[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 19 (Monday, February 6, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S333-S344]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      FAA MODERNIZATION AND REFORM ACT OF 2012--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will proceed to the consideration of the conference report to 
accompany H.R. 658, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the 
     two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R. 
     658), to amend title 49, United States Code, to authorize 
     appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for 
     fiscal years 2011 through 2014, to streamline programs, 
     create efficiencies, reduce waste, and improve aviation 
     safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the 
     national aviation system, and for other purposes, having met, 
     have agreed that the House recede from its disagreement to 
     the amendment of the Senate and agree to the same with an 
     amendment and the Senate agree to the same. Signed by a 
     majority of the conferees on the part of both Houses.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there 
will now be up to 2\1/2\ hours of debate on the conference report 
equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their 
designees.
  The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I thank the Chair.
  The problem we face here is that most people are in the air coming in 
this direction. Most will land around 5 o'clock. So Senator Hutchison 
and myself don't feel any particular pressure. We can talk for long 
periods of time and talk about other issues.
  Today we are considering the FAA conference report which has been the 
subject of negotiations--I shudder when I say that--between the House 
and the Senate for much of the past year, and actually we have been 
working on it for much longer than that. We have been through 23 
extensions. We are now looking at the possibility of a bill that will, 
in fact, last for 4 years, which will be the best news that the airline 
industry ever had, that the people who work for the airline industry 
ever had, that the people who work to improve the safety of the airline 
people ever had, including those who are doing a new traffic control 
system. So I am very happy that, as we call it, the FAA Modernization 
Reform Act of 2012 will extend the authorities through 2015. As the 
Presiding Officer is aware, we have done this for 2 months, 3 months--
time after time after time--and it makes it impossible to negotiate and 
it is terribly destabilizing for the aviation industry as well as the 
Federal Aviation Administration.
  This agreement is going to provide a lot of stability to the FAA--
they will be happy about that--and it will make certain there is 
adequate funding to support the agency's mission.
  The bill takes concrete steps to modernize our air traffic control 
system. I am excited beyond words to be able to say that sentence 
because it will take us into a new era that will bring much more 
efficiency, more planes will be able to take off and land and, in so 
doing, do it much more safely, being watched from space rather than 
from radar, which is what we do now.
  This bill is going to make the air transportation system safer than 
ever before and make certain that small communities have access to 
critical air service. I will speak more about that.
  It will also make sure that the U.S. aviation industry remains 
competitive and remains strong. We are that way in the world. We do 
lead in exports on aviation and the Federal aviation industry continues 
to be the gold standard for safety. That is not to say we have not had 
problems, but we have been solving those problems.

  This has been a long and sometimes arduous process. I think my 
colleague Senator Hutchison would agree with that. Many compromises 
were made to get us here. Compromises in the present atmosphere are not 
easy. Conversations are not easy. Compromises are very difficult. While 
no one got everything they wanted, the bill will permit us--I believe 
Senator Hutchison would agree--to achieve our shared goals.
  The agreement will allow us to pass a comprehensive, again, 4-year 
FAA reauthorization. The legislation we have before us now will move 
our aviation system forward. It will not be in neutral. People who run 
the system, the folks who take care of airplanes and who run the 
companies, will be absolutely thrilled if this bill passes, which I 
expect it to do.
  In this era of very scarce resources, we still have managed to 
produce a bill that provides the FAA the money it needs to carry out 
its mission. Without going into too much detail, we had to make a 
compromise on that. But, frankly, that was a compromise that was agreed 
to and, I believed, was reasonable in terms of the other way of looking 
at things. So it is stability.
  The funding authorized for the Airport Improvement Program, which is 
very important, and the facilities and equipment accounts, which are 
just gobbledygook to most people, will give much needed support to 
aviation infrastructure projects and planning across our Nation. It is 
a blueprint.
  Over $3 billion a year is provided through the Airport Improvement 
Program to provide airport grants that will make a real difference in 
the Nation's airspace system and the people who use it every day. We 
will create and we will sustain jobs in every State, and we will 
continue to make substantial investments in our Nation's airports. 
Based on Department of Transportation estimates, the Airport 
Improvement Program alone supports over 100,000 jobs annually. I will 
say later on in these remarks that there are about 10 million people 
who work because of something called aviation in this country--10 
million people.
  For communities in West Virginia, having up-to-date airports is 
absolutely critical to our future. The investments we make through the 
Airport Improvement Program will help the country greatly--not just 
West Virginia but the entire country.
  With this bill, as I said, nearly $3 billion will also be provided 
each year for the facilities and equipment account which basically 
funds the new air traffic control system. I have said this 10 times 
from this floor: Mongolia has that; we do not. They have globally 
positioned--very accurate reading--not

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only for weather but for aircraft on the ground and also in the air, so 
the spacing vertically and horizontally is extremely accurate and, 
therefore, much safer and much more efficient and uses much less fuel.
  This effort on the air traffic control system is embarrassing, it is 
so needed. We are working on radar right now. We are working on radar. 
That is compared to a satellite-based aircraft surveillance system. I 
have spent, frankly, much of the last decade working to make sure the 
FAA has the resources and the ability to implement NextGen, the so-
called new air traffic control system, the modernized, digitalized air 
traffic control system. It is so essential. It is so embarrassing we do 
not have it as a nation. It is such a burden on the air traffic control 
people themselves, trying to see through the fog, so to speak, of the 
world of radar.
  This bill will move forward key aspects of the NextGen effort and 
make sure that modernization will proceed on schedule with clear 
timelines and a lot of oversight and requirements.
  We push for near-term modernization benefits by requiring that 
precision navigation be implemented first--and this makes sense--in the 
35 largest airports in the country--that does make sense--by the year 
2015 and then in all airports by the year 2016. This will significantly 
improve airspace capacity and, by the way, the environment.
  The bill also establishes a chief NextGen officer--not a bureaucracy 
but a person--to lead the modernization effort. It is very specific; it 
is a very calculated and precise instrument that has to be done 
correctly--and takes steps to improve coordination among relevant 
Federal agencies. One has to say that. It is sort of a boring 
statement, but it is kind of a necessary one if it happens to be true, 
which in this case I believe it is.
  While modernization will provide the greatest safety benefits, the 
bill also requires the FAA to move forward on other imperative safety 
measures. The bill mandates stricter oversight of airlines and their 
compliance with airworthiness directives. It requires regular 
inspections of foreign repair stations--subject to controversy--and the 
implementation of drug and alcohol programs at those facilities--a 
subject, frankly, lacking in controversy.
  Specific measures in the bill also focus on the safety of our air 
ambulance operations--that is a lot of activity in our country--and 
take steps to improve airport runway surveillance; that is, we have a 
problem now with literally airplanes running into each other on the 
tarmac because of fog or because of poor coordination or whatever--the 
kind of things that a NextGen modernized system would tend to make much 
less prevalent.
  This bill will make significant strides for the airline industry 
through modernization. They crave it. They need it. Commercial aviation 
helps drive $1.3 trillion in U.S. economic activity and, as I said 
before, more than 10 million U.S. jobs. So I think those who would 
consider not voting for this would have to at least start out on that 
rather alarming fact.
  The aviation sector is critical to our place in the global 
marketplace. It contributes $75 billion to our trade balance and 
represents roughly 6 percent of the gross domestic product of the 
country. It is huge.
  We must make certain all Americans reap the benefits of our national 
aviation system. To that end, this bill preserves and strengthens the 
Essential Air Service Program. I have to say that had been completely 
eliminated by the House--completely eliminated. That is life or death 
for West Virginia and for a lot of rural places. In general, almost all 
large States also have rural aspects, and they need this kind of help.
  We provide vital access to the aviation system for small and rural 
communities. That gives access to the global marketplace. It means 
people come. CEOs do not tend to want to drive to Montana or to West 
Virginia to look over possible sites for building plants. It is very 
important for economic development.

  It is interesting--and I am sure Senator Hutchison would agree with 
me--that communities thrive, particularly smaller communities, on how 
well their small airports are doing. They may have good runway space 
but not a lot of enplanements because it is not a hugely populated 
area. But we put very strict confinements on that in the essential air 
service. We disciplined it. We said there can be no new ones other than 
the ones currently existing.
  We put other restrictions on it to make it palatable to the other 
body. We said, for example, communities that have per-passenger 
subsidies over $1,000 are eliminated forthwith from the program. That 
makes sense. That much money going for a couple of passengers is just 
ridiculous. Communities that have fewer than 10 passengers per day--and 
there are in my State some very strong communities that have that 
situation. They just cannot work it out that they get people onto their 
airplanes or air service, and, as a result, obviously, the service 
begins to disappear. There is no reason the essential air service 
should allow any of that to proceed. So we say if they have fewer than 
10 passengers per day--if you are an airport of that sort--and are 
within 175 miles of a large or medium-sized hub airport, you are to be 
eliminated immediately from this program. That is harsh for some. But 
it is what brought us a compromise for the majority of us--all of us.
  The program also caps future eligibility, as I have indicated, to 
those communities that are currently in this program.
  Now, I am sure everyone has heard me say the essential air service is 
the lifeblood for so many communities. I believe this bill strikes a 
careful balance between the need to cut government spending, which this 
does, and preserving small community access to our national aviation 
system by making some of these prudent reforms.
  It is important for me to take a moment to emphasize the consequences 
of not passing this bill. Aside from not achieving all the benefits 
this bill provides, we will find ourselves in a nasty fight with the 
House when the current FAA extension runs out in less than 2 weeks.
  This is not just a bill that is floating around. This is a bill that 
is on a timetable, and the extension--the 23rd extension--of this bill 
we made runs out in several weeks. So, then, everything goes back to 
zero, and you remember we laid off a lot of people earlier.
  The House has no patience left for short-term extensions--I cannot 
disagree with that--and they have shown this past August they are 
perfectly willing to send over an extension with policy riders, policy 
riders which they full well know are totally impossible for this body 
to accept or for the majority of this body to accept.
  They also have shown their resolve in all of this. Not too long ago 
they shut down the FAA. It was not a question of what this is going to 
do to people's lives. They just shut it down for the principle of 
sticking by their guns, and they furloughed 4,000 government employees 
and did not seem to care that hundreds of millions in aviation trust 
fund revenues were lost forever. If we do not pass the FAA conference 
report, you can be sure the House will send over an FAA extension that 
is just as troublesome.
  We have reached a compromise position under the magnificent watchful 
eye of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Again, nobody got everything they 
wanted, and there are some provisions that people have great difficulty 
accepting. I understand that. All of this has to be seen within the 
context of the greater bill, which is a huge piece of legislation, a 
magnificent piece of legislation, and very much a job-creating piece of 
legislation. But this is, in my judgment, a very good deal. It is a 
fair deal. If we do not pass it, I think we will all certainly regret 
it. I strongly encourage all of my fellow Members to support this bill.
  Now, finally, before I conclude my remarks I want to thank my 
colleagues for all of their diligent work on this bill.
  Let me be clear, we would not be here today were it not for the 
efforts of Senate majority leader Harry Reid and for his guidance and 
for his leadership. He and his team negotiated the most sensitive part 
of the bill. I personally want to thank Senator Reid for his stalwart 
support throughout this process.
  Right after him comes Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Over the past 4 
years, she has done more than anybody to get this bill passed into 
law--hopefully passed into law. Although she was fully engaged in every 
part of the development, most notably, her work on

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securing a slots agreement removed one of the biggest hurdles in 
getting this legislation through the Senate. In fact, it was the 
biggest hurdle when we got this through the Senate. It was Senator Kay 
Bailey Hutchison who worked out those compromises and deals in a 
harrowingly magnificent fashion.
  Her deep aviation expertise and negotiating skills are truly 
remarkable, and this bill is another significant part of her already 
very substantial legacy.
  Finally, I thank Senator Maria Cantwell. A year ago, she assumed the 
chairmanship of the Aviation Subcommittee. She made substantial 
contributions to the entire bill but most notably on NextGen--the new 
air traffic control system, the modernized one, the GPS one, the 
digitalized one. She effectively balances very difficult issues and at 
the same time is incredibly committed to the interests of Washington 
State.
  We should be proud of this compromise agreement that will enable our 
aviation system to move forward to meet the challenges of continuously 
improving safety, air traffic control modernization, airport 
development, and small community air service.
  I thank the Acting President pro tempore.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I wish to thank the distinguished 
chairman of the Commerce Committee for all that he said. I really 
appreciate working with him. Clearly, because of 23 extensions, you 
know this was a hard bill to pass.
  Since 2007, we have been trying to reauthorize the FAA and 
particularly increase aviation safety and put our NextGen air traffic 
control system in place. That has been the primary moving force. But, 
as is often the case, it is other issues that have come to the 
forefront and caused the delay after delay after delay process in 
passing this bill. We did pass it through the Senate and now have come 
out with a conference report between the House and Senate.
  So I really first have to say thank you for the leadership of Senator 
Rockefeller, which has been quiet and effective and letting the 
different Members with different interests, of which there were many on 
this bill, have their say--and he was very calm throughout the 
process--because in the end we all know that none of us are dictators, 
none of us are the sole arbiters of what comes out of the Senate. We 
are a body of 100. We have colleagues on the other side who are 435. So 
obviously some people are going to have to give in certain areas. But 
what is good about the bill before us today is that the major 
principles have been addressed and the people who were most affected by 
those have been able to see the big picture that we needed to address 
in this bill, that we give our airports the ability to grow, expand, 
and repair with the aviation trust fund, which the passage of this bill 
will do. It will be in a stable environment because we have 4 years 
after this bill is passed.
  I thank the chairman and all who have worked on this bill. As 
everyone knows, the repeated use of short-term extensions does not 
allow for the long-term planning that is needed on the big projects, 
such as NextGen, the air traffic control system that will be based on 
satellites or the airport improvements that are so important for our 
smooth aviation system to function.
  So what we are doing today is asking the Senate to pass the 
conference report the House has already passed. When we pass it, which 
is my hope today, it will go to the President for signature, and it 
will provide that clear, stable way forward for our airports and the 
FAA to operate and make the sound fiscal investments in ensuring that 
we have a good and seamless system.
  First, the bill does improve aviation safety, including the 
development of a plan to reduce runway incursions and operational 
errors, along with significant safety improvements for helicopter 
emergency medical service operators and their patients.
  The bill modernizes our antiquated air traffic control system and 
moves us one step closer to a more efficient and effective use of our 
national air space. Specifically, it focuses on advancing the next-
generation air transportation system that we call NextGen, and it 
improves the management practices and oversight of the agency in the 
modernization effort.
  When fully implemented, NextGen will fundamentally transform air 
traffic control from a ground-based radar system to a satellite-based 
system that uses global positioning navigation and surveillance digital 
communications and more accurate weather services. It is our belief 
that most of the other countries in the world have NextGen already, but 
America has the biggest aviation transportation system in the world, 
and therefore, when we come up to speed, it will make the seamless air 
traffic control system globally better.
  Some people will say: Well, NextGen--what does it mean? Well, it is 
going to open more airspace for our airplanes' use, both scheduled and 
general aviation. It will reduce delays because we are going to have 
better scheduling. We are going to have more accurate capabilities to 
schedule, and therefore it will open more airspace for use by our 
general aviation as well as our scheduled carriers. As we know, our 
scheduled carriers will be growing in the future. They are 
restructuring and trying to accommodate us. But more and more people 
and bigger populations are going to produce more need for aviation 
traffic.
  Special attention is given to the acceleration certification planning 
and implementation of critical NextGen technologies. We have 
established in the bill clear deadlines for the adoption of technology 
and navigational procedures which will allow for a more precise and 
fuel-efficient use of our national airspace.
  This conference report also moves forward initiatives associated with 
the integration of the unmanned aircraft system--the UAS--into the 
national airspace. We are seeing now more and more applications of 
unmanned aircraft, and it is going to increase.
  We are looking at border security using UAV research, law 
enforcement, firefighting, just to name a few. There are going to be 
more and more uses for unmanned aerial vehicles to be able to do the 
surveillance and photographing that have taken helicopter pilots and 
small general aviation and even large aircraft to do in the past. So 
our bill begins to have a process for our air traffic control system to 
accommodate these UAVs.
  Finally, the bill finds compromise in several difficult areas. 
Chairman Rockefeller has mentioned several of those. The Ronald Reagan 
Washington National Perimeter Rule, the air carriage of lithium 
batteries, and small-community air service are among the compromises 
that were reached in this bill.
  It is time that we finally create some stability in the aviation 
sector. This bill will do that. I encourage my colleagues to support 
its passage.
  I would like to go ahead, since we do have time--actually, I do see 
someone waiting to speak. Since we will be on the floor until the vote, 
I will yield the floor at this time and finish the rest of my statement 
later.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. BEGICH. Mr. President, I am down here to speak in favor of the 
FAA reauthorization conference report that the Senate will vote on 
shortly. I thank Chairman Rockefeller and Senator Hutchison for their 
great work on this piece of legislation--a long time coming. It has not 
been reauthorized since 2007, so it has been a long time coming. So I 
am very excited about this opportunity.
  I think it is maybe a new trend for the year. Last week we passed the 
STOCK Act, and today hopefully we will pass the FAA bill. There has 
been a lot of work, a lot of compromise on these two pieces of 
legislation and this one particularly today.
  The last time Congress actually passed a comprehensive FAA bill was 
in 2003. The bill expired in 2007. Since then, the FAA has been 
operating on 23 short-term extensions. These temporary extensions have 
been detrimental. They have prevented progress on modernizing our air 
traffic control. I speak as someone who just literally flew in a couple 
of hours ago overnight from Alaska. We clearly understand air traffic. 
They did not give airports funding certainty for planning, runway, and 
safety improvements, and they resulted in a brief shutdown in which

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4,000 FAA employees were furloughed for almost 2 weeks last summer. It 
is far past time that Congress pass a comprehensive FAA reauthorization 
bill.

  While this bill is significant for the entire country, it is 
particularly important for my residents, the residents of aviation in 
Alaska, and residents overall. It is truly a lifeblood. When you think 
of aviation, it is our highway in the sky. Alaska has 6 times more 
pilots and 16 times more aircraft per capita than the rest of the 
United States. More than 80 percent of our communities are not on the 
road system. So aviation is the only reliable year-round means of 
transportation.
  This conference report invests over $13 billion in our airport 
infrastructure over the next 4 years. Let me underline that--$13 
billion in the next 4 years. This is about jobs. It is about improving 
airport safety. In an economy that is slowly recovering and on the 
right track, this will add to the needed jobs in the construction 
industry but also make sure that we put them to work in areas such as 
aviation which are critically needed. It will improve our runways, 
create more safety projects in our airports and our runway areas, yet 
safely accommodate the higher traffic levels while putting tens of 
thousands of Americans to work.
  This bill invests in and accelerates the deployment of the NextGen 
modernization of our air traffic control system, as you have heard 
described already. We have been using a World War II-era radar 
technology for our air traffic control. Transition to more accurate 
satellite-based tracking will allow for more direct routes between 
destinations, reducing fuel use and saving airlines money.
  The backbone of this technology, called ADS-B, was proven in Alaska 
as part of the capstone project. So we are excited that we were the 
incubator for such an important element of our aviation, and now to see 
it accelerated and moved throughout the whole industry will be a huge 
benefit to the consumer.
  For Alaskans, it contains an amendment which I offered and was 
cosponsored by Senator Murkowski, providing relief for a one-size-fits-
all rulemaking. That rule inadvertently prevented the shipment of 
compressed oxygen needed for medical and construction purposes in rural 
Alaska.
  This legislation also contains a special provision that Senator 
Coburn from Oklahoma and I sponsored called the orphan earmarks 
provision. It repeals earmarks for aviation projects if less than 10 
percent of the earmark has not been used after 9 years. It saves 
millions of dollars on stalled projects so that we can direct those 
limited resources where they can have the greatest bang for the dollar.
  This conference report makes significant investments in the Essential 
Air Service Program--otherwise known as EAS--which serves rural and 
isolated areas. Forty-four communities in Alaska will continue to 
receive a minimal level of scheduled passenger service. There are 
sensible reforms that will exclude communities in the lower 48 with 
fewer than 10 passengers per day.
  The House FAA bill proposed to make truly Draconian cuts to the EAS 
Program. I wish to thank Chair Rockefeller particularly for his effort 
to make sure that rural communities throughout America and Alaska 
continue to receive the access they need to airspace and travel from 
their small communities. For the general aviation community, this bill 
contains no new user fees. Let me repeat that--no new user fees for 
general aviation.
  There is aviation community funding for research into an unleaded 
fuel substitute which one day may replace avgas. There are incentives 
for ADS-B equipment.
  I will continue to work with my copartner on the general aviation 
caucus, Senator Johanns, to make sure that aviation policies are 
mindful of the significant role general aviation plays not only in my 
State of Alaska but throughout this country.
  For our airline passengers, this conference report includes a 
passengers' bill of rights championed by Senators Boxer and Snowe. It 
codifies commonsense approaches and changes, such as making sure 
passengers have adequate food and water and lavatory access if delayed 
on the tarmac and options to deplane if the flight has been excessively 
delayed.
  It is not a perfect bill. I was disappointed that the conference 
report contains language pertaining to the National Mediation Board and 
the rules governing union organizing. It is not relevant to the 
underlying bill. It was not included in the bill the Senate passed last 
year. We understand this was a necessary compromise for the House 
leadership to allow this long-stalled bill to move forward. Again, it 
is not an appropriate element to this bill, but recognizing that the 
overall bill is critical to the long-term health of our aviation 
industry and the passengers of this country, we can take comfort from 
the fact that we added over 30 provisions in this conference report 
that will improve conditions for aviation workers.
  I firmly believe the controversial NMB language has no place in this 
bill. I also recognize it is time to move forward.

  I wish to recognize again the leadership of Senator Rockefeller and 
Senator Hutchison of the Senate Commerce Committee and their tireless 
work. They never gave up. Their staffs continued to work and to push 
forward, to push everyone when it looked as if the differences between 
the House and Senate were impossible to resolve. The conference report 
before us is a testament to their tenacity and their bipartisanship.
  This bill is a shining example of what Congress can accomplish when 
we put our differences aside and sit down to do the daily work of 
legislating. This is a very strong bill, a bipartisan bill. It is just 
unfortunate it has taken this long to get here.
  I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this monumental conference report 
which will put Americans back to work, enhance our airport 
infrastructure, and will make the safest aviation system in the world 
even safer.
  I yield the remainder of my time, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, we will be voting in an hour and a 
half, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank so many of the 
people who brought this bill together, which we hope will come to a 
good conclusion in about an hour and a half.
  Obviously, I have talked about Chairman Rockefeller. This has been a 
long process, clearly--23 extensions and it has been since 2007 that we 
had the last authorization. I think the fact we are now going to have a 
4-year authorization is one of the more important elements. Now our 
airports are going to be able to start their building projects. They 
are going to be able to increase their runway space or do repairs or 
whatever the priorities are that are decided by the FAA are the most 
important priorities for our Nation because the funding source from the 
highway trust fund will now be known for 4 years. I think that is a 
very important step in the right direction.
  I wish to thank the House managers of this bill as well, the House 
Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Mica and Ranking Member 
Rahall and the respective Aviation Subcommittee chairs in the House, 
Representatives Petri and Costello. Their work and input on their bill 
was certainly critical, and the ability to come to conference and 
hammer it out was critical as well.
  In the Senate, I wish to thank all our conferees, Senators Hatch, 
Isakson, and DeMint on our side and, additionally, Senators Cantwell 
and Thune, the respective chair and ranking member of the Commerce 
Committee's Aviation Subcommittee, for their work on the bill.
  The staff, of course, are the ones who work long hours, and though we 
never see them, they are there. Senator Rockefeller and I were having 
telephone calls at 10 o'clock at night, then we would call our staffs 
and then call back to determine what was happening and what needed to 
be happening. So I thank the person who runs the Commerce Committee on 
the majority side, Ellen Doneski, who is wonderful to work with, James 
Reid, Gael Sullivan,

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Rich Swayze, and Adam Duffy, who worked on this bill and the 
negotiations for all these years that we have been trying to pass this; 
on Representative Mica's staff, Jim Coon, Holly Woodruff Lyons, Bailey 
Edwards, and Simone Perez; on Representative Rahall's staff, Jim Zoia, 
Ward McCarragher, Giles Giovinazzi, and Alex Burkett; and on my staff, 
the Commerce Committee minority side, Todd Bertoson, Richard Russell, 
and Jarrod Thompson.
  I wish to especially mention Jarrod Thompson, who is the one I know 
the best, because he is the Aviation Subcommittee ranking member's 
staff leader. He knows the history of the aviation bills. He knows the 
subject matter. There was never a time when I would ask a specific or 
technical question that Jarrod didn't know the answer, and I so 
appreciate his being on our staff and helping us through this very 
important time.
  With that, I yield the floor, and I thank all my colleagues and our 
House colleagues and staff for their work on this bill that I hope we 
will be able to pass when the vote comes at 5:30 this afternoon.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I am in the happy position of 
mimicking a lot of what my colleague Senator Hutchison has said but for 
a very good reason. Until one goes through an experience such as the 
one Senator Hutchison and I have been through for the last year, plus, 
plus, one has no understanding of how hard staff works.
  That staff routinely work over the weekends is just a given. They 
work through the night. They will stay up all night frequently. They 
have to reach out in so many directions. There are not that many of 
them as compared to those who have requests of them, and so their work 
never stops.
  Let me start, obviously, with Senator Hutchison. She did mention Todd 
Bertoson and Richard Russell, then Jarrod Thompson, the lead 
negotiator. That is a tough position. It is a very tough position 
because people and interest groups figure out whom to go to and whom to 
pester and whom to follow up with. I have that same situation, and 
Ellen Doneski is incredible. I called her at 11 last night and she was 
fine and well and then she got sick and now she is already back at 
work. Does that mean she is not sick any longer? I don't know. But they 
are driven to excel. They are driven to drive the product home in ways 
that are expiring.
  To my left sits James Reid, who is the No. 2 person on that committee 
who, as far as I can tell, knows everything about everything and 
certainly about any discussion that comes up in terms of the Commerce 
Committee. He is tireless. He has young children with the tension that 
creates, not in principle but just the idea that you have to 
occasionally show up at home and be a good father.
  Gael Sullivan is our lead negotiator, and that is a very special 
position on a bill such as this. Rich Swayze and Adam Duffy; Rich 
Swayze and Gael worked so many things together, and Gael Sullivan and 
Adam Duffy.
  Let me go to Representative Joe Rahall. Obviously, he is a colleague 
of mine. I think he has been in the House for 36 years, and he 
represents the coal fields, in many ways the most volatile part of our 
State as its economics change rapidly. His chief negotiator is Giles 
Giovinazzi, and to him goes the same praise. House Members and the 
subcommittees and committees have so many fewer staff than in the 
Senate, so we have to praise them very much. Jim Zoia, who is his chief 
of staff--and has been, I swear, for all 36 years. If it is not the 
case, it doesn't matter--is a remarkable person; Ward McGarragher and 
Alex Burkett.
  With John Mica, I need to mention Jim Coon, Holly Woodruff Lyons, who 
was his lead negotiator, and Bailey Edwards and Simone Perez.
  Let me end simply by saying Senator Reid and his people were so 
heavily involved, particularly in this one aspect of the bill. But he 
has been driving this bill in our caucuses, as the Presiding Officer 
well knows, for over a year: Where is my FAA bill? Where is my FAA 
bill? He has been driving, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. His 
chief of staff is David Krone, who so many people don't know and it is 
their loss; Darrel Thompson, Bob Herbert, Bill Dauster, who keeps in 
touch with everybody and everything.
  To the floor staff of the majority and the minority leaders, just 
simply to be grateful to them and to make sure we say that to them 
personally, we say it publicly, and we say it frequently.
  I ask unanimous consent that, from this point forward, any time spent 
in quorum calls be equally divided.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I thank the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise and ask unanimous consent to speak 
as if in morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                   startup america legislative agenda

  Mr. COONS. Last week, President Obama unveiled his Startup America 
Legislative Agenda.
  It marked the 1-year anniversary of his Startup America initiative, 
an ambitious, impressive, national energetic effort led by, among 
others, legendary innovator and entrepreneur Steve Case, the founder of 
AOL. It was a strategy that focused on how the Federal Government can 
best help young companies and, in particular, entrepreneurs all over 
this country get into the game of starting and growing businesses. It 
is smart and it is important.
  Entrepreneurs are driving our economic recovery and will drive our 
economic recovery into the future. They are taking the risk personally 
to turn their ideas into startup companies in fields from biotech and 
clean energy to manufacturing. Among these innovators could be the next 
American giant, a General Electric or DuPont. But in order for these 
startup companies to grow, we have to support them in their critical 
early stages. Today, I take that as our challenge.
  Whenever I visit a factory in Delaware or meet with the young owner 
of a company that he or she has just started, I ask the same question: 
How can we best help you to grow?
  Small business, it is often said, is the engine of job creation in 
this country. In the 1990s and the early 2000s, small firms created 
more than 65 percent of the new jobs in this country. But I want us to 
particularly focus on those small businesses that have enormous 
potential, so-called gazelle startups, those that grow not from 5 to 10 
or 5 to 20 employees but from 5 to 50 to 500 to 5,000, whether it is 
Facebook or other startups that have gone from literally bench top or 
dorm room to being employers of thousands or tens of thousands.
  Our economy has grown dramatically because of these rapidly growing 
innovative startups. Typically, they are startups that focus on a 
disruptive technology or product, something that fundamentally changes 
a whole sector of our marketplace, and they have the most promising 
potential for job creation.
  Between 1980 and 2005, most of the net new jobs in America were 
created by firms that were 5 years old or less. That is about 40 
million jobs over those 25 years.
  This summer, I hosted in Delaware a series of roundtables with 
business owners. The focus of these conversations was on how we can 
help their businesses to grow and grow quickly. A lot of these 
businesses were young and innovative companies. They have a great idea 
and a good start on their research. But I often found, particularly in 
this economy, they are struggling to capitalize on their innovations.
  Innovation is the spark that drives and sustains entrepreneurship, 
particularly entrepreneurship in disruptive technologies. But it is 
research and development that drives that innovation, and government 
only has so many tools we can use to help promote innovation. Today, I 
wish to talk about a piece of the Tax Code that is one of the most 
powerful tools in our toolbox.
  Thirty years ago, Congress created the Research and Development Tax 
Credit, the R&D Tax Credit, to help incentivize companies to invest in 
innovation, to invest in the people who are doing the research and the 
development that drives innovation. In fact, 70 percent of R&D-
qualified expenses

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today are for wages. In many ways, it is an innovative jobs credit. It 
has helped tens of thousands of companies and has been extremely 
successful at getting companies to invest in innovation. But it has one 
key weakness: It expires. It expires all too often. It has, in fact, 
expired 8 times and been extended 13 times and it has most recently 
expired in December of last year.
  The first bill I introduced as a Senator last April was entitled the 
``Job Creation Through Innovation Act.'' It did two things. First, and 
most important, it made the R&D tax credit permanent--important, in my 
view, to sustain and extend this successful program. But there is 
another issue we still need to address to make the tax credit relevant 
to these early stage, innovative, high-growth companies. Right now, the 
tax benefits of the R&D tax credit are available only to more 
established companies that are already turning a profit. We have to 
have a tax liability on their profits for that credit to be of any 
value to them. That is a roadblock in the way of success for startups 
and small businesses in Delaware and around the country and a place 
where I think we can and should come together across the aisle to 
address this gap in the R&D tax credit program because, in my view, it 
is the small early startups that most need a cash infusion to support 
their confidence, their stability, and their innovation. We can, and 
should, take this tax credit and retool it in a way that makes it more 
relevant and more effective. If entrepreneurs are the ones taking risks 
in this economy and creating jobs, they should be the ones we support 
in this tough economy through our Tax Code. As I said before, history 
shows it is those young companies that are creating the most jobs the 
most quickly and that have the best return on tax expenditures.
  Here is what I have been working on. As I have met with innovative 
young businesses in Delaware, one of the ideas that has come to me more 
than once is to change the R&D tax credit so it is accessible not just 
by being permanent to big and profitable companies but by being 
tradable so smaller or startup companies that have no tax liability can 
take advantage of it.
  How would that work? It allows startups to sell their tax credit to a 
larger company, giving them a much needed infusion of cash. Let me give 
an example.
  Elcriton is a small but high promise, high potential Delaware 
company. It has patented strains of bacteria that are designed to 
consume duckweed--also called pond scum--and produce biobutanol, a 
promising drop-in alternative fuel. It has tremendous potential. 
Elcriton today is run by two Ph.D.s who have put together all the money 
they can raise, from family and friends and angel investors and early 
funds into research and development. But for them to grow, and grow 
quickly, they need access to more capital to fund more innovation.
  Evozym Biologics also is a 2-year-old Delaware company trying to 
bring to market cutting-edge innovations in computing and in the 
development of proteins from the University of Delaware and the Desert 
Research Institute. They are doing incredible things there.
  Both these companies need more funding to invest in R&D and to 
capitalize on their potential to grow rapidly and grow high-quality 
jobs. If they were already bigger, well-established, successful 
companies, they might well qualify for the existing R&D tax credit. But 
because they are so small and just getting started, our current tax 
credit doesn't help them at all.
  Fortunately, Delaware is also home to a few great well-established 
companies. Since those companies turn a profit and pay taxes, they 
could actually utilize a tax credit. In this case, Elcriton or Evozym 
would sell their innovation credit to one of the larger established 
companies. The bigger company gets the tax credit. The newer company 
gets the infusion of cash it needs to sustain its innovation. It would 
be a win-win.
  This is just one idea of a number that I have introduced, that I have 
proposed, and that I have discussed with Senator Baucus and others on 
Finance. I hope that in discussing it today, some of my colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle and leaders in the business and innovation 
communities will work with me to further refine it, focus it, and make 
it part of our greater conversation about tax reform and the economic 
recovery.
  We can and should put our heads together to find commonsense 
solutions to the problems, challenges, and opportunities of innovation 
and competitiveness. We have to give American business the support they 
need to compete in an increasingly competitive global economy because, 
in my view, we are falling behind in the race for innovation.
  In the 1980s, the United States was routinely ranked as having the 
best R&D tax incentives and overall support for innovation in the 
world, but today some studies have us ranked 17th in the world in 
supporting and sustaining innovation. I refuse to let American 
companies, American inventors, and American workers fall behind. With 
the right resources, American ingenuity will continue to outcompete any 
country on Earth every time. I know it is possible. I have seen it week 
in and week out as I have visited small and medium startup companies in 
Delaware.
  Just a few weeks ago in Bridgeville, DE, a town many from here have 
traveled as they have gone to the Delaware beaches, I stopped to visit 
a small company, Miller Metal, that is proving day in and day out that 
with investment, with innovation, with continuous improvement, they can 
go head to head with Chinese metal fabricators and win: manufactured in 
Delaware, competitive in the global marketplace.
  Although we need a full overhaul of our corporate tax structure, 
making this one small tweak to the R&D tax credit to make it accessible 
to early stage innovative companies will, in my view, give us a running 
start into the headwinds of the global economy, and I think we have no 
more time to waste. It is small businesses and innovative strategies 
that will create the jobs we need to put our neighbors back to work and 
turn this economy around more quickly. Let's work together, let's help 
them, and let's make progress on this most important proposal to change 
the R&D tax credit, make it permanent, and make it accessible for early 
stage companies.
  I am eager to hear what people think about this idea, and I hope they 
will connect with me and my office and let me know how to improve on 
it, how to execute on it, and how to deliver this as a new tool in the 
toolkit of American innovation.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I rise today, as many of my colleagues 
have done, to speak in favor of the final passage of the conference 
report to accompany the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and 
Improvement Act. I don't know what the acronym to that is. It is a long 
name but it is a very comprehensive bill, and a very good bill.
  I especially want to thank Senator Hutchison and my good friend from 
West Virginia Senator Rockefeller and their dedicated staff for the 
countless hours they have dedicated over the past 5 years to produce 
legislation that will provide the Federal Aviation Administration with 
the tools necessary to begin finally to support the 21st century 
national airspace system. It is not often you have a staff and two 
Members dedicated for 5 years to finally come up with a good bill. It 
has been tough sledding, but they have gotten it done.
  The aviation industry remains one of the most important economic 
sectors in my home State of Kansas. Passage of this 4-year 
reauthorization is absolutely necessary for giving aviation companies 
necessary funding and the regulatory certainty to move forward with a 
number of important initiatives. It is not very often in today's world 
you talk about regulatory certainty. This bill will do that.
  Specifically, the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety 
Improvement Act includes provisions to

[[Page S339]]

implement a state-of-the-art satellite-based navigation system to 
provide operators and users of our national airspace the ability to 
seamlessly guide and locate traffic throughout our Nation and around 
the world.
  It also authorizes critical funding for the Essential Air Service 
Program which provides Kansas and other rural States the ability to 
provide air service to smaller communities and the citizens and 
businesses whose livelihoods rely on the ability to travel longer 
distances in a short amount of time.
  As a Member of the House--as a matter of fact, even prior to that as 
a staffer to a Member of the House--I was part of the effort that 
established the first Essential Air Service, so I have a long-time 
interest in this. I again thank Senators for doing their very best to 
preserve this program.
  More important, this legislation reflects a bipartisan effort to 
ensure the continued health of the general aviation industry. This 
industry contributes over $150 billion to the national economy each 
year. It has created over 1.3 million jobs--if anybody wants to hear 
about job creation, this is the outfit that does it--across a broad 
range of disciplines, and allows companies the ability to access 
facilities all across the globe.
  This is where I want to particularly thank Chairman Rockefeller and 
Senator Hutchison as well as my colleagues on the Finance Committee who 
were tasked with finding the necessary funding streams to pay for the 
annual $15.9 billion tag this legislation does authorize.
  Notably, this legislation does not include language imposing 
disproportionate and onerous user fees on the general aviation 
industry. This is contrary to what has happened in the past. This has 
been a general agreement now. Rather, this legislation preserves the 
current fuel tax levels, an efficient and effective funding mechanism 
that accurately reflects general aviation's use of the system.
  If anybody down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is listening, I hope they 
would adopt the same attitude as we have been able to reach in a 
bipartisan way, and not pick on any particular industry--or use their 
name or acronym for their name about six or seven times in three 
paragraphs of recent speeches.
  Last, this legislation would not undermine steps taken at the 
Department of Transportation to protect private citizens from having 
their movements tracked by anyone with easily accessible flight 
tracking technology.
  I look forward to joining my colleagues later this afternoon in 
passing this important measure, a great, comprehensive bill that will 
support more than a million jobs and help spur further economic growth 
and development in our Nation's aviation sector.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I rise for a moment to echo, first of 
all, the words of the distinguished Senator from Kansas. He was right 
on target in every point he made. But I also rise to pay tribute to the 
chairman, Senator Rockefeller, and ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison, 
Mr. Ray LaHood, and Chairman Mica in the House, all of whom did an 
outstanding job bringing this together.
  I was thinking in the airplane coming up here--it was an appropriate 
place to think about it; we are all on airplanes quite a lot--I was 
thinking about the many bills I have been involved in here in my 13, 
almost 14 years in the Congress of the United States. I don't know if I 
ever remember a conference committee that was so far apart and so 
divided that finally came together in the best interests of the 
American people than this one. I want to pay tribute to Majority Leader 
Harry Reid, who played an instrumental role in finding common ground 
and coming to agreement. Speaker Boehner in the House of 
Representatives did the same. This was a team effort. The National 
Mediation Board decisions that were made in the final agreements were 
good and they were fair. As Senator Roberts has said, the treatment of 
general aviation and commercial aviation is fair and equitable. We now 
have a 4-year plan for the next generation. Everything that happened, 
happened for the best and it happened because of good leadership on the 
part of Chairman Rockefeller and Congressman Mica and Speaker Boehner, 
the Speaker of the House, and Senator Reid. I thank all for the work 
they did, and I am very proud to have been a part of the solution that 
led to the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration.
  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. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Roberts from Kansas 
and Senator Isakson from the State of Georgia--State of Atlanta--for 
their very kind remarks. I really mean that. These are two good people 
with a lot of business experience, with aviation--is Hartsfield still 
the world's busiest airport?
  Mr. ISAKSON. Busiest in the world.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. And tremendous general aviation industry the Senator 
has in his State. That they come down and praise this bill means a lot 
to this Senator and I thank both of them.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise today to express my concern about 
provisions of this bill that amend an unrelated labor law statute--the 
Railway Labor Act. As the chairman of the Committee on Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions, which has jurisdiction over this law 
and the agency that enforces it, the National Mediation Board, I am 
troubled by the inclusion of this language and the implication that it 
creates; namely, that this independent Federal agency and the hard-
working Americans it protects are being punished for recent regulatory 
changes that protect workers' rights.
  The National Mediation Board--or NMB as it is known--established in 
1934, is an independent agency that administers labor relations in the 
air and rail industries. In 2009 this small, 51-person agency went 
through a careful process to change the voting rules governing the 
elections that it administers. Under the old antiquated election 
system, all nonvoters were automatically and arbitrarily treated as a 
``no'' vote, or a vote against the union, regardless of whether they 
actually opposed forming a union. These rules were contrary to the 
election rules used in National Labor Relations Board-supervised 
elections and different from the rules governing elections held 
throughout the entire United States, from school boards to U.S. 
Senators. Think about it--if you don't vote, you are counted as a 
``no'' vote. What kind of sense does that make? It made no sense. Just 
as it would be unfair to arbitrarily assign an individual American a 
position, let's say, in the Presidential race because he or she chose 
not to vote, it was unjust to capriciously impose a position on rail 
and aviation workers who, for one reason or another, didn't vote in a 
representation election. That is why the National Mediation Board 
adopted the commonsense rule, the same rule that applies to industries 
all over America that are governed by the National Labor Relations 
Board. The rule was that in the future elections, a voter's decision 
not to vote would have no impact on the election's outcome. Only those 
voters who actually participate will determine the outcome of the 
election. A majority of those who vote determines who wins.
  This basic system, as I said, of conducting elections works for 
school boards and for Congress. It works for all the businesses in 
America that are governed by the National Labor Relations Act, and it 
will work and has worked for rail and aviation workers. The only entity 
this new system apparently doesn't work for is the management of a few 
powerful airlines. These powerful companies don't want workers to have 
representation. They don't want to engage in collective bargaining with 
their workers. I guess they are deeply concerned about the remote

[[Page S340]]

chance that at some point in the future they just might have to put a 
few additional dollars into middle-class workers' pockets, so they 
waged an unprecedented attack campaign to kill this rule, the rule that 
says: If you don't vote, your vote is not counted as yes or no. The 
only votes that count are those that vote yes and those that vote no. 
In the past, if you didn't vote, it was counted automatically as a 
``no'' vote. Finally, people said: This doesn't make sense. No other 
business in America has any kind of rule like that governed by the 
National Labor Relations Board.
  These few powerful airlines waged an unprecedented attack campaign to 
kill the rule. First they found some friends in Congress and tried 
challenging the rule under the Congressional Review Act, a law that 
allows Congress to overturn a rule through a resolution of 
disapproval. They lost that fight on the Senate floor. Next, they went 
to court to challenge the legality of the rulemaking. They lost that 
fight in the district court, and then they appealed to the court of 
appeals and they lost there too. So then they waged a last-ditch effort 
to kill the rule on this FAA reauthorization bill, which has nothing to 
do with it. Again, it was not in the Senate bill. The House put it on a 
totally unrelated provision dealing with the National Mediation Board 
that isn't even a part of the FAA and which isn't in the jurisdiction 
of the Senate Commerce committee.

  The FAA reauthorization has historically been a bipartisan bill that 
is essential to the operation of our aviation system. As a pilot 
myself--I have been all my life--I can see why this bill was needed, 
believe me. The current bill not only extends a wide variety of 
provisions impacting aviation, it helps to create tens of thousands of 
jobs and to bring our aviation system into the 21st century. This 
important legislation has absolutely nothing to do with the National 
Mediation Board, whose sole job is to oversee labor relations. But last 
year House Republicans tried to turn this FAA reauthorization bill into 
a vehicle to attack workers' rights.
  They added a provision to their bill repealing the National Mediation 
Board's election rule--the rule which said if a person does not vote, 
it is not counted. It is not counted as a ``no'' vote or ``yes'' vote; 
it is just not counted--a commonsense rule. Then, when the House and 
Senate bills were in conference last year, they refused to pass a clean 
extension of the FAA laws as had been done on more than 20 occasions 
prior. Since they didn't do that, they stopped the conference 
negotiations. Instead, the House forced a partial shutdown of the FAA.
  That shutdown last summer left 4,000 FAA workers furloughed. It put 
many thousands more people out of work in airport construction. It cut 
off FAA reimbursement payments to small businesses across the country. 
It cost the government about $25 million in tax revenues every single 
day just because the House was attacking workers' rights and they 
wanted to add this onerous provision to the FAA bill.
  While frustrating, it has long been the norm here to keep agencies 
operating with short-term extensions while bills whose terms have not 
been worked out are negotiated. The House action was a rare break from 
that norm, and it caused real damage to thousands of real people.
  Fortunately, there was a substantial public backlash against the 
House Republicans, and they had to back down. They let a short-term FAA 
extension pass, then they backed off on their demand to kill the rule. 
But the powerful corporations behind this effort still couldn't let the 
issue go. Despite the fact that the new rule had been in place for more 
than a year and has had absolutely no negative impact on any carrier--
the union success rate in elections has remained roughly the same 
before and after the rule's implementation--these corporations were 
still bound and determined to attack the National Mediation Board and 
to attack America's rail and airline workers to punish them for having 
the audacity to stand up for what is fair and to have the audacity to 
stand up and say a vote that is not taken shouldn't be counted as a 
``no'' vote or a ``yes'' vote; it shouldn't be counted at all, which I 
think most Americans would think makes sense.
  So these corporations got their friends in the House Republican 
leadership to demand the addition of burdensome new changes to the 
Railway Labor Act in this unrelated FAA bill. The dramatic changes they 
initially demanded to this statute were absurd and would have been 
irresponsible to slip into a nonamendable conference report without any 
consideration by the committee of jurisdiction which happens to be the 
jurisdiction of the committee I chair in the Senate.
  Fortunately, Senator Rockefeller, the chairman of the Commerce 
Committee, and Senator Reid, through months of negotiations, were able 
to stave off the worst of the House Republican proposals and ultimately 
settle on a package of less detrimental changes. Under this new 
language, the agency retains discretion to determine when a union 
should be properly certified as a bargaining representative, and we 
have no intention of changing that process. I also think we have left a 
lot of room for the agency to make rules that govern special situations 
such as mergers.
  But to be clear, I don't think any of us on this side of the aisle 
wanted to make these changes at all. We were forced to do this by a few 
powerful people who were willing to hold many thousands of American 
jobs hostage and hold hostage improvements to our airway system just to 
get this.
  Some people might call this process a compromise, but I call it an 
abuse of our legislative process, and we shouldn't let it happen. To be 
clear, as I have indicated, there is progress in this bill for the 
people of my State and the people of this great Nation. It will create 
jobs. It will move our country's aviation system into the 21st century. 
It shifts our air traffic control system to a GPS system where planes 
can fly far more efficiently, saving fuel and time. It provides a 
compromise that continues the Essential Air Service Program.
  So, again, I thank Chairman Rockefeller for his diligence and his 
hard work for over 4 years trying to lead the House and others into 
moving our air transportation system, both for general aviation and for 
air transport and for the airlines, to be more efficient and to use 
less fuel so it is more benign to our environment. Believe me, there is 
a lot in here that is going to help general aviation also. So I thank 
Senator Rockefeller for his diligence and his hard work.
  So my ``no'' vote today on this bill is not to suggest that there 
aren't many good things in this bill. Instead, my vote is to stand up 
against the notion that a Federal agency and the American workers it is 
charged to protect should be punished for doing what is right and what 
is fair, what is in their jurisdiction, and to stand up against a 
process that allows the few and the powerful to hijack this body and 
change the rules of the game in their favor. The American people 
deserve better than that.


                           Railway Labor Act

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like to ask a few questions of my 
friend the majority Leader and my friend Senator Rockefeller, Chairman 
of the Senate Commerce, Science, Transportation about the changes to 
the Railway Labor Act in the this bill. Because my committee has 
jurisdiction over this important act, I want to make sure that I fully 
understand the scope and impact of these changes.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I think a little context is helpful to understand 
the situation we were in. Republicans sought to use the FAA 
reauthorization bill to overturn a recent administrative rule by the 
National Mediation Board granting certification if a union won a 
majority of actual voters in a representation election. The Senate 
correctly rejected that provision of the House bill. The rule was fair 
and reasonable and I strongly support it.
  Mr. REID. I agree, and reaffirm our strong support for National 
Mediation Board's decision in this matter. The Senate bill would, 
however, modify the Railway Labor Act in a few minor ways. One of these 
changes would modify the agency rules governing the showing of interest 
that is a precursor to a representation election for either a new 
certification or a change in certification. We modified that standard 
to require a 50 percent showing of interest for all elections. This 
percent was chosen to recognize the longstanding primary statutory goal 
of the Railway Labor Act, which is stability

[[Page S341]]

in labor relations through peaceful collective bargaining. A 50 percent 
showing of interest will ensure that elections only occur when there is 
a sufficient and substantial indication of employee support.
  Mr. HARKIN. My understanding is that there has been longstanding 
deference to the National Mediation Board regarding the findings it 
makes in the representation context. As the Supreme Court stated in 
Switchmen's Union v. NMB, after a NMB's decision on whether a showing 
of interest has been made ``the dispute [is] to reach its last terminal 
point when the administrative finding [i]s made. There [i]s to be no 
dragging out the controversy into other tribunals of law.'' Would these 
changes alter that longstanding deference in any way?
  Mr. REID. Absolutely not. In considering the amendments, we relied on 
and had no intention of disrupting the Supreme Court's decision in the 
Switchmen case. Codifying the standard in statute was not intended to 
alter the longstanding deference that must be accorded to the National 
Mediation Board as it makes factual findings in the representation 
context. In fact, the language was included in a new section of the 
Act, rather than incorporated into the existing Section 9, based on a 
consensus among all parties involved in the conference negotiations 
that the new showing of interest should not enable an employer to 
manipulate the election process by demanding court review of the 
showing of interest.
  Mr. HARKIN. I would ask my friend, Senator Rockefeller, if this was 
his understanding as well?
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Certainly. We had no intention of changing the level 
of deference that is accorded to the agency in representation matters. 
The NMB's certification authority remains conclusive.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank my colleagues and am reassured by their response. 
I can think of a number of dangers that would arise if the sufficiency 
of a showing of interest were litigated in court. The sad reality is 
that employees are regularly retaliated against for supporting 
unionization--in ways that are legal and illegal. It would be very 
dangerous if employers could gain access to union authorization cards 
through litigation discovery. It is reassuring to hear that the sponsor 
of this bill does not intend that result by codifying the showing of 
interest.
  Mr. REID. The purpose of the amendments was very limited. It was not 
intended to alter judicial review; in fact, there was agreement among 
Democrats and Republicans negotiating the agreement that there would be 
no expansion of judicial review. And I would also like to explain that 
it is not intended to apply to the unique situation in mergers. The 
text of the amendments apply to all applications for representation 
elections, but not to the entirely different circumstance where a labor 
organization or employees petition the National Mediation Board for a 
determination as to whether a merger or other transaction has altered 
an existing representational structure as a result of a creation of a 
single transportation system. In those cases, it is our intent that the 
National Mediation Board's existing merger procedures, as modified from 
time to time by the National Mediation Board, shall determine the 
percent of the craft or class to establish a showing of interest. 
Otherwise, employees could lose their representation simply by merging 
with a slightly larger unit without even having the opportunity to 
vote, which is unacceptable.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the majority leader for that helpful 
clarification. I would like to raise two additional questions if I may, 
both related to whether usual rules of statutory interpretation are 
intended to apply here. First, am I correct that the showing of 
interest requirement set forth in this legislation should only apply 
prospectively and should not apply to any application for 
representation pending at the time of the effective date of the 
legislation?
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Yes.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator. And second, in the amendments, 
Congress directed the Government Accountability Office to review 
certain NMB activities periodically, and in conducting these reviews, 
to consider whether the agency's actions are consistent with 
Congressional intent. I would presume that the relevant question for 
the GAO to consider is whether the agency's actions are consistent with 
the intent of the Congress that passed the provisions of the Act in 
question, the joint labor-management agreements which led to its 
adoption, and the subsequent judicial interpretation thereof?
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER: That is correct, yes.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank my colleagues for joining me in this 
conversation.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I will vote in support of the conference 
report to accompany the FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act, H.R. 658. 
The last reauthorization bill expired at the end of fiscal year 2007 
and since then we have passed 23 short-term extensions. We are long 
overdue to enact a long-term reauthorization of FAA's programs in order 
to provide important funding and program improvements that will enhance 
the safety and efficiency of our Nation's aviation system. I am pleased 
we are finally doing that today and in so doing we make key investments 
in our Nation's aviation infrastructure as well as create good jobs in 
the process.
  One of the main issues holding up the bill for so long was a 
provision contained in the House bill, but not the Senate bill, to 
repeal the National Mediation Board--NMB--rule that ensures that only 
those votes cast in a union election are counted. I am glad to see that 
controversial provision has been removed, although I am disappointed 
language has been added to change Railway Labor Act rules and 
regulations governing union elections by raising the showing of 
interest threshold for holding an election from 35 percent to 50 
percent of the employees in the craft or class. I do not believe the 
FAA reauthorization bill is the appropriate vehicle for this sort of 
change and I do not support its inclusion in this bill.
  Providing a long-term 4-year reauthorization of our aviation programs 
is vitally important. Our global economy depends on the smooth and 
efficient movement of goods, services and people from city to city and 
across international borders. A safe and efficient aviation system goes 
hand in hand with a strong economy. We are fortunate to have one of the 
best aviation systems in the world and I am pleased that under this 
bill we continue to make the necessary investments and upgrades to 
retain that high standard. This FAA reauthorization bill addresses 
problems of capacity, congestion and delays to help ensure our aviation 
system can handle the projected growth in airlines passengers.
  The FAA reauthorization bill will also create much needed jobs by 
providing the funding and directives for safety improvements at our 
airports and in the aviation industry. In Michigan alone the FAA is 
building two new air traffic control towers, at Kalamazoo and Traverse 
City. The FAA is also repaving numerous runways and taxiways, including 
at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Alpena County Regional 
Airport, Bishop International Airport, Sawyer International Airport and 
at other airports around the state. The FAA is also constructing new 
terminal buildings at Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport and 
at MBS International Airport in Freeland, MI. And FAA funds are paying 
for the design of a new building for aircraft rescue and firefighting 
and snow removal equipment at Pellston Regional Airport in Emmet 
County. These are important upgrades to Michigan airports and funding 
of many more needed improvements will make flying into and around 
Michigan safer and easier.
  H.R. 658 will move us closer toward modernizing our air traffic 
control system by building the Next Generation Air Transportation 
System--NextGen--of satellite-based navigation. The NextGen system will 
be more accurate and more efficient than the current radar-based air 
traffic control system. It will also result in significant fuel 
efficiencies and time savings by allowing aircraft to fly more direct 
routes. This is good for the environment, good for air carriers and 
good for the flying public.
  I am very pleased the conference report adopted the Senate approach 
to the Essential Air Service Program--EAS--and preserves this important 
program rather than terminate it as the House bill would have done. The 
EAS provides rural communities with

[[Page S342]]

access to the national air transportation system and is very important 
to Michigan. We have 8 communities that rely on EAS subsidies to help 
provide them with daily commercial air service. This conference report 
maintains the EAS program at current funding levels with some minor 
modifications. I very strongly opposed attempts to deprive Michiganians 
living in the less populated areas of our State of commercial air 
service. For businesses in the affected communities, this service is an 
economic lifeline that connects them to the web of both national and 
international commerce. At a time when we are doing everything we can 
to compete globally and to increase the number of jobs, cutting off 
that access makes no sense and I am glad this conference report 
recognizes this.
  Mr. LEAHY. Today, nearly a year after the Senate passed the FAA 
Modernization and Reform Act, the Senate is being asked to adopt the 
conference report to accompany it.
  I am pleased that the conference report does retain bipartisan 
language that I worked on to protect the public's right to know under 
the Freedom of Information Act. The Freedom of Information Act is one 
of our Nation's premier open government laws. The language included is 
intended to allow the Government to protect sensitive aviation 
information while still ensuring that the American public has access to 
aviation-related health and safety information.
  I am very disappointed that the conference report does not contain 
the amendment that Senator Inhofe and I worked hard to pass when the 
bill was considered and passed by the Senate. Following passage of our 
amendment in the Senate, which contained important improvements to the 
Public Safety Officers Benefits Act--PSOB--and the Volunteer Protection 
Act, I worked with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith to 
revise the Senate language into a bipartisan set of PSOB reforms.
  Among these reforms, and the basis of my Senate amendment, was the 
Dale Long Emergency Medical Service Providers Protection Act. This 
measure was prompted by the tragic death of Dale Long, a decorated 
emergency medical technician from Bennington, VT, who spent his career 
helping his fellow Vermonters. Following Mr. Long's death, I became 
aware of a gap in PSOB coverage for emergency medical responders, and 
this amendment was designed to close that gap so that Mr. Long, and 
others who serve as medical responders for private, non-profit 
ambulance services, have the protection of the PSOB program.
  In addition to the Dale Long measure, the agreement that Chairman 
Smith and I drafted included provisions to improve the administration 
and efficiency of the PSOB program. These reforms would have made the 
claims process faster, easier, and fairer for those disabled in the 
line of duty, and for the surviving family members of those who lose 
their lives during service. I regret very much that the Conference 
Committee decided to remove these improvements from the final version 
of the bill.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I note that the time is just before 5 
o'clock. My distinguished Republican colleague, Senator Hutchison, is 
not on the floor at the moment, but I do not know of nor have I heard 
of any other Members wanting to speak. I don't know that we need to do 
much except go ahead and vote. I don't have the power to command that. 
I see a whole lot of people up here who do, but I would just say if 
there is anybody at the last moment who wants to speak, that is fine.
  We have set up the vote for 5:30. I think there are a lot of our 
colleagues who aren't going to get here until 5:30 because they are on 
airplanes that land at 5:00. So we have to take that into 
consideration.
  So I stand here to say that I think this is a very good bill, and I 
think, as has been mentioned often, it is a 4-year product with hard 
work and with an unbelievable consultation with all of the 
stakeholders, which includes all of the Members of the Senate and their 
staffs and all of the people out in the world of aviation. We have 
spent endless hours with them, and rightly so and happily so.
  I think there is general support in the aviation community for this 
bill. I could read a list of all of the people who do support it, the 
associations that support it, but it would take me a long time. I hope 
very much my colleagues will vote for this bill.
  As I indicated, nobody got all they wanted, but that is the nature of 
compromise. Compromise in and of itself was particularly difficult in 
this negotiation, but we have done what we have done. It is well 
regarded. I urge my colleagues, when they do come, to vote for the 
bill.
  I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor and note the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, the Presiding Officer, my colleague from 
Delaware, has heard me say more than a few times that when I meet 
people who have been married a long time, I like to ask them: What is 
the secret to being married 50 or 60 or 70 years or more? I get some 
funny answers. I also get some very poignant answers. Sometimes I get 
very instructive answers. One of the best answers I have ever heard--in 
fact, I have heard it more than a few times over the years--is the key 
to a long marriage, a successful marriage is the two Cs--not Coons and 
Carper, not Coons and Carney, not Coons and Castle but communicate and 
compromise.
  The folks from Delaware who elect us--and people from the other 49 
States--are wondering: why don't we do the two Cs more here? Because 
those two qualities--communicating and compromising--are actually not 
only needed for a successful marriage but also for democracy to 
succeed.
  Today, as we prepare to vote on the conference report--a compromise--
it is a product of a whole lot of communication from people all over 
the country: from businesses, from air traffic controllers, from labor 
unions, from people who use airlines, to folks who are involved in 
sometimes direct or indirect ways with this legislation, but they have 
been communicating with us what they think we should do.
  As we work to bring our air traffic control system into the 21st 
century and as we seek to fund the modernization of our airports and 
our airways, we have had to raise some money. I was privileged to serve 
on the Commerce Committee for a while with our chairman Senator 
Rockefeller, and forever we were trying to work out a compromise 
between the airlines and the general aviation community on how do we 
pay for this tab so we do not run the deficit up even more. I take my 
hat off to the chairman and the others who worked on this with the key 
stakeholders to say: They are going to raise some revenues, they are 
actually going to pay some additional tax moneys to come up with the 
money we need to provide for better airports and, frankly, better air 
traffic control systems--safer air traffic control systems, more 
efficient air traffic control systems. Better results? Maybe not for 
less money but better results for a little bit more money. But it has 
been an ongoing communication for several years and an ongoing dialog 
that has actually led us today to a very good compromise.
  We are often told in these jobs we talk with consultants who talk to 
us about messaging and how do we message or talk about certain things? 
One of the things they tell us is never use the word 
``infrastructure.'' Do not use it. Don't tell your constituents we are 
working on infrastructure. They do not know what you mean. Instead, we 
should talk about roads, highways, and bridges. We should talk about 
railroads. We should talk about canals or ports. We should talk about 
water or wastewater treatment systems. We

[[Page S343]]

should talk in our State about the dune system that protects our 
coastal beaches. We should talk about dredging a channel in a place 
such as the Delaware Bay or the Delaware River in an environmentally 
safe way. We should talk about levees. We should talk about the 
deployment of broadband across our country. That is all infrastructure.
  Do you know what else is infrastructure? Our airports, the airways, 
the air traffic control system that is used to dispatch planes and make 
sure they go where they are supposed to go and land where they are 
supposed to land and fly safely throughout the day and throughout the 
night.
  In the State of Delaware, I say to the chairman--as our Presiding 
Officer knows--we have three counties. The largest county in Delaware 
is called Sussex County. It is the third largest county in America. The 
county seat of Sussex County is a place called Georgetown. Just on the 
outskirts of Georgetown--a town of several thousand people--we have an 
airport, an air park as we call it. There is an effort to try to expand 
the length of one of the runways. One of the runways is about 3,000 
feet. The other is about 5,000 feet. The county, which sort of manages 
the air park in Georgetown, would like to expand the longest runway 
from 5,000 to 5,500 feet or 6,000 feet.
  Why? Because by doing that, we provide a nurturing environment by 
improving that infrastructure--in this case, the length of the runway--
and the navigational system, the lighting system that is associated 
with the airport. We make it an easier place, a safer place to fly in 
and out of, and we increase the likelihood it is going to be used.
  By whom? It is going to be used by, among other things, not just 737 
aircraft but 757s. There is a company there called PATS that works on 
airplanes, some very expensive executive jets, 737s and cargo planes 
and passenger planes. They help make sure they have larger fuel tanks 
so they can fly further safer. In some cases, they work on the insides 
of these very exclusive executive jets and tony them up and make some 
money doing that, and they fly all over the country, all over the 
world. That takes place right in Sussex County, DE, at the Georgetown 
Air Park.
  They need to increase the length of the runways. This legislation 
will help make that possible over about a two-stage period over the 
next maybe 18 months or so. They need, at Georgetown, to be able to 
take out some hindrances to the safe travel of airplanes, including 
maybe trees in some parts of the runway--the approach or the takeoff, 
departure side of the runway. They need to be able to put in some 
better navigational systems, better lighting to make sure the big 
planes can get in and out safely. If more work can be done by PATS, 
they can hire more people.
  There is a guy from West Virginia whom the chairman knows well. We 
are both from West Virginia. I am a native West Virginian, and he has 
lived there and governed there and served as their Senator for a lot 
longer than I lived there as a kid. But there is a guy there named John 
Chambers, whom Senator Rockefeller knows well, whose parents are, I 
think, still there. I think they taught maybe college, so I do not know 
if they taught at West Virginia Wesleyan when the Senator was their 
president. But John Chambers' parents, I think, both have been 
teachers, maybe professors.
  John Chambers runs Cisco. He started Cisco, a big technology company. 
John Chambers is fond of saying the jobs in the 21st century are going 
to go to the States or the nations that do two things well: No. 1, 
create a world-class productive workforce. People can come to work, do 
a job, and do it in an efficient way using technology. The second thing 
he says is, the jobs of the 21st century will go to places where the 
infrastructure is world class.

  With this legislation, we are going to make sure the Nation that 
started all this aviation with the Wright Brothers and actually got us 
not off on the right foot but off on the right wing all those years 
ago, that we are going to be in a position to reclaim that mantle and 
to again show the rest of the world how to do it right: to strengthen 
our infrastructure, bring our infrastructure into the 21st century, be 
able to fly planes safer out of airports that are better configured, 
better constructed, more wisely invested in communications, in 
navigational systems, in the right length and width of our runways, and 
to make sure the folks who are controlling our aircraft are doing a 
better job, using all the tools in the toolbox.
  I had a chance to fly as a naval flight officer for about 23 years--5 
years in a hot war and another 18 years in a cold war, until the end of 
the Cold War with the Soviets--and I have flown in and out of a lot of 
airports, naval bases, and other military bases with my crews on Active 
Duty and Reserve Duty, and I spent a little bit of time, as the 
chairman did, as Governor of my State and as the commander and chief of 
the Delaware National Guard. So these are issues I have actually 
thought about a whole lot, as somebody who has been in airplanes, a 
whole lot of airplanes, over the years.
  I feel better about the men and women who are flying airplanes in 
uniform, in flight suits going forward. I feel better with this 
investment in this legislation about the folks who will be flying in 
commercial airlines, whether they are from the United States or some 
other country because of this legislation, this compromise, and I feel 
better about people flying in what I call those ``teeny-weenies,'' 
whether they happen to be little Pipers or Cherokees or whatever or 
whether they happen to be some of these real exclusive executive jets 
we see zipping around West Virginia and Delaware and other places.
  So it will be a safer way to travel, and it is going to be an 
investment that is going to help create jobs, including in Georgetown, 
DE, including in West Virginia.
  To everybody who has been a big part of bringing us to this point, to 
our friends over in the House who were able to communicate and 
compromise with us, to the chairman of the committee, and to our 
ranking Republican on the committee who is not on the floor right now, 
I take my hat off to you for getting us to this day. This is a good 
day. This is a happy day for us in this body. I think this is a happy 
day for the United States of America. We have shown we can actually get 
something done that has a good and positive impact on our States and on 
our Nation.
  With that, I yield the floor. I do not know if there is anybody else 
who seeks recognition. If not, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ISAKSON. On behalf of the minority side, I yield back the 
remainder of our time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
  Under the previous order, the question is on agreeing to the 
conference report to accompany H.R. 658.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. 
Conrad), is necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Utah (Mr. Hatch), the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the 
Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. 
Vitter).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) 
would have voted ``nay.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 75, nays 20, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 15 Leg.]

                                YEAS--75

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn

[[Page S344]]


     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson (WI)
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCain
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Rubio
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Tester
     Thune
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--20

     Akaka
     Blumenthal
     Brown (OH)
     Cardin
     Casey
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Harkin
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lee
     McCaskill
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Paul
     Risch
     Sanders
     Stabenow

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Barrasso
     Conrad
     Hatch
     Kirk
     Vitter
  The conference report was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.

                          ____________________