[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 19164-19178]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         AVIATION SECURITY ACT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1447) to improve aviation security and for other 
     purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.


                           Amendment No. 1854

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on behalf of the distinguished Senator 
from Arizona and myself, Senator Hutchison of Texas, Senator 
Rockefeller of West Virginia, and Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, I 
send the managers' amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hollings], for himself 
     and Mr. McCain, Mrs. Hutchinson, Mr. Rockefeller, and Mr. 
     Kerry, proposes an amendment numbered 1854.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page 19165]]

  The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.''


                           Amendment No. 1855

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Daschle], for Mrs. 
     Carnahan, for herself, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Kennedy, Mrs. Murray, 
     Ms. Cantwell, Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Brownback, Mr. Smith of 
     Oregon, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Dayton, and Mr. Wyden, proposes an 
     amendment numbered 1855.

  Mr. DASCHLE. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.''


                             CLOTURE MOTION

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion on the amendment 
to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The 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, hereby move to bring to 
a close the debate on the Daschle amendment No. 1855 to S. 1447, the 
Aviation Security bill.
         Harry Reid, Bob Graham, Bob Torricelli, Jean Carnahan, 
           Jeff Bingaman, Maria Cantwell, Richard J. Durbin, John 
           Kerry, Jay Rockefeller, Mark Dayton, Ben Nelson of 
           Nebraska, Evan Bayh, Tim Johnson, Russell Feingold, 
           Kent Conrad, Tom Daschle, Bill Nelson of Florida, 
           Edward M. Kennedy, Barbara A. Mikulski, and Paul 
           Wellstone.

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I announce to all our colleagues there 
will be no more rollcall votes today. Details about tomorrow's schedule 
will be made available a little later in the day.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mrs. CARNAHAN. Mr. President, I spoke yesterday about the need for 
the Senate to act on behalf of the workers in the airline industry--
those men and women who lost their jobs as a result of the September 11 
attacks. The time to act is here and now.
  My amendment is designed to provide assistance to those who were laid 
off as a result of the September 11 attacks and the corresponding 
reductions in air service. They include employees of the airlines, 
airports, aircraft manufacturers, and suppliers to the airlines.
  Using the framework of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act, this 
legislation provides income support, job training, and health care 
benefits for these laid off workers.
  This amendment extends unemployment compensation for 20 weeks, after 
eligible employees have exhausted their State's unemployment benefits.
  It also provides for job training, so that those unable to return to 
the airline industry can acquire new skills.
  Many laid-off workers and their families will face the frightening 
prospect of losing their health insurance. The legislation that I am 
proposing would enable families to continue their health insurance by 
reimbursing COBRA premiums for 12 months.
  We know that some workers may not be eligible for extended health 
coverage through COBRA. Therefore, my proposal also enables States to 
provide Medicaid coverage for those workers and their families.
  Lastly, my amendment acknowledges that the unemployment compensation 
program is imperfect. Many workers who lose their jobs are not eligible 
for any assistance under current law.
  Under my proposal, those who are ineligible for their State's 
unemployment insurance programs would receive 26 weeks of income 
support. These payments are designed to mirror unemployment 
compensation.
  This legislation is not a panacea. It is a first step. We acted 
quickly to shore up the airline industry. That was appropriate. But 
that legislation did nothing for the 140,000 who are being laid-off 
despite the assistance provided in the stabilization package.
  There are other Americans who have also lost their jobs due to the 
slowing economy. Their needs should be addressed as part of the 
economic stimulus package. But, we must act now to assist employees of 
the airline industry who have suffered immediate, abrupt layoffs of 
enormous proportions.
  The amendment I have proposed has broad support. The nation's 
Governors have asked Congress to pass it.
  The major airlines support this assistance for their former 
employees. Republican and Democratic Senators support it.
  Now is the time to act. The Senate ought to pass this measure now and 
move on to our other pressing business.
  I have reached across the aisle in crafting this proposal. The 
amendment has three Republican co-sponsors: Senators Brownback, 
Fitzgerald, and Gordon Smith.
  I have also scaled back my original legislation to make it more 
attractive to my colleagues. The total cost is $1.9 billion--half the 
cost of the original package.
  The amendment includes an offset so this package of benefits is 
entirely paid for.
  Let me assure my colleagues that it is not my intention to slow 
consideration of the important airline security legislation. I am a co-
sponsor of the airline security bill and am eager to see it pass the 
Senate. We need to institute permanent security measures and restore 
Americans' confidence in the safety of air travel.
  I have been ready, and eagerly awaiting the opportunity, to debate 
this amendment for the past week. And I am ready to go to a vote right 
now.
  So for those concerned about delay of the airline security bill I 
hope that you agree we should vote on this proposal tonight. I am not 
interested in delay. I am interested in helping workers. I would have 
liked both the airline safety bill and the worker relief packaged 
completed last week instead of being subjected to a filibuster.
  I am aware of comments that some believe that this amendment should 
not be considered as part of the airline safety bill, but rather should 
be considered later, as part of other legislation. But that is 
precisely what I was told over two weeks ago. I originally proposed to 
provide relief to laid off airline workers at the same time as we 
provided relief to the airlines.
  I did not offer my amendment then because the leadership of both 
houses of Congress had reached agreement on the airline package and we 
had to pass the bill immediately.
  We all agree that airline security legislation is extremely urgent. 
So is relief to airline workers. It is time to show some urgency on 
behalf of the men and women in the airline industry.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the 
committee for the usual cooperation and bipartisanship which he has 
displayed on many occasions in the past in his duties as chairman of 
the Commerce Committee. It has also been my pleasure to have had the 
opportunity to work with him, including on this very important piece of 
legislation. Perhaps the distinguished chairman and I have not worked 
on a bill that is more important and significant as this one.
  This bill would significantly enhance aviation security by making the 
Federal Government directly responsible and accountable for the 
screening of airline passengers and their baggage. Although there are 
many other parts of this bill that are intended to improve security, 
the shift in responsibility for passenger screening is the most 
profound. But nothing less is required given that the events of 
September 11 have forever changed how we view air travel. 
Unfortunately, we have learned a hard lesson that we face an enemy that 
is willing to sacrifice itself and thousands of innocents to obtain its 
ends. Aviation security has now become a critical element of national 
security, and this requires a fundamental change in our approach. 
Congress must act to ensure that safety and security remain our 
foremost concern.

[[Page 19166]]

  To handle and coordinate all aviation security matters for the 
Federal Government, including the new screening functions, the bill 
creates a new, high-level position within the Department of 
Transportation (DOT). Nevertheless, there would be close coordination 
with other Federal agencies, particularly those involved in law 
enforcement, intelligence and national security. Cooperation among 
Federal agencies will be just as important to our effort to safeguard 
aviation as it will be in our larger battle to root out and destroy 
terrorist networks. Accountability is also important, and when it comes 
to aviation security, there will not be one Federal official to serve 
as the focal point for all our efforts.
  This bill includes numerous other provisions designed to improve 
aviation security. For example, the Federal air marshal program is 
broadly expanded, and airports are required to strengthen control over 
access points to secure areas. In addition, cockpit doors must be 
strengthened and flight crews would be given up-to-date training on how 
to handle hijacking situations. The bill would also take steps to 
ensure that our Nation's flight schools are not being used by 
terrorists. For the current fiscal year, airports would be given the 
flexibility to use Federal airport grants to pay for increased costs 
associated with new security mandates.
  I know that some of my colleagues may have concerns about the Federal 
Government assuming the burden of screening hundreds of millions of 
airline passengers each year. As a proud fiscal conservative, I do not 
advocate this move lightly. But the attack last month was an act of 
war, and we must respond accordingly. As a matter of national security, 
passenger screening can no longer be left to the private sector. I am 
one of the most ardent proponents of free enterprise and the 
entrepreneurial spirit of America. However, this is not an area where 
decisions should be driven by the bottom line. The Federal Government 
does not contract out the work of Customs agents, the Border Patrol, 
the INS, and many other agencies that perform functions similar to the 
screening that we are dealing with here. We should not contract out the 
screening of airline passengers.
  By the way, recently there was a CNN poll taken where people could 
instantly respond as to whether screening employees should be done by 
Federal employees or contracted out. Eighty-seven percent of the 
hundreds of thousands of people who responded to that CNN poll said the 
Federal Government should assume that responsibility.
  It is also a question about whether the Department of Justice or 
Department of Transportation should have the authority in this matter. 
In all candor, one of the reasons is because of the lack of success in 
the past of some of the programs and implementation of some of the 
recommendations that were made by the Department of Transportation 
Inspector General, the GAO, and others. That will be a subject of 
debate as we consider this legislation.
  The present legislation gives DOT the authority to fire or suspend 
any screener and prohibit him or her from returning to screening duties 
regardless of any civil service employment laws to the contrary. 
Furthermore, screeners would also be prohibited from striking. To 
offset some of the additional costs to government, airlines would be 
charged a security fee based upon the number of passengers they carry.
  Because there are many small airports across the country that may not 
need a full complement of screeners throughout the day, the Department 
of Transportation would have the option of requiring smaller airports 
to contract out the screening work to State or local law enforcement 
officials. This could only be done if the screening services and 
training of local officers are the same and the Federal Government 
reimburses the airport. There would also be some flexibility for DOT to 
adopt different security measures at smaller airports depending upon 
airport conditions and the level of airline activity.
  I know that some people may be concerned about the transition period 
if we do move to full Federal control over the screening process. Some 
believe that screening services may suffer if current employees and 
companies know that they will be phased out in the coming months. The 
bill addresses this concern by giving DOT the flexibility to make 
whatever arrangements are necessary to ensure security in the interim. 
For example, DOT could enter into new, short-term contracts with 
screening companies that provide for upgraded services while at the 
same time compensating the companies, and perhaps employees, for the 
temporary nature of the new arrangement.
  I would also point out that the average turnover, because of the low 
pay in salary and benefits, at major airports is 125 percent per year. 
At one airport it is as high as 400 percent per year, but that is 
because the people who now are employed as screeners can make more 
money by going down and working at a concession at the same airport.
  So let's have no doubt about the transience, the documented 
transience of these people who work there, who are good and decent, 
fine American citizens, but they are low paid, and they are ill-
trained. That is not their fault. I want to make that perfectly clear.
  The Commerce Committee has held several aviation security hearings 
over the last few years, including one 3 weeks ago. We have repeatedly 
been told by the DOT Inspector General, the General Accounting Office, 
and many others that there are flaws in our aviation security systems, 
especially in the area of passenger and baggage screening. Although we 
addressed some of these concerns in legislation enacted last year, we 
clearly must go much farther now. Anything approaching the status quo 
is no longer acceptable. It is vital that aviation security be provided 
by professional individuals who are well paid, well trained, and well 
motivated.
  The events of the past few days underscore the need for us take 
action immediately. Our military strike against terrorist bases 
increases the risk of another terrorist attack on our own soil. While 
more than aviation is threatened, we know all too well it is an area 
that terrorists have targeted before and something they have gone to 
great lengths to learn about.
  Aviation is more important than ever to our economic and social well-
being. We cannot avoid the tough choices when it comes to security. The 
traveling public needs to have its confidence restored in the safety of 
flying. Federal control of the passenger screening process and greater 
oversight of other aspects of aviation security can get our aviation 
industries back on track. Anything less than a full Federal effort 
would be an abrogation of our duties as lawmakers.
  There was a poll taken yesterday by ABC which I would like to refer 
to, ABC News.com. The question was: Are you worried traveling by 
airplane because of risk of terrorism? Forty-two percent of the 
American people today still are worried about traveling by airplane 
because of risk of terrorism.
  There was a meeting in New York City the day before yesterday. 
According to the Wall Street Journal:

       Lawmakers are eager to resolve the dispute partly because 
     they are being told by business leaders and even Federal 
     Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan that airline security is 
     central to restoring consumer confidence and getting the 
     economy back on track. In a meeting at the New York Stock 
     Exchange yesterday, about 20 executives urged Mr. Hastert and 
     House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri to take 
     drastic action quickly. ``The consensus was that the whole 
     system has to be federalized,'' one House aide said.

  It is very clear that we need to act. I am very disappointed it has 
taken us a couple weeks before we could get this bill up on the floor 
of the Senate.
  Senator Hollings and I would be more than happy to consider 
amendments, in addition to the present ones. I want to point out that 
there would be some added expense associated with increasing security, 
but I would also like to point out that security has obviously become 
paramount.

[[Page 19167]]

  So, Mr. President, I again thank Senator Hollings, the chairman of 
the committee.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina, the chairman 
of the committee.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the events of September 11 forever 
changed how we feel about the security of our world, our Nation, and 
our families. We are wrestling with tough issues here: Balancing safety 
and security--against convenience and the tradition of our free, open, 
and democratic society.
  But one thing is clear. We need to make our skies safe. The American 
people deserve it--and they demand it.
  Securing our skies is becoming a Federal responsibility that needs 
the full resources of Federal law enforcement, immigration services, 
and intelligence agencies. Making our skies safe is a complicated 
endeavor that we cannot leave just to the airlines and the private 
sector.
  We do not contract out our Nation's defense or law enforcement to 
private security guards. Likewise, we must not contract out the 
security of our nation's skies or the vulnerable structures and people 
on the ground.
  The American people are willing to contribute to the cost of making 
our skies safe. A recent poll of 900 people found that 68 percent of 
Americans are willing to pay $25 per airline ticket to increase 
security.
  By those standards, airline passengers will find our plan to be quite 
a bargain.
  I have worked closely with Senators McCain, Rockefeller, Hutchison, 
and many others in a bipartisan effort to fix what has been a long-
standing problem in aviation security. I believe the legislation we 
developed will close our current vulnerabilities and create new 
safeguards to stop those that would harm our American way of life.
  Our legislation will professionalize the more than 18,000 screeners 
in our Nation's airports who are now employees of the airlines and 
private screening companies. We will give the screeners better training 
and advanced security equipment.
  Our bill will increase the number of Federal Air Marshals on both 
international and domestic flights. It will enable the Transportation 
Department to deploy Federal Air Marshals on every flight.
  Our legislation mandates cockpit doors and locks that cannot be 
opened during flight by anyone other than the pilots. The new cockpit 
doors will be able to withstand forced entry. With our pilots safe, 
they can better keep our nation's passengers safe.
  These measures also will help restore Americans' confidence in the 
safety of our airlines. When passengers feel safe, they are more likely 
to fly, which will revitalize tourism in America--and the local 
economies that rely on it.
  The terrorist attacks last month demonstrated that airline safety is 
an issue of national security. Other countries have had extraordinary 
success using the tactics called for in this legislation. Our American 
citizens deserve the same.
  Mr. President, right to the point, let me thank Senator McCain, our 
ranking member, Senator Hutchison of Texas, who is the ranking member 
on our Aviation Subcommittee, and Senator Rockefeller. We have banded 
together in sort of an emergency situation.
  Right to the point, a lot of this could be done, and should be done, 
and was to be done under present law. For example, you could get an 
order for securing the cockpit. I called the distinguished Secretary of 
Transportation 2 days after the 11th--on that Thursday--and I said: I 
am going to have a hearing. But do not wait for hearings. Let's secure 
that cockpit. You can order that immediately. You can order marshals.
  Now, what have we seen? Three weeks after 9-11 we find a plane being 
apparently taken over on its way from Los Angeles to Chicago. The 
fellow was distraught and upset, mentally sick, but he charged the 
cockpit. So the cockpit was opened, and the pilot immediately called 
about a hijacking, and the passengers had to overpower him.
  First, why weren't there marshals on that plane? We have an authority 
right now for marshals. What I am trying to say is, somehow, somewhere 
this administration has to work just as diligently--and they are to be 
commended on their diligence on correlating a coalition abroad--they 
have to correlate a coalition here in the country; and we have not done 
that.
  This bill, in other words, is absolutely urgent because they 
seemingly want to wait for this intramural to work its way out with 
respect to the fixing of accountability and authority here. And that is 
what we are all for, in a bipartisan fashion agreed upon. We do not 
want to just hire a bunch of people. That isn't the problem. The 
problem is absolute security.
  This war is not a military war. And the headlines are misleading: so 
many aircraft carriers; so many B-2 bombers; so many this; so many 
helicopters; so many that. The truth is, if you are going after 
terrorists who are spread amongst 50 countries--and they are zealots, 
they are fanatics--if you are going after them, you have to go on sort 
of an individual way; and it is an intelligence war.
  Now, No. 1, if we had secured that cockpit, then you save the F-15 
that was necessary. Are we going to have F-15s flying all over 
everyone's domestic flight; have military flights on top, domestic 
flights on the bottom? Is that America? Is that what we are going to 
have? Absolutely not.
  So how do you forestall that? Secure the cockpit. But they have not 
done it. Boeing said within 2 weeks they could retrofit all the doors 
in their airplanes, until you get a steel or a kevlar door put on such 
as they have in Israel. But they are waiting on studying and studying 
and everything else.
  Our first conference--I say this advisedly--dismayed me, when we 
conferred with the administration authorities on this particular bill. 
They were talking about its implementation 9 months to a year--can you 
imagine that--literally. That is what has gotten this Senator disturbed 
and exercised, along with the Senator from Arizona, about the urgency. 
We don't want to have F-15's and everybody in the Guard and everybody 
in the Air Force flying over all the domestic flights in America.
  So you secure that cockpit and there is one thing they know: They are 
not going to run it into a building. And if it is a hijacking, that 
pilot doesn't open the door but he calls wherever he is going to land 
immediately, and have law enforcement there. You wipe out the expense 
and the calling up of the F-15 pilots and the expense of the F-15 
planes.
  These are the kinds of things that ought to be done immediately, but 
they are not being done. I am introducing and pressing for it on this 
bill. I don't want to have to agree to any set-aside for another bill. 
There is too much procedural intramurals going on. We have been 
agreeable, agreeable, agreeable.
  And in that context, I guess I have to, with a smile, say I don't 
mind being a little disagreeable in order to get this one done.
  I emphasize again the intelligence. Suppose you had someone and you 
were with the intelligence of one of these Middle East countries, be 
they Muslim or not, and you had information, you know it, whatever it 
is, but if you finger ``X'' on a watch list and know if it can get 
through now, that is the communications, it isn't high tech--high tech, 
everybody wants to get bam, bam, bam and you have the computer, and it 
immediately goes in. No. You have the Central Intelligence Agency not 
telling the FBI because they are afraid of a leak, and it will reveal 
their source.
  I saw this 40 years ago when I served on the Hoover commission 
investigating the Central Intelligence Agency. That is just inherent. 
What you want to do is protect your sources. So do you give the 
information ahead and give it to unreliable sources and everything? 
While the FBI is absolutely reliable, certainly the screeners aren't, 
the ones we have. Everybody will agree to that. So you have to have 
high-tech personal, professional. It has to be a federalization where 
we can check these people, recheck them, not have any labor 
difficulties.

[[Page 19168]]

  I supported President Reagan on the controllers. You can't have them 
striking and negotiating and everything else. This is a war of 
intelligence. The people at the airports, if they are going to stop 
would-be terrorists, have to be positioned to receive that watch list 
information. And they are not going to be giving it to them until our 
Government can guarantee they are secure. That is just bluntly put.
  In that light, the President of the United States has to get in not 
whether we are going to get first the Amtrak, no; we have to do the 
seaports, no; we have to do benefits, no; we have to do 
counterterrorism and get into all of these procedural things. He has to 
tell the country to bug off, relax. You are not going to get a heck of 
a lot of information. I am your President. I have a team and we are 
working and if we can get this bin Laden fellow, you might know of it 
days or weeks afterwards. We might get him but we might not want to 
reveal how we got him for a period of time.
  That is the kind of war we are in. You don't have to satisfy this 
media crowd and everything else like that that wants the story of the 
day, the headline. This is a war not to be run on the 7 o'clock news. 
They can relax, take weekend leave and everything else of that kind 
and, like the President says, go to Disney World. But forget about all 
this information to be had.
  We need this bill. We can't tarry around. We need professionalism in 
it. It is not like the Israelis have, where intelligence is the outer 
rim, but it goes all the way down, as I have said before, to the person 
vacuuming the carpet in the middle of the aisle of the plane, because 
that person, with access to the plane itself, could put in a weapon 
like we found a bunch of these cardboard cutters and everything else of 
that kind, as we are finding in some other planes now on a diligent 
inspection.
  My distinguished colleague from Texas is here. I will yield because 
she has been a leader for several years on this particular score. I am 
grateful for her leadership.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from South 
Carolina for all the work he has done. He is chairman of the Commerce 
Committee; I am the ranking member of the Aviation Subcommittee. We 
have worked very well together and crafted a bipartisan bill that would 
address the issues of aviation security.
  As Senator McCain said earlier today, the people of our country are 
not going back to the airlines. This is causing a rippling effect 
throughout our economy. We need to stem the flow of job losses by 
getting the airlines back in business so the hotels will fill up, 
people will rent cars again and people will be able to go about their 
business in as normal a way as possible.
  The last thing on Earth we want is to have the economy be so shaky 
that we are unable to gear up the national defenses that we know we 
need.
  We have men and women putting their lives on the line as we speak for 
our country, for our freedom. For us not to do the right thing and get 
our country back on an even keel after this terrible incident of 
September 11 would be unthinkable. That is why all of us are working to 
come to an agreement on this bill.
  We are 95 percent in agreement. There are a few issues on which we 
disagree. Most people know what these are. But what we cannot afford in 
this legislation is to put extraneous amendments on it. This is not the 
kind of bill that should be a Christmas tree where you have this 
amendment and that amendment and somebody's pet project. This is too 
important. This is aviation security for our country. It is for the 
people who are going to airports, people who are flying. People are 
afraid right now. I don't think they should be, because in all the 
flying I have done since September 11, and it has been every single 
weekend and also flying around during the weekend, I have been on a lot 
of flights that are half full. These flights were very safe. People are 
going all out to make flying safe.
  The bottom line is, the people are not coming back. The planes are 
half full. It is going to take aviation security legislation to get us 
back on track.
  We need to stop the process arguments. We need to stop the extraneous 
arguments. We need to say: I understand Senator Carnahan wanting her 
bill. I do understand that. It is a very important bill. At some point 
in the next few weeks, we will take up her bill. We will take up other 
kinds of legislation also. I want to support Amtrak security, but if it 
is not going to be agreed to totally, it is not going to go on this 
bill. I hope it can. But if it can't, then we are going to complete 
aviation security. That is the bottom line.
  I am very pleased to work with Senator Hollings, Senator McCain, 
Senator Rockefeller, and many others who have taken the position that 
we must do aviation security.
  What this bill is going to do is give us more air marshals. I 
introduced the bill for air marshals the week of September 11, but we 
still have not acted on adding air marshals. The President has done it 
on his own with emergency powers, but that is not an answer. We want a 
long-term solution. We want people to know there is a stable, seamless 
aviation security system in our country with air marshals, with 
screeners who are qualified, with supervisors who are qualified, all of 
which are law enforcement personnel. And we want to reinforce cockpit 
doors so that no pilot will have to worry about security in the cabin. 
The pilot should be focused on flying the airplane safely. We should 
not ask him to do anything else.
  Now is the time to act. We need to finish this bill. I hope we can go 
to cloture right away. If we are going to go to cloture, let's do it 
tomorrow, or even tonight. Let's stay and finish all of the extraneous 
things and get on with this bill. We have legitimate disagreements. 
Let's get on with it and determine how much is going to be federalized. 
I have one position, and maybe someone else has a different position. 
Those are legitimate. Let's argue it, debate it, vote and go on.
  The bottom line is that we are 95 percent in agreement; it is time to 
have aviation security for our country, for our citizens, and for our 
economy.
  I thank the Senator from South Carolina. I yield the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may 
follow Senator Murray.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Chair recognizes the Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Commerce 
Committee for bringing this bill to the floor. Aviation security is a 
critical measure. I agree with the Senator that we have to do this 
right and we need to pass this bill. It is critical. It is critical to 
the American public that we bring this bill up, move it forward, and 
get it passed, and reassure our constituents in the country that air 
travel is safe because we have done our part as well.
  I have come to the floor to speak on behalf of the more than 100,000 
American workers who are now facing layoffs as a result of much of what 
has happened in the last month. For weeks, these workers have been 
waiting for this Senate to pass a workers assistance package, and today 
we finally have an amendment on the floor to help them. I have come to 
the floor to speak on behalf of that amendment and encourage its 
immediate passage.
  For many of our workers, the clock is ticking. In fact, this Friday, 
10,000 Boeing workers are going to receive notice that they are going 
to lose their jobs. They are very concerned about how they are going to 
feed their families, get health care, and how they are going to pay 
their mortgages. They need the Senate to take action.
  Just look at the layoffs that have been announced so far. On 
September 15, United Airlines announced it was laying off 20,000 
workers. On the same date, Continental announced it was laying off 
12,000 workers. On September 17, US Airways announced it was laying off 
11,000 workers. On September 18,

[[Page 19169]]

the Boeing Company announced up to 30,000 layoffs. On September 19, 
American Airlines announced 20,000 layoffs. On September 26, Delta 
announced another 13,000 layoffs. These aren't just layoffs; these are 
people--people with families, people who are in our communities, people 
who are very frightened and insecure about their future. They are 
workers who are losing their jobs every day, and they need our help.
  In my home State of Washington, we are really feeling the impact 
because of these layoffs in the aviation and aerospace industry. The 
Boeing Company plans to lay off 30,000 employees, as I said: That is 30 
percent of its workforce. By the Christmas holiday season, I will have 
at least 10,000 of my constituents out of work. And it is not just 
Boeing; hundreds of suppliers across the Nation will be impacted as 
well.
  The clock is ticking. This Congress has still not passed a workers 
assistance package. I urge my colleagues to support the Carnahan 
amendment so we can help those workers. Congress, as we all know, has 
taken care of the airlines by passing $15 billion in assistance. I 
supported that package because it was the right thing to do. Getting 
the airlines back up and running quickly helped us avoid further 
layoffs.
  We have also recognized that we have a responsibility to help the 
many workers who are losing their jobs through no fault of their own. 
So far, this Congress has not provided any help for the 110,000 airline 
workers and their families who will be laid off or the 30,000 Boeing 
workers who will be laid off. These workers have to put food on the 
table; they need to make car payments and pay their rent or their 
mortgage. They are losing their jobs, and they need our help. The 
Carnahan amendment will help them.
  In fact, these efforts are even more important today given the 
underlying problems we are having with the U.S. economy. Before 
September 11, our economy was teetering on the edge of recession. 
Unemployment is currently at 4.9 percent, and that is the highest level 
in over 4 years. Some economists are now predicting that unemployment 
will reach 6.5 percent by the middle of next year. Every one of us will 
have families in our States who will be impacted by this.
  Even worse, these economic problems are affecting workers in all of 
the related industries, and we have heard from them--the travel agents, 
hotel and restaurant employees, caterers, car rental companies, and 
many more; the slide will keep moving. We are now working with the 
Senate and the House on a stimulus package that is intended to help our 
broader economy. Some predict the pricetag will be as high as $75 
billion.
  I want to make sure we meet the needs of the men and women, the moms 
and dads, who are facing layoffs right now. We need to adopt the 
Carnahan amendment to assist our displaced workers.
  The amendment will provide an additional 20 weeks of cash payments to 
airlines and aircraft manufacturing employees who lost jobs directly as 
a result of September 11. For individuals who are laid off but who do 
not qualify for State unemployment assistance, our bill will provide 
unemployment benefits for 26 weeks. This will mean so much to those who 
are very worried about losing their homes and feeding their families in 
the coming weeks and months. Our amendment will also provide worker 
training benefits for laid-off employees and for those threatened by 
layoffs, so that they are better equipped and more confident and can 
find a new job as we see the economy and where it develops in coming 
years.
  Finally, this amendment will provide 12 months of COBRA health 
insurance payments for our affected workers. This is really critical 
for our families who need to know that their loved ones are not losing 
their health care along with their jobs. No one in our country should 
live with that fear right now.
  I urge my colleagues to adopt this much-needed amendment. The clock 
is ticking, and these workers facing layoffs cannot wait. We have to 
move forward and get these workers the help and give them the 
confidence they need now. I urge our colleagues to vote for this 
workers assistance package, to move the underlying bill and do what we 
need to do to get this economy back on track so that our country can be 
confident again.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will be brief. I feel as though every 
day I have been speaking on the same issue. I think I am a cosponsor of 
the Hollings airline safety bill. It is a fine bill. I ask unanimous 
consent, in case I am not, to be a cosponsor of the Carnahan amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, first of all, I say to Senator Hollings 
I can do this in 1, 2, 3 order.
  Senator Murray, I appreciate her statement. She has an awful lot of 
hard-pressed workers in her State. I appreciate her advocacy for 
working families in Washington.
  To Senator Hollings, he has given enough speeches to deafen all the 
gods about how the industry gets back on its feet when people feel safe 
to fly, and aviation safety is the first priority. He is absolutely 
right, and this is a critically important piece of legislation. I look 
forward to passing it. We will have passed an important piece of 
legislation for our country.
  Then the third point I want to make is that I heard the Senator from 
Texas--and I am sorry she is not here now, so I won't go into big 
debate. I heard her talk about the need to not have extraneous 
amendments, and then I heard her reference the Carnahan amendment. I 
will tell you something. The 4,500 Northwest employees who are out of 
work right now believe they are extraneous. They believe they are 
central--central to their families, central to our communities, central 
to Minnesota, and central to our country.
  I would like to say to Senators who are opposed to this amendment or 
blocking this amendment, if you were to have a poll--I am just about 
positive of this--anywhere in the country and asked whether or not 
people think in addition to our helping the industry we ought to help 
employees, 90 percent of the people would say, ``Of course.'' Of 
course, you should help working families. You helped the industry; now 
you should help the employees and, of course, this should be a 
priority. As a matter of fact, one of the biggest criticisms--and there 
are not a lot of criticisms people have right now about what we are 
doing in the Congress--one of the criticisms is how can you bail out 
the industry and not help the employees? When I hear my colleagues say 
this is an extraneous amendment--tell that to the men, women, and 
children who are hurting right now.
  We help people when they are flat on their backs. We provide the 
support to them. The Carnahan amendment does three things scaled down. 
I wish it was even more comprehensive, but it is extremely important. 
It extends the unemployment benefits, it provides the job training, and 
it provides--the Senator from Massachusetts is always the leader on 
health care issues--up to 12 months 100-percent payment of COBRA 
payments, which employees cannot afford when they are out of work 
otherwise.
  This is a lifeline for these employees. It is extremely important. It 
is the right thing to do. Frankly, if this is the dividing line between 
Democrats and some Republicans, so be it. I would rather there be 100 
Senators who are for this. I sure do not mind having a spirited debate 
about whether or not we should be helping these employees. I sure do 
not mind being on their side. That is what they expect from us.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, it is somewhat 
extraordinary that so many weeks after the events of September 11, in 
the immediate days thereafter, almost all of the relevant personnel 
within the aviation industry--the people who fly the planes, the 
screeners, the people at the airports responsible for security, the 
flight attendants--all of them came forward and said we need a Federal 
system with Federal employees and Federal standards that guarantees the

[[Page 19170]]

safety of our aircraft access and our airways.
  Here we are, after this extraordinary outpouring of emotion and 
genuine bipartisanship within the Congress that came together to pass 
$40 billion immediately, and that united to provide a clear statement 
of the will of the American people expressed through the Congress with 
regard to our reaction to those events in a series of measures on which 
we found the capacity to come to the floor of the Senate and vote as 
one, here we are now weeks later still procrastinating over when we are 
going to have a final vote, or how we are going to get to a final vote 
on the question of aviation security.
  It seems to me extraordinary that at a moment when we are trying to 
prove to a lot of countries the virtues of democracy we are struggling 
in the greatest deliberative body on the face of the planet--as we are 
often referred to or even like to call ourselves--we are struggling to 
find the capacity to have a vote, to let the votes fall where they may. 
Let them fall where they may.
  Some people do not like the Carnahan amendment. I am amazed that they 
would call extraneous assistance to people who went to work on one 
morning and found out a few hours later their jobs were gone. I wonder 
how one can call extraneous a flight attendants who got on a plane 
after the events of that day to help people get back to their homes or 
locations from where those planes flew, to return them, and then got 
home and found after taking that risk they got a pink slip, their job 
no longer existed.
  Mr. President, 140,000 aviation employees have lost their jobs since 
September 11. How anybody can suggest that for those people who did not 
have the opportunity to plan for a layoff, for those people who did not 
have the savings put away because of these events that clearly altered 
their lives in such a dramatic way, that we are not going to find it in 
our capacity, even as we bail out the airlines to the tune of billions 
of dollars, that we somehow are not prepared to extend health care 
benefits to them by paying their COBRA premiums or making training 
available to them to find another job or find additional unemployment 
compensation once the State unemployment compensation has run out.
  That is not extraneous. That is fundamental to who we are as a people 
and to the kind of reaction we ought to spontaneously summon as a 
consequence of the events that happened.
  I also hear my colleagues talking about the need to have some kind of 
boost to the economy. We have had a rather sizable tax cut which 
enormously benefited those people at the upper end of the income scale, 
but for some 28, 29 million Americans who pay most of their taxes 
through the payroll tax, they did not get any break.
  For a lot of Americans, the best way to begin to bring back the 
economy as fast as possible is to give people the ability to spend 
money, to give them the ability to pay their bills and do the things 
that people do which will have the most profound impact in terms of 
stimulus at this point in time.
  For those who look at the tax cut side of the ledger--and we have all 
embraced those tax cuts over the course of the past months in one form 
or another--the fact is certain kinds of business tax incentives and 
certain kinds of monetary efforts--for instance, lowering the interest 
rates at this point in time--are simply not going to make a difference 
in the rapid restoration of the economy. We could lower the interest 
rates to zero at this moment and it is not going to affect the creation 
of a new plant or the investment in some new business where that 
business is already affected by an intense overhang of excess capacity. 
For somebody who built their plant in the last year and a half, of 
course, that has a negative effect.
  What you have to do is use up that capacity. Most of that, most 
people would agree, is going to take place on the demand side and the 
consumer side, and we have to face that.
  It seems to me, both as a matter of fairness and common sense about 
how we are going to deal with the economy under these circumstances, 
providing assistance under the Carnahan amendment is the proper way to 
address the needs of 140,000 people who were summarily thrown out of 
work as a direct consequence of the events that took place, and I might 
add not just as a direct consequence but also to some degree as a 
calculated effort by some of the airlines to position themselves 
differently from where they were positioned prior to September 11.
  Every one of us on the Commerce Committee and on the Aviation 
Subcommittee, those of us who have been following this issue for a 
period of time, know the aviation industry was already a significant 
percentage off, maybe 30 percent and in some cases more, prior to 
September 10. What we are seeing now, even after we have taken taxpayer 
dollars and provided billions of dollars to help bail out the airline 
industry, they are reducing capacity and adjusting the numbers of 
flights and the number of personnel well beyond the impact of September 
11.
  So if it is okay and appropriate--and many of us believed it was--to 
help bail out that industry because of the impact that industry has on 
a whole set of other downstream industries: the car rental industry, 
the restaurant industry, hotel, entertainment, a lot of things are tied 
to getting people back into airplanes, at the same time as the health 
and long-term welfare of that industry is being sought, we ought to be 
looking at the health and long-term welfare of those employees who have 
suffered as a consequence of both of those linked facts.
  I think it is critical we pass the Carnahan amendment, as a matter of 
fairness to those workers.
  Let me also say something about the aviation bill itself. I have 
heard from a number of pilots who have privately contacted me in the 
course of the last weeks to tell me stories that have not necessarily 
reached the public about why it is so critical to have this national 
standard applied to our employees. When you walk up to any counter 
anywhere in the country and talk to the people who check you in and 
talk to them about why they think it is important, you will really gain 
a much stronger understanding of the virtue of having this national 
system of employees who are accountable to one standard, accountable 
across the country to one system, and who work with an esprit de corps 
and with an expertise that provides those people flying on our aircraft 
the sense of safety they both want and deserve.
  I think most of us who have been following this issue for a long time 
are convinced it is only when you have that kind of system and not a 
sort of disparate, multiheaded effort that stems from the contracting 
out of various airports all across the country to the low bidders for 
those particular airports, we know that by virtue of the imperatives of 
the bottom line and the structure of the airlines themselves and the 
way in which that has been managed that there has been an incentive to 
find employees that do not cost a lot, that do not require a huge 
amount of training, do not require a huge amount of supervision because 
that costs a lot more money for airlines that have already been in 
difficult straits. Unless we raise the pay level of those employees, 
the training level, the supervisory level, and the standards to which 
they are supervised and under which they have to work, we are not going 
to have that kind of control.
  Senator Hollings, again and again, has referred to El Al. El Al is a 
classic example of a security system that has escaped the kind of 
terror we witnessed on September 11. It does so because of the layered 
structure of government input that guarantees a standard which can be 
adhered to and which is accountable to those standards.
  If we want to get people back in our airplanes to the levels they 
were previously and to even greater levels as we go down the road, we 
need to make certain we have the highest standards possible, the 
greatest accountability possible, and the broadest supervisory 
standards, with accountability, that we could put into place. The 
American people demand nothing more and they deserve nothing less.

[[Page 19171]]

  Ultimately, if we are doing less than that, we leave ourselves open 
to the possibility that not in the next weeks--I do not believe that 
will happen in the next weeks or even the next months--but when people 
begin to relax a little bit, as is normal, when you begin to back off 
because you have these different companies and you do not have the kind 
of standardization that we are seeking, that is when someone will once 
again look to find the weakness in the system.
  Even as we talk about the airlines, I want to reiterate what a number 
of us have said on a number of different occasions. It is not just the 
airlines that require standards with respect to security. Our trains 
are exposed and our buses, as we have seen, other forms of 
transportation. If we are truly in the kind of conflict we have 
described to the American people--and we are--and if indeed threats are 
possible down the road as we proceed forward--and they are--and all of 
us know that, then it behooves us to try to minimize the potential 
exposure to the American people with the maximum return in 
effectiveness.
  We currently have the National Guard, the FBI, marshals. You walk 
into an airport today and you have this conglomerate of people who are 
there. Why? Because everybody knows what we have before them in terms 
of that screening system is inadequate. What we need to do is guarantee 
those marshals can be on the aircraft not waiting at a screening 
section; that the Guard can be doing what the Guard may be called on to 
do in the course of the next months; that the FBI and the other 
personnel can be following up on leads and preventing rather than 
guarding our airport entrances, and the only way we will ultimately 
have the kind of esprit de corps that we need is to build the 
supervisory capacity and supervision and accountability that we have 
within the INS, within the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard and all of 
those other security measures that we take at other levels.
  I hope the Senate, within the next 24 hours, will finally vote on 
this legislation. I thank the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from 
South Carolina for their leadership on this on the Commerce Committee. 
I am pleased to be an original author and cosponsor with them of this 
legislation, but I am frustrated we cannot have a series of votes and 
let the votes fall where they may. If the Carnahan amendment deserves a 
majority of support from the Senate, then it should receive it. If it 
does not, then we move on, and we have a final vote on the question of 
aviation security. We need to get this done, and we need to get it done 
now. We should have had it done previously. I hope in the next hours 
the Senate will end this process of procrastination and restore the 
sense of unity and purpose and urgency that has guided us to this 
moment.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. MILLER. Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Carnahan's 
amendment regarding assistance for airline workers. As Senator Carnahan 
has described, her amendment would provide much needed help to workers 
in the airline industry who have been laid off as a result of the 
horrific events of September 11, and such help is desperately needed.
  The need to help these workers is an issue that we failed to address 
when we gave $15 billion in aid to the airlines. Yet these airline 
workers need immediate temporary assistance in order to find new jobs. 
Delta Airlines, based in my home State of Georgia, has already cut 
13,000 jobs. And this is not the end of the layoffs; many more 
Americans are going to be affected.
  The approach to this problem outlined in Senator Carnahan's amendment 
is a measured and moderate one. It addresses only the most immediate 
needs of these workers: The need for unemployment benefits, the need 
for continued health insurance coverage, and the need for job training 
so that they can begin to again contribute to our Nation's economy. In 
addition, the benefits provided in this package are temporary; they in 
no way would be taking on permanent responsibility for a new group of 
Americans. Finally, the provisions of this amendment are narrowly 
crafted to apply only to those workers who lost their jobs as a direct 
result of the attacks of September 11 or due to security measures taken 
in response to the attacks. We would, therefore, not be providing 
assistance to those who are the victims of the general economic 
downturn.
  In short, this is a sensible, middle-of-the-road approach to one the 
most pressing problems we face as a result of the September 11 attacks. 
It makes good sense to address this issue now, and I urge my colleagues 
to do so.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, the distinguished manager and I have a 
couple of amendments, if I could ask the indulgence of the Senator from 
Texas.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask that the pending Hollings-McCain 
amendment be considered agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid 
upon the table, that the amendment be considered original text for the 
purpose of further amendments, and that the Daschle-Carnahan amendment 
1855 remain in its current status as a first-degree amendment.
  Mr. GRAMM. Reserving the right to object, I'm not sure I understand 
the unanimous consent request. Could you repeat it.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I ask consent that the pending managers' amendment, the 
Hollings-McCain amendment be considered agreed to and the motion to 
reconsider be laid upon the table, that the amendment be considered 
original text for the purpose of further amendments and that the 
Daschle-Carnahan amendment No. 1855 remain in its current status as a 
first-degree amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment (No. 1854) was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 1857

  Mr. HOLLINGS. I have an amendment on behalf of the Senator from 
Vermont, Senator Leahy, which I send to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the pending amendment is 
laid aside.
  The clerk will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hollings], for Mr. 
     Leahy, proposes an amendment numbered 1857.

  Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be 
dispensed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

            (Purpose: To amend title 49, United States Code)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC. __. ENCOURAGING AIRLINE EMPLOYEES TO REPORT SUSPICIOUS 
                   ACTIVITIES.

       (a) In General.--Subchapter II of chapter 449 of title 49, 
     United States Code, is amended by inserting at the end the 
     following:

     ``Sec. 44938. Immunity for reporting suspicious activities

       ``(a) In General.--Any air carrier or foreign air carrier 
     or any employee of an air carrier or foreign air carrier who 
     makes a voluntary disclosure of any suspicious transaction 
     relevant to a possible violation of law or regulation, 
     relating to air piracy, a threat to aircraft or passenger 
     safety, or terrorism, as defined by section 3077 of title 18, 
     United States Code, to any employee or agent of the 
     Department of Transportation, the Department of Justice, any 
     Federal, State, or local law enforcement officer, or any 
     airport or airline security officer shall not be civilly 
     liable to any person under any law or regulation of the 
     United States, any constitution, law, or regulation of any 
     State or political subdivision of any State, for such 
     disclosure.
       ``(b) Application.--Subsection (a) shall not apply to--
       ``(1) any disclosure made with actual knowledge that the 
     disclosure was false, inaccurate, or misleading; or
       ``(2) any disclosure made with reckless disregard as to the 
     truth or falsity of that disclosure.

     ``Sec. 44939. Sharing security risk information

       ``The Attorney General, in consultation with the Deputy 
     Secretary for Transportation Security and the Director of the 
     Federal Bureau of Investigation, shall establish procedures 
     for notifying the Administrator of the Federal Aviation 
     Administration, and airport or airline security officers, of 
     the identity of persons known or suspected by the Attorney 
     General to pose a risk of air piracy or terrorism or a threat 
     to airline or passenger safety.''.
       (b) Report.--Not later than 120 days after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Attorney General shall report to 
     the Committee

[[Page 19172]]

     on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, the House Committee 
     on Transportation and Infrastructure, and the Judiciary 
     Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives on 
     the implementation of the procedures required under section 
     44939 of title 49, United States Code, as added by this 
     section.
       (c) Chapter Analysis.--The chapter analysis for chapter 449 
     of title 49, United States Code, is amended by inserting at 
     the end the following:

``44938. Immunity for reporting suspicious activities.
``44939. Sharing security risk information.''.

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate will accept my 
amendment to improve aircraft and passenger safety by encouraging 
airlines and airline employees to report suspicious activities to the 
proper authorities.
  In addition, this amendment requires the Department of Justice and 
the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share security risk information 
with the Federal Aviation Administration and airport or airline 
security officers.
  I want to commend Senator Hollings and Senator McCain for their good 
work on this airport security legislation. I support the Hollings-
McCain Aviation Security Act and believe this amendment improves an 
already excellent bill.
  The Leahy amendment provides civil immunity for airlines and airline 
employees who report information on potential violations of law 
relating to air piracy, threats to aircraft or passenger safety, or 
terrorism to the Department of Justice, Department of Transportation, a 
law enforcement officer, or an airline or airport security officer.
  This civil immunity would not apply to any disclosure made with 
actual knowledge that the disclosure was false, inaccurate or 
misleading or any disclosure made with reckless disregard as to its 
truth or falsity.
  In other words, this amendment would not protect bad actors.
  According to press reports, two of the suspected September 11, 2001, 
terrorists were on an FBI watch list. Both the Secretary of 
Transportation and the Attorney General, however, testified before 
Congress that the FBI, the INS, and the Department of Justice do not 
currently supply these watch lists to the FAA or to the Nation's 
airline carriers to match up passenger lists with potential threat 
lists.
  It is time for that policy to change. This amendment requires the 
Attorney General to establish procedures for notifying the FAA of the 
identity of known or suspected terrorists.
  Monday's Wall Street Journal reported that the National Commission on 
Terrorism has stressed the importance of more effective coordination 
and dissemination of security information including the FBI's watch 
list of potential terrorists and their associates.
  Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reported:

       A government-created task force recommended ways to plug 
     what historically has been one of the most glaring loopholes 
     in aviation security: a lack of clear-cut procedures to 
     circulate timely information about potential threats to 
     airlines and airports.

  My amendment will put those needed procedures into place by requiring 
the Attorney General, in consultation with the Deputy Secretary for 
Transportation Security, which is created in the underlying bill, and 
the Director of the FBI, to establish procedures to notify the FAA and 
airport or airline security officers, of the identity of persons known 
or suspected to pose a risk of air piracy or terrorism or a threat to 
airline or passenger safety.
  Finally, the amendment requires the Attorney General to report to 
Congress on the implementation of the procedures to identify these 
suspected or known hijackers or terrorists.
  I believe the Leahy amendment will improve aircraft and passenger 
safety and provide the flying public with greater security. Indeed, 
this amendment has the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce among 
others.
  I thank Senator Hollings and Senator McCain for accepting this 
amendment.
  I ask unanimous consent that this article from the Wall Street 
Journal, entitled, ``U.S. Task Force Proposes Ways For Sharing 
Security-Risk Data With Airlines, Airports,'' be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 8, 2001]

   U.S. Task Force Proposes Ways for Sharing Security-Risk Data With 
                           Airlines, Airports

                           (By Andy Pasztor)

       A government-created task force recommended ways to plug 
     what historically has been one of the most glaring loopholes 
     in aviation security: a lack of clear-cut procedures to 
     circulate timely information about potential threats to 
     airlines and airports.
       The recommendations submitted to Transportation Secretary 
     Norman Mineta urge, among other things, creation of a 
     ``federal security agency'' that would ``fundamentally'' 
     improve integration of ``law enforcement and national 
     security intelligence data.''
       The proposed entity, supported in concept by the White 
     House as well as congressional leaders, would be responsible 
     for directly passing on such threat information to senior 
     security personnel at each airline and airport. Officials of 
     the Federal Aviation Administration have acknowledged that 
     they only received partial information from the Federal 
     Bureau of Investigation.
       ``We have access to the names that the FBI gives us,'' but 
     don't ``normally have access'' to the full ``watch list'' of 
     potential terrorists or their associates assembled by the 
     bureau, U.S. immigration officials and other law enforcement 
     agencies, Monte Belger, the FAA's acting deputy 
     administrator, told lawmakers last month.
       Despite extensive debate over giving the FAA access to 
     certain intelligence data, there was no resolution of that 
     issue prior to Sept. 11. After the attacks, the FAA 
     instituted some makeshift security procedures. Before any 
     commercial jetliner can take off, airlines must check the 
     names of all passengers against a lengthy and continuously 
     updated ``watch list'' of names supplies by the FBI.
       Paul Bremer, chairman of a blue-ribbon government panel 
     called the National Commission on Terrorism, has stressed the 
     importance of more effective coordination and dissemination 
     of security information.
       Since the FBI ``is in charge of catching criminals and 
     prosecuting them,'' historically it has had some reluctance 
     to quickly pass on potential evidence to the FAA or airlines. 
     ``Part of the problem in the FBI is a cultural one,'' Mr. 
     Bremer has said, adding ``we need to find a way [such 
     information] can be disseminated'' more rapidly and 
     predictably.
       But in certain of its conclusions, the task force also 
     appears to have been keenly interested in trying to minimize 
     delays.
       Citing ``an urgent need'' to find more efficient methods of 
     moving people through the security system as passenger volume 
     ramps up, the panel recommended ``a nationwide program for 
     the voluntary prescreening of passengers.'' By issuing 
     frequent travelers special credentials or checking their 
     identities and backgrounds before they arrive at the airport, 
     such travelers would be subjected to less scrutiny. That 
     would allow security personnel to focus extra attention on 
     other passengers. Meanwhile, a companion task force appointed 
     by Mr. Mineta to recommend changes in onboard security 
     systems stopped short of supporting some concepts previously 
     proposed by the White House.
       Members of this task force said ``while there may be 
     value'' in installing video cameras designed to show pilots' 
     activity in the cabin, ``we have no consensus on whether to 
     proceed with this technology.'' The panel concluded that 
     calls by President Bush to install double doors to cockpits 
     were premature. Such a ``design will have limited 
     applicability to most aircraft in the U.S. fleet'' partly 
     because there isn't enough room between the current door and 
     the flight deck to accommodate such a system, the task force 
     concluded.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. The amendment is agreed to on both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment 
of the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy.
  The amendment (No. 1857) was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 1858

  Mr. HOLLINGS. On behalf of the distinguished Senator from Nevada, 
Senator Ensign, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hollings], for Mr. 
     Ensign, proposes an amendment numbered 1858.

  Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be 
dispensed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page 19173]]

  The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To permit the Secretary of Transportation to appoint retired 
           law enforcement officers to serve as air marshals)

       At the appropriate place in the section relating to air 
     marshals, insert the following subsection:
       (  ) Authority To Appoint Retired Law Enforcement 
     Officers.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the 
     Secretary of Transportation may appoint an individual who is 
     a retired law enforcement officer or a retired member of the 
     Armed Forces as a Federal air marshal, regardless of age, if 
     the individual otherwise meets the background and fitness 
     qualifications required for Federal air marshals.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. We agree with the amendment.
  Mr. McCAIN. If we could withhold for 30 seconds to describe the 
amendment of Senator Ensign, it allows retired law enforcement officers 
or retired armed forces personnel to serve as Federal air marshals if 
the individual meets the background and fitness qualifications. I think 
this is a good amendment that will provide some highly qualified, 
trained and experienced individuals. I urge its adoption.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 1858) was agreed to.
  Mr. McCAIN. I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was 
agreed to.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, it is my understanding, we now have of the 
underlying bill the Carnahan amendment, which is a first-degree 
amendment; is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is correct.


                Amendment No. 1859 to Amendment No. 1855

  Mr. GRAMM. I send a second-degree amendment to the desk and ask for 
its consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Texas [Mr. Gramm] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 1859 to amendment No. 1855.

  Mr. GRAMM. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be 
dispensed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.)
  Mr. GRAMM. I'm not going to spend a lot of time tonight talking about 
this amendment. We will have an opportunity to talk about it tomorrow. 
However, I do want to try to make a couple of points tonight.
  First, I want to make a point we are trying to pass a bill on 
aviation security. In my opinion, this bill is far from perfect. It 
seems to me there are 100 Members in the Senate who believe we need to 
do everything we can do to act quickly and act efficiently in making 
air transportation safe again. We want the American people to be and 
feel secure and we want to get planes flying. Our economy is very much 
affected by the ability of Americans to travel, and in the process, to 
go about their business, because the business of America is business.
  We now have a pending amendment, the Carnahan amendment, that has 
nothing to do with aviation security. I know some of my colleagues will 
argue that the amendment is meritorious. I have been somewhat amazed by 
the argument that we took action to ``bail out'' the airlines, and now 
it is time we do something for the employees of the airlines. I beg to 
differ. For the last 140 years, the distribution of resources in the 
American economy has been roughly 80 percent for labor and 20 percent 
for capital. There is no reason to believe that of the $5 billion of 
assistance we provided to give emergency relief for the limitations 
placed on the airlines on the 11th and the ensuing weeks, that 
approximately 80 percent of that money did not go directly to the 
benefit of people who worked for the airlines. In fact, the whole 
purpose of the funding was to prevent weak airlines from going broke 
and to try to stabilize the situation.
  Now to come back and say we need another bill dealing with special 
benefits for people who work for airlines, it seems to me, approaches 
piling on. Quite frankly, I don't understand the logic that if you work 
for an airline, and I work for a travel agent, and we are both out of 
work, why you are more deserving of Federal benefits than I am. I don't 
understand the logic that treats people differently in unemployment 
compensation, and to carry over their benefits based on who they work 
for. That system makes no sense whatever to me.
  I think it is important to note that the Carnahan amendment, at least 
by my rough and rugged calculations, would cost $95 billion a year if 
the same benefits were applied to everybody in the American economy, 
rather than simply being applied to people who work for airlines.
  To sum up the points I want to make about the Carnahan amendment: 
One, people who work for airlines were the principle beneficiary of the 
$5 billion of direct aid and the $10 billion of loan guarantees. The 
whole objective was to try to keep airlines operating so they could 
provide service and so that employees would not be dislocated 
economically by losing their jobs. I don't understand the logic of an 
amendment that treats people who work for one private employer 
differently than people who work for other private employers, even 
though both may have lost their job as a result of what happened on the 
11th.
  I am not for the Carnahan amendment. I don't make any excuses for 
being opposed to it. I think it is bad policy. And quite frankly in 
this era of bipartisanship it looks awfully partisan to me. It seems to 
me since the decision has been made that we are going to offer 
extraneous amendments on the Aviation Security Act, both sides can play 
that game. My amendment is a straightforward amendment that opens up 
2,000 acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas 
production. In the process, it adds more oil reserves to America's 
proven reserves than 30 years of supply from Saudi Arabia. It would 
require the use of the best available technology for environmental 
protection. The provision has been adopted by a fairly substantial 
bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives.
  One might ask, what does energy security have to do with the Aviation 
Security Act? My answer is it has a lot more to do with the Aviation 
Security Act than the Carnahan amendment. If we are going to vote on 
extraneous amendments that our Democrat colleagues want to vote on, 
then I want to vote on amendments that I think will benefit the 
country.
  Quite frankly, I think nothing could do more to immediately bolster 
national security than enabling us to produce more oil and gas here at 
home at a price consumers can afford to pay to turn the wheels of 
energy and agriculture. So I wanted to come over today and offer this 
amendment.
  Finally, let me reiterate, before I yield the floor and let our 
colleagues speak, my concerns about the Aviation Security Act. I think 
100 Members are in favor of doing something here. But I think we should 
be trying to do something within two constraints: No. 1, how can we 
provide additional airport and aviation security in a way that will 
minimize the amount of time it takes to put it in place? And, No. 2, 
how can we do it in such a way as to maximize the effectiveness of the 
security we provide?
  I personally believe we would have been well advised and the country 
would have been well served if we had allowed the President, in 
implementing this program, to decide when to use Government employees 
and when to use employees from the private sector and to pick and 
choose in such a way as to implement a program as quickly as possible 
that would be as effective as possible.
  I think we have made a mistake by mandating that the people who are 
employed under this act in our major airports all be Federal employees. 
It seems to me that will add to the amount of time it takes to put the 
program in effect, and I think it is highly questionable that that kind 
of binding

[[Page 19174]]

constraint on the executive branch of Government is aimed at making the 
system the most efficient possible.
  I think we could have written a better bill had we allowed the 
President to do this within the two constraints of doing it as quickly 
as possible and having a system that is as effective as possible. The 
decision was made not to do that, to move ahead even though the 
President expressed a preference to have flexibility. The decision was 
made to move ahead by mandating Government employees.
  I think that is not good public policy. I am not saying we would not 
be better off having a bill that is non-optimal than not having a bill. 
But I am simply saying, in this spirit of bipartisanship, it seems to 
me that the right way to have done this would have been to trust the 
President and give him the flexibility. That the bill did not do.
  So in yielding the floor, let me reiterate where we are. We now have 
the underlying substitute as the pending bill. We have a first-degree 
amendment, the Carnahan amendment, and we have a second-degree 
amendment which would open a very limited area of ANWR, 2,000 acres. It 
would add to the oil reserves of the country the equivalent of 30 years 
of Saudi Arabian imports. And it would require that this oil and gas be 
produced with the best available technology.
  I am sure Senator Murkowski will speak about why this is something we 
should do, as the former chairman of the Energy Committee, if we are in 
fact going to consider the Carnahan amendment. Let me say if we simply 
decide to focus, as I believe we should, on aviation security, if we 
should decide to drop the Carnahan amendment, I would be willing to 
pull down this amendment. But if we are going to deal with extraneous 
matters, then we ought to be dealing with extraneous matters, in my 
opinion, that are more related to the crisis we face than is the 
Carnahan amendment.
  So if we are going to press ahead with that amendment, then I am 
going to press ahead with voting on ANWR. I understand the rules of the 
Senate. The majority leader has filed cloture on the Carnahan 
amendment. I will vote against cloture. I hope cloture will be denied. 
But if cloture is adopted, then my amendment to the Carnahan amendment 
will fall. But I will offer it again as a first-degree amendment.
  I want to reiterate, if we are going to get in this business of 
dealing with extraneous amendments, which I think is a mistake--I think 
under the circumstances that, on a united basis, we ought to move ahead 
with aviation security--but if we are going to get into these 
extraneous amendments, then I think everybody ought to have the right 
to get into them. I cannot imagine anything that would be more 
important that we could do tomorrow on the floor of the Senate than to 
adopt a House-passed provision that, on a very limited basis, would 
open ANWR and would add more proven oil reserves to the Nation than 30 
years' supply from Saudi Arabia.
  I appreciate the Chair's indulgence and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I welcome the opportunity to join with 
Senator Carnahan in urging the Senate to provide some important relief 
for workers and workers' families whose loss of jobs were directly 
related to the terrible terrorist attacks which took place here earlier 
in September.
  I think all Americans have been struck by a variety of different 
emotions in these recent weeks. I absolutely found them inspiring, 
almost beyond description in so many different ways. Obviously, the 
extraordinary loss of life was breathtaking in its scope and its impact 
on so many families. But we saw absolutely extraordinary heroism by 
many individuals who never, probably, considered themselves to be 
heroes or heroines. I think that has been emblazoned on the minds of 
people all over this country, and really all over this world. It will 
be a proud part of our Nation's character and history.
  Something else we have seen is extraordinary acts of generosity 
towards our fellow citizens. Americans are a generous people. I think 
all of us have seen, in small, personal ways as well as in large ways, 
the scope of these contributions to the Red Cross, the contributions of 
blood, doctors running down to hospitals--so many different acts of 
generosity. That really is the background of the time we are meeting. 
It is true of the time we are meeting here this evening.
  In the immediate wake of the tragedy, this institution responded to 
the challenge to our transportation system, our airline transportation 
system. In a very short period of time, because of the nature of the 
emergency, because there had been direct governmental intervention, 
where airlines were closed down, we took action in order to try to 
provide some relief to that industry. We took those steps, and we are 
very hopeful they will be enough to make sure that industry will 
continue to play an important role in our national economy.
  Now we took care of management during those actions. They are going 
to make sure their salaries are going to be paid. The management of the 
airline industry was taken care of, some of them in extremely generous 
ways. But we believed at the time we had to take that kind of action.
  Now what are we being asked to do under the Carnahan amendment? All 
we are saying is, fair is fair. We have taken care of the management in 
the airline industry, we have taken care of the airline industry, now 
we are talking about being fair to the workers in the industry. Fair is 
fair. The American people understand fairness. That is what the 
Carnahan amendment is basically all about. It is reflected in 
unemployment insurance, COBRA assistance and training. But it is about 
fairness.
  Those workers include the reservation personnel, customer service 
personnel, flight attendants, baggage handlers, mechanics who fix the 
planes, the workers who clean the planes, the food service workers, the 
shuttle drivers--you could go on and on.
  One hundred and twenty thousand of them have been thrown out of 
work--not because of their failure to perform good services, not 
because they were not working hard, and not because they weren't 
producing, but because of terrorist acts. On the one hand, we have 
taken care of management. The Carnahan amendment says we are now going 
to try to take care of the limited group, the workers. Fair is fair. 
Americans understand it. We are using the first vehicle to be able to 
do it. Some of us would have preferred that we did it at the time of 
the airline action, but so many of the voices that are opposed to this 
tonight said: Oh, no. We can't do that now. We shouldn't do that at 
this moment. We have to look out for the airlines. When we bring it up, 
they say: No. It is an extraneous matter.
  Americans understand what is happening. More than 120,000 of these 
workers expect someone to speak for them. And the someone who is 
speaking for them will be the Members of Congress, the Senate, in a 
bipartisan way, I might add, with this amendment. In a bipartisan way 
we are going to speak for those workers.
  That is what this debate and discussion is all about. Let us get to 
the business of voting on this measure. Let's get to the business of 
completing the action on airport security. Then let us go ahead and 
deal finally, hopefully, in the next 2 weeks with the economic package 
to look after other workers who are also suffering.
  I am always interested when I listen to voices on the other side 
complain about unemployment insurance. We should really understand that 
workers have already indirectly paid into the unemployment 
compensation. Do we understand that? Workers pay into unemployment 
compensation. I am not sure how much management paid in and how much 
they paid at the time that we took care of the airline industry. And I 
voted for it and I support it. But we are talking about a major aspect 
of this program being extended unemployment compensation. Workers pay 
into unemployment compensation over a long period of time. Because we 
have been blessed with a strong economy, with strong price stability, 
economic growth, and low inflation, there

[[Page 19175]]

has not been the necessity for unemployment compensation. But it is 
part of the safety net that has been accepted and supported in our 
society.
  I know there are people who are opposed to that in this body as well, 
and continue to be opposed to it. But it is there. Workers pay into it. 
They need it. They need it at a time such as this when they have lost 
their jobs. This is a very modest program. It is unemployment 
compensation where workers receive a small percentage of what they 
otherwise would have received had they been able to retain their jobs. 
It helps them to maintain health insurance.
  All of us understand the dangers. Every family understands the 
dangers if they lose their health insurance and what kind of additional 
pressure that puts on the families. For lower income families, it helps 
them in terms of buying into Medicaid--a very modest program in terms 
of the training for those who understand, as the persons did whom I 
talked with last night in Boston. They had been laid off when Eastern 
Airlines collapsed. They are now laid off by US Airways. They said they 
were going to try as people in their middle years to take the training 
programs that are out there to try to find a different sector. They 
just believe they have to start in a new area and a new career.
  I look forward to the vote. The American people know this is 
relevant. It is absolutely essential. They can understand when you take 
care of the management, as we have, and take care of the industry, that 
workers have been a part of that whole process. If it had not been for 
those terrorist attacks, probably 95 percent of those workers would 
have been working either today, tonight, or tomorrow. As a direct 
result of that attack, these individuals have lost their livelihood.
  The question is whether we are going to be responsive in a measured, 
modest way that will permit them to at least hold their families 
together for a short period of time until they can either find the 
training or be recalled to work. That is the least we can do for 
working families in this country.
  I hope cloture will be obtained on this particular amendment.
  The airline industry suffered enormously in the September 11 
terrorist attacks. Congress has already made billions of dollars in 
federal relief available to the airlines. And now it is time for us to 
give urgently needed relief to the thousands of airline workers who 
have also been financially devastated by this tragedy.
  The men and women who worked for the airlines and airports deserve 
our help today. We know that layoffs in the airline industry alone are 
expected to total about 120,000 workers. American Airlines and United 
have each announced layoffs of 20,000 workers. Continental, Delta, 
Northwest, and US Airways have each announced layoffs of more than 
10,000 workers. Workers with smaller airlines have been hit even 
harder. Spirit has laid off 30 percent of its workforce while ATA is 
laying off about 20 percent of its workers.
  We need to do more for workers like Penny Bloomquist of Minnesota. 
She was just laid off from her dream job as a flight attendant for 
Northwest Airlines. After working a range of different jobs while 
raising her children, Ms. Bloomquist sacrificed mightily to enroll in 
Northwest's six-day a week training program. Instead of living her 
dream today, she is instead selling off many of her belongings.
  The Carnahan-Kennedy amendment will provide much-needed relief for 
Ms. Bloomquist and thousands of workers like her. Extended unemployment 
insurance benefits, job training benefits, and health care coverage 
will be available to airline workers, for workers who build our 
airplanes, and for airport workers, including airline food service 
employees. Only those workers who lost their jobs as a direct result of 
the attacks of September 11 or security measures taken in response to 
the attacks will be eligible for these benefits.
  Fair is fair. Congress treated the airlines fairly, and now we must 
treat the workers fairly. Tens of thousands of other airline employees 
deserve unemployment insurance benefits. They deserve job training 
assistance. They deserve fair health care coverage, and they deserve it 
as soon as possible.
  Under our amendment, workers who have exhausted their 26-week 
eligibility for state unemployment insurance would be eligible for 
additional weeks of cash payments funded entirely by the federal 
government.
  This amendment will also provide unemployment insurance benefits to 
airline workers who are not currently eligible for state unemployment 
benefits. Workers who do not meet their State's requirements for 
unemployment insurance would receive 26 weeks of federally financed 
unemployment insurance.
  The amendment will provide job training benefits to get people back 
to work. Workers who are not expected to return to their jobs in the 
airline industry will be eligible for retraining benefits. Other 
workers who are not expected to return to their original jobs, but who 
may find some alternative job in the airline industry, will be eligible 
for training to upgrade their skills.
  Our amendment will also provide health care benefits to laid off 
airline and airport workers. Too often families cannot afford to pay to 
continue their health coverage after layoffs. They are forced to choose 
between health care and other basic family needs. In fact, almost 60 
percent of the uninsured today have lost their job in the past year.
  For airline workers who are currently covered under their employer's 
health plan, the federal government will reimburse 100 percent of their 
COBRA health care premiums. Workers who did not receive health care 
through their employers will be eligible for Medicaid, with the federal 
government covering 100 percent of the premiums.
  We also need to do more for workers in other industries--especially 
the travel, tourism, hospitality, and restaurant industries that have 
been hit so hard. Last week, the Labor Department announced that 
unemployment claims climbed to the highest level in nine years. New 
claims for unemployment increased by 71,000 to a total of more than 
528,000 in just one week.
  Relief for these workers must be a significant part of the economic 
stimulus legislation that Congress will soon take up. These workers 
have lost their jobs with little, if any, severance pay, and little, if 
any, health insurance. We cannot abandon these workers and their 
families.
  These attacks have also jeopardized the nation's overall economic 
health. In New York City alone, the overall cost of the World Trade 
Center attack could be as much as $105 billion over the next two years. 
Nationally, the Department of Commerce recently reported our worst 
quarter of economic growth in over 8 years.
  Expanding Unemployment Insurance is one of the most effective ways to 
get our economy moving again. Unemployed workers have to spend every 
penny just to feed their families and pay their rent. So, for every 
dollar we give to unemployed workers, we expand the economy by more 
than $2.15. We must do all that we can to strengthen our economy.
  Helping workers during a slowing economy is good economic policy. The 
unemployment insurance system will be critical to the nation's recovery 
and economic strength.
  Historically, Congress has ensured extended benefits for each 
recession since the 1950s. Surely as we face this national crisis we 
should do the same for today's workers. If we act soon to provide 
extended benefits nationally, we will avoid the mistakes of the early 
1990s. At that time, we waited the better part of a year to act. At the 
same time, hundreds of thousands of workers exhausted their benefits.
  This time must be different. We need to act now. Not only will 
millions of workers be directly helped financially, but according to a 
recent study commissioned by the Department of Labor, unemployment 
insurance with the federally extended benefits reduces the number of 
workers who become unemployed. By improving and extending unemployment 
insurance, history shows that we will have a shorter, less severe 
recession.
  Good unemployment benefits will help workers bridge the gap between

[[Page 19176]]

jobs, and put money in their hands. Unemployed workers will spend these 
unemployment benefits, rather than save them. If fact, the DOL study 
concluded that unemployment insurance, with its extended benefits, 
mitigates 15 percent of the loss of GDP that otherwise would occur 
during a recession. We need this stimulus for the economy.
  Every day we delay, more workers suffer. Working men and women are 
waiting for this help. We owe it to them to act, and we will have the 
chance to do just that one the economic stimulus legislation that we 
soon take up.
  The issue before us now is relief for airlines workers. A strong 
airline industry is critical to the national economy. We need to keep 
the airlines flying--but we also must provide critical assistance for 
the airline workers who lost their jobs, and now is the time to do 
that.
  I urge my colleagues to stand up for airline workers by passing the 
Carnahan-Kennedy amendment to give these workers the genuine relief 
they need.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I came down to the floor this evening to 
reiterate the comments of my friend from Missouri, Senator Carnahan, 
and the comments that the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, made 
in expressing the frustration about the lack of progress on the 
aviation security bill and the need to immediately consider worker 
assistance in this amendment.
  We have spent a week now simply on the motion to proceed to 
consideration of one of the most important bills that we need to pass 
this year. Every day that we wait, critical measures to enhance the 
American public's confidence in the aviation system are not enacted--
and, thus, economic activity dependent on this sector is not generated.
  We have no time to waste. The issues that divide us are not terribly 
far apart. Like my colleague from Missouri, I don't want to slow this 
bill down. I had wanted to see both the security provisions and the 
worker assistance dealt with during the consideration of the airline 
assistance package that we passed several weeks ago. But people told us 
to wait, and do it after we pass that package.
  So I think it's time that we all step back and reflect on the 
importance of these measures. I call on my colleagues to reconsider 
these differences that remain and get down to actual consideration of 
this bill, and the Carnahan amendment.
  I would like to thank Senators Hollings and McCain for putting 
together an aviation security measure that will give this country the 
confidence to fly again. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, 
Senators Hollings and McCain began to work on this package immediately.
  The package they put together I call on my colleagues to support:
  First, it expands the air marshal program, improves passenger-
screening requirements in our airports, and provides for hijacking 
training of flight crews.
  It requires more background checks for flight school students, 
strengthens cockput security, and increases perimeter security at our 
Nation's airports.
  And, it will bring the passenger screening function under Federal 
control, something I believe is a necessity for restoring public 
confidence that a well trained, well paid, and more integrated security 
workforce is on duty at airports in every corner of this Nation.
  We have a long way to go in bringing the passengers back, but I am 
confident they will come back.
  I would like to thank Senators Carnahan, Kennedy, and Majority Leader 
Daschle for their hard work on this legislation, particularly their 
effort to include airline worker assistance. It is a strong first step 
in easing the blow to workers in the aviation industry who will be 
greatly impacted.
  I appreciate my colleagues' leadership on this issue and their 
willingness to include aircraft manufacturing workers who are about to 
suffer the severe impacts of others in the industry. We should have 
done this 2 weeks ago. That is why we cannot afford to wait.
  The Carnahan amendment will help thousands of families who are facing 
economic turmoil. These are people who are suddenly left holding 
numerous household bills that they will soon be unable to pay. They 
have mortgages, car payments, credit card debt, utility bills, and 
school loans. What thousands of them won't have much longer is a job.
  Major U.S. airlines expect to cut more than 100,000 jobs this year 
alone and tens of thousands have already received pink slips. The 
September 11 attacks affected all of us very deeply. We should think 
about the individuals who have directly lost their economic security as 
a result of these events.
  In my State, the Boeing Company recently announced it will be forced 
to lay off 20,000 to 30,000 workers by the end of 2002. Those are just 
numbers of direct jobs that will be lost in the airline and aircraft 
manufacturing industries. The overall economic toll will be far 
greater.
  For Boeing workers, notices will be sent on October 12--just 2 days 
from now--to inform them that in 60 days they will be out of a job. So 
that means that on December 14--less than 2 weeks before Christmas--a 
significant number of workers in my State are going to be jobless.
  While dealing with how to meet their bills, the average Boeing worker 
who elects to continue to try to cover their health care coverage--
their family medical and dental--will have to pay nearly $850 per 
month. That is $850 a month on top of other bills that unemployed 
workers are going to have to face.
  These layoffs will certainly mean hardship for thousands of 
individual families, but they will also create a serious economic 
ripple effect in my State--the State of Washington--and nationwide.
  The Seattle Times recently reported that the Boeing layoffs alone 
will take $1.76 billion out of the economy in regions of the country 
where the layoffs occur. More than 70 percent of those layoffs are 
expected to happen in Washington, which means a loss of $1.29 billion 
to our region's economy.
  The economy is already reacting with uncertainty resulting from the 
many layoffs and the fear of layoffs. Consumer spending currently 
accounts for two-thirds of our economy. Yet consumer confidence in 
September fell to its lowest level since January of 1996. We can take a 
step--a giant step--in shoring up consumer confidence if we let the 
workers in the most impacted sector know, by passing this legislation, 
that they will not fall through the cracks.
  The fact is, unless we do something to instill greater consumer 
confidence in the aviation system, it will be difficult to sustain our 
larger economic growth. That is why it is so important that we act now.
  Our economy works best when people are working. When they lose their 
jobs, they need help to manage their unemployment, train for new jobs, 
and make an easy transition to new careers. This amendment will provide 
the financial assistance, job training, and health care coverage for 
thousands of workers in the airline and aircraft manufacturing 
industries--workers who are losing their jobs as a result of terrorism.
  The time to provide the workers relief is now, and in this bill. We 
have already provided, as many of my colleagues have said, the airline 
industry with billions of dollars to keep them flying. That was the 
right thing to do to bolster the economy and to maintain as many jobs 
as possible, but the workers who are the heart of the industry deserve 
equal treatment, and that includes the workers in the airline 
manufacturing industry.
  We cannot take care of the corporate needs and shareholder needs and 
not the needs of American workers who are the backbone of our economy. 
Our economy was built by their muscle and their minds, and it is a 
product of their hard work and creativity that continues to drive us.
  We cannot allow terrorism to transform our economy from a rising tide 
that can lift all boats into a rising storm that threatens to capsize 
American workers. We need to provide them

[[Page 19177]]

with a lifeline to health care coverage, unemployment benefits, and job 
training.
  Again, I call on my colleagues to support the Carnahan amendment and 
the overall airline security legislation. America is watching us and 
asking us to act now on both of these measures.
  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the 
pending Carnahan amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 1860

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf 
of Senator Snowe of Maine and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The senior assistant bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain], for Ms. Snowe, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 1860.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

    (Purpose: To authorize national emergency powers of the Deputy 
                 Secretary for Transportation Security)

       On page 5, line 13, strike the closing quotation marks and 
     the second period.
       On page 5, between lines 13 and 14, insert the following:
       ``(3) National emergency responsibilities.--Subject to the 
     direction and control of the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary 
     shall have the following responsibilities:
       ``(A) To coordinate domestic transportation during a 
     national emergency, including aviation, rail, and other 
     surface transportation, and maritime transportation 
     (including port security).
       ``(B) To coordinate and oversee during a national emergency 
     the transportation-related responsibilities of other 
     departments and agencies of the Federal Government other than 
     the Department of Defense and the military departments.
       ``(C) To establish uniform national standards and practices 
     for transportation during a national emergency.
       ``(D) To coordinate and provide notice to other departments 
     and agencies of the Federal Government, and appropriate 
     agencies of State and local governments, including 
     departments and agencies for transportation, law enforcement, 
     and border control, about threats to transportation during a 
     national emergency.
       ``(E) To carry out such other duties, and exercise such 
     other powers, relating to transportation during a national 
     emergency as the Secretary of Transportation shall prescribe.
       ``(4) Relationship to other transportation authority.--The 
     authority of the Deputy Secretary under paragraph (3) to 
     coordinate and oversee transportation and transportation-
     related responsibilities during a national emergency shall 
     not supersede the authority of any other department or agency 
     of the Federal Government under law with respect to 
     transportation or transportation-related matters, whether or 
     not during a national emergency.
       ``(5) Annual report.--The Deputy Secretary shall submit to 
     the Congress on an annual basis a report on the activities of 
     the Deputy Secretary under paragraph (3) during the preceding 
     year.
       ``(6) National emergency.--The Secretary of Transportation 
     shall prescribe the circumstances constituting a national 
     emergency for purposes of paragraph (3).''.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, this is a national emergency 
responsibilities amendment, where the Deputy Secretary will have 
responsibilities for coordination amongst various agencies. I think it 
is a good amendment, and I urge its adoption.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I urge the adoption of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate?
  Without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 1860) was agreed to.
  Mr. McCAIN. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I do not see any more pending business, so 
pending the appearance of the majority leader or the whip, I suggest 
the absence of a quorum.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, will the Senator withhold suggesting the 
absence of a quorum?
  Mr. McCAIN. I withhold.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask colleagues to find out the 
disposition of the leadership and how they want to wrap up because we 
are ready to go. But pending that, I will say a word about another 
concern I have.
  (The remarks of Mr. Hollings are printed in today's Record under 
``Morning Business.'')
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I see the distinguished Senator from New York is here. 
I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mrs. CLINTON. I thank the chairman of the committee who has done such 
a tremendous job of leadership in the wake of the terrible attacks of 
September 11. I commend him and the ranking member, the distinguished 
Senator from Arizona, and thank them for their tireless work and their 
constant reminders of the challenges we face and the sacrifices that 
are needed.
  I rise in support of the chairman's hard work on behalf of this bill, 
and I particularly appreciate the inclusion of the clear understanding 
that we have to face a direct threat to our national security and we 
have to do it by joining together and establishing a commonsense set of 
solutions to the problems now before us.
  The Aviation Security Act the chairman has worked so hard on is the 
result of many years of his labors and understanding of the 
difficulties we confront. I certainly commend him and thank him for his 
hard work.
  I also rise as a cosponsor of the Carnahan amendment to provide 
critical assistance to airline workers and those in aviation-related 
industries who were laid off as a direct result of the terrorist 
attacks.
  At the time we considered the so-called airline bailout bill, many of 
us made very clear in our statements on the floor that we were 
disappointed that some concerns for the workers who were going to lose 
their jobs were not included in the bailout bill. We come today to 
reinforce our deep concern and to ask our colleagues to support the 
Carnahan amendment.
  The numbers are overwhelming. We know that 100,000 workers have been 
laid off in the airline industry. At least 30,000 more have been laid 
off in airline manufacturing. We are concerned that if the American 
traveling public and visitors from overseas don't resume flying, as I 
urge everyone to do--I have flown numerous times already, and I 
encourage everyone to begin again to travel for business and pleasure--
if for whatever reason that return to the air is delayed, then the 
numbers will undoubtedly grow.
  Many of these airline workers are based in New York. They have been 
supporting our air transportation system out of JFK and LaGuardia. They 
have been literally handling some of the busiest air traffic corridors 
in the world. We know that reductions in flight schedules at both of 
these airports have put thousands of New Yorkers out of work: pilots 
and flight attendants, baggage and passenger service representatives. 
This has had a ripple effect throughout New York.
  For example, in Syracuse, in upstate New York, a call center for US 
Airways that had been there for many years was shut down, throwing more 
than 400 employees out of work.
  These airline and aviation-related industry layoffs are not just 
numbers. They represent the lives and livelihoods of hard-working 
Americans. I have heard many stories, as my colleagues have, of the 
hardships that are being imposed because out of the skies on September 
11 came these dreadful, horrible acts of terrorism, where people who 
were willing to commit suicide

[[Page 19178]]

brought about the deaths of thousands and thousands of our fellow 
citizens and people from all over the world and also wreaked havoc on 
our airline industry and the economy in general.
  I hope as we consider this Aviation Security Act, for which I support 
and again thank the chairman and the ranking member, we will also 
support Senator Carnahan's amendment. Her aid package for dislocated 
workers is modeled after the successful trade adjustment assistance. It 
will allow airline workers to extend their unemployment insurance while 
they receive needed job training and support services or while, 
hopefully, they wait to be called back to work because we will all 
start flying again.
  This amendment will also enable families to receive health care 
benefits as they go through this difficult period.
  No story more sums up the anguish and pain of the losses we are 
discussing and the need to improve security than one that comes out of 
JFK. A TWA flight attendant at that airport received her furlough 
notice while awaiting news of her husband, a New York City firefighter 
missing at the World Trade Center. New Yorkers and Americans have paid 
a very heavy price. We are summoning our resolve. We are preparing our 
responses individually and throughout our Nation. We are following the 
leadership of our President. We are supporting our men and women in 
uniform.
  I urge my colleagues to support the act that Chairman Hollings and 
Senator McCain have crafted and support the Carnahan amendment on which 
she has worked so hard to pay some attention and provide assistance to 
those Americans who woke up on September 11 thinking that it was any 
other workday and went to bed on that terrible day knowing that they 
might lose their jobs as a result of this horrific attack.
  I thank my colleagues and yield back the remainder of my time.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, nearly one month has passed since the 
ferocious attacks of September 11th. Words remain inadequate to 
describe or define the event. Analysts are beginning to assess the 
immediate costs in economic terms. Someday, perhaps, historians will 
succeed in cataloguing, analyzing and calculating the losses. But some 
losses--families torn apart, communities devastated--will remain 
forever beyond calculation.
  However, the tragic events of September 11th leave no question that 
our airport security system is in need of reformation. The ability of 
hijackers to ease through our Nation's airport screeners has created 
fear among the American public about flying and has led to a 
significant downturn in the travel and tourism industry. Around the 
country, air travelers now patiently wait in long lines after emergency 
security procedures have been instituted to prevent further tragedies. 
Thousands of employees, not only from the airline industry, but also 
well beyond it, have lost their jobs. During these difficult times, it 
is imperative that Congress act to protect Americans from future 
terrorism and to provide economic assistance to those left unemployed 
because of the horrendous acts of September 11th. I strongly support S. 
1447 because it takes vital steps to strengthen our Nation's airport 
security system, to ensure safety for crews and passengers, and to 
bolster our economy.
  Among the most important provisions in this bill is the 
federalization of airport security personnel. I support this plan 
because it is a clear solution to one of the most troublesome aspects 
of our current airport security operations: the failure of screeners to 
detect dangerous objects. The atrocities of the recent terrorist 
attacks highlight the inadequacies of the current screening system. 
Under the system, airlines, subject to Federal Aviation Administration 
requirements, are responsible for administering screening of passengers 
and their carry-on luggage. Airlines generally contract out their 
screening responsibility to private security companies, often awarding 
contracts based upon the lowest bid rather than superior security 
systems. Allowing airlines such authority has resulted in a system that 
too often promotes lower costs over the safety of passengers.
  Recent separate studies by the GAO and the DOJ's Inspector General 
revealed the serious inadequacies of the current screening system and 
causes for its failures. Among the problems noted by the IG report was 
the frequent failure of the airlines to conduct background checks of 
employees with access to secure areas and the ability of IG personnel 
to access secure areas without being challenged by security 68 percent 
of the time. The GAO report which concluded that screener performance 
in major U.S. airports was unsatisfactory, attributed the poor 
performance of security screeners to a high employee turnover rate, 
more than 100 percent per year at many airports--low wages, 
insufficient training, and inadequate monitoring of screeners.
  Federalizing security operations throughout U.S. airports is the best 
answer for improving screener performance. It would raise wages, lower 
employee turnover, promote career loyalty among screeners, create 
uniform training among security personnel, and, as a result, strengthen 
the performance of screeners to discover dangerous objects. Once the 
Federal government ensures that screeners are performing their duties 
in strict adherence to the highest safety standards, the public will 
gain greater confidence in airport security. In light of the current 
campaign against terrorism, now is the time to incorporate this change. 
As a recent New York Times editorial stated, ``airports are a front 
line in the struggle against terrorism, and it no longer makes sense to 
delegate their policing to the private sector, which emphasizes low 
cost as opposed to security.'' I agree with this assessment.
  I also want to underscore my support for Senator Carnahan's amendment 
to provide much-needed relief for the thousands of hard-working 
employees in the airline industry who have lost their jobs as a result 
of the horrific attack on our Nation on September 11th. This amendment 
will provide unemployment benefits, health care and training to airline 
industry employees who have been laid off due to the marked decrease in 
air travel in this country.
  The airline industry has been most directly affected in the aftermath 
of the attack, but the ripple effect of the attacks is being felt 
throughout other industries as well. Hotel, travel, and tourism 
employees, who number in the hundreds of thousands, are at risk of 
losing their jobs due to the nationwide decrease in travel. In 
Maryland, tourism is a $7.7 billion industry. It means jobs for our 
people and revenues for our State and local programs. While we are 
moving vigorously to encourage travelers to come to Maryland this fall, 
a decrease in tourism is expected in the State, as it is nationwide. 
While it is crucial that we provide support to airline workers at this 
time, we should also remember the plight of the hundreds of thousands 
of other workers across the State of Maryland and the country whose 
livelihood may be affected.
  The terrorist attacks of September 11th were intended to create fear 
in Americans and our way of life, including air travel. This 
legislation will help to ease fears about air travel and the state of 
our economy by strengthening our airport security system. In this 
regard, I urge the Senate to pass this legislation expeditiously.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Miller). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________