[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 167 (Tuesday, November 10, 2015)] [Senate] [Pages S7884-S7887] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] DRIVE ACT--Continued The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 2:45 p.m. is equally divided. The Senator from Mississippi. Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, in a few moments we are going to vote on a motion to instruct the conferees on the highway bill. It will be a motion to instruct them not to proceed with a Federal mandate that would force these long double trailers called twin 33s on the 38 States where currently they are illegal. This Senator would observe that it is not often we get a chance to vote on a motion that will accomplish so much. We are going to get a chance in 30 minutes or so to vote on a motion that will save lives. It is a motion that would prohibit a Federal mandate, that supports small business, and that would save $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion per year in highway maintenance. It is a vote that is supported by an overwhelming majority of the American people. This is a rare opportunity for us to come together on a motion that does all of those things. It is also a bipartisan motion to instruct. It will be sponsored by the Senator from California, Senator Feinstein, and there will be bipartisan votes for the motion on both sides of the aisle. Now, why are we here? The motion is here because it stems from an amendment in the Appropriations Committee to the Transportation appropriations bill, which would require every State to allow these twin 33-foot trailers on Federal highways. Currently some 12 States do allow them. They have a right to do that, and if they made a considered decision in their State legislatures and in consultation with their departments of transportation, then more power to them. Well, 38 States say that these trucks are not safe and that these trucks are too long. They tell us they don't want them on the highways. I think we should respect that decision by these 38 States. Who supports the Wicker-Feinstein motion to instruct the conferees? I go back to the point that this is a vote to save lives. Who says this? AAA, a respected nationwide organization that knows quite a bit about highway safety, says support the Wicker amendment. Don't mandate on 38 States something they don't want to do with these extra long trucks. I would point out on this diagram the size of the average passenger car. Look how much longer this proposed twin 33 double rig with the tractor part on the front is. Frankly, the American people don't want to contend with these long double trailers on their roads. The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety say this isn't safe. A ``yes'' vote [[Page S7885]] on the Wicker-Feinstein motion would be a vote for safety. The National Troopers Coalition--we ought to listen to them--say these trucks are not safe, and at the very least, there should be no mandate from Washington, DC. In the time remaining, I would suggest to Members and legislative staff back in their offices to call their local troopers in their various States and see what the troopers say about this. I will tell you that troopers in State after State say don't mandate these long trucks. Sheriff's associations say don't mandate these long trucks. Chiefs of police say don't mandate these long, twin 33 double trailers. So you may ask yourself what a chief of police in a municipality has to do with this. Aren't we talking about interstate highways and big old Federal highways? Not true at all. I don't know about you, but in the place where I live, if something comes in by truck, they bring it right into town. So the chiefs of police say: We don't want these twin 33s on our two-lane streets; we don't want them on the two-lane highways. That would be the result of the mandate that is contained in the appropriations bill unless we turn that around. Who else is opposed to mandating twin 33s on the 38 States that don't want them? The State trucking associations are opposed to this mandate. One would think that the truckers would be for this. After all, if you are a big enough trucking company and you have enough money, you can buy the truck, haul more, and make more money. That is the idea, but we need to bear in mind that most of the truckers in the United States are small business owners. Frankly, some of them have told me that if this mandate on all 50 States is passed, they are going out of business. We have resolutions from the Mississippi Trucking Association, the Arizona Trucking Association, Louisiana Trucking Association, and we have an alliance of small business truckers from States that include Indiana, Texas, Tennessee, Nebraska, Louisiana, Maryland, Washington, Iowa, Mississippi, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Arkansas--and I can go on. Trucking companies and small truckers in all of these States are saying: Please don't put us out of business by having us try to compete with these large twin 33s. I would submit to my colleagues that 20 minutes from now we are going to have a vote. This is the only opportunity that 100 Senators elected by the people of the 50 States will have to address this issue. This vote we are going to take in just a few moments will send a strong signal to the people in some office here on Capitol Hill, in some room on Capitol Hill, where they are devising the Omnibus appropriations bill. We need to send a strong signal to them that we don't want this mandate in the omnibus. We don't want the mandate in the highway bill. We need a strong vote. This is a chance to vote on how we stand with small business in our States, with the troopers, the sheriffs, the chiefs of police, the trucking associations, and the advocates for highway safety. I would urge my colleagues to thoroughly consider this in the next 20 or 25 minutes. When you come to vote, a ``yes'' vote will be a vote to avoid the Federal mandate. I urge my colleagues to join me on a bipartisan basis--and I believe they will join me on a bipartisan basis--in allowing the 38 States that opt out of this to continue to do so, making a stand for small business, for the States' decisionmaking, and for safety. Mr. President, I understand we are going to move to a vote at 2:45 p.m. The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the remaining time while we are in quorum calls be divided equally between the parties. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. WICKER. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we are about to vote on whether we want to go to conference with our Transportation bill that passed this body with well over 60 votes in July. We have been pushing hard--Senators on both sides of the aisle--to move the House toward a situation where we can finally go to conference and reconcile the two bills. We are at that point, and I certainly hope we get a very solid vote. I am also hopeful the Wicker-Feinstein motion does succeed, and I certainly will try my best to raise it in the conference. We still have about 1.5 million unemployed construction workers since the recession. We have seen terrific job growth, but we know it hasn't hit all the sectors, so this is an extremely important bill. Also, we know that thousands in businesses rely on a robust highway trust fund. Whether it is the granite people, the cement people, they are all for going to conference. Whether it is the international association of machinists or it is the labor union, the chamber of commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, it is a rare and glorious occasion to see everybody come together and say: Let's get a bill. We want to have a robust bill. We don't want to have a bill that is business as usual and this is why--we have 60,000 bridges that are deficient. They were not built with the kinds of traffic they are now withstanding in mind, so we must have this vote to go to conference. I thank the majority leader, Senator McConnell, for his work and the Democratic leader, Senator Reid. I also extend my thanks to Senator Cantwell, who worked so hard with other Senators on this side to get Ex-Im included in this bill. We will have the Export-Import reauthorization in this bill. I am very excited to get to conference. My goal is just to put it on the table, to bring to that conference the bipartisan spirit we had when we did this bill in the Senate. When I thank both the majority leader and the Democratic leader, it is because they put strong people on this conference. I think it is going to be a strong conference. We have a lot of similarities. Somebody who looked at both bills said the House bill is about 90 percent similar to the Senate bill. This is a good thing. This means we don't have to take our time because the trust fund, the authorization runs out very soon, right before Thanksgiving. So it is a good moment for the Senate. I think we showed leadership on both sides of the aisle on getting this bill done. We continue to work well together, both leaders have sent strong conferees to the conference. I know our staffs are already speaking, and I am hopeful we get a strong vote, which I think we are going to have in a few minutes. Am I correct it is about 3 minutes from that vote? The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. Mrs. BOXER. All right. So in 3 minutes I hope we have a solid vote to take our bill to conference with the House, where I will work very closely with Chairman Shuster and the rest. The last point I make is I read that Congressman DeFazio--who is our Democratic ranking member in the House T&I Committee--has had a very serious eye situation and had to go for emergency surgery. I wish to say my heart is with him. He is a very important person in terms of weighing in on the transportation needs. I will work with him, I will speak with him, and I am very hopeful that although he may not be present--I hope he will be present for the conference--if he is not, I wish to reassure him that we will take his concerns into this conference. I am looking forward to a strong vote. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back all time and proceed. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, all time is yielded back. Cloture Motion The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state. The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows: Cloture Motion We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to disagree to the amendment of the [[Page S7886]] House, agree to the request from the House for a conference, and authorize the Presiding Officer to appoint conferees with respect to H.R. 22. Mitch McConnell, Mike Rounds, Lamar Alexander, Johnny Isakson, Deb Fischer, John Cornyn, Chuck Grassley, Thad Cochran, Joni Ernst, Cory Gardner, John Thune, Daniel Coats, Orrin G. Hatch, John Barrasso, James M. Inhofe, Thom Tillis, Roy Blunt. The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the motion to disagree to the amendment of the House, agree to the request from the House for a conference, and authorize the Presiding Officer to appoint conferees with respect to H.R. 22 shall be brought to a close? The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll. Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Gardner), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller) would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter) would have voted ``yea.'' Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 82, nays 7, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 303 Leg.] YEAS--82 Alexander Ayotte Baldwin Barrasso Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Booker Boozman Boxer Brown Burr Cantwell Capito Cardin Carper Casey Cassidy Coats Cochran Collins Coons Cornyn Cotton Daines Donnelly Durbin Enzi Ernst Feinstein Fischer Franken Gillibrand Grassley Hatch Heinrich Heitkamp Hirono Hoeven Inhofe Isakson Kaine King Kirk Klobuchar Lankford Manchin Markey McCain McCaskill McConnell Menendez Merkley Mikulski Moran Murkowski Murphy Murray Nelson Peters Portman Reed Reid Roberts Rounds Sanders Schatz Schumer Scott Sessions Shaheen Stabenow Sullivan Tester Thune Tillis Toomey Udall Warren Whitehouse Wicker Wyden NAYS--7 Corker Flake Lee Perdue Risch Sasse Shelby NOT VOTING--11 Crapo Cruz Gardner Graham Heller Johnson Leahy Paul Rubio Vitter Warner The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 82, the nays are 7. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to. Under the previous order, the compound motion is agreed to. The Senator from Mississippi. Motion to Instruct Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I have a motion to instruct at the desk. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Wicker] moves that the managers on the part of the Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 22 be instructed to insist upon the inclusion of the following section in title XXXII: SEC. 32__. TRUCK TRACTOR-SEMITRAILER-TRAILER COMBINATION LENGTH LIMITATION. The Secretary may promulgate a rule to increase the minimum length limitation that a State may prescribe for a truck tractor-semitrailer-trailer combination under section 31111(b)(1)(A) of title 49, United States Code, from 28 feet to 33 feet if the Secretary makes a statistically significant finding, based on the final Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Limits Study required under section 32801 of the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Enhancement Act of 2012 (title II of division C of Public Law 112-141), that such increase would not have a net negative impact on public safety. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi. Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I understand I have 2 minutes. I will speak briefly and then yield to Senator Feinstein. This is what this is about, these twin 33 double trailers, which are longer than is legal in 38 States. The question is whether we as a Senate, we as a Congress, we as a Federal Government, are going to mandate on the 38 States that don't allow these to allow them on their roads at any rate. So a ``yes'' vote would be a vote against the Federal mandate. When do you get in one fell swoop an opportunity to vote--a vote that will save lives, a vote to prevent a Federal mandate, a vote for small business, a vote to save $1.2 to $1.8 billion a year in highway maintenance, and a vote supported by the overwhelming majority of the people? Vote yes not to mandate this on the States. I yield the floor to the Senator from California. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California. Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, if we look at that, that is 91 feet with the twin 33s and the cab, 91 feet of truck. Thirty-eight States do not want that in their States. This bill overwhelms that. We had an amendment in the Appropriations Committee that would prevent that. It was a tie vote. Senator Wicker and I ask you, please don't force States to do this before the safety work is done by the Secretary. We have 4,000 people killed every year from these trucks in all kinds of horrific accidents--and they are not as long as this one. These trucks would not only be on the freeways, but they would be in the villages, the towns, and the cities as well. I hope you will support this motion to instruct to protect the 38 States and say: Before you do this, do the safety investigations and tell us these trucks are safe. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there time taken in opposition? If not, the question is on agreeing to the motion. Mr. WICKER. 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 legislative clerk called the roll. Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Gardner), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter) would have voted ``yea.'' Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? The result was announced--yeas 56, nays 31, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 304 Leg.] YEAS--56 Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Booker Brown Burr Cantwell Cardin Carper Casey Coats Cochran Coons Donnelly Durbin Ernst Feinstein Fischer Flake Franken Gillibrand Grassley Heinrich Hirono Isakson Kaine King Klobuchar Manchin Markey McCain McCaskill Menendez Merkley Mikulski Murphy Murray Nelson Perdue Peters Portman Reed Reid Sanders Sasse Schatz Schumer Shaheen Stabenow Tillis Toomey Udall Warren Whitehouse Wicker Wyden [[Page S7887]] NAYS--31 Alexander Ayotte Barrasso Blunt Boozman Capito Cassidy Collins Corker Cornyn Cotton Daines Enzi Hatch Heitkamp Hoeven Kirk Lankford Lee McConnell Moran Murkowski Risch Roberts Rounds Scott Sessions Shelby Sullivan Tester Thune NOT VOTING--13 Boxer Crapo Cruz Gardner Graham Heller Inhofe Johnson Leahy Paul Rubio Vitter Warner The motion was agreed to. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut. Motion to Instruct Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I have a motion to instruct at the desk. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Blumenthal] moves that the managers on the part of the Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the House amendment to the bill H.R. 22 be instructed to insist upon the inclusion of the rail safety provisions contained in the amendment passed by the Senate on July 30, 2015, including the authorization of grants for the installation of positive train control. The PRESIDING OFFICER. There will be 4 minutes of debate equally divided. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized. Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, in recent years all of our constituents have seen a scourge in rail accidents. There have been similar accidents all around the country. This motion insists that the Senate's provisions be included in this conference and in what comes out of the conference committee, including the authorization of grants for the installation of positive train control. This summer, with the leadership of the committee chairman, Senator Thune, and the ranking member, Bill Nelson, who are both champions of rail safety, in this instance it resulted in some very key reforms, and the Senate passed the DRIVE Act which is not perfect--troublesome in some highway safety elements--but forward thinking on rail safety. It includes funding for PTC, redundant signal protection, improved inspection practices, and a followup on the FRA's deep dive investigation. Along with cameras and grade crossing, these provisions help to advance the cause of rail safety. The House has done nothing. The House bill is completely and abjectly lacking on rail safety, and therefore this motion instructs our conferees to insist on the Senate's provisions. I know that our conferees will be extremely sympathetic and supportive, but in order to simply to express our views, I ask unanimous consent that this measure be approved and that the motion be taken on a voice vote. I ask unanimous consent that all remaining time be yielded back. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. The question occurs on agreeing to the motion. The motion was agreed to. The Presiding Officer appointed Mr. Inhofe, Mr. Thune, Mr. Hatch, Ms. Murkowski, Mrs. Fischer, Mr. Barrasso, Mr. Cornyn, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Brown, Mr. Nelson, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Durbin, and Mr. Schumer conferees on the part of the Senate. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri. ____________________