[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 124 (Friday, October 6, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S10044]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     SAFETY AND THE TRANSPORTATION APPROPRIATIONS CONFERENCE REPORT

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I want to emphasize the bipartisanship 
of the request made by my distinguished chairman, the Senator from 
Arizona, to get some kind of consent for S. 3059, the bill dealing 
with, of course, the defective equipment. We had extensive hearings.
  Let me emphasize several things that we learned during the hearings.
  One, generally speaking, the National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration has been--I do not want to say defunct; I will use an 
elaborative; dormant. The testimony showed there had not been a single 
recall ordered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 
five years. They had not ordered a recall.
  Now, of course, I have kept up on this because I have had to stand in 
the well defending my trial lawyer friends who really bring about far 
more safety than one would normally suspect. In the 5-year period, 
there have been 99 million recalls. And everybody can write a thank-you 
note to Mark Robinson in the Pinto case. He never collected a cent in 
his punitive damages. But once industry realized there could be just 
that--lawsuits --then they began to voluntarily have recalls. And that 
is what occurred here.
  This defective tire situation, causing multiple deaths--over 100 that 
we know about in the United States--was not a result of recalls ordered 
by NHTSA. More or less, the lawsuits, even though gagged, had really 
brought it to the attention of NHTSA to get off the dime, wake up, and 
start acting.
  So we brought together now a measured safety precaution where this 
will not occur again. And again, it has been simmered down somewhat 
from the unanimous vote. We have been working, on both sides, with 
consumer product safety officials, with the tire companies. I talked to 
the tire companies themselves. Their main objection, in a way, to that 
bill was dealing with foreign defects, in reporting foreign defects and 
otherwise. Of course, you can call it the A tire here in the United 
States and manufacture the B tire in another country like it is 
different, but it is the same tire. So we would want to know about the 
recalls in Saudi Arabia, which started first, in order to bring the 
attention here of the Firestone defect.
  So we worked it out. Now here we have a unanimous report out. The 
distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee, as he just said 
a moment ago, had no objection to that bill coming up because he voted 
for it to be reported favorably to the floor of the Senate. Otherwise, 
the distinguished majority leader, as a member of our committee, voted 
for it. So there has to be an untying of this snarl or knot so that we 
can get things done.
  The only reason we cannot get it done is that we cannot offer an 
amendment to the conference report. If the conference report were an 
item just called up, we could call up this amendment, have a time limit 
for 10 minutes to a side, and easily adopt or reject the amendment, 
which was the bill, S. 3059. But, of course, it is a conference report, 
and under the rules we cannot just bring it up as an amendment. I say 
that so everybody will understand.
  But as the distinguished chairman of our committee, Senator McCain, 
pointed out, we could easily agree to give it some kind of 
consideration--an hour to a side. It could be called up so we can stop 
this indiscriminate killing on the highways due to faulty equipment.
  I think it ought to be emphasized that we found this out really as in 
getting past the gag orders. I do not like these gag orders, but 
sometimes they do promote settlements of judicial disputes. So we do 
not have anything in the bill in relation to the gag orders. But when 
you get lawsuits--that means that you have gone to a lawyer; you have a 
serious injury or you maybe have a death case, or whatever it is--so 
when you get multiple lawsuits, then that notice is given, of course, 
to NHTSA, and we can act from there.

  But it is a studied, deliberate, measured response. Generally 
speaking, they don't ever agree. I do not want to infer the industry 
agrees this is a good bill, but listening to them, they didn't have any 
serious objection that I can discern.
  I support 100 percent Senator McCain's movement on the floor. He is 
not holding things up. We can get a Transportation conference report to 
the President here on Friday. We can come in here on Tuesday, if there 
is a holiday on Monday. We can easily get it to the President.
  And as has been indicated, it has already been approved. We know the 
White House folks watch and make sure their concerns are taken care of 
in the measure. So whether it gets there Friday, gets there Tuesday, 
next Wednesday, let's get on with having safety in America.
  The Senator from Arizona standing in the well is not being an 
obstructionist whatsoever, but trying to promote safety where everybody 
is agreed. But, as he said, there is a ``fix'' on somewhere because why 
can't we just call up the bill and get an agreement and everything else 
of that kind?
  Our distinguished leader, the Senator from Nevada, says perhaps there 
is not going to be any vote in the Senate. And the Senator from Alaska, 
the chairman of the Appropriations Committee says, oh yes, we are going 
to have a vote to move to proceed. But that is not going to get us 
anywhere because with the vote to proceed, we will still have plenty of 
time to talk. And we will talk into next week, and talk into Tuesday 
and Wednesday, and everything else, to show to the American people that 
there is some kind of responsibility with this political entity here, 
the Senate.
  Heavens above, when we have everybody agreed--it is totally 
bipartisan--why can't we move deliberately and bring it up and have a 
vote on it?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Time in morning business has expired.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield the floor.
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. DODD. May I inquire? Would it be possible to extend morning 
business a few minutes beyond the 11 o'clock hour?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It would take unanimous consent.
  Mr. DODD. Senator Stevens and I both have a short time we want to 
take after our distinguished colleague has a chance to speak.

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