[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Page 2745]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           UPCOMING BUSINESS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, when we finish this legislation, we hope to 
move to the Federal Aviation Administration legislation. We have had 
all over Capitol Hill--I am sure the Presiding Officer has had people 
from Oregon visit with him--people who run airports. They want this FAA 
bill so very much. Why? Because you would have to search hard for an 
airport in America that doesn't already have the design plans ready to 
do work on that airport. As soon as we pass this FAA bill, there will 
be lots of jobs. The first year, they estimate that as many as 150,000 
jobs will come from our passing this legislation. There are runways 
that need to be resurfaced. There are all kinds of terminals that need 
to be built and refurbished. They are waiting to do this. More 
importantly, it will make American air travel much safer. I won't go 
into a lot of detail here, but most countries now use global 
positioning systems to determine where their aircraft are. It is 
modern. That is the way it is. Not in America. We are still using World 
War II radar. This legislation is very important. We are going to try 
to get to that very quickly.
  We are going to do the jobs message from the House. We are going to 
do small business.
  I had a long conversation with the distinguished Senator from Maine, 
Ms. Snowe, who used to be chairman of the Small Business Committee and 
now is ranking member. We talked at some length. She is anxious, as we 
are, to move to this legislation. As I told her, don't think you are 
alone on this. I get calls from the White House several times a week 
about moving forward on another small business jobs package other than 
the one I just discussed.
  We have a lot of work to do. We are trying to work out our 
differences with the House on the health care bill. We will be able to 
do that. There will be a decision made shortly as to how we will 
proceed on that.
  I look forward to the week. It is a heavy schedule legislatively, but 
I think we are ready to do that. With all these important matters, it 
is very important that we return here next week with the anticipation 
that we will do some work to help America.
  I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, it appears we are 
breaking through and getting more done on a bipartisan basis. I 
certainly hope that is the case. Simply saying no, as has happened the 
last year and a half, has accomplished nothing for the country.

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