[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 115 (Thursday, July 28, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4980-S4981]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          FAA REAUTHORIZATION

  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, Senator Tom Harkin is on his way from 
the meeting the Presiding Officer and I were just at because we both 
want to talk more about this National Mediation Board crisis and also 
the fact that the FAA is on hold, that we cannot do anything with it. 
What the House did--you see, one of the revelations of the modern era, 
which hopefully will last only a couple years, is that the folks in the 
House are willing to say ``no'' to the very end. In other words, the 
question I would raise is that my plan is to raise the stakes on the 
airlines, doing quite dreadful things to them, in hopes they will 
engage with the House Members to say we have to have an FAA bill.
  As I said yesterday, all I seek is a clean bill of extension. That 
has been done 20 times on this FAA bill. It has taken us 4 years, and 
we have not been able to reauthorize it. There are some things to work 
out, but they can all be worked out.
  The House sent over a message saying they did not like what we were 
doing on the essential air service. Well, the Presiding Officer knows 
what the essential air service means for rural communities, which is to 
have it in order that communities have an economic future of any kind 
at all. But, on the other hand, we have been willing to make reforms. 
In fact, the reforms we have suggested are more dramatic reforms than 
the House has suggested: put a cap on the number of airports--some 
quite dramatic things I actually hate doing in order to try to get 
agreement on that subject.
  But what is more interesting is, that is not what they care about. 
Mr. Mica, who is my counterpart in the House, has often said he does 
not have a dog in the essential air service fight. Yesterday I was 
meeting with him and Secretary LaHood, who is completely with the 
Senate in our desire to get this done and to break the intransigence of 
the House, and my counterpart simply said--I said: Why did you send 
that over when that is not what you care about? He said: Well, 
sometimes it is a little political thing.
  I was not shocked by that because that is why I knew he had done it, 
but what it says is they are willing to tank the Federal Aviation 
Administration unless the Senate caves to their position on the 
National Mediation Board, which would undo 75 years of labor law and 
which would take an extraordinary situation, which Senator Harkin, when 
he gets here, if he gets here, is going to talk more about.
  But the principle they want and they like is the fact that if you 
have an election--it could be a union election, it could be any kind of 
an election, but let's say for the purposes of this it is a union 
election--and people do not show up to vote, as is always the case. 
Then for those people who did not show up to vote, their vote is 
automatically characterized as a ``no'' vote on the idea of certifying 
to get a union.
  This is purely the work of Delta. Most of the legacy airlines are 
unionized. Delta is not. Delta's CEO makes $9 million a year, their top 
management another $20 million a year. They could practically pay for 
the whole Essential Air Service Program themselves. But they do not 
want to fool around with this language to protect their antiworker 
ambitions.
  They have had four union elections in the last several years. They 
have prevailed. The airline has prevailed in all four of those 
elections. But they still want this language changed so that if you do 
not vote, you are put down as a ``no'' vote; that is, not to be able to 
organize. That is un-American. It is unprecedented in American history. 
And it goes against, as I said, 75 years of labor law. That is very 
dangerous.
  What we have to do is to try and make it clear--frankly, the other 
airlines have been rather tepid in their support of my position. 
Airlines are a close group and they tend to stay together. They have to 
stop that. They have to make the House understand that if they persist 
in this rule, we will have a Federal aviation system that will shut 
down altogether. I am talking about air traffic controllers. I am 
talking about the whole deal. It is not a long process. It is a 
horrible process. It is an antiworker process which they are dumping in 
our laps. They want to see that happen. They are willing to see that 
happen. They will not compromise on the National Mediation Board. They 
will not compromise. They have said that. I have often talked with my 
counterpart over there, and he says: Well: I do not make those 
decisions. Those are made at a higher pay grade. He uses that word. Why 
does somebody run for public office if they simply take orders from 
other people? Well, that is sort of the way they do things over there 
in the House, but it is extremely dangerous.
  The truth lies in the fact that the House provision that cuts the 
Essential Air Service Program by $16 million--that is what it does. At 
the same time, the House has been willing to let $150 million drain 
from the airport trust fund in less than a week. Every day we do not 
get this bill resolved, $25 million drops out of the airport trust 
fund, which is flush for now but is becoming very unflush very quickly.
  The FAA extensions are very necessary. They are not something which 
people walk around here talking about all the time, but if they find 
they do not have flights to get to their homes on the west coast or in 
the South or anywhere else, they will be very angry. People will be 
very angry. I do not know of any alternative but to ratchet up the 
pressure, to make those who are blocking this understand they are

[[Page S4981]]

causing a national disaster and they need to back off from that 
position.
  They have said they will not. Well, will that be the final solution? 
It may very well be, and we have to understand that. But you cannot 
negotiate something which is so antiworker. You cannot negotiate that. 
The President has said he will veto it if it appears in the bill in any 
form. The House has voted for it. The Senate has voted against it. We 
have been very clear that it cannot pass over here and will not pass 
over here. So why are they playing that game?
  The airlines are not now even paying for their use of the national 
airspace system. The carriers also do not appear to care about the 
impact on the dedicated FAA workforce that serves them--once again, 
4,000 already having been furloughed. Most of the airlines are not even 
passing any savings on to the customers they serve. Why do I say that? 
Because they are having a tax holiday now because our extension ran 
out. So all of a sudden they do not have to pay taxes on jet fuel and a 
number of other things, so they are getting a lot of money. But what 
will you do with that money? Would you keep it for yourself or would 
you turn it over to the trust fund or would you keep ticket prices the 
same and not raise them? Well, they keep it. Frontier Airlines, I think 
Alaska Airlines, Virgin, all have kept their fares exactly where they 
were. They are trying to protect the consumer.
  Delta and the other airlines are raising ticket prices as fast as 
they can, even though, because the time has run out on the agreement, 
they are getting endless millions of dollars. They are choosing to keep 
it and make a profit for themselves. That is unconscionable behavior in 
terms of national policy.
  What are the real benefits to Delta from what they are doing? How 
badly were they harmed by the decision, the NMB decision? After the 
change, several unionization votes were held among components of their 
work force, which I have already said. None of those units voted to 
organize. So what is their game? It is a game. It is politics. It is 
theology. You cannot let that stand. You cannot allow people to get 
furloughed who are serious about their jobs, who are engineers and 
technical people--the first 4,000. Many of them will not come back. 
They will choose to figure: Well, they will never get this settled. 
They will go out and find other jobs, and they will be able to get 
other jobs. It is unconscionable. It is almost you cannot believe you 
are in this situation, that you are in some ``Disney World'' somewhere 
where people do not take life seriously and do not take policies 
seriously.
  I want to reiterate that the Senate appointed conferees--which is 
sort of necessary to try and reach resolution--on the very day the 
House sent over its FAA package for us to consider. We appointed 
conferees. More than 100 days later--1-0-0 days later--the House still 
dragged its feet. The House has still not named any conferees.
  What am I to make of that? They are not serious about this. So if 
they are not serious about it, do we then buckle because they are not 
serious or do we stand for what is right and what is fair for the 
people who work for the Federal Aviation Administration and also, 
frankly, for consumers of aviation all over this country?
  I will tell you, you wait until some of these air traffic control 
systems shut down, the towers shut down because there is nobody to man 
them. Then business, American business and these airlines are going to 
understand how bad it is going to be. The only policy I know how to 
adopt is to try and drive home to them what they are actually doing to 
their own futures. They will shut themselves down if they continue on 
their course.
  We can still get this process working again, but we need to get the 
FAA stable first. We should pass a clean extension, that which we have 
done forever. All extensions are clean. Senator Corker was just talking 
about a clean extension on something else. We should pass a clean 
extension and then get to work finding a compromise on our remaining 
differences.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and await the presence of Senator 
Harkin who will be speaking on this subject.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, first, I wish to thank Senator 
Rockefeller for his leadership on the FAA issue. It is so important in 
rural areas. It is so important to attract and retain a workforce. It 
is so important to the local economies in large cities like Cleveland, 
Cincinnati and Columbus and in smaller communities too. As Senator 
Rockefeller said, our aviation system is absolutely critical for 
economic development.
  People in big cities might make fun of small airports that they do 
not have all the hustle and bustle. But we do know medium-sized and 
smaller airports matter a great deal.
  With the refusal of the House to take up a clean extension of FAA, 
nearly 4,000 employees across the country have been furloughed and 
dozens of construction projects have come to a halt. In this economy, 
some radicals in the House of Representatives have decided--because 
they have a political mission and ideology that does not quite fit with 
the majority of Americans--they are going to again hold hostage 
something that simply needs to be done; that is, what is called 
reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration.
  As Senator Rockefeller said, these furloughed employees may be forced 
to look elsewhere for jobs to meet their mortgage payments or pay for 
groceries--these are very skilled technicians and engineers. And what 
does this mean to these construction projects? FAA helps to pay, all 
over the country, for modernization of airports--rebuilding air traffic 
control towers, improving runways, and making countless safety 
improvements.
  We have all heard stories--I do not recall that I have ever seen it, 
but we have heard stories of the Beijing or Shanghai airports or some 
of these airports--I have not seen them in the last many years--about 
the new technologies and the modern features of those airports. As a 
country we cannot afford to fall behind. We have to keep up.
  Not passing a clean extension of the FAA bill is exactly the wrong 
thing to do. The unemployment rate in the construction industry is 
nearly double the national average. Yet we are idling cranes and we are 
idling bulldozers all because of a political mission, an ideology that 
some Members of the House--some radical Members of the House--have 
decided to inflict on us.
  A clean extension of FAA has been done 20 times. All of a sudden it 
is not. I hope the House gets serious. I hope they appoint conferees 
and come to the table and work this out. I appreciate very much Senator 
Rockefeller's leadership. He is making a difference on these important 
issues, and our House colleagues need to follow.

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