[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quorum call be rescinded.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.

                          ____________________