[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 155 (Thursday, October 30, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H10180-H10181]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2115, VISION 100-CENTURY OF AVIATION 
                          REAUTHORIZATION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The Chair would advise the 
managers that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) has 17\1/2\ minutes 
remaining. The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) has 22\1/2\ 
minutes remaining.
  The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) is recognized.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Speaker for a commendable job 
of maintaining order in the House.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), ranking member on the Subcommittee on Aviation.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  There is some confusion about what actually we are voting on here and 
what the impact will be, and I would just like to make that clear to 
Members.
  This President early in his term issued an executive order finding 
that air traffic control is not inherently a governmental function, 
which opens up the potential for basically a contracting out of the air 
traffic control system of the United States. The original House bill, 
debated fully in committee, prohibited privatization of air traffic 
control. It made a minor exception, particularly for maintenance of the 
system. The Senate bill debated and voted on an amendment which 
absolutely prohibited any contracting out by the FAA, even for 
maintenance purposes. So we went to conference with a prohibition in 
both the House and the Senate bill on the contracting out of air 
traffic control, the control of our air space and the safety of the 
flying public.
  At the one brief conference meeting last July, suddenly we were 
confronted with a proposal to privatize 71 air traffic control towers 
in the United States. For unclear reasons why 71, and then, of course, 
for policy reasons, two were stripped, which has been spoken to earlier 
because Alaska is indeed unique, but there were still 69 to be 
contracted out.
  The leadership found they could not pass that bill. So this week we 
voted to go back to conference. There was no conference. There was a 
press conference by the majority, and then we are back now in the 
House, and as the Chair said earlier, there was no conference, and that 
would normally violate the rules of the House. It never met, but that 
rule is waived, so we are here now.
  We have heard from that side that there is no mandate for 
privatization in this bill. That is correct, but what we have here is 
very clear intent. The President has said air traffic control, the 
control of our air space for safety purposes and national security, is 
not inherently a governmental function. I think that is an astounding 
finding, but that is what this President has found. And that means that 
with no language in the bill, the President can contract out any or all 
of the air traffic control system in the United States, and I believe 
that would be disastrous for the traveling public and disastrous for 
national security.
  We are going to trust to some private, for-profit contractor, working 
perhaps under direction of the airlines, with spacing of airplanes and 
other critical things that go to safety issues in this country? I do 
not believe that is an experiment we need to conduct.
  We have the most efficient air traffic control system, the safest air 
traffic control system in the world. There is nothing to be improved 
upon here except that no one makes money on it.
  So that is what the vote is about. There is going to be privatization 
if my colleagues vote for this conference report. The White House has 
made it clear. They said they would veto the bill if they did not get 
the right to do at least 69 towers. So it is clear where they are going 
to go. They have said it is not an inherently governmental function. 
Protecting the flying public, their safety, protecting and securing the 
air space of the United States, according to this administration, is 
not an inherently governmental function. That is an absurd position for 
the Government of the United States, particularly after 9/11.
  They also stripped out language in the bill that said that flight 
attendants shall get additional training to deal with terrorists. At 
the urging of Continental Airlines, it was changed to ``may,'' and I 
hope everyone who flies on Continental will remember that they do not 
seem to take seriously what happened on 9/11. Other airlines did not 
like that, but it was stuck into the bill.
  Then the final issue of cabotage. Sounds exotic. It is very simple. 
Air China will now be able to deliver packages into the heartland of 
the United States, having landed in Alaska, something prohibited in 
existing law. We will lose jobs and security because of that. Vote no.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I am pleased to rise and I wanted to clarify a couple of issues that 
have been raised. Let me say, we all have our roles in this august 
body, and I am honored and privileged to have as my ranking member the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the gentleman who just spoke. He 
is an incredibly hardworking, dedicated, ranking member and has 
contributed immensely to this product that we have before us today. But 
there is a question on which we have a separation, and we just heard 
some of the history of the air traffic control structure in our 
country.
  Under the Clinton administration, if we go back to 1994, when I came 
as a freshman, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) was the 
chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation. Under the Clinton 
administration, Mr. Clinton in that year, 1994, privatized. He took 
from FAA towers to contract towers some 24 towers. Was there an outcry? 
No. During the remainder of the balance of the Clinton term, President 
Clinton converted 116 FAA towers to contract towers. Was there an 
outcry? No.
  In the 3 years that President Bush has been in office, how many FAA 
towers has he converted to private contract towers? Zero. The other 
side complained when we put 69 towers that were mentioned in this FAA 
report under the Inspector General, 69 towers based on cost and safety, 
primarily on safety, that these towers that are now all FAA towers 
would be safer, based on their evaluation, if they converted to 
contract towers, and cost about $900,000 less, read the report. That is 
what we put in there. They protested. So what did we do? We took these 
out.
  We now have no reference to privatization, but they do not want this 
President to have the same right that President Clinton had for some 
7.9 years. We have taken every single mention of privatization, any 
specific tower, out of the bill. So that is where we find ourselves 
now. We cannot please them no matter what we do.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 
again to correct the record.
  The gentleman said there was no outcry when the Clinton 
administration moved to privatize air traffic control. That was an 
initiative that came out of the Gore ``reinvent government program.'' I 
was the chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation. I took it on head-on, 
with the help of decent-thinking Republicans, who supported our effort 
to stop it dead in its tracks, and we did. And when they began to move 
one by one to privatize air traffic control towers, some of which were 
already Federal towers, I moved against

[[Page H10181]]

that. Every time I objected, and finally, finally, when we no longer 
had the majority in this body, the administration backed down and the 
President issued his executive order.
  There are some functions government performs that can be done by the 
private sector, and this body has given authority to the executive 
branch to do that, but I submit that separating aircraft is not one of 
those functions that should be contracted out. There is a vast 
difference, a vast difference between a tower with a D-BRITE, a 
rudimentary means of controlling air traffic, a tower that handles 10 
to 15,000 general aviation aircraft in a year in Van Nuys, California 
and one which has 498,000 operations, complex air space, complexity of 
operations and is under the control of the southern California TRACON 
which handles two-and-a-half million operations a year. That is the 
radar that supports the tower that this proposal once would have 
subjected to privatization. That is wrong. There is no policy behind 
it.
  I kept telling the Clinton administration, you come up with a policy, 
let us have a discussion of it, let us have a debate. This is a debate 
I am sorry we are having here that we should have had in the 
conference, and we never had. I am offended on process and on 
substance, and as for allegations made just a moment ago by the Chair 
of the subcommittee, let me go back to the testimony of the Inspector 
General at our committee.
  In addition to limitations he has already cited about the report that 
the gentleman has cited, and due to the low number of operational 
errors at both of these places, I would caution you against concluding 
that either group has a safer safety record than the other. It is not 
fair to draw that conclusion. That is the conclusion of the Inspector 
General.
  I rest my case.

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