[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 94 (Monday, June 22, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6881-S6882]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TRAVEL PROMOTION ACT

  Mr. REID. Madam President, let me say a brief word on the cloture 
that was not invoked on the travel bill. I hope everyone understands 
what obstructionism is. This is obstructionism at its best. It goes 
along with what the Republicans said they wanted to do and that is stop 
everything, as indicated in the Roll Call newspaper last week.
  This is a bill that saves the government money, almost a half billion 
dollars over 10 years. It would create, in the first year after passage 
of the bill, 40,000 jobs.
  Republicans killed this over the most fictitious reasoning. They said 
they were not allowed to offer amendments. That is absolutely false. In 
fact, we had an agreement that they could offer amendments. There were 
no restrictions on what they could offer. They wanted to offer 
amendments regarding TARP. They wanted to offer five of those. Fine, I 
said, go ahead. We had one amendment we want to offer. They said: No, 
we just want to offer ours, you can't offer yours.
  Every State would benefit from this legislation because tourism is so 
important and popular in every State, but the Republicans killed this. 
Is there any wonder they have lost, during the last two election 
cycles, by election, 15 Republican Senators? Is it any wonder? They are 
so enthralled with the status quo they want no improvements of 
anything, including they don't want to save the government a half 
billion dollars, they don't want to improve tourism because this may be 
another victory for President Obama.
  I am certainly aware of the work done by the committee. The Commerce 
Committee works so hard. Senator Rockefeller was ill. He badly injured 
himself. Senator Dorgan stepped forward to get it out of that committee 
so we could do this. It is good for every State. Tourism is good for 
New Hampshire, it is good for Nevada, it is good for North Dakota, it 
is good for Wyoming, and it is good for Idaho. The Republicans killed 
our ability to save half a billion dollars. They killed our ability to 
create 40,000 new jobs. Tourism is a trillion-dollar industry in this 
country. The Republicans killed this legislation.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, if the Senator will yield for a 
question.
  Mr. REID. I would be happy to.
  Mr. DORGAN. Last Thursday, the majority leader and I stood in that 
aisle. The question was going to be, under what conditions would this 
Travel Promotion Act come to the floor of the Senate? We said: You know 
what, tell us what amendments you need. Tell us which amendment you 
wish to offer and we will give you some. So it ended up five amendments 
on their side, three on ours, as a start. It was not going to be a 
limit, but we were going to start with five and three. They showed us 
their five. None had anything to do with this bill. We said: Fine, you 
can offer those five, no problem. They were all about TARP, troubled 
assets and so on. We said fine. Then we showed them the three to be 
offered on this side, and they looked at three of them and said this 
one we will not allow to be offered. All of a sudden, the minority was 
deciding they could offer all of theirs, but they will not allow the 
majority to offer one amendment that deals with the issue of the price 
of gasoline.
  The result was we now had a vote against cloture on an issue dealing 
with travel promotion on a piece of legislation that raises $500 
million and reduces the deficit $500 million in 10 years. It is pretty 
unbelievable to me. I asked the question earlier today, if we can't 
agree on a piece of legislation that in the last Congress was supported 
by over 50 Senators, Republicans and Democrats, dealing with promotion 
of tourism and creating jobs and promoting this country's economic 
interests by asking international tourists to come to this country, you 
are welcome to come and see America and understand what America is 
about--if we cannot agree on that, how on Earth will we agree to get 
amendments on energy, health care, climate change, and so on? It is so 
disappointing.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, if I could respond to my friend, we had, 
this year, 11 Republican sponsors of this bill. Nine of them voted 
against cloture, nine of the eleven. That, to me, is hard to calculate 
as being within the realm of sensibility. What in the world did they 
accomplish, other than maybe they are following the Senate GOP, still 
saying no?
  But should they say no to things--maybe they should have a better 
rationale, saying we can't do this, it is a

[[Page S6882]]

government program; we can't do this, it costs money; we can't do this, 
we don't have time to do it.
  None of those apply. It does not cost government money. We have time 
to do it. It is not a government program.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, let me make one additional point. 
Unfortunately, too much of politics these days is there is my team and 
your team. On this kind of legislation I would have thought this was 
about our team, all of us working together on a bill that Republicans 
and Democrats had cosponsored, on a bill that is actually going to 
reduce the Federal budget deficit by a half billion dollars and on a 
bill that, at a time when we are in deep recession, promotes tourists 
to come to this country, who would, on average, spend $4,500 in this 
country to create new jobs.
  We have a substantial number, hundreds of thousands--633,000 fewer 
visitors to the United States from overseas than we had in the year 
2000. Think of that, 633,000 fewer people visited this country from 
overseas than did in the year 2000. Every other country is experiencing 
a very substantial increase: France, England, Italy, Yugoslavia--not 
Yugoslavia, again, I made the mistake--it is Turkey and Japan and 
India, so many other countries--Kosovo; they are all advertising, all 
pushing for international tourism, to come to their country because 
they know it creates jobs and, more importantly, they understand when 
you go there you leave those countries with a good impression.
  If ever there were a time when we need people to come to this country 
and leave with an understanding of culture and character of this 
country and at the same time create jobs in this country by buying gas, 
renting hotel rooms, buying airplanes seats, going to the tourist 
attractions, and understanding about America, it is now.
  My hope is, in the next day or so, we might be able to find a way to 
bring those who voted against cloture to understand we have said, you 
know what, if you want to offer amendments, offer amendments. There is 
no obstruction anyplace.
  One of our colleagues came to the floor and said: I am voting against 
cloture because I was obstructed from offering my amendment, and that 
was a colleague who had an amendment on a list we said explicitly yes 
to. How does one reconcile statements that are not accurate? My hope is 
maybe we can find agreement in the next day or two.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, the problem we have is one of time now. 
They have stalled and killed so much time on this bipartisan good piece 
of legislation. I think they should hear from their constituents. We 
should go ahead and invoke cloture. If there are germane amendments, we 
can do them. But I do not think we will go through the kabuki of having 
TARP amendments and all this.
  We have tried in good faith to get this piece of legislation 
finished. If they want to finish this legislation, they should march up 
here and invoke cloture, which needs to be done. They can still offer 
germane amendments.
  They may not like this bill. They may want to offer other amendments 
as they relate to this legislation. Unless I can be convinced 
otherwise--and I certainly can be, if I can be proven to be wrong; I am 
happy to be as reasonable as I can be--I think this is such a revolting 
development in a body that has pledged to do good things for the 
country. We have done a lot of good things this year. We have done it 
with little help from the Republicans. We have gotten some but not 
much. So they are stalling to prevent President Obama from 
accomplishing anything, even on a bill to save this country money.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. If the majority leader would yield for a question, one 
of the things I found out with our hearing that you so kindly testified 
at about tourism--and I am chairing that subcommittee--now is, one, 
this was bipartisan, as you pointed out. There were Republicans there. 
They pledged their support for this bill.
  But the second thing is when we talk about tourism, it is not we are 
not only talking about the CEOs of airline companies. The jobs, as you 
know, we are talking about in Nevada, are jobs such as maids or the 
people who work at the flower shops or the people who work in the 
frontline in the restaurants or the people, the bellboys. Those are 
real jobs.
  One out of eight people employed in this country is employed in the 
tourism industry. What I heard in Nevada was something like 400 
conventions had been canceled out of Las Vegas. We are just starting to 
see some improvements in our State. We call Duluth the Las Vegas of 
Minnesota. But we are starting to see improvements with business travel 
picking up, with some hope for consumers.
  This bill would bring in those key people to spend $4,500 every time 
they come into this country, and that is the international travelers. 
So if the majority leader would comment on what this means to real 
people, the bill the Republicans have now stopped, as we are trying 
every day to get more jobs in this country.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, my father-in-law, may he rest in peace, 
emigrated from Russia and wound up in Duluth, MN. At that time, it was 
a booming town, very tough town. I have never been to Duluth. I have 
been to Minneapolis a few times, but I never had the opportunity to see 
the Land of a Thousand Lakes--I think that is what they call it.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Ten thousand.
  Mr. REID. Ten thousand. Well, in Nevada we do not have many lakes, we 
do not have five lakes. But I would love to come and spend some time in 
Minnesota. It is a wonderful tourism destination, in the winter as cold 
as it is there, and a lot of things to do there, and in the summer.
  As Senator Dorgan mentioned, we should be promoting our country so 
people like my father-in-law from Duluth or Minneapolis or wherever 
could go visit and have a good time being a tourist.
  It is the same in Nevada, New Hampshire, Illinois. Every State in the 
Union is heavily dependent on tourism, and the Republicans do not seem 
to much care.
  This bill is probably finished for the year, and that means 40,000 
less jobs. That means this country will go in the red more for not 
having the stimulation the economy would get from this bill.
  I appreciate very much the subcommittee and the committee getting 
this bill on the floor. We thought we were going to have this love fest 
here, because this bill helps every State in the Union, helps every 
State in the Union create jobs, as the Senator from Minnesota said so 
rightly, jobs not manufacturing things, which is important; I wish we 
could do more to help that--not jobs that provide entertainment in the 
sense of the word of going to watch a ball game or something such as 
that. That is tourism. My son and the pals he runs around with traveled 
one summer all around the country watching ball games. That is tourism. 
And as the Senator from Minnesota mentioned, the reason tourism jobs in 
Nevada are so important, we have one union that has 60,000 members. Who 
are those members? They are maids, they are car valets, they are 
waiters, waitresses.
  I think it is a shame that we have, because of the Republicans 
looking for an excuse to make President Obama look bad--President Obama 
wants this done. This is part of his program, tourism.
  I appreciate the comments of my friend from Minnesota.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen.) The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered

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