[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 117 (Friday, August 1, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10932-S10935]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AVIATION ADMINISTRATION CONFERENCE REPORT
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, yesterday and this morning I placed holds
on the nominations of 15 men and women
[[Page S10933]]
for appointments in the executive branch. They have one characteristic
in common. They all come from States of Senators or Members of the
House of Representatives who have signed the Federal Aviation
Administration conference report. This report, which will come before
the Senate and the House after the August recess, steals the rightful
authority of the Minnesota Metropolitan Airports Commission, which is a
public body, its members appointed by the Governor, to make decisions
about the lives of Minnesotans who live near our major international
airport. The Report would prohibit Federal funds from being used for
noise insulation of homes or apartment buildings where the airplane
noise ranges from 60 to 64 decibels.
This clause was not in the Senate bill and it was not in the House
bill. It was neither considered nor acted upon by either body, nor by
any of the committees of jurisdiction in the Senate or the House. There
was no public notification about this intent. There were no hearings,
no testimony, nothing about this particular clause.
It appears in the conference report reportedly because a lobbyist
representing a client found a Senator from another State far removed
from my State, where citizens will bear the burdens and the
consequences of this action. To slip this contemptible language into
the final conference report, which will become, if it is acted
favorably upon by the Senate and House, the final bill, the law of the
land if the President signs it, this action reminds me of the old
contest called limbo, where the object was to ``see how low you could
go.'' This action is very low. It is low because it is a perversion of
our public process for making laws which govern the lives of the
citizens of this country; in this case, the lives of people who live in
over 8,000 homes and over 3,200 apartments which surround the
Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airport.
Some 300 years ago, even before the formation of this democracy, one
of the first leaders of English settlers arriving here was William
Penn. He wrote that people are free under a government where the laws
rule and the people are a party to those laws. Those are the two
conditions under which the people are free.
The several thousand people who would be affected by this clause if
it were to become law--and it will not become law--were not a party to
that decision because the people they elected to represent them in
Congress, their two Senators and their Congressman, were not a party to
this clause. I am not myself a supporter of the idea of a unicameral
legislative body, but if there were ever consideration given, this
would be exhibit number 1 in support of one, because a unicameral
legislative body would eliminate these conference committees, where a
few Members of the House and Senate go into some back room or private
office and write one final bill out of the two versions passed by the
Senate and the House, and then the rest of us--all of the elected
Senators and Representatives--have to vote that final report up or
down, with no changes, no additions, no subtractions.
Conference committees recently have taken a very dangerous turn. The
Democratic conferees are being excluded from their deliberations and
decisions. Republicans make up the majority of the conferees from both
the House and Senate, as they should because they hold the majority in
both bodies. So if those Republican conferees concur among themselves,
they will prevail on every vote, and they will get the final bill they
want to create. They have that right based on the rules of the Senate
and the House.
For some reason, however, that is not enough these days because,
increasingly, the Democratic conferees are not allowed in meetings
where those deliberations and decisions are being made. They are not
even allowed to object or agree, or to try to persuade otherwise. I
have to ask myself, as someone who has been here only 2\1/2\ years, why
is it they are not even allowed to participate? Is it to make it easier
to sneak in these kinds of terrible additions to bills that will become
law and hope they won't be noticed by the rest of us before the final
bill is acted upon?
This exclusion from the process and the inclusion of another
provision that was not previously passed by the Senate or the House, to
privatize this Nation's air traffic control system, which ranks as one
of the most unwarranted, unjustified, destructive, and dangerous ideas
of this new century, were the major reasons that not a single
Democratic conferee from either the Senate or the House signed the FAA
conference report. There were 38 conferees--24 Republicans and 14
Democrats. All 24 Republicans signed the conference report. None of the
Democrats, out of 14 Democratic conferees, signed that conference
report.
So much for ``changing the tone'' in Washington. So much for
``bipartisanship.'' So much for honest Government reflecting the will
of the people, who elected all of us to represent them in the Senate
and in the House. The majority caucus of the Senate is comprised of 51
Members, and the minority caucus has 49 members. If the then-incumbent
senior Senator from Minnesota had not been killed in a plane crash last
October, the Senate would be 50/50 evenly divided, as it was when I
arrived here 2\1/2\ years ago. The people of America have recently
voted for a closely divided Government, to which the 2000 Presidential
election also bears witness to.
It is fundamentally wrong for the barely majority party to usurp the
responsibility for good government, and in conformance to the expressed
political will of the American people. It is terribly wrong to do so
for the purpose of writing bills behind closed doors and putting in
garbage like this airport noise clause, which affects the people of
Minnesota. They ought to be ashamed, they should be better than that,
and they ought to stop doing it.
Where does this legislative dropping come from? Reportedly, I have
heard from several sources, it was added by a Senate conferee. Neither
my Minnesota colleague nor I were aware of it, which obviously was the
intent of both its author and originator. I am deeply offended that one
of my colleagues would behave in such an underhanded fashion and harm
the people in my State for no apparent reason.
What would induce another Member of the Senate to do something like
that? Now, he didn't make up the idea by himself. We have enough to do
in these jobs that we don't have to hunt for issues affecting airports
in other States to make our sneak attacks upon--at least I hope not. We
have our disagreements here, as we should. We have our political
arguments, as we must. But I certainly hope we are not here to do
damage to people in other Members' States.
If we are going to engage in such a practice, I certainly expect that
we will all have the integrity to do so in the proper and public
lawmaking processes of this Senate and this Congress. I certainly
expect the decency to be informed by my colleague that he intends to do
so. If that integrity and that decency do not prevail here, then the
former Chaplain of the Senate, Dr. Edward Everett Hale, was right when
asked if he prayed for the Senators. ``No,'' the Senate Chaplain
replied, ``I look at the Senators and pray for the country.''
The Senate Chaplain spoke those words 100 years ago. I believe, and
for the sake of our country I pray, that the Senate of 2003 is far
better than the Senate of 1903, if that is what caused the Chaplain
then to make such a remark. Let all of us be sure to make it better
today by our own conduct here.
There is someone else who is also responsible for this sneaky, slimy,
and sordid shenanigan, and that, I regret to say, is Northwest
Airlines, a major Minnesota company, founded in Minnesota,
headquartered in Minnesota, employing over 18,000 people in Minnesota.
It is one of Minnesota's most important companies. It is our link to
the world.
Northwest Airlines controls 85 percent of the gates at the
Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. It is comprised of 18,000 tremendous
people in Minnesota--executives, pilots, flight attendants, mechanics,
baggage handlers, reservation agents, skycaps. One by one they are
great people: hard working, dedicated, loyal, courteous, and skilled in
what they do.
As a corporate entity, however, Northwest Airlines more often acts
like Darth Vader than the Caped Crusader. The company is capable of
wonderful acts of charity. Last year it helped to transport 10,000
boxes of Girl
[[Page S10934]]
Scout cookies to soldiers stationed abroad. Every quarter it partners
with a worthwhile charity, and on every flight it asks passengers to
donate either their money or accumulated frequent flier miles,
equivalent to money, to that worthwhile cause.
However, during my entire public career, going back 25 years as
Minnesota's commissioner of economic development to being a Senator
today, no other Minnesota company has ever asked for as much from the
public, received as much from the public, asked as much again and again
from the public, received as much again and again from the public, and
showed as little gratitude, graciousness, or respect for the public as
Northwest Airlines.
In 1989, Northwest Airlines was subject to a hostile takeover. A
company that at the time had a cash balance of over $700 million became
one saddled with over $2 billion in corporate debt. With the economic
downturn that began in 1990 and went into 1991, Northwest fell into
serious financial difficulty and was near bankruptcy, we were informed.
That condition was caused by loss of revenues compounded by the debt
load of their takeover. So Northwest Airlines came to the people of
Minnesota for help, and the people of Minnesota responded.
The Minnesota Legislature authorized $710 million in grants and in
low-interest secured loans. The Metropolitan Airports Commission
essentially remortgaged the airport to provide a loan of $350 million.
That is the same Metropolitan Airports Commission which Northwest
Airlines now criticizes for every spending decision, for its supposed
lack of frugality, forgetting it would be even more frugal if it had
saved the cost of carrying that loan for the last 12 years.
At the same time as that corporate bailout by the people of
Minnesota, our State also began a 7-year agreed-upon timetable, a dual-
track process to decide where to locate the new airport for our State
and for the entire region: whether it should be the expansion of the
existing airport or building a new one at a more remote site.
By the mid-1990s, in the middle of that timetable, based on the
seeming experience of the costly new airport in Denver and its effects
financially on the airline industry, particularly those who had their
hubs there, Northwest Airlines took a legitimate position in its own
corporate interest to oppose building a new airport elsewhere. But they
were so insistent on getting their own way that they convinced the
Governor and the Minnesota Legislature to abrogate after 6 years the
final year of that intended 7-year process, cutting off the last year
of public debate, cutting off the opportunity by those who are opposed
to that decision, those who lived in the surrounding areas who were
plagued by airport noise. They were denied their opportunities to make
their last cases to the public decision makers.
Their lives were being made worse also, I note, by the noise of
Northwest Airlines' aging fleet of airplanes, the oldest of any of the
major carriers at the time, which were not being replaced by the newer
planes originally on order because of the financial difficulties that
the corporate takeover put on the company. But at least in this
instance, Northwest went through the public process, and they
prevailed.
As part of that agreement, they reportedly agreed to contribute $70
million to this next phase of noise insulation of homes and apartments
in the surrounding areas. Northwest was hard hit on September 11, 2001,
and its aftermath, as were other air carriers in this country, as were
many other businesses throughout this country, many of which went out
of business as a result of the disruption to our economy caused by
those dastardly events.
They sought financial assistance from this body and from the
institution of Congress. On September 22, Congress provided $5 billion
of grants to the airline carriers, of which Northwest Airlines received
$428 million in public funds, grant money, not to be repaid.
On April 3 of this year, as part of the supplemental appropriation,
this body, and its counterpart, authorized another $2.3 billion in
grant money of which Northwest Airlines will receive $205 million. In
addition, we granted a 4-month ticket tax holiday. I supported every
single one of those measures, and if Northwest Airlines' survival were
at stake, I would support it again because it would be in the interests
of both the company and the people of Minnesota.
For a company to be the recipient of all of that public support, to
receive all of that support from this institution of Congress, and then
show so little respect for the public and so little regard for the
Congress or for the integrity of our public process, I find to be
deplorable, detestable, and deranged.
The money this airline company seeks to prohibit being expended to
improve the lives of their neighbors in Minnesota is not their money.
It is the public's money. It is Federal money that comes from general
funds, from ticket taxes or from passenger taxes. It is beyond
irresponsible for any one person or any one corporation to try to
destroy the public will expressed through the legitimate public process
by this kind of back-door maneuver. No one has that right. No one
deserves to have that right. And no one who shows such disrespect and
disregard for our Democratic process, which exists to represent the
interests of all of the people of this country, to protect the best
interests of all the people of this country, no one who tries to
abrogate that democratic authority should get away with it. They must
not get away with it. It is too destructive to our democracy if they
do. It is too damaging to our citizens' faith in their Government and
to their trust in their Government, which is their Government.
Northwest Airlines will not get away with this deviant, dastardly,
and undemocratic action. Northwest Airlines will not get its way this
way. This deed will not stand. It will not become law. The people of
Minnesota have my word, it will not become law.
Before I began these remarks, I withdrew my 15 holds on those
executive branch nominations at the specific request of the White
House, out of my respect. I am mindful that a year ago, when I put 60
holds on nominations for various executive positions, the White House
staff responded in a most impressive way.
They worked with my office and other Senators' offices to rescue over
200 Cambodian orphans from orphanages in Cambodia who were being
prevented by the INS to be brought to this country by their adoptive
parents.
To the great credit of the President of the United States, the White
House used his ultimate authority to override that decision by INS and
to make it possible for those children to come to loving homes in
Minnesota and other States; and for that reason, and for my respect
generally, I yielded to that specific request by the White House and
withdrew those 15 holds.
I have equally the greatest regard for this institution of the
Senate, for all of its procedures, its protocols, and its proud
traditions.
I listened earlier today to the words of the majority leader, a man
whom I greatly respect. By his invitation, I was privileged to
accompany him to China, Taiwan, Japan, and the Republic of Korea 2
months ago. I watched with the greatest of admiration how he led our
delegation and sat down face to face with some of the most important
leaders of other nations in this world. He brought nothing but great
credit to this Senate. He and his predecessor in that position, now the
Democratic leader, Senator Daschle are two men with dignity and with
honor. I am in awe of their continual patience. When they have
disagreements about policy or legislation, they are honest and they are
honorable. We have debates. We have votes and the majority prevails.
I also respect the desire of the majority leader to proceed with an
orderly schedule which he outlined when we return in September. In
fact, I share that desire. But I must give fair warning and advance
notice that I will not permit the Senate to proceed with business as
usual when we return on September 2, while this FAA conference report,
with this poisonous paragraph a part of it, is before the Senate. I
will put a hold on every nomination that comes before the Senate. I
will object to every motion to proceed after the prayer and the Pledge
of Allegiance, and I will not yield on those matters until this
language is removed from that conference report. You have my word.
We have over a month until we return. That is plenty of time for
those who are party to this detestable act, to
[[Page S10935]]
work it out and to get it out of that conference report.
Do not doubt my resolve. That language must be removed or I will not
allow the business of the Senate to proceed. You have my word. You have
my word.
I yield the floor.
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