[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 134 (Tuesday, October 9, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10346-S10347]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AVIATION SECURITY ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1447, which the
clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A motion to proceed to the bill (S. 1447) to improve
aviation security, and for other purposes.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask
unanimous consent that the time be equally charged to both leaders on
this matter.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Madam President, what time is it?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is 10:18.
Mr. REID. We have 12 minutes left before the vote?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. REID. Chairman Hollings is in the Chamber.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair.
Madam President, we have the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to
the airport security bill at 10:30.
I say, in the few minutes allotted me, I wish everyone could have
been at the Commerce Committee briefing we had with the El Al airline
security chief and Israeli government security officials. You would
immediately understand that when the plane went down over the Black Sea
this past weekend, even though the plane came from Israel, the
explosion had to come from somewhere else because it is veritably
impossible to get a bomb aboard a plane at airports in Israel.
The United States military is now working with Ukrainian and Russian
officials to verify evidence that a Ukrainian missile may have gone
astray during military exercises on the Black Sea coast. I only mention
this incident to emphasize the thoroughness of airport security in
Israel. They call their security plan the ``onion ring'' perimeter
defense. Their plan effectively addresses not only security during the
boarding of the plane, but security surrounding the airport and on the
tarmac. But we continue to talk more narrowly about security in the
cockpit and the need for federal screeners and U.S. marshals on board.
As inexperienced as we are on these matters, this is where our minds
are focused.
However, we need to expand our work on airline security to the
airport and airline personnel working on the tarmac. At some point
during pre-flight preparation, you have not only the screeners, cargo
handlers, caterers, and general airport perimeter officials, but you
have the individual who vacuums underneath the seats, who all have
access to the airplane prior to take-off. Because of this access, all
personnel need to go through an FBI check, in our opinion. That is what
this bill provides.
Take the following scenario for instance. A terrorist checks in ahead
of time online and the airline staff says to the person you have seat
9A. All a terrorist has to do is pick up that mobile phone and call a
friend who has been working 2 years on the tarmac out there and say it
is a 12 o'clock flight to Charleston, seat 9A. That is it. They tape a
pistol or a weapon of some kind under seat 9A. But even there at the
counter, all you have to do is get out there a little bit early, get
your ticket, and then sit down and be calm. Then just give a motion up
at the window because your friend has already been told that this is
the flight you are going to take.
The bill itself has been released to the Senate after a full day's
hearing we had at the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
with nearly all of the Senators in attendance. In a bipartisan fashion,
Senator McCain, and I, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has been
working on this over several years, along with the chairman of our
Subcommittee on Aviation, Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia, all got
together with some two dozen cosponsors to develop this legislation.
We do have a managers' amendment that really takes care of some of
the flexibility needs that we found out about from the FAA with respect
to restrictions on parking 300 feet from the airport building--that
kind of thing. As the Senator from North Dakota says, I think if you
move 300 feet from the airport building in North Dakota, you will be in
Senator Dorgan's cow pasture. We must be careful to maintain reasonable
and flexible oversight of airline security in order to ensure the
continued efficiency of the industry. Those kinds of judgments can be
made from time to time by the administering agency.
These efforts will be paid for. Right now, we are studying the exact
cost. Senator McCain and I have tried to hold costs down--including the
passenger security fee itself. What we have agreed upon at the moment,
of course, is $2.50 per ticketed passenger which would add up to $1.5
billion. But they are saying, no, if you are going to take care of the
18,000 screeners and some 10,000 other personnel around the tarmac and
out on the sidewalk, you are going to really get into about $1.7
billion or maybe $1.9 billion total cost. So we might have to raise the
passenger fee up to $3. I don't know. We are currently trying to obtain
the best CBO figures.
The airline executives favor this bill; the airline pilots favor the
bill. You go right on down the list, all the personnel involved; the
mayors have sent us resolutions. I think we made a mistake in calling
it airline security. We should have used the word ``stimulus,'' the
``airline stimulus'' bill, because if we had used that word, we would
not have had any trouble at all in passing this measure. Everybody is
around here trying to stimulate, stimulate, stimulate--these fancy
words we get up here in Washington.
I know of no better measure to stimulate airline travel and get the
airlines back to normal. We give the airlines $15 billion and then
guarantee they go broke by keeping the airports closed or extending the
idea that there is no security, that there are no marshals on the
plane, as the Senator from California told me early this morning. We
are going to have marshals. We are going to have security with this
airline stimulus security measure.
I yield to the distinguished Senator from Montana. He has worked
closely with us on this issue, and perhaps he would have an
observation.
Mr. BURNS. I thank my good friend from South Carolina. I didn't think
he had to be invigorated or stimulated to make a great speech. I was
going to stay out of this, but the Senator is correct; nothing will
stimulate travel more than a strong sense of security. It has to be
visible. People have to see the measures that are being taken to make
it viable and to give them a sense of security whenever they fly. We
know we are in a different kind of a confrontation now. Some have
termed it a war. It really is. But it is different from anything this
Nation has ever faced.
Whenever we start talking about our own security, providing security
for our people in this country and abroad, we only have to look--I was
interested, as was the chairman of the Commerce Committee, that when we
talk to the representatives of El Al, the national airline of Israel,
we talked to the people who are in charge of security. If the Senator
remembers, there are 7,000 employees of El Al, both domestic and
international; 1,500 of that 7,000 are in security. And there is a
bright line between their security people and everybody else--the
pilots, the people who operate their airports, the people who operate
their reservation systems, the people who operate their ground
operations and their in-flight operations. There is a bright line of
authority between those people who are the security people. They know
how to exercise that authority. They are accountable and responsible
for that. But most importantly, they are accountable to their airline
and to their country.
We have crafted this legislation without a hearing--we never had a
markup--but it is as close, and I think with a couple of amendments we
can perfect it, as we can come to some understanding on that bright
line of accountability and responsibility for security.
I congratulate the Senator for his leadership. He understands where
we
[[Page S10347]]
have to go and how to get there in order to provide the safety and
security the American people demand.
I thank the Senator.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will
report the motion to invoke cloture.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the motion to
proceed to Calendar No. 166, S. 1447, a bill to improve
aviation security:
Blanche Lincoln, Harry Reid, Ron Wyden, Ernest Hollings,
Herb Kohl, Jeff Bingaman, Jack Reed, Hillary Clinton,
Patrick Leahy, Joseph Lieberman, Jean Carnahan, Debbie
Stabenow, Byron Dorgan, John Kerry, Thomas Carper, Russ
Feingold.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call under the rule is waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
motion to proceed to S. 1447, a bill to improve aviation security, and
for other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are required under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Jeffords) and
the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Torricelli) are necessarily absent.
Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Stevens) is
necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 97, nays 0, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 292 Leg.]
YEAS--97
Akaka
Allard
Allen
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Breaux
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Cantwell
Carnahan
Carper
Chafee
Cleland
Clinton
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Corzine
Craig
Crapo
Daschle
Dayton
DeWine
Dodd
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Fitzgerald
Frist
Graham
Gramm
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Helms
Hollings
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Miller
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Nickles
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Santorum
Sarbanes
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Voinovich
Warner
Wellstone
Wyden
NOT VOTING--3
Jeffords
Stevens
Torricelli
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 97, the nays are 0.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly sworn and having voted in the
affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
____________________