[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6881-6882]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          FAA REAUTHORIZATION

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I had the opportunity to meet this afternoon 
with unions representing different airline entities. I also met with 
the owners and operators of airlines. We have a real problem on our 
hands. Fuel costs are now approaching 50 percent of the costs of our 
commercial airlines--50 percent. It used to be that the No. 1 cost, of 
course, was labor, personnel, but that is not the way it is. It is 
approaching 50 percent.
  We are spending billions and billions of dollars, and most of that 
money is going to places we would rather it not go, to countries that 
have certainly nondemocratic forms of government, and a number of them 
are doing some very bad things with the money we are sending.
  We are going to approach this FAA reauthorization to try to direct 
attention to some of the issues we read about every day: 3,000 flights 
being canceled, airlines flying with improper equipment. We are going 
to do our very best to have a good debate. I hope we

[[Page 6882]]

can proceed to this legislation. It is something that is so important 
for us to do as a country.
  Mr. President,the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the FAA 
reauthorization bill--I will again remind everyone--will be at 5:30 
p.m. on Monday.

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