[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 69 (Tuesday, April 29, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3467-S3469]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          FAA REAUTHORIZATION

  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, imagine this: gridlock in the skies; 
passengers delayed for hours and hours on a runway; an aging, 
antiquated air traffic control system just struggling to keep up with 
the growth of air traffic; a fight over how to pay for the billions of 
dollars needed to address airport infrastructure, infrastructure in all 
of its manifestations. I could be talking about the present, but I am 
not. I am talking about the years 2000 and 2001, prior to 9/11.
  Then 9/11 did happen. It changed our country forever, and it changed 
it in countless ways. It forced us to understand how important aviation 
is to our Nation, our economy, and, in fact, very much our way of life. 
It also showed how fragile our system is and, I will argue, how fragile 
our system remains as it further deteriorates.
  This Congress has worked diligently to address the security 
weaknesses. That was the TSA that took place a long time ago. That is 
working. It is not perfect, but it is working. I think people feel safe 
with it, but we have not adequately addressed any of the other 
weaknesses.
  We have completely inadequately funded the Federal Aviation 
Administration. We have a chronically unprofitable commercial aviation 
industry, which is the backbone of our Nation's commerce. We have an 
inadequate investment in aerospace research. Because of this, we face 
the same problems we did in 2000 except they are worse. I want to spend 
a couple of minutes discussing why we have made so little progress in 
addressing this significant aviation system, and this is really my 
introduction to the bill. It is just not done in sequence.
  Perversely, the attacks of September 11, which brought the commercial 
airlines system to its knees, flat to its knees, properly to its knees, 
solved the crisis of gridlock in the skies, to say the very least. The 
enormous dropoff of air travel in 2002 and 2003 reduced the stress on 
our Nation's 1950s air traffic control system. We are the only ones in 
the industrial world--and I have another comparison to make which is 
even more stunning later on. So delays and congestion were not issues 
for travelers. We felt pretty good about it. Passengers were not daring 
to fly yet. They didn't want to fly that much yet, so there was not a 
lot of congestion. Not so good for the airlines but good for people who 
wanted to get to places on time.
  As is often the case, the urgency surrounding the need to modernize 
the air traffic control system and turn it from basically an x-ray and 
ground radio system into a digitalized, highly modern system, as every 
other industrial country has, the interest in that system becoming 
current, safer, more efficient, able to handle more passengers on time 
and more delivery of cargo, waned because the air traffic control 
system is not easily understood. It is assumed. It is taken for 
granted. People assume it is the most modern because it is America; 
therefore, it has to be. In fact, it is the least modern of all systems 
in industrial countries.
  So interest waned, and in the 2003 FAA reauthorization, which I 
helped author with then-Senator Lott, we laid a foundation to build a 
modern, digital satellite-based air traffic control system. We 
authorized a significant increase in the FAA's capital budget to meet 
the ATC modernization needs, an increase based upon the 
administration's own request, in fact. But instead of investing in the 
system in 2004 and 2005; that is, speed of landing, parallel landing, 
all of those items, even taking into account wind shear, which every 
other country has except us, instead of that, in 2006, the Bush 
administration proposed dramatic cuts in the FAA's facility and 
equipment account, which is precisely the account which funds the 
modernization of our air traffic control system.

  I have to say, Congress complied. I am not proud of that fact. I am 
not quite sure the reason for that, but facts must be stated.
  Over this period, Congress therefore appropriated $600 million less 
than the 2003 FAA bill authorized for the FAA's capital accounts. It is 
a sad story on the part of the administration, and it is a sad story on 
the part of us. Neither of us were living up to our obligations. 
Obviously, people didn't see the future.
  Under the leadership, however, of Senator Murray, the Senate has 
begun fully funding the FAA's modernization needs, but the damage of 
underfunding the FAA is not easily repaired. It is a large battleship. 
We just cannot turn it around in a couple of years.
  The budget surpluses that we once had are gone, but by the FAA's own 
estimates the development of the next generation of air traffic control 
system, NextGen--when I say that, I mean the digitalized GPS system--is 
going to cost between $20 billion to $40 billion through the year 2025.
  I might add, we are going to have to not only maintain our analog 
system because that is what we are using, inefficient as it might be, 
but build a new system at the same time.
  Despite the popular misconception that we are building a new system 
that the FAA will turn on one day in 2025, NextGen is a program that 
will then employ multiple technologies over time. I will discuss 
NextGen in detail later. I will discuss a lot of items in a lot of 
speeches later. But we cannot just shut off the ground-based radar 
system. That is all we have, crummy as it is, pathetic as it is. The 
FAA will need to operate that system for years to come, probably 10 to 
12 years to come.
  By late 2006, it was clear that air travel was returning to pre-9/11 
levels. That took some time, but in 2006 there we were. The ATC's 
system ability was again overtaxed to meet the demands being placed 
upon it. Gridlock in the skies returned, and it is only going to get 
worse.
  I said yesterday the FAA is forecasting that 1 billion passengers 
will pass through our Nation's aviation system by the year 2025. That 
is a 300 million person increase from this year. We cannot ignore this 
issue anymore and, hence, this bill.
  The United States is losing its position as the global leader in 
aviation. As the Economist magazine noted--this is so horrible I cannot 
even say it, but I am going to because it is true--the United States is 
behind Mongolia in the adoption of new air traffic control 
technologies. That is a national disgrace, and there is also a reason 
for it. Mongolia did not have an air traffic control system of any 
sort. So when they decided to do it, they did it digitally, GPS. So 
they are ahead of us.
  I think it is a national embarrassment that a major carrier has to 
inconvenience 200,000 passengers--that is what we have been reading 
about for the last several weeks--because the FAA was not properly 
overseeing the airlines' maintenance.
  Our Nation's aviation system is, to be quite blunt, on the brink--it 
is on the brink. It is at the cliff. We must move boldly into the 
future or we risk losing a lot of safety and a lot of lives.
  I cannot emphasize the importance of a vibrant and strong aviation 
system. I want people to hear this point. They take it for granted. You 
get on an airplane, and you go do something. No, you get on an 
airplane, you go do something, but it is also the bellwether of the 
Nation's economic underpinning. It is not the U.S. highway system. 
People don't drive to States to look at industrial sites or to make 
decisions; they fly. What you cannot do over the Internet, the next 
closest step is aviation, and it bears our attention. It has never 
gotten it in the 24 years I have been in this body.
  It is fundamental to our Nation's long-term growth. It is also vital 
to the economic future of countless small and local communities, 
something the distinguished Presiding Officer from his very roots 
understands very well.
  For example, in West Virginia, people who work in the automotive 
industry need easy access to Asia to facilitate their business. Yes, 
that is West Virginia, but that is very important to me. West Virginia 
is like every other State. There is no State in this country that does 
not have rural areas. All

[[Page S3468]]

of our future is tied to a modern aviation system, if we would only 
have the will to build it. In this bill, we begin to.
  We have all witnessed the fragility of our Nation's aviation system 
firsthand. It has been all over the news. People are furious. The 
waiting lines, the stories about planes bumping into each other or 
almost bumping into each other on the runways as they move around--it 
is just too much, too many people. Go into any airport. As I said 
yesterday, I came back into Washington National Airport from some city 
in the North, and you couldn't move. You could barely move. The whole 
airport was just packed with people--not just around the counters, not 
just around the gateways, but the whole place was packed. I was saying 
to myself: This is Washington National, the Nation's Capital, highly 
prosperous, definitely growing. What is it going to be like 10 years 
from now?
  If we do everything we want, we will not have this system in place by 
10 years. It was scary.
  Our constituents are very frustrated about flying and they have every 
right to blame us, the administration and the Congress. It is easy to 
blame the airlines. That is always everybody's choice of blame--blame 
the airlines. There is no question that the airlines have a lot to do 
to improve their customer service, and the bill addresses that issue. 
All kinds of things have to happen in the airline industry. But I am 
going to give a speech this afternoon which talks about the airline 
industry and how absolutely desperately close it is to collapsing. I 
exaggerate not.
  We must address the core problem facing the system and the lack of 
capacity to allow more aircraft to use the skies. When the weather is 
clear and our Nation's aviation infrastructure operates perfectly, most 
travelers get to their destinations on time. It just seems the weather 
is not clear very often these days, and people are frequently shuttled 
to other places to get to where they are going, the original place, or 
they have to sit on the tarmac for a long time and they get in a very 
bad place--and indeed they should.
  It is a conundrum. I heard this morning a couple of airlines are 
thinking about raising their prices. They have the price of oil and 
their fuel. The prices of oil and their fuel are, in fact, two very 
different numbers. What are they going to do? How are they going to get 
out of this? If the equipment fails to work properly because the 
weather is bad, or even for a few minutes, the system often grinds to a 
halt, and delays in key airports such as JFK and O'Hare Airport are 
felt through our entire system.
  You can take eight runways--Senator Durbin and I tried to do this a 
number of years ago. You can fix the eight runways at O'Hare Airport, 
which was built back in 1962 with very few people traveling and the 
runways were not built in the modern sense, with modern flow in mind. 
It would take about $10 billion to $12 billion to do that. But if you 
did it, air congestion in the United States would probably clear up by 
about 25 to 30 percent instantly. So it is not a large, complicated 
thing. Sometimes it is an air traffic control system you need, 
sometimes it is a reconfiguration of runways, sometimes it is how do 
you handle the New York-New Jersey area. But these are not problems 
beyond our reach. Aviation gridlock is not just an inconvenience, it is 
becoming a threat to our economic well-being.
  Aviation experts predict that these delays are going to go from bad 
to worse--soon. By the year 2015, delays will become so bad--I hope my 
colleagues will listen to this part--that none of the 1 billion people 
who will be traveling on airlines that year will get to their 
destinations on time--not one. That is what is being predicted. That is 
not very far from now. That is what is being predicted. More planes 
will be needed and they will lead to greater congestion in the skies. 
The meltdown of the air traffic control system will put passenger 
safety at unnecessary risk. S. 1300, our bill, authorizes approximately 
$65 billion for all FAA operations and programs. Most important, our 
bill lays the necessary foundation for developing NextGen air traffic--
that is the new air traffic control system--by providing it $12 billion 
over the life of this bill for FAA's capital investment accounts.
  Importantly, Senator Baucus and Senator Murray and I have agreed on 
the creation of a new subaccount--this is not manipulation, it is a 
perfectly proper thing to do--a new subaccount with the aviation trust 
fund that will provide $400 million for the next length of this bill, 
and then for bills after that because we will have to do it again, so 
we can get our air traffic control system rebuilt.
  I appreciate the hard work of our colleague. Senator Murray is 
unbelievable on these things, as she is on virtually everything. A new 
satellite-based radar system will allow airplanes to move more 
efficiently, improve safety, improve the flow of commerce, reduce the 
consumption of fuel which in turn creates environmental benefits.
  The bill provides approximately $16 billion for airport 
infrastructure--it is a boring word with large consequences. Since 
2000, I am pleased we have been able to double the amount of funding 
annually for airport infrastructure grants--that means lengthening 
runways, that means improving conditions, that means upgrading what is 
needed to handle air traffic in a rapidly growing traveling world. Our 
investment in runway capacity has made dramatic improvements in safety.
  I believe everyone in aviation recognizes the need to modernize our 
national air transportation system in order to meet the growing surge 
of passengers and to accommodate the enormous increase in general 
aviation. I am going to have a speech to make about general aviation, 
but I will not do it today--particularly high-end general aviation. 
That is called jets. I am not talking about crop dusters. General 
aviation is made up of lots of things--we only include 10 percent of 
that 100 as our target, where we can rightfully and legitimately go. 
Those people are getting a free ride. I will have a speech about that, 
I guarantee you.

  It is a very unhappy situation when people hear about it. It is 
probably best explained on Jay Leno or David Letterman. That would 
probably drive it home to people. Until then, it is sort of an abstract 
quality. Until then, look at those big, fancy jets. We don't like those 
big, fancy jets. What they are not doing is helping pay for all this. 
They are paying for 3 percent of our air traffic control system even 
though they are the majority of airplanes in the skies at any given 
moment over the United States of America.
  All this has been a long and very bitter dialog. In early 2007, 
Senator Lott and I asked the stakeholders to come to an agreement on 
FAA funding issues. It was a fascinating experiment, which we see very 
often. No one wanted to compromise. So we said we will give you a 
choice. You sit down in a room. We will provide the sandwiches and the 
Coke or whatever. Then you come out with an agreement or we will write 
a bill for you. They chose not to yield a single point, not a single 
point. They all had to have exactly what they had. They didn't want to 
pay anything more. Air traffic control--push that aside, you are not 
going to tax me. It is the other guy.
  So Senator Lott and I imposed a compromise on everyone. The 
compromise sparked an absolutely fascinating but not pleasant 
multiyear, multimillion dollar campaign against our lovely bill, S. 
1300. Later on I will discuss, as I indicated, much more about that.
  We have compromised. I have compromised--not happily but 
necessarily--in order to reach a bipartisan bill that could actually be 
signed into law and begin the work of modernization in earnest, along 
with making such needed safety improvements.
  Air traffic control modernization is but one of the many challenges 
the FAA faces. Over the last several weeks, the FAA's ability to 
oversee the airlines it regulates has undermined the public confidence 
in the safety of our Nation's air traffic system, and nobody can 
dispute that. People are in shock at what they have seen over the last 
several weeks. Statistically, the United States has the safest aviation 
system in the world. That is what they always throw at us. But 
statistics do not always tell the whole story, nor do they say anything 
about the future.
  I am particularly concerned about the number of runway incursions. 
That is when airplanes are on the tarmac

[[Page S3469]]

and they are moving around, positioning themselves under the guidance 
of the air traffic control system. They are constantly almost running 
into each other--or in the air--or just missing. It is unacceptable. It 
is horrible. It is heading in a much worse direction. It is not 
something we talk about much, but once in a while stories of near 
misses at our Nation's airports in fact do make the news.
  Let's be honest. If it had not been for the quick thinking and action 
of a few air traffic control people and our pilots, our Nation would 
have had one if not several major accidents claiming the lives of 
hundreds of people over the last several years.
  This legislation and the managers' amendment I have offered contain 
provisions to improve the safety of the Nation's aviation system and 
the FAA's oversight of that system. The AMAC, as we call it, includes a 
number of provisions to improve safety, providing the FAA with the 
resources to conduct thorough oversight of air carriers and foreign 
repair stations--this is a very controversial subject so expect to hear 
more about that--and upgrade the existing safety infrastructure at our 
airports.
  Later in our debate--not today, not this morning--I will outline the 
important facts of the safety provision in the bill.
  The bill addresses the other core challenge which will be facing our 
aviation system, and that is keeping America's small communities 
connected. The Presiding Officer and I understand that. So does every 
Senator in this body; if they choose to focus on it, they should be 
able to understand it. The continuing economic crisis facing the U.S. 
airline industry absolutely imperils, in stark and terminal terms, the 
future of hundreds of small rural communities across our country as 
area carriers drastically reduce service to small rural communities--
which is exactly what is going on. That acceleration is going to pick 
up.
  Then you have to say years ago we did this e-rate thing to make the 
Internet available to everybody in every classroom; no different rural 
and urban, everybody had it. We went from 15 percent connection to 97 
percent.
  Not so on aviation. We are going in the other direction. While small 
and rural communities have long had to cope with limited and unreliable 
service, we are grateful to have limited and even unreliable service. 
We are grateful to be able to get into a little prop--because that is 
what we have--and get from here to there because we can connect in the 
hub-and-spoke system.
  All of these problems have been exacerbated by the weakened financial 
condition of most U.S. airlines. I am going to talk about that this 
afternoon. The reduction or elimination of air service has a 
devastating effect on the economy of small communities. Having adequate 
air service is not just a matter of convenience or pride, it is a 
matter of survival: economically, psychologically--self-esteem. Without 
access to reliable air service, no business is willing to locate its 
operations in these areas of the country, no matter how attractive the 
quality of life, no matter how much less the housing costs, no matter 
how much land may be available. They will not go there. Airports are 
economic engines that attract critical new development opportunities 
and jobs.
  West Virginia has been able to attract firms from around the world. 
Why? Because corporate executives know they can visit their operations 
with ease--for no other reason. As I will explain in my next speech 
about the state of the airlines, which is a very depressing speech and 
therefore important, that is in jeopardy. Rural and smalltown America 
must continue to be adequately linked to the Nation's air 
transportation network. That is all we can do. We can't get from here 
to an important place directly, but we can link into the hub-and-spoke 
system, which has been what we have always done.
  I wind up. Small and rural communities are the first to bear the 
brunt of bad economic times and the last to see the benefit of good 
economic times. That is not fair. Americans are Americans. The general 
economic downturn and the dire straits of the aviation community have 
placed exceptional burdens on air service to our most isolated 
communities. The Federal Government must provide additional resources, 
and our bill does that.
  The bill also reaffirms our commitment to rural America by increasing 
the essential air service--the Presiding Officer well knows what that 
is--and also to the Small Community Air Service Development Program, 
for 4 more years, and we also have a passenger bill of rights which 
will be discussed later.
  The industry would be required to provide a number of things: Telling 
people about what planes are on time, what are not, what the pattern 
is; sort of to get a sense of all that, but there is a lot more. So all 
of us recognize there are no quick and easy solutions to this timely 
and timeless problem that plague our aviation industry.
  Aviation incorporates so many things that are so critical to all of 
us. It connects people to distant family members, links businesses to 
businesses, allows people to interact easily on a global scale. We are 
a global world, but it is still amazing to me to be able to get on a 
plane in the morning in West Virginia and be in Asia that same day.
  So what railroads were to the 19th and 20th centuries, air 
transportation is to the 21st century; with all due respect to our 
interstate highway system. So given the challenges our Nation's 
aviation system faces, I think we must pass S. 1300, which is called 
the Aviation Investment and Modernization Act.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to inquire as to how much 
time I have.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 37 minutes remaining for the use of 
the minority at this time.
  Mr. INHOFE. First of all, let me say to my friend from West Virginia, 
we have done a good job in the areas you are talking about because it 
was not too long ago that all the AIP concentration was going to big 
regionals. Due to our efforts, we now have given greater power to the 
State aeronautic boards, who have a better idea as to what the needs 
are in the State of West Virginia, my State of Oklahoma.
  I think we have come a long way. I would certainly echo what you say. 
I am a little privileged to be the last active commercial pilot in the 
Senate, so I take a personal interest in these things.
  But there is nothing that can help a community be more viable than a 
good general aviation airport, an airport that can serve the commercial 
community. In fact, you can look through our State and see where the 
communities are not doing well and tie that to the capacity they have--
air traffic capacity.
  So I think we are going to be doing a good thing by addressing that 
this afternoon. That is not why I am here though.

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