary Committee just does not agree with it. 
Fine.
  Then in the 102d Congress the bill was introduced. It was referred to 
the Commerce Committee. A hearing was held and the bill was not 
reported.
  And then in the 103d Congress, the bill was reported.
  So I compliment Senator Kassebaum for her patience and for her 
persistence in repeatedly bringing this before the Congress, ever since 
the 99th Congress. What would that be, 10 years ago or so? She has been 
at this for a decade. And now it is said, oh, my gosh, what is this 
irrelevant matter doing on this bill? I think it is relevant to the 
whole question of how we do create jobs in this country. But beyond 
that, I think Senator Kassebaum is now in a position, having tried for 
over a decade to get her legislation passed, of attempting to put it on 
some bill that might have some prospect of going somewhere. That is 
precisely what she has done.
  The Judiciary Committee has had its chance. It has had its chance, 
not in one Congress but in two Congresses. It has had its opportunity 
to deal with this issue. It does not like this issue. Fine. But that 
does not mean we keep on this endless process of wheel-spinning toward 
nowhere.
  I know Senator Hollings is attempting to pass his legislation and the 
chairman feels this is excess baggage as far as his bill is concerned. 
I have spoken with Senator Kassebaum about this issue. She would be 
willing, at least she has expressed it to me, and I certainly would be 
willing, to work out a time certain to vote on this amendment. Let us 
just vote on it at a time certain. Then we can get on with other 
amendments that other Senators might wish to offer.
  So I simply make that suggestion to my chairman, that perhaps we can 
figure out some definite time to bring this up.
  There are now 51 cosponsors of the bill that gave rise to the 
Kassebaum amendment--51 cosponsors of this legislation. So I think 
there is a pretty good chance it will be adopted. I hope it will be 
adopted. But as a matter of attempting to work this out with the 
chairman, maybe we can set a time certain and just vote on it.
  Mr. HEFLIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. President, I listened to the logic of arguments 
against the referral to the Judiciary Committee. It has long been a 
practice in the Senate when there are overlapping jurisdictions that 
you have sequential referrals to another committee. For some reason or 
another that tradition, that custom, that part of the Senate procedure 
just does not appeal to some of the proponents of this legislation. But 
it has been done historically. It is done because of the fact that a 
committee that has jurisdiction may not have all of the staff expertise 
to look into certain specialized areas. And the Commerce Committee, 
while it may have some lawyers, it is not like the Judiciary that looks 
into the legal aspects, the legal ramifications in regard to it.
  This is a completely new bill. There never has been a 15-year statute 
of limitation, statute of repose, that has been in a bill that has been 
before the Judiciary Committee.
  There have been statutes of repose but they have been different. This 
is much shorter. This would deprive a great number of people of the 
right to recover if they are injured negligently, or injured willfully 
or wantonly, or injured under any concept of recovery. It is entirely 
different and it is limited to that.
  Other times when you had referrals, you had referrals that were over 
the overall bill. Most of the time it was spent on other issues, like 
punitive damages, caps, joint and several, and other things other than 
just the statute of repose.
  I think a matter of referral does not have to take long on this. It 
is a narrow issue. You would have to have it considered by that. It 
seems to me that would be the proper situation to take place relative 
to the sequential referral of this bill to the Judiciary Committee.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, inadvertently, I believe, my 
distinguished counterpart, the Senator from Missouri, has complimented 
me because he has complimented Sisyphus. Let one Sisyphus meet another 
Sisyphus.
  I have been on this from the 99th Congress, the 100th Congress, the 
101st Congress, the 102d Congress and now the 103d Congress. I got it 
by way of an amendment on the trade bill.
  Right to the point, I have been trying to get the updated 
authorization that everyone could agree with. When the Senator says 
excess baggage on his bill, it is excess baggage on our bill
  Oh, the Senator would smile because this was his bill, my bill. I 
worked very closely with him. There is no mystery to this. But what you 
see is the political maneuver here. That does not have anything to do 
with this bill, because he said let us get a time.
  I would like to hear them say that they are not going to come up with 
all of these amendments. The Senator from Kansas knows with all of 
these amendments that there will be no bill, that this bill is not 
going to go anywhere. If they can say let us get together with the 
Judiciary Committee on some agreement and then go ahead, pass general 
aviation product liability in due time, just like we have done it 
before--twice before, this particular bill, without any GATT amendment, 
without any general aviation amendment--but pass the Technological 
Competitiveness Act of 1994, if we could go ahead and do that, that 
would be something.
  But we come in, like I say, with the downfield blocking of the 
prestigious Senator from Kansas. Of course, the general aviation 
amendment is not going anywhere. No amendment is going anywhere because 
the bill is not going anywhere. They must know that.
  I see a distinguished colleague on the floor who has a very serious 
amendment that is germane. I have talked with those with respect to 
defense and the National Science Foundation and national education to 
hold off on that amendment, even though it is germane, because we know 
what can pass and not be controversial.
  There has been one heck of a lot of work by staff and Senators 
conferencing, getting together with the Energy Committee, getting 
together with the Small Business Committee, getting together with the 
Labor, Health and Human Resources Committee and Education and all the 
other work we have done. There have been a lot of amendments held off 
on this side. But now comes the political shenanigans apparently of any 
and every amendment coming forward and trying to say, now, this has 
really been pushing and pushing and pushing. That is what happens to 
us.
  Meet another Sisyphus. I have been working and have gotten unanimous 
consent on this side two Congresses in a row, and over there on the 
other side, the last Congress, with respect to even marking up the bill 
and have it reported and all signed in conference and ready to go. And 
then politics, unfortunately, added in, partisan politics. And now we 
hear about the Sisyphuses, which I compliment the distinguished Senator 
from Kansas on being one.
  I know a Sisyphus when I see one because I am one. I have been doing 
the same thing. But then to come forward and say that we want to get 
something done and make that argument in light of the maneuvering to 
frustrate and thwart anything being done about competitiveness, about 
technology, about the advance technology or about the manufacturing, 
about the training, about helping small business, about the information 
superhighway, and those kinds of things.
  Here we have a wonderful opportunity, and there is no objection, and 
there are no amendments to the real substance. But then they come on a 
well-considered, well-worked, well-heard bill, hearings and everything 
else in an orderly fashion as best that the body politic and the 
Congress itself can do, and then they start mucking it up with all of 
these amendments, just to come here and have an exercise in politics 
and show our strength of how we can really show that nothing can be 
done.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DANFORTH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, I really do not think that it is fair to 
the Senator from Kansas to represent that this is some kind of politics 
on her part or that it is some kind of plot or scheme on her part to 
affect the bill that has been brought to the floor by Chairman 
Hollings.
  I do not agree with S. 4 because I think that it is industrial 
policy. I believe that industrial policy is an issue which should be 
debated before our country, as well as before the Senate. I do not 
believe that the Department of Commerce should be operating what 
amounts to a slush fund of grants to specific businesses. I do not 
believe that the Federal Government should be in the business of 
picking winners and losers in the private sector. I think that the 
marketplace should function for that purpose, not the Federal 
Government. That to me is the big issue that is before us and should be 
before us and should be debated.
  I have not asked Senator Kassebaum to bring her amendment before the 
Senate. This is her decision, not mine. It is not part of some scheme 
on the part of Republican Senators. It is not politics. I do not know 
of any Senator in the U.S. Senate who is better able to work with 
Members on both sides of the aisle than Senator Kassebaum. She is a 
person who is an established centrist in this body, a person who is 
respected on both sides of the aisle, a person who has worked very well 
and very effectively and very constructively with Senators on both 
sides of the aisle.
  This was her decision. But I respect that decision because she has 
been working very, very hard on general aviation product liability. She 
believes this is real jobs. This is real jobs for her constituents. It 
is real jobs for people who work in her State. It is 25,000 additional 
jobs for our economy. These are not jobs created by Secretary Ron 
Brown, by grants doled out by the Commerce Department, and I have high 
regard for Secretary Brown. This is not the Government maintaining a 
fund to confer that fund on favored businesses. This is not industrial 
policy being advocated by Senator Kassebaum. This is real jobs by 
Government doing something that is constructive; not industrial policy, 
but simply shortening the statute of repose because Senator Kassebaum 
believes that the litigation explosion in this country has crippled an 
industry which was once one of the great industries in America.
  I compliment her for it. But I do not think we should see in this 
some sort of political scheme. It is not politics.
  I do believe that on the question of industrial policy there are 
political differences. I believe that they are bona fide political 
differences about the role of government. It is a matter of basic 
political philosophy as to the degree to which the Government should 
grant money to specific industries to weigh in on behalf of those 
industries. That is a bona fide political issue. It should be debated. 
It should be addressed in this deliberative body.
  But I do not believe that the issue of general aviation is a 
political issue in that sense. I do not think that it is a matter of 
basic philosophy. I think that there are those who believe that the 
trial lawyers are correct. I think that there are those who believe 
that litigation is just hunky-dory. Let us file a lot of lawsuits. 
Maybe they make the world safer; maybe the lawyers really have the key 
to a safe and prosperous America.
  There are people who believe that. But I do not think that is a 
matter of basic political philosophy, the kind of thing that defines 
people philosophically. The political question has to do with the role 
and the scope and the power of the Federal Government, whether we 
really have $2.8 billion of excess money to spend on favored 
industries. That is a political question. That is a philosophical 
question, not the one raised by Senator Kassebaum.
  Senator Kassebaum simply wants to pass her bill. She sees a bill here 
which has already passed the House of Representatives. She respects the 
skills and the ability of the chairman of the Commerce Committee in 
getting legislation through, and she wants to put her bill on this 
bill. There is nothing novel about that. There is nothing novel or 
sinister about offering amendments in this Chamber. That is all Senator 
Kassebaum has done, and I respect her for it.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Right to the point, Mr. President. We have not said it 
was sinister. We said it was not germane. And the old saying is let the 
record speak.
  Now, the record speaks with respect to general aviation liability. 
This measure was before the Committee of Commerce, and the record would 
show that it was reported out by an overwhelming vote as a separate 
bill. That is the fact; nothing sinister.
  The record would also show with respect to the particular measure 
that the Senator from Missouri and I discussed all this before. We were 
absolutely admonishing, he to his group and me to my side of the aisle, 
that we were not going to have a slush fund, which he talks about now, 
the Secretary of Commerce slush fund. And it was at our insistence, the 
distinguished Senator and this particular Senator, that we included the 
peer review process of the National Academy of Engineering; that it was 
not picking winners or losers; that it had to be industry picked. And 
we included it, and that is in the particular bill.
  That is what the record says. And the record would show that the 
Senator from Missouri did not object when the bill passed unanimously. 
All of a sudden he is talking about a new particular argument now with 
GATT and something that happened in December of just this past year, 
1993, with an international trade agreement. That is something separate 
and apart. This has nothing to do with this particular bill. All of a 
sudden S.4 becomes industrial policy, but the record would show it was 
not industrial policy in 1992 when it passed. It was not industrial 
policy when it passed out of the committee without the objection of the 
Senator from Missouri.
  That is why we are talking now of what is politically going on. I am 
talking now not about my distinguished colleague from Kansas being 
sinister. I do not know where he gets all that. I just said it is not 
germane. It does not belong on this bill.
  I have the highest respect for the Senator from Kansas. But in 
essence, what really happens is the Senator from Missouri now argues 
for industrial policy and against industrial policy all in the same 
breath because if there is industrial policy in this land of ours set 
by the National Government, it is one for the aircraft industry. We 
take all of the research from the Department of Defense, all of the 
research publicly financed by politicians--winners and losers, yes, we 
pick that--the aircraft industry in NASA, the aircraft industry with 
respect to the Department of Defense and finance it, and say you take 
all of that particular research and put it into your private 
production. And, by the way, general aviation, if you want to sell, as 
you do, overseas, the Export-Import Bank is there as a matter of 
industrial policy to finance you.
  And the very amendment says for general aviation we are going to give 
you a special statute of repose. The amendment by the distinguished 
Senator from Kansas is industrial policy, yet the Senator from Missouri 
is against industrial policy, all in the same breath.
  Let me yield to my distinguished colleague who seeks the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was just reading about Sisyphus as the 
Senator was speaking. I heard references to it to several times. As I 
was standing here, I was thinking about how I missed serving in the 
House of Representatives. In the other body, when a bill was considered 
on the floor, the rule provided 9 or 10 amendments and a time limit for 
general debate and on the amendments. There was some certainty about 
when the bill would be voted upon. I do not imagine that many people in 
the Senate miss the House, but there are certain aspects of service in 
the other body that I miss. Limited debate time is one of them.
  I do not intend to discuss Sisyphus. Rather, I was thinking of C. 
Northcote Parkinson, who is a more contemporary reference who talked 
about time. Parkinson's law said that the time it takes to do things is 
generally equal to or exceeds the time available to do things. Since in 
the Senate we generally do not have time limits on anything, it is 
pretty hard to get things done.
  It is interesting that for the very reason the Senator from Missouri 
said he is opposing this legislation, I am supporting it. I support 
this legislation precisely because I believe it does represent some 
kind of industrial policy. Is it massive new Government intervention in 
picking winners and losers? No, nothing of the kind. It does not even 
resemble that. But it does represent, finally, an understanding in our 
country that we ought to find out what is important to us and try to 
help it.
  One of the things that has been so discouraging, I suspect, to 
everybody serving in the Senate is the adversarial relationship between 
the private and public sector. We seem to have all of these feuds back 
and forth between Government and business. The fact is that we are 
involved now in a much more intense international competition.
  It did not used to be that way. When I was going to school in a small 
town in North Dakota, I walked to school in the morning know that we 
were the winners. We were not confronting a tough economic giant in 
Asia. We were not confronting a difficult challenge in Europe. We were 
No. 1. We were the biggest, the best, and the strongest. We outproduced 
everybody.
  That is not true any longer. We have certain strengths but we now 
face shrewd, tough international economic competition. In most cases 
when we face that competition, our business try to sell their products 
produced in America by American labor.
  The competition we face is often a combination of deliberate strategy 
by another government and their private sector working together hand in 
hand, cooperating to advance their economic interests.
  Why should we not finally understand that we should work together as 
well? Why should not our Government and our private sector, instead of 
being adversaries, cooperate together because we are on the same team? 
We are in this together.
  Does it mean that we develop some grand plan from Washington that 
represents what the private sector ought to do? No. I do not think so.
  I asked former Trade Ambassador Carla Hills one day: ``Is there 
anything in this economy the loss of which you would want to care about 
that you would move to try to stop? Are there any concentric economic 
activities in this country that are essential to the future of this 
country? If you saw certain sectors of our economy for various reasons 
being weakened, crushed and failing and falling, would you decide that 
there is some public policy reason to step in and help it because you 
cannot have a strong economy without that certain of a pillar? Is there 
anything that you feel that way about?''
  ``No. Not really. Let the private sector be the allocator of funds. 
Let the market system work.'' That was her reply.
  I was asking Ambassador Hills about that because it seemed to me at 
the time that the market system was working. At the time we had old 
Milliken out there in Beverly Hills coordinating with New York City. he 
was pumping junk bonds out through every opening he could find in the 
financial scheme, loading up our financial institutions and investors 
with junk bonds. The fact is that this was not advancing this country's 
interest. It was weakening this country's interest.
  My point is that we often get a lot of perverted results in the 
market system. What we ought to do is understand that market system is 
a good system but not a perfect system, and that we can help that 
system. That is what this legislation does.
  It is why I support this legislation. This legislation says that the 
private sector is going to have to confront international competition. 
The question of who wins that competition provides the answer to who 
gets the jobs in the future of this world. Will we win or will we lose?
  This legislation says let us help American industry win. Is it just 
big business, just the large manufacturing concerns that move out and 
confront competition? Not at all. Many of us serving in this Senate 
serve smaller, rural States. In my State of North Dakota we have over 
200 manufacturers, many of which are small, employing, on average, 
about 50 employees each. They must meet international competition as 
much as any other manufacturer in the United States.
  What this legislation does, and the reason I support it so strongly, 
is it says to small manufacturers, we want to provide a marketplace for 
new technologies. We want to develop manufacturing extension centers, 
based on the model of something that has been extraordinarily 
successful. Something the Senator from Kansas would understand and 
agree coming from a rural State. The model is the extension centers 
that 50 years ago moved knowledge and information to the rural areas of 
the country. The result was a virtual explosion of capability in rural 
America.
  The Senator from South Carolina brings to the floor of this Senate a 
bill that says let us provide the same opportunity in manufacturing 
technology to assist small manufacturers in this country, to be better, 
to be better able to produce, better able to compete, more efficient, 
and more effective. That, in my judgment, is a good investment. That is 
sound policy. That is not saying let us interfere, or let us interrupt. 
That is saying let us offer a helping hand.
  If we have technology that works, that can make a small manufacturer 
better able to compete in selling in the international marketplace, why 
on Earth would we not want to share that? Why would we not want to 
strengthen those economic interests in the private sector?
  If you ask manufacturing firms--and I have in my State--what they 
think of this, do you think they think that this is interference? They 
will tell you this is good news. This makes a whole lot of sense. At a 
time when they are talking about all the burdens we impose, all the 
troubles the Federal Government provides for them, they say this is a 
ray of hope. This is a Government that wants to help, not hurt.
  I have great respect for the Senator from Missouri. I have always 
thought he is one of the legislators that sets an example in this 
Chamber. But I must say for the very reason he opposes it I support it. 
It is at least in some semblance, some notion of a plan. I have never 
felt that for the last 14 years that I have served here in Washington 
that it ought to be a source of pride for some one to stand up and say 
``we have no plan.''
  ``Let me brag about that. We have no plan. We do not want an 
industrial policy.''
  I have not heard some one say with pride: ``That would be central 
planning. So let us be the first to proclaim we have none.''
  It is pretty self-evident by what has been happening to us in 
international trade that we can do a lot better in this country if we 
decide that we are going to confront competition, competition from the 
Pacific rim, from the European countries, and elsewhere where it has 
become sharper, tougher, and more aggressive.
  We need to say that we are going to finally decide that we are part 
of the same team in this country--the private sector and the public 
sector. We want the same things and we want to be able to succeed. 
Instead of working against each other, we need to start working 
together.
  That is what, in my judgment, this piece of legislation does, and why 
I am so pleased to be here on the floor of the Senate saying that I 
would like to, in any way that I can, advance its interests.
  I have not spoken to the amendment offered by the Senator from 
Kansas, and shall not. But there are, I understand, many other 
amendments waiting in the wings, many of which probably have nothing at 
all to do with this legislation.
  I guess everybody has a right to do that. I am not suggesting that is 
the case with the amendment of the Senator from Kansas.
  But I would say this: Notwithstanding the amendments that might or 
might not be offered, I would very much hope that in the coming hours 
and coming days we will advance the interests that are central to this 
bill. Those interests, in my judgment, are interests that will advance 
the interests of our country, provide economic growth and hope and 
opportunity again.
  I want to credit the Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, who I 
think has done a wonderful job on this bill. I hope that as we move 
forward in the coming hours or days that we can finally see this passed 
and help create a semblance of policy that I think will strengthen this 
country.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, Senator Kassebaum has introduced Senate 
bill 1458. In addition to Senator Kassebaum, there are 50 cosponsors to 
that legislation. That bill is the substance of the amendment that has 
now been offered by Senator Kassebaum, and I ask unanimous consent that 
a list of the cosponsors of S. 1458 be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the list was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                        Cosponsors List, S. 1458

       Senators Bennett, Bond, Brown, Burns, Coats, Danforth, 
     Dole, Exon, Glenn, and Gorton.
       Senators Grassley, Gregg, Hatch, Hutchinson, Jeffords, 
     Kerrey, Kerry, Lott, Lugar, and Mack.
       Senators McCain, Murkowski, Pressler, Rockefeller, Simpson, 
     Smith, Thurmond, Warner, Boren, and Pell.
       Senators Chaffee, Mathews, Inouye, Nickles, Wallop, 
     Faircloth, D'Amato, Lieberman, Durenberger, and Craig.
       Senators Kempthorne, Gramm, Dodd, Cochran, Domenici, Helms, 
     Hatfield, Coverdell, McConnell, and Stevens.
       Total cosponsors: 50.

  Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Feingold). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I support the Kassebaum amendment. Yet I 
am also a member, or was a member, of the Wyoming Trial Lawyers' 
Association. In fact, I was one of the founding members of the Wyoming 
Trial Lawyers' Association. I am very proud of that. I do not think 
that group should be suspect in any way, when they enter the debate on 
issues.
  I have a great respect for the Senator from South Carolina. Senator 
Hollings and I have often joined--I joined with him--to oppose various 
efforts of broad-brush tort reform. I strongly believe the area of tort 
law should remain the exclusive jurisdiction of the State courts. 
However, there are always exceptions to a general rule and this is just 
such a case. I hope I can make that distinction.
  I have listened to the debate. It has been a very good debate. I 
admire the two participants in the debate so personally, Senator 
Hollings, and Senator Kassebaum--who came here when I did to the 
Senate. But certainly the United States has always been the leader in 
aircraft technology. In the field of general aviation, that of course 
being the aircraft manufactured for use by the citizen pilot, the 
United States has been the world leader.
  It is important to emphasize I said the United States has been the 
world leader. We are in danger of losing that important industry.
  Foreign manufacturers of small aircraft enjoy a phenomenal 
competitive advantage over American manufacturers. They are reaping 
large profits. Rather than compete with American technology, they are 
simply buying it up in some instances.
  American general aviation companies are disappearing. They are losing 
their profitability not because they have an inferior product, 
obviously, but because they face excessively burdensome liability laws 
and other factors, too. But make no mistake about it, the continued 
threat of liability is resulting in some phenomenal costs that are 
passed right on to the consumers. It is the threat of liability, not 
actually liability resulting from negligence or any wrongful acts by 
the manufacturers.
  I listened with great interest to my friend, Senator Hollings, 
comment that in the area of product liability few Members of the Senate 
really do know what we are talking about. After being through the 
efforts with him, I believe it. We have been, sometimes, on the short 
end of a vote where people just did not care to educate themselves on 
the issue. But I understood him to mean in this context that we should 
pay very close attention to those who do work in this area of the law 
and heed their expert counsel on what we should do--if anything.
  I agree with the Senator from South Carolina. I agree with him and I 
would also suggest we should heed the counsel of those in this body 
with special knowledge of specific matters. I remember so well our 
distinguished former colleague from Utah, Senator Jake Garn, who was a 
pilot, who spoke so clearly on the issue last session when he was a 
Member of our body. I recommend to my colleagues they have their staffs 
obtain a copy of Senator Garn's statement in the Congressional Record 
of last session before he left. He gave us a very real example of the 
costs--at least he attributed this to the costs of the current 
liability law.
  He cited one which I thought was rather graphic. Most of us know what 
an oil dipstick is: A metal rod that dips into the oil reservoir of a 
piston engine. We pull it out and we check to see the oil level. It is 
a rather simple thing. It is just a stick, and it does not take a 
rocket scientist to use such a stick. A replacement dipstick in a high 
performance race car might cost you $10 or $15. I remember Senator Garn 
told us that in his small aircraft that same dipstick cost over $70.
  If the dipstick can cost that much, how much for the oil filter or 
the spark plug? And we can also assume the costs have increased in the 
time since our colleague spoke to us on that issue.
  So, clearly, if a company can be under the threat, just the threat of 
product liability to the point they have to pass along costs as absurd 
as that, something is wrong.
  Senator Kassebaum has been working on this issue for many years. I 
have joined her each and every time. Each year this Congress has 
delayed in passing this legislation the United States has lost more of 
its competitive edge.
  We are losing our competitive ability, not because American workers 
are producing an inferior product, but because some Americans see a 
very deep pocket out there to reach into when something goes wrong. 
That, too, is perfectly proper if there are reasonable protections 
against frivolous or stale claims. There are no such protections for 
this important American industry.
  This legislation would provide a few sorely needed rules to even the 
playing field for general aviation manufacturers. It is not 
unreasonable to reduce the period to file a lawsuit. It is not 
unreasonable to say that there is some point in time, whether 10, 15, 
or 20 years, that a person must enforce their rights by litigating 
their own claim or that their claim is lost or expired.
  In fact, I suggest that it is clearly very reasonable and I think 
quite correct to do that in light of the many hands that these products 
have passed through, over and through time. That, too, is what we are 
talking about, products that pass through many hands. Each time a 
modification is made or something is added that changes the very nature 
of the original product, if something goes wrong under the current 
system it is not the person who made the change who suffers the 
greatest threat of liability but the manufacturer of the original 
product, a product that has been modified and is totally outside the 
control of the manufacturer when these modifications are added.
  I think that is unfair and it is wrong. It is not just. It is not 
what our system of justice was designed to do. You are dealing with a 
product that passes through various persons, people with various 
degrees of experience, expertise, mechanical ability. And of course all 
of that has been covered very thoroughly in the debate.
  But as proof, I think, that the manufacturers of general aviation 
aircraft are doing a pretty good job, I refer to some of the comments 
that have been made by critics of the amendment. Each of our colleagues 
has pointed out the average age of a general aviation aircraft is 
nearly 20 years. That says something. That says that they make a pretty 
good product, and a pretty safe product. How many Members of the Senate 
or their staffs own a car that is over 20 years old? Many people do not 
even live in houses that are that old. Would we have an indefinite 
period to sue a homebuilder for something that happened to a home 20 
years after it was built? I think clearly not.
  Nor would we support a system that allowed a lawsuit over an alleged 
defect in a car that was over 20 years old, yet more people die in car 
wrecks with each passing year. In fact, thousands and thousands.
  So, as I stated, I think if you stay in the legislative game long 
enough, you will come up with an exception to something you have held 
dear to in the past. I do not favor Federal legislation--that has been 
a consistency in my review--in the area of tort law, and product 
liability is part of that body of tort law. I think this is a unique 
situation. After thoughtful consideration when I originally supported 
Senator Kassebaum and, again, the same considerations now because of 
the unique nature, I again agreed to cosponsor the original bill 
offered by my friend from Kansas over, I think, 4 years ago.
  I continue to support this legislation for the same reasons. It is 
fair, it is equitable, and it is crucial, I think, to protect the 
future of one of the remaining areas where the United States remains 
the world leader in technology and in safety, and we should not, in my 
mind, allow an unfair system of product liability laws to destroy this 
important and, again, as I say, uniquely American industry.
  For those reasons I wanted to share with my colleagues and hope that 
there will be support for Senator Kassebaum's amendment. I thank the 
Chair.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Wyoming 
knows the tremendous professional respect and the personal affection 
that the Senator from South Carolina has for him. He is doing us a 
favor next week in coming down to speak to our friendly Sons of St. 
Patrick, the second oldest Hibernian in the United States after Boston. 
I was past president of that organization, and he really graces us by 
being willing to come down to our annual banquet and respond to the 
toast to the United States of America.
  He and I have worked together on product liability. And listening to 
his delivery here, I want to try to update what is really occurring, 
because what the distinguished Senator is saying could perhaps have 
been pertinent or at least sustainable 5 or 6 years ago when we were 
arguing these things. But the recession is over and the industry is 
coming back.
  We have citation after citation of the matter of the billings up over 
$2.1 billion now, an increase of 16 percent. We have Cessna that was 
taken over by Textron. They are making a great profit. The same with 
Raytheon. They bought out Beechcraft. They have $106 million in profits 
on $1.1 billion in sales. R Tech has come to South Carolina trying to 
locate the manufacture of small general aircraft. Mooney Aircraft is 
boosting its production. The American General Aircraft Corp. I caught 
the statement that the domestic manufacturers are drying up. I believe 
the record would show to the contrary.
  With respect to the matter of the safety and the time period, I only 
suggest to my distinguished friend that that is not only necessary but 
wonderful. It is working. I look over here and I read the headlines 
every week now, one of these automobile manufacturers is having a 
recall, is recalling thousands of cars on account of a brake, or 
thousands of cars on account of the gear shift jumps into another gear 
and goes in the other direction, or thousands of cars more recalled for 
another reason. The reason for those recalls is product liability, and 
that is where, in general terms, the distinguished Senator from Wyoming 
and I agree. That is why they have been having those recalls, because 
they know they are going to, by gosh, get socked financially if they 
allow the defect to remain. And these recalls are saving many, many 
lives.
  We are not afforded that luxury in general aircraft manufacturing. 
Yes, there should be a much, much higher degree of care and, yes, there 
is, fortunately. You do not hear them recalling planes. They 
manufacture those planes now so the average life is 27 years. That 
manufacture is strong. We are not talking about the maintenance, we are 
not talking about the engine parts and some of the verdicts that we can 
talk about here. We are talking about basic general aviation 
manufacturing. It has worked, and worked extremely well. That is why we 
are in opposition to going in the other direction.
  The general aviation safety chart, as enunciated by our National 
Transportation Safety Board, shows a steady decline, I say to the 
Senator from Wyoming, coming right on down. This is one of the few 
charts where you see improvement. Smoking is up, drinking is up, crime 
is up. The one thing that is working is product liability and the 
safety caution used in the manufacture of aircraft. We put that in at 
the very incidence of this particular debate on the Kassebaum 
amendment.
  I know the Senator is a distinguished member of the Judiciary 
Committee. I yield to him on that particular score because we have 
heard it and we have reported it from the Commerce Committee. It is our 
Judiciary Committee friends who have a very valid interest in this 
regard. I am sure we will hear from them.
  But I am really a little concerned about the basis upon which now the 
distinguished Senator addresses the subject, because product liability 
is working and safety is out there and, yes, the dip stick is going to 
cost more. I remember that wonderful talk that our friend from Utah 
made, the former Senator Jake Garn. He knew aircraft. He was an 
astronaut as well as a pilot. But when it comes to manufacturing, let 
us not start with a 15-year statute of repose.
  The Senator was concluding and saying we do not have it in the 
automobile industry, so we should not have it in aircraft 
manufacturing. I think the contrary is true. We do not have the luxury 
of recalling an unsafe plane. Somebody has gone to the far beyond when 
that occurs. That is the real concern the Senator from South Carolina 
has with the Kassebaum amendment.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas [Mrs. Kassebaum] is 
recognized.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, if I may just respond a moment to the 
figures again on what has happened as far as the numbers in the general 
aviation industry. In 1979, there were 13,000 piston airplanes 
manufactured per year. Today, there are 500. That is where the decline 
has taken place.
  Even more importantly, and this has been said several times, but in 
1980, the United States had 29 percent of the world market for piston-
powered airplanes, and foreign manufacturers had 15 percent. In 1992, 
the United States had 9 percent of that market and the rest had shifted 
to foreign manufacturers. That is the concern.
  The distinguished Senator from South Carolina was talking about 
recall. The automobile industry does not have the FAA as their watchdog 
at the gate, and the FAA has been a powerful guardian of safety in the 
aviation industry.
  So I just wanted to reiterate those figures because I think that 
shows what has happened to piston-powered manufacturing. It is that 
which we focused on in this debate.
  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise today to strongly support the 
amendment introduced by Senator Kassebaum.
  Mr. President, we cannot ignore the fact that product liability 
remains an extremely serious problem for many industries. I recently 
did some research with respect to the impact of product liability in 
general aviation. The information available reveals without a doubt 
that product liability has been the greatest single obstacle to the 
success and survival of the American light aircraft industry.
  General aviation has been seriously impacted. Production of new 
aircraft has plummeted from 18,000 just a few years ago to around 1,021 
last year. Industry employment has been cut in half. Cessna Aircraft, 
which used to produce nearly 9,000 aircraft a year, has not produced a 
single- or twin-engine piston powered airplane since 1986. Piper 
Aircraft is in bankruptcy, largely due to product liability costs.
  The dire state of this previously healthy industry has serious 
consequences. If we do not provide new training aircraft for our future 
pilots, what will happen to our air transportation system? The average 
age of the single-engine aircraft is now 26 years. Increased foreign 
competition is targeting the U.S. marketplace with a number of general 
aviation airplanes.
  Mr. President, the general aviation industry is intensely regulated 
by the Federal Government. Every stage of design, production, and 
testing is scrutinized by the Federal Aviation Administration. The 
general aviation industry is in dire need of a uniform Federal standard 
of liability to dovetail with the existing system of Federal 
regulation. Senator Kassebaum has been a longtime leader in supporting 
legislation to create a national product liability law for general 
aviation. Senator Kassebaum has introduced S. 1458, the General 
Aviation Revitalization Act, as an amendment to the pending 
legislation. The chairman of Cessna has publicly stated that the 
company would resume production of piston-powered aircraft if the 
legislation introduced by Senator Kassebaum was approved by the 
Congress.
  Mr. President, I urge that action be taken by the Congress to help 
this important industry to resume production.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a few articles from 
various publications be printed in the Record for all Senators to 
review this important issue.
  There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in 
the Record as follows:

                     [From Barron's, Feb. 21, 1994]

 Falling From the Sky--Unlimited Liability Claims Destroy an American 
                                Industry

                         (By Thomas G. Donlan)

       Over the past two decades, we have endured warning after 
     dire warning that some American industry or another was about 
     to be slaughtered by foreign competition.
       To save them, the United States has strong-armed other 
     countries into adopting ``voluntary'' export quotas on steel 
     and cars. Trade bureaucrats imposed ``market opening'' 
     obligations on reluctant foreign purchasers of computer chips 
     and cellular telephones. Trade managers even now are swinging 
     into action against Japan and the yen, hoping to reduce the 
     Japanese trade surplus.
       What we have not seen is the collapse of any of the 
     industries that pleaded for special treatment. We have, 
     however, in these two decades seen one major American 
     industry, the unquestioned leader in the home market and in 
     every export market, driven almost to extinction. Unit sales 
     by American firms in this industry are down 95% since 1978. 
     Dollar volume is down by nearly half, not counting the effect 
     of inflation, and in the higher-volume, lower-cost segment of 
     the market, the dollar volume is down 90%. An estimated 
     100,000 jobs have been lost.
       Yet this industry, the general-aviation industry, was not 
     destroyed by foreign competition. Americans did this to 
     Americans, using the power of the judicial system.
     lawyers in a tail spin
       Filing lawsuits against Cessna, Piper, Beech and the other 
     small-plane manufacturers has become a lucrative vocation for 
     a small coterie of lawyers. About 40% of all plaintiffs in 
     general-aviation liability cases are represented by one of 16 
     law firms, who in turn employ fewer than a dozen expert 
     witnesses.
       Their theory is quite simple: Something bad happened, so 
     the manufacturer of the plane was at fault. Thus, Cessna was 
     recently sued over an accident involving a plane that was 
     built in 1946 and has been out of production for 40 years. 
     Among other things, the suit alleged that the gas tank was 
     defective--the plane ran out of fuel.
       Most pilots are grateful that planes are so well built that 
     they last so long, but their next-of-kin are more interested 
     in creating an inheritance. So claims against manufacturers 
     are not uncommon, even when a plane was obviously misused.
       The Supreme Court recently refused to review a case in 
     which a pilot making a movie seated himself backwards into 
     the back seat of his old plane and tried to film and fly at 
     the same time. Attempting to take off, he ran into a van 
     parked on the runway, and he was severely injured in the 
     crash. His lawyer successfully argued that Piper made an 
     unsafe aircraft because there was poor forward visibility 
     from the back seat.
       Liability suits helped drive Piper into bankruptcy in 1990, 
     and potential buyers have shied away from reviving it unless 
     they can jettison the old company's old liabilities. Cessna 
     ceased production of piston-engine planes in 1986.
       ``Even though we have not produced a single-engine aircraft 
     for more than seven years, we continue to be sued in almost 
     every accident involving one of our aircraft, regardless of 
     cause,'' says Russell W. Meyer Jr., chairman of Cessna and of 
     the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, a trade 
     group.
       How much would cars cost if every fatal accident resulted 
     in a suit against the manufacturer, the dealer and every 
     mechanic who ever worked on the vehicle? How much would 
     computers cost if every sap who typed ``del C:*.*'' sued IBM 
     and Microsoft?
       A small Beechcraft aimed at the private recreational market 
     listed for $26,550 in 1974. today, Beech's smallest plane is 
     a little bigger than the `74 model, but it lists for 
     $255,800. Consumer prices about tripled in that period; car 
     prices about quadrupled; the price of computers has fallen by 
     about 99%.
       The big difference between a plane and a car is that juries 
     and judges drive cars, and take a lot more convincing before 
     they will believe that an alleged defect caused an accident. 
     And computer accidents don't scatter wreckage or leave dead 
     bodies and grieving heirs.
     the cost of claims
       From 1978 to 1992, American general-aviation manufacturers 
     spent as much to defend product liability suits as they had 
     spent from 1945 to 1978 to develop new aircraft. The result 
     has been the same as any other allocation of resources--
     aircraft manufacturers have become highly skilled at 
     designing legal defense and lobbying, while they have ceased 
     designing new aircraft.
       The General Aviation Manufacturers Association and the 
     Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association have rounded up a 
     majority of the House of Representatives and a near majority 
     of the Senate to co-sponsor a bill they label the General 
     Aviation Revitalization Act. It would enact a statute of 
     repose, to bar suits against manufacturers after their 
     products are more than 15 years old. Most planes by that time 
     have had several owners, at least three major overhauls and 
     on average accumulated 6,000 hours of flying time. The theory 
     of the statute of repose is that such use ought to 
     demonstrate the safety of the basic design.
       But any adjustment to the idea that victims have an 
     unlimited right to sue anybody anytime for anything must go 
     through the judiciary committees. In particular, the House 
     Judiciary Committee has proven itself willing to sit on 
     aviation reform forever. Fortunately, Rep. Jim Inhofe, an 
     Oklahoma Republican, successfully campaigned last year to 
     lift the secrecy of the discharge petition so that a majority 
     of the House can be shamed into bringing a bill to the floor.
       We wish the general-aviation lobby happy landings in their 
     quest for a 15-year statute of repose, but the rest of us 
     should dream bigger dreams. Even a Congress whose every other 
     member is a lawyer should recognize that a court contest is 
     not the best way to pay off the heirs of people who chose to 
     have fun in a risky way.
       There should be no unwritten warranty that guarantees 
     planes, ski slopes, cars or sidewalks forever free of all 
     danger, and it ought to be possible for people to accept 
     risks and sign away their right to blame someone else. Pilots 
     and skiers--and automobile drivers and pedestrians--are aware 
     of the risks they run in the activities they choose, and they 
     must accept the responsibility to insure themselves if their 
     heirs are to be protected from unfortunate outcomes.
       Let there be no more suing the aircraft manufacturer after 
     crashing, or the ski area after running off the trail, or the 
     car maker after hitting the accelerator instead of the brake, 
     or the city streets department after slipping on ice. Only a 
     lawyer can love a tort; the rest of us need tort reform.
                                  ____


                      [From Forbes, Mar. 14, 1994]

                   Ending Airborne Ambulance Chasing

       Congress can create 25,000 good-paying, high-skill jobs by 
     passing the General Aviation Revitalization Act. The bill 
     would prohibit product liability lawsuits against airplanes 
     that are 15 years old or older.
       That companies can be sued for almost any accident 
     involving a product regardless of cause or age is an example 
     of how warped our justice system has become. A few weeks ago 
     Cessna Aircraft was sued for an accident involving a 47-year-
     old plane, even though the model has been out of production 
     for more than 40 years. The average age of airplanes in these 
     suits is 22 years.
       The light-aircraft industry has nearly been destroyed by 
     unlimited exposure to product liability litigation. Over 
     100,000 industry and related jobs have been lost in the last 
     decade. These suits forced Cessna to shut down its single-
     engine production lines.
       Our balance of trade has been harmed: Almost a third of 
     these aircraft had been sold outside the U.S. Our leadership 
     in this field has been lost and taken up by foreign 
     manufacturers. And the decimation of the light-aircraft 
     industry is hurting our future supply of pilots. Many young 
     people start out flying in these airplanes.
       What is truly absurd is that almost half the cases against 
     makers of small planes are brought by just 16 law firms that 
     routinely use the same nine--yes, nine--``expert'' witnesses. 
     These firms rake in the money. Out of every dollar awarded 
     only 17 cents goes to the accident victims or their families.
       The bill is eminently reasonable. An aircraft that survives 
     without a manufacturer-caused accident for 15 years has more 
     than demonstrated its airworthiness. This country must once 
     again value and encourage individual responsibility; we must 
     stop blaming everything and everyone else for the woes that 
     befall us. A nice start would be this legislation, which 
     would revitalize a wonderful American industry and enormously 
     benefit the economy as well.
                                  ____


          [From the Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 25, 1994]

     Injury Lawsuits Said To Cause Financial Crisis for Many U.S. 
   Companies--Tort Tax Burdens Small-Plane Builders, but Litigation 
                      Advocates Claim Safety Gains

                         (By James H. Andrews)

       As he lifts a document from his desk, T. W. Wakefield's 
     voice has a ``here we go again'' tone.
       ``This case just came in,'' says the vice president and 
     general counsel of Cessna Aircraft Company, an airplane 
     builder in Wichita, Kan. ``Farley v. Cessna, in Pennsylvania. 
     The pilot and a passenger were killed last April when one of 
     our single-engine Model 140s crashed. The plane was built in 
     1946--47 years old. Forty-seven years, and the next-of-kin 
     say Cessna is still liable.''
       ``In other words,'' Mr. Wakefield says, ``Cessna has the 
     deep pockets.''
       It needs those deep pockets. Since 1986, the company ``has 
     spent $20 million to $25 million each year to defend hundreds 
     of product-liability cases,'' Russell Meyer Jr., Cessna 
     chairman and chief executive officer, told a United States 
     Senate subcommittee last fall.
       ``Crash cases are very expensive to defend,'' says Peter 
     Puciloski, an aviation lawyer in Boston. ``There are no 
     fender-benders in this field. . . . A manufacturer can spend 
     $1 million to defend a case, even if it wins. That's why the 
     companies often settle, even when their liability is slim.''
       The general aviation industry (builders of all planes 
     except commercial airliners and military aircraft) has a 
     unique liability profile, since the longevity of airplanes 
     gives the industry an unusually long ``liability tail.''
       Still, executives and lawyers for companies all over 
     America--manufacturers of everything from cars, heavy 
     machinery, and power tools to ladders, sports equipment, and 
     prescription drugs, as well as their suppliers and 
     distributers--sympathize with Wakefield's frustration over a 
     legal system that he contends is ``unfair.''
       For many business-people, actual or potential exposure to 
     personal-injury lawsuits imposes a heavy cost. Some companies 
     have been driven out of business or into bankruptcy by 
     litigation costs.
       Piper Aircraft Corporation, a Cessna competitor, has been 
     in Chapter 11 since 1991, owing to liability suits, it says. 
     Last month, Keene Corporation became the 18th company to file 
     for bankruptcy as a result of asbestos claims: Keene has paid 
     out $450 million in litigation and settlement costs for an 
     insulation subsidiary it purchased for $8 million in 1968--
     more than 20 years after most of the plaintiffs were exposed 
     to asbestos in US shipyards during World War II.
       Moreover, some executives and economists contend, the 
     ``tort tax''--the amount added to a product's price to cover 
     liability costs and insurance--inhibits the competitiveness 
     of American products international markets. And critics of 
     the legal system argue that fear of lawsuits causes companies 
     to discontinue products or deters product innovation.
       The Product Liability Coordinating Committee, an industry 
     group, cites recent effects of ``the litigation climate 
     existing in the United States'';
       Monsanto Company abandoned development of a safe substitute 
     for asbestos.
       Of the 20 makers of football helmets in 1975, only two 
     companies still manufacture the product; one of them, Riddell 
     Inc., says 50 percent of the price of a helmet is 
     attributable to liability-related costs.
       Liability concerns have had negative effects on research 
     for an AIDS vaccine, Science magazine reported in 1992.
       From such reports and the writings of researchers like 
     Peter Huber and Walter Olson of the Manhattan Institute (a 
     conservative think tank in New York), who popularized the 
     notion of a ``litigation explosion,'' one could infer that 
     personal-injury lawsuits and other litigation have reached 
     crisis proportions.
       The issue is slippery, however. While tort-reform 
     literature is rife with horror stories about ``bet your 
     company'' lawsuits and entire industries awash in 
     ``frivolous'' claims, hard numbers on the economic effects of 
     litigation are elusive.
       In a 1991 speech to the American Bar Association advocating 
     tort reform, then-Vice President Dan Quayle--drawing on the 
     research of Mr. Huber and others--put the total tort bill at 
     $300 billion a year, including direct and indirect costs. 
     Some critics have deemed that number wildly inflated, 
     however.
       A 1992 study by Tillinghast, an insurance actuarial firm, 
     estimated direct tort-insurance costs to be $130 billion a 
     year, of which about $90 billion goes for motor-vehicle 
     coverage. Citing these figures in an article last year, law 
     professors Kenneth Abraham, Robert Rabin, and Paul Weiler 
     wrote, ``Only a minor share of the [accident-insurance] money 
     is expended for the product and medical litigation that 
     attracts most of the popular and political attention.''
       Also, amid the sound and fury over tort reform and all the 
     lawyers jokes, one should not lose sight of the fact that 
     thousands of people each year are killed, maimed, or injured 
     by products that are, in legal terms, ``defective,'' say 
     consumer activists and plaintiffs' lawyers.
       Moreover, many product-related deaths and injuries are not 
     compensated through the legal system. According to Professors 
     Abraham, Rabin, and Weiler, ``the parties seeking cutbacks in 
     tort litigation do not highlight the scholarly evidence that, 
     relative to the number of potential `high stakes' tort 
     claims, only a minority of suits are actually filed.''
       ``The only `litigation explosion' is in lawsuits by 
     businesses against other businesses,'' says Barry Nace, 
     president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. 
     ``The number of product-liability and medical-malpractice 
     suits has actually declined in recent years. The so-called 
     litigation explosion is a figment either of poor research or 
     of intentionally misleading reports by groups like the 
     Manhattan Institute, which is funded and controlled by big 
     business.''
       Whether or not the ``litigation explosion'' has been the 
     subject of some hype and scare-mongering by business groups, 
     academics, and politicians, a consensus is growing among 
     legal scholars that the tort system needs an overhaul to make 
     it more efficient, predictable in its outcomes, and equitable 
     in its allotment of risks and compensation. A number of 
     reform proposals are under consideration in Congress and 
     state legislatures.
       But such bills do not redress firms' main liability 
     problems, says James Seifert, senior attorney for Toro 
     Company, a Minneapolis maker of lawn mowers, snow blowers, 
     and other equipment.
       First, he says, a manufacturer ``can't be certain it's 
     complying with the law at the design stage. You can hire the 
     best engineers, have a very disciplined design process, try 
     to foresee every possible use and misuse of the product, and 
     you still don't know if a future jury may conclude that the 
     product was defective.''
       To minimize the problem, Mr. Seifert says, he has ``tried 
     to create a liability prevention culture in the company. We 
     map out how a product could be misused, then design around it 
     or determine what warnings we must give to users.''
       The second major problem Seifert identifies is that ``you 
     never have issue finality. Even if a court in one state says 
     a product is defect-free, another plaintiff in exactly the 
     same circumstances can sue you in a different state and win a 
     big judgment.''
       ``Issue finality'' is the legal reform the general aviation 
     industry values most. It is lobbying for a bill in Congress 
     that would create a ``statute of repose,'' barring product-
     liability suits against the manufacturer of an airplane that 
     has been in service more than 15 years.
       Even though the industry's safety record has improved 
     steadily for four decades (see chart for accident rates since 
     1972), and even though aircraft must meet the certification 
     standards of the Federal Aviation Administration, product-
     liability costs for airplane builders have soared in recent 
     years. They jumped from $24 million in 1977 to $210 million 
     in 1985; per fatality, the cost rose from $17,000 to 
     $223,600.
       Litigation costs and the companies' related inability to 
     obtain adequate insurance coverage are the main reasons that 
     Piper is in bankruptcy and that Cessna stopped making single-
     engine piston aircraft in 1986, industry executives say.
       Moreover, they say, the price increases necessary to cover 
     litigation costs caused a 95 percent drop in factory 
     shipments of general aviation aircraft between 1978 and 1992 
     (see chart). The tort tax represents 30 to 40 percent of the 
     price of many US small planes today, according to the General 
     Aviation Manufacturers Association.
       But Lee Kreindler, a New York lawyer who represents 
     plaintiffs in crash cases, says: ``If litigation is the major 
     cause of general aviation's problems--and I'm not sure that's 
     true--that just shows the tort system is working. The system 
     is weeding out marginal products. There are a lot of unsafe 
     planes and components out there, and they're failing.''
       The proposed federal statute of repose strikes a fair 
     balance between airplane users and the manufacturers, says E. 
     Glenn Parr, Piper Aircraft's general counsel. ``Most genuine 
     design defects become evident within 15 years,'' he says. 
     ``And cutting off the liability tail for planes that have 
     been in service longer than that will restore litigation 
     predictability--so we can be an insurable risk again.''
       Wakefield, the Cessna lawyer, says the statute of repose 
     also would reduce juries' ability to second-guess aviation 
     designers. ``Jurors listen to the plaintiffs' safety experts, 
     and they retrospectively apply today's state of the art to 
     design decisions made 30 to 40 years ago,'' he says.
       But Mr. Kreindler says the statue strikes the wrong balance 
     between manufacturers and the ``innocent victems--especially 
     surviving family members--of defective aircraft, whenever 
     they are built.''
       With or without a statute of repose, aviation defense 
     lawyers know they will always face uphill battles in courts 
     of law. ``Even when our planes aren't the cause of 
     accidents,'' Wakefield says, ``juries look at burn victims or 
     grieving families, and a big sympathy factor comes into 
     play.''
                                  ____


             [From the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 19, 1993]

          Small-Plane Makers May Get a Big Lift From Congress

                        (By William M. Bulkeley)

       Lawsuits helped send the small-plane business into a death 
     spiral. Now Congress may pass a law that averts a crash.
       Airplane makers have high hopes for a bill that would 
     eliminate their crash liability for planes more than 15 years 
     old. Under the bill, manufacturers of planes over 15 years 
     old couldn't be sued if the planes crashed. ``When an 
     airplane is 15 years old, then you know it was designed 
     properly and built properly. If it crashes, it's not the 
     fault of the airplane at that point,'' says Robert Crowley, 
     chief executive of American General Aircraft Corp. of 
     Greenville, Miss., which builds about 80 planes a year.
       Although there have been other legislative attempts to 
     revive the small-plane business, this one has some 
     heavyweight support. More than half the members of the House 
     of Representatives have already signed on as co-sponsors. 
     Labor, pilot groups and the industry all back it. However, 
     trial lawyers could be major opponents, with hearings before 
     the House Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Aviation 
     due to start Oct. 27.
       ``I'm more optimistic than I've been in the past,'' says 
     U.S. Rep. Dan Glickman, one of the main sponsors of the bill. 
     The Kansas Democrat comes from Wichita where market leaders 
     Cessna and Beech make their planes.
       The general-aviation industry has long been Exhibit A when 
     people complain about the litigation explosion. A Brookings 
     Institution study of litigation effects concluded that 
     general aviation was the most severely affected of any 
     industry studied. U.S. production of general-aviation 
     aircraft fell to 880 planes last year from a peak of 17,811 
     in 1978, and some companies left the business complaining 
     bitterly about litigation costs.
       Arthur Alan Wolk, a lawyer from Philadelphia who has won 
     several big judgments for crash victims, says the decline of 
     the small-plane business reflects management errors, inflated 
     costs, disappearing tax credits and the luxury tax that was 
     repealed this year--not product-liability lawsuits. He says 
     the bill would be ``a ridiculous windfall for the industry.''
       Plane makers say the bill would allow the rebirth of a 
     moribund industry. Cessna Aircraft, a Textron Inc. unit that 
     stopped building piston-engine planes in 1986, says it would 
     start production planning the day the bill passes and could 
     hire 1,500 workers and build up to 2,000 small planes in 
     1996. Cessna once built as many as 9,000 piston-engine planes 
     a year in Wichita. Now it makes just 130 business jets a 
     year.
       Piper Aircraft Corp., which once made as many as 5,200 
     planes a year, now is struggling to emerge from bankruptcy 
     proceedings after making 113 small planes last year. Chuck 
     Suma, president of Piper, which is in Vero Beach, Fla., 
     believes that the bill's passage will cause insurance 
     companies to eventually feel comfortable about insuring 
     fleets under 15 years old. And when that happens, he says, 
     ``rates will come down, and we'll be able to spend the money 
     on research and development.''
       The companies complain that they are automatically sued in 
     every crash because they have deep pockets and build long-
     lived products. For example, Raytheon Corp.'s Beech Aircraft 
     unit was sued in 1989 when a 19-year-old Beechcraft crashed 
     into a tree. The pilot was flying into a small airport in 
     Kentucky at dusk and ducked under clouds to view the field, 
     despite warnings from the ground. Government investigators 
     blamed pilot error. But Beech says it spent more than 
     $100,000 in legal fees before the case was dismissed.
       Privately held American General is one of the few remaining 
     makers of planes that cost under $150,000. Mr. Crowley says 
     liability insurance, at about $10,000 a plane, is ``the 
     second-most expensive component, after the engine.''
       Larger manufacturers are even more eager to have the law 
     changed. Russ Meyer, president of Cessna, says, ``A high 
     percentage of the 120,000 planes we built in the last 60 
     years are still flying.'' As lawsuits are filed concerning 
     old planes, the rising costs are tacked onto the liability 
     insurance rates for new planes.
       Beech's lawyers once analyzed lawsuits covering 203 crashes 
     that occurred in the mid-1980s. Federal investigators blamed 
     weather, faulty maintenance and air-control errors, but never 
     Beech's design or manufacturing as the cause of the crash. 
     But ``plaintiffs' attorneys claimed 100% of those crashes 
     were the fault of the manufacturer,'' says Robert Martin, a 
     Wichita lawyer who frequently defends Beech. Each case cost 
     Beech an average of $530,000. Even those that were dismissed 
     cost $100,000 to $200,000 apiece to prepare, Mr. Martin says.
       Mr. Wolk, the plaintiffs' attorney, who has won plane-crash 
     judgments as high as $107.3 million, says the bill's passage 
     may help manufacturers but will hurt pilots, flight schools, 
     maintenance shops and airfields. ``Pilots and ground 
     operators should get significantly higher insurance limits 
     because passengers and customers will be suing them for 
     larger amounts of money,'' he says.
       Nobody expects the small-plane business to bounce back to 
     the level of 15 years ago when generous tax credits and a 
     growing number of student pilots created a seemingly ever-
     expanding market. Most of the planes sold then were under 
     $50,000 apiece. Today, the lowest priced plane from a major 
     manufacturer is the Piper Cub, a cloth-covered two-seater 
     that goes for $85,000. Mr. Suma of Piper says the change to 
     15-year liability ``will allow us to stabilize pricing, but I 
     don't see an industrywide reduction.'' Cessna indicates it 
     hopes to have a base price under $100,000.
       In fact, the days when Americans dreamed of learning to fly 
     and buying a plane may be gone for good. Over the past four 
     years, the number of new student pilots has steadily 
     declined. Instructional hours flown have dropped. Getting a 
     pilot's license now costs about $4,500, up from $1,500 15 
     years ago.
       Among the few remaining manufacturers, demand already 
     trails production capacity. Mooney Aircraft Corp., Kerrville, 
     Texas, which makes high-performance 200-mile-per-hour planes 
     costing $160,000 to $400,000, has seen declines in business 
     for the past three years, says Jeffrey Dunbar, vice 
     president, sales.
       Pilots, plane owners and small manufacturers say that 
     Cessna's return with spiffy new planes and a big promotional 
     campaign should rekindle customer interest. ``As we resume 
     production, we'd be stimulating demand,'' says Philip M. 
     Michel, Cessna's vice president, marketing. ``I don't believe 
     interest in flying can't be stimulated. It's as basic as a 
     child watching a bird.''
                                  ____


                  [From Forbes magazine, Nov. 8, 1993]

 Crash--The Odd Case of the Man Who Tried to Fly a Plane from the Back 
  Seat Shows Why American Companies Don't Sell Many Private Airplanes 
                                Anymore

                            (By David Frum)

       Here's a distressing statistic: In 1979 American companies 
     made and sold 17,000 private planes. In 1989 they made and 
     sold only 1,535. This is one instance where you can't blame 
     foreign competition. We can blame only ourselves for 
     destruction of this once vibrant industry. The bizarre case 
     of Piper Aircraft v. Cleveland shows why this wound is self-
     inflicted.
       On July 7, 1983, just before dawn, a pilot named Edward 
     Cleveland crashed his 13-year-old Piper Super Cub into a 
     parked van at an airfield about 20 miles outside of 
     Albuquerque, N.M. The van belonged to the owner of the 
     airfield, who had placed it on the runway in order to block 
     Cleveland from taking off.
       Why? Cleveland and the company he worked for had a history 
     of unsafe flying practices, and the owner didn't want him 
     using the airfield. But a local savings and loan had hired 
     Cleveland's company to film an ad with a sailplane gliding at 
     dawn over the nearby Sandia Mountains, and Cleveland didn't 
     want to lose the job.
       Rather than take up two planes--one to launch the sailplane 
     and one to film--Cleveland knocked out the front seat of his 
     two-seater aircraft, and had his crew install a rear-facing 
     camera. The cameraman squeezed in behind the camera with his 
     back covering the instrument panel and front window. 
     Cleveland would pilot from the rear seat.
       To block the plane, the airfield owner parked his van a 
     thousand feet down the runway. Day was breaking, and the 
     van's lights were on.
       Cleveland started down the runway anyway. Either he didn't 
     see the van, or he just decided to push his luck. In any 
     case, he didn't make it. He hit the van, smashing his face 
     into the steel camera mount in front of him. Cleveland 
     suffered severe brain damage.
       His family sued the airfield owner, and won $300,000. Then 
     their lawyer--Daniel Cathcart, whose expertise in suing 
     aircraft manufacturers has bought him a Beverly Hills house 
     adjacent to that formerly owned by Jean Harlow--decided to go 
     for broke. He would sue Piper.
       According to Cathcart, the Super Cub's design was 
     defective: On the ground, it is impossible to see out the 
     front from the rear seat. He also contends the plane should 
     have been equipped with a rear shoulder harness. Never mind 
     that the passenger sat in a way that blocked the pilot's 
     view. A jury was convinced, and awarded $1,042,000 in 
     damages.
       That award gave liability lawyers a real chance to strut 
     their stuff. In 1979 manufacturers of Federal Aviation 
     Administration-approved aircraft paid out $24 million in 
     damages and litigation costs. By 1989 they paid a total of 
     $210 million.
       Piper became a special target. Operators of corporate jets 
     usually carry insurance. Lawyers can sue them when an 
     accident occurs. But the operators of Piper's cheap planes 
     don't usually buy much insurance. So the lawyers go after the 
     manufacturer.
       According to Piper's general counsel, Glenn Parr, the 
     company paid $10 million a year from 1987 to 1991 to settle 
     lawsuits on its FAA-approved aircraft. Piper stopped buying 
     insurance in 1987. By then, insurance had become pointless 
     anyway: The last policy the company owned had carried a $100 
     million deductible. In July 1991 Piper entered Chapter 11.
       Now, if you aren't seething already, this will really make 
     you grind your teeth: The design of the Super Cub, the most 
     popular aircraft in history, had long been approved by the 
     FAA. This included a 1977 ruling that only a front-seat 
     shoulder harness was required. Thus, according to the 
     relevant federal regulators, the Super Cub was a safe plane. 
     The New Mexico legislature would not try to substitute its 
     own safety standards for those of the federal government. 
     Should a New Mexico jury be allowed to do so?
       Despite this legal question and the economic carnage, the 
     federal courts have so far refused to consider the argument 
     that federal regulation should preempt juries from applying 
     state law. Early last month the Supreme Court refused to hear 
     the Cleveland case.
       The Supreme Court's decision raises one especially 
     troubling issue. For more than a decade the top court has 
     avoided doing anything much about the tort explosion. But if 
     the top court won't take action in a case as extreme as Piper 
     Aircraft v. Cleveland, it's hard to imagine that it ever 
     will. So a part of the legal profession flashes heavy gold 
     watches, while a whole industry that once had great potential 
     goes down the toilet.

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise today to support S. 4, the National 
Competitiveness Act. This important legislation is an essential element 
of the Clinton administration's agenda to make American business more 
competitive and to reinvigorate our Nation's manufacturing base. In 
both sign and in substance, this legislation embodies a cooperative 
approach between business and Government that will achieve positive 
results, including more American jobs. Federal support for civilian 
technology and manufacturing is a positive industrial policy, necessary 
in a competitive global environment. I urge my colleagues to support 
this important bill.
  The National Competitiveness Act embraces the best of the concept of 
a public-private partnership. This legislation expands Government 
support for industry-led projects to develop technology and cooperative 
efforts with States to help small- and medium-sized manufacturers. I 
believe that the approach we are taking with this legislation will lead 
us down the road to a more productive and highly competitive 
manufacturing base in the United States. American businesses want an 
activist Government, especially in the area of making our Nation's 
manufacturing base more competitive. U.S. investment in manufacturing 
is falling behind our competitors. Currently, United States investment 
in plant and equipment is half of Japan's and less than half of any 
other G-7 country.
  In the past, business and Government have seemed at odds with each 
other. Businesses have felt overtaxed and burdened with endless 
Government mandates. Indeed, Government too often is in the position of 
laying heavier burdens on businesses as opposed to looking for ways to 
make them more competitive. This legislation signifies and demonstrates 
that Government and business can have a more positive, cooperative 
relationship. Under the many programs authorized in the National 
Competitiveness Act, the Government is providing assistance to help 
business become more competitive. The focus of this legislation is 
appropriately on manufacturing and technology development--an area 
where the United States is, unfortunately, falling behind. We, as a 
nation, need to be concerned. That is why this legislation is so 
important--it recognizes that our manufacturing base is critical to our 
economy and unless the Government and business work together to 
transform our manufacturing base into a globally competitive force, 
then our standing as an economic power will suffer.
  Not only will this legislation benefit American manufacturers as a 
whole, but it will help stimulate economic development in rural areas 
by channeling badly needed assistance to small- and medium-sized 
manufacturers in rural areas. One of the most important provisions in 
the bill to rural areas is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership 
[MEP] Program. Under this program, the National Institute of Standards 
and Technology [NIST] would establish extension centers, designed to 
help small- and medium-sized manufacturers become more competitive 
through the implementation of advance technology and state-of-the-art 
manufacturing practices. President Clinton has set a goal of 
establishing a network of over 100 manufacturing extension centers. As 
a clear sign of the administration's support for the MEP Program, the 
fiscal year 1995 budget request would double funding for MEP: $61 
million, up from $30 million in the current fiscal year. I support the 
President's goal and I further believe that this national network of 
manufacturing extension centers needs to include rural areas.
  While it is clear that MEP programs will benefit many manufacturing 
sectors throughout the country, smaller manufacturers stand a great 
deal to gain under this program. S. 4 contains language that requires 
the Secretary of Commerce, when making awards under the MEP, to 
``strive for geographical balance and for balance between urban and 
rural recipients.'' The fact is that there is a tremendous amount of 
innovation and development occurring in rural areas by small 
manufacturers. These small manufacturers often are overlooked as a 
source of efficient, highly productive performance. The inclusion of 
rural areas within a national network of manufacturing extension 
centers will not only help hundreds--if not thousands--of small 
manufacturers, but it will lead to a national manufacturing base that 
employs the best our country has to offer.

  In North Dakota, for example, there are over 200 small manufacturers, 
employing an average of about 50 workers. Almost 80 percent of these 
manufacturers in North Dakota export their products to other States and 
about one-fourth of the exporting manufacturing companies sell products 
outside the United States. There are several examples of large national 
cooperations looking to rural manufacturers and business as efficient, 
productive locations. Many rural States, like North Dakota, have seen 
modest growth in their manufacturing businesses. However, their future 
growth faces many challenges--from financing to technical assistance. 
MEP programs can provide some of the critical help that small 
manufacturers need to grow and become more competitive nationally and 
internationally.
  Rural States like North Dakota stand to benefit from the programs 
authorized under this legislation. Throughout rural America are 
hundreds of small businesses that, with a little assistance, will shine 
as some of our Nation's finest and most competitive manufacturers. As 
we continue to shift our emphasis from defense-orientated technology 
research and development toward civilian technology, small- and medium-
sized rural manufacturers need to be considered an essential element to 
our Nation's success.
  Mr. President, I strongly urge my colleagues to support this 
legislation. The administration and the bill sponsors deserve 
commendation for their vision and leadership on this issue. America 
needs the kind of proactive and cooperative commitment at the Federal 
level that this legislation provides.

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