[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 2947-2959]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          TAX ON BONUSES RECEIVED FROM CERTAIN TARP RECIPIENTS

  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senate now proceed to Calendar No. 36, H.R. 1586, and that once the 
bill is reported, I be recognized to offer a substitute amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the bill by title.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 1586) to impose an additional tax on bonuses 
     received from certain TARP recipients.


                           Amendment No. 3452

               (Purpose: In the nature of a substitute).

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Rockefeller] proposes 
     an amendment numbered 3452.

  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the 
amendment be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I am very happy to be here this 
afternoon with the most excellent ranking member of the Commerce 
Committee, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, to lay down our 
Transportation bill, and in so doing we say that our transportation 
system is at a crossroads, and not a comfortable one.
  For decades, the Federal Aviation Administration has done an 
excellent job of operating the world's most complex airline system. 
Nobody else comes close. The system has served us very well. Not only 
is it the safest airspace system in the world, it is a critical 
component of the national economy. I cannot overstate the importance of 
a vibrant and strong aviation system. It is fundamental to our Nation's 
long-term growth--from the largest cities to the very smallest of 
towns--because it connects our citizens and it connects our businesses 
with the global economy.
  Increasingly, however, our air transportation system and the FAA--the 
Federal Aviation Administration--are strained beyond capacity. Our 
skies and airports have become plagued with congestion and delay, and 
what is more, on a pretty regular basis. Over the past decade, we have 
seen passengers delayed for hours on runways, and we hear about it. 
During peak times, such as the holidays, the system is often 
paralyzed--stopped. Disruptions at just one key airport--maybe JFK, 
maybe O'Hare, maybe Los Angeles, should they be in trouble at any one 
of those places--can quickly cascade throughout the entire system.
  With airline capacity cut, these delays can easily extend to days for 
passengers who cannot find flights with empty seats because the 
capacity has been reduced. Our constituents are frustrated about flying 
and, frankly, rightly so.
  When our economy recovers, and I believe that growth has slowly 
begun--we shall see--congestion and delay will only get worse. The FAA 
predicts that commercial air traffic will increase by nearly 50 percent 
over the next decade. Putting that in other terms, from our current 
level of 700 million passengers a year, it will be well over a billion 
passengers per year. In a complex system as ours, everything has to 
work so the possibility of a meltdown of the air traffic control system 
may in fact become a reality and this will put passenger safety at 
extreme risk.
  These are not the only troubling signs; there are more. While 
aviation has an excellent safety record, as I have indicated, the 
Federal Aviation Administration and the industry's focus on safety and 
vigilance in maintaining it as the highest priority, has come into 
question--the question of safety. The grounding of thousands of 
aircraft throughout the system in 2008 raised questions about the 
quality of airline maintenance practices and the FAA's ability to 
provide sufficient oversight of air carriers.
  The tragic accident of flight 3407 has exposed problems with pilot 
training,

[[Page 2948]]

crew fatigue, and the ability of the industry to assure the traveling 
public that there is one level of safety throughout the entire system, 
and that does not exist.
  For all these reasons I stand here, along with my distinguished 
colleague, and encourage my colleagues in as strong a fashion as I can 
possibly muster to move forward and pass S. 1451, the FAA Air 
Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act. I will only 
say that once.
  I want to spend a few minutes discussing how and why we have made so 
little progress in addressing the issues facing our Nation's aviation 
system. In 1999 and 2000, the aviation system was experiencing the 
worst congestion and delays in its history. There was, indeed, a 
growing recognition that fundamental change was needed. Nonetheless, I 
worked with Senator Lott to author Vision 100, in effect the 2003 FAA 
reauthorization bill. This bill laid the foundation to build a modern 
digital satellite-based air traffic control system. We created the 
joint planning and development office and authorized a significant 
increase in FAA's capital budget to meet the specific air traffic 
control modernization needs--a lot of what I say will be based on 
that--an increase based upon the administration's own budget requests.
  But instead of investing in the system in 2004, 2005, and 2006, the 
previous administration proposed dramatic cuts in the FAA's facilities 
and equipment, the F&E account, the account that funds air traffic 
control modernization.
  The urgency of 2000 understandably but regrettably waned as air 
traffic fell after 9/11. Today we find ourselves in a similar 
situation. The recession has prevented widespread delay--temporarily. 
We must not let this temporary reprieve keep us from taking action to 
address these concerns once again. Our economy has begun, as I 
indicated, to slowly turn around and I am confident that demand for air 
travel will soon begin to grow. If we do not act quickly, our system 
will simply not have the capacity to cope with the growth in demand.
  That is where you get in trouble. I believe everyone in aviation 
recognizes the need to modernize our national air transportation system 
in order to meet the growth in passenger traffic. In addition to 
creating much more capacity, a new satellite-based air traffic control 
system, an ATC system, will allow airplanes to move more efficiently by 
taking more direct routes, being able to be closer to each other but 
without danger. These improvements will save our economy millions of 
dollars annually.
  Most importantly, the next generation air transportation system, 
which we refer to as ``NextGen,'' will dramatically improve the safety 
of air transportation by providing pilots and air traffic controllers 
with better situational awareness. They will be able to see other air 
traffic and detailed weather maps in real time. President Obama clearly 
recognized the value of investing in our air transportation system and 
this is, in fact, reflected in his fiscal year 2011 budget request. The 
administration has proposed spending a total of $1.1 billion in fiscal 
2011 on the NextGen program, which is more than a 30-percent increase. 
That is not in line with the so-called freeze. So it is a 30-percent 
increase over 2010.
  We oversee all of transportation--trains, cars, airplanes, trucks, 
whatever you have. I will say at this point for the record that the 
same financial requests or needs for the Surface Transportation Board, 
which interacts with railroads and shippers, has not been increased 
sufficiently. It is $31 million and it needs to be closer to $44 
million. These efforts, however, are only the first steps in a long 
journey. Modernizing the ATC system will require sustained focus and 
substantial resources. S. 1451 takes concrete steps to make sure that 
the FAA accelerates the NextGen--that is the modern system--programs, 
and that the agency implements modernization efforts in an effective 
and efficient manner over the long run. The FAA estimates that NextGen 
will cost the agency $20 billion through 2025, and the airlines another 
$20 billion in aircraft equipage--how they, as individual airplanes, 
respond and react to that system so it can work.
  I have worked with Senators Inouye and Baucus to reach a deal that I 
believe moves us in the right direction. S. 1451, the bill under 
discussion, will create a new subaccount with the aviation trust fund 
to fund FAA's modernization efforts. This modernization subaccount will 
dedicate $500 million annually to NextGen efforts. I appreciate the 
hard work of my colleagues on this provision, to develop it, to make it 
become possible.
  I wish to spend some time talking about the highest priority in 
aviation and that is called safety. Statistically, the United States 
has the safest air transportation system in the world. I indicated 
that. But statistics do not tell you the whole story. It has been a 
little more than a year since the tragic crash of flight 3407 in 
Buffalo, NY, that took the lives of 50 people. It is clear from the 
National Transportation Safety Board investigation that we need to take 
serious steps to improve pilot training, address flight crew fatigue, 
to make the cockpit isolated from extraneous conversation, and reform 
air carrier employment practices. I commend Senator Dorgan in 
particular for the work he has done to promote the safety in the 
aftermath of this accident. He has attached himself to this cause 
ferociously.
  The committee's work has prompted the FAA to initiate a number of 
activities to improve aviation safety. The agency has been able to get 
many air carriers to make voluntary commitments to implement important 
safety measures and the agency has committed to initiate new 
regulations on flight and duty time regulations in coming months.
  Despite this progress, our work remains far from complete. We must 
also make certain that the FAA remains as vigilant on other safety 
priorities--the oversight of airline operations and the maintenance, 
reducing runway incursions, and air traffic controller staffing issues. 
Just as with modernization, we must make sure the FAA has the tools and 
the resources to accomplish these safety objectives.
  I am especially proud of the safety title we have developed and 
included in this bill, S. 1451. This title will do the following, in 
part: address pilot fatigue by mandating the FAA revise flight and duty 
time limitations based on the latest in scientific research; ensure one 
level of safety exists throughout commercial aircraft operations by 
requiring that all carriers adopt aviation safety standards. The bill 
also requires stronger safety oversight of foreign repair stations, 
which is a very controversial subject. They are a relatively small 
percentage of air maintenance. Most of it is done in this country. But 
there is some argument as to how well it is done overseas.
  These are critical measures that will help us identify safety issues 
and prevent problems before they occur and this is the best way to 
address safety.
  A word on small community air service. The State I come from is not 
large. In fact, it is small and it is rural. But it is important and it 
is a good place. We need to keep America's small communities connected 
to the rest of the world. If one lives in a rural State or in a rural 
part of a rural State, one is no less important than if one lives on 
Fifth Avenue in New York City. The nature of the individuals may be the 
same, the entrepreneurship may be the same, but access to international 
aviation or transcontinental aviation is not the same. The continuing 
economic crisis has hit the United States airline industry very hard. 
They are in and out of bankruptcy. We have all read about that. They 
are cutting back on things they offer that they used to offer in flight 
and do not now. We grump about it but there is a reason they do that so 
I don't grump about it, and this affects the future of hundreds of 
rural communities across our country.
  In their effort to cut costs, air carriers have drastically reduced 
service to small or isolated communities. From a business point of 
view, I guess that makes sense. From my policy point of view, that does 
not make sense and it is not fair. They are the first routes to go, the 
rural ones. They go in tough economic times, and that is

[[Page 2949]]

where we are right now. The reduction or elimination of air service has 
a devastating effect on the economy of a community. Having adequate air 
service is not just a matter of convenience but also a matter of 
economic survival. Without access to reliable air service, no business 
is willing to locate their operations in these areas of the country, no 
matter how attractive the quality of life. Airports are economic 
engines that attract critical new development opportunities and jobs.
  The Federal Government needs to provide additional resources and 
tools for small communities to help them attract adequate air service. 
Our legislation does this by building on existing programs and 
strengthening them. Authorizing funding for the Essential Air Service 
Program is increased to $175 million annually. The bill also extends 
the Small Community Air Service Development Program--incredibly 
important for small airports. This program has provided dozens of 
communities with the resources necessary to attract and retain air 
service.
  In conclusion, when I began work on this bill, I had four simple 
goals: No. 1, take steps to address the critical safety concerns--that 
was always No. 1 and always will be; No. 2, to establish a roadmap for 
the implementation of NextGen and accelerate the FAA's key 
modernization programs; No. 3, make certain we adequately invest in 
airport infrastructure; and, No. 4, continue to improve small 
communities' access to the Nation's aviation system.
  I believe we have worked hard in a truly bipartisan fashion with 
Senator Dorgan, obviously Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison from Texas, 
Senator DeMint from South Carolina, to develop a bill that I think 
advances these goals and which all of my colleagues can support.
  This bill is not being held up. There is a reason for that. We worked 
out our problems early. This bill takes the steps needed to advance the 
system. The FAA must be provided with the tools, the resources, and the 
clear direction and deadlines to make sure the agency provides 
effective oversight of the aviation industry itself.
  I think we all recognize the United States must significantly expand 
the capacity of our Nation's transportation system. There are no quick 
or easy solutions to the problem, and I believe our situation is going 
to get worse before it gets better. But we do have to take the actions 
we can right now. We cannot ignore the aviation system anymore.
  We cannot float on nice memories of a glorious past. The United 
States is losing its position as a global leader on aviation. The 
American public is not happy with the aviation system or with us. We 
must move boldly, just as we have with our investments in high-speed 
rail, or risk losing our leadership in the world.
  Given the challenges our Nation's aviation system faces, we must act 
now to pass S. 1451, the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and 
Safety Improvement Act.
  Is it the order that the Senator from Texas will have the floor?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken.) There is no order to that 
effect.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Business as usual.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Correct.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I yield proudly to the Senator from Texas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the distinguished chairman of the committee, 
and I wanted to say, as the ranking member of the Commerce Committee, I 
believe this FAA reauthorization bill is a very good, solid bill. It is 
very bipartisan, and we have worked through many of the sticky issues 
that have held up the long-term extension of FAA reauthorization.
  I think this is a bill that most everyone on this floor will support 
if the bill stays as it has come out of the committee. I want to say 
also that I believe the Aviation Subcommittee chair and ranking 
members, Senators Dorgan and DeMint, deserve a lot of credit for this 
bipartisan bill as well because it does provide a solid roadmap for the 
direction and future of our aviation system, and its enactment is long 
overdue.
  So I very much appreciate--as a matter of fact, Senator Rockefeller 
and I had been the chairman and ranking member of the Aviation 
Subcommittee when this bill was written. Then we both went to the full 
committee, chairman and ranking member slots, and so we have now two 
new Aviation Subcommittee chair and ranking members who have also done 
an excellent job.
  So I feel strongly about this bill and how much it is going to do for 
the stability of our system. When you are looking at the reason for an 
FAA reauthorization bill, you have to have stability. We need to 
improve aviation safety. We need to modernize our air traffic control 
system, which is known as NextGen. We have to do that.
  We are behind the rest of the Nations in the world that have major 
air traffic control systems in this modern age. If we are going to keep 
up with the added traffic in our airspace, we are going to have to have 
NextGen. This bill does provide the way forward on that.
  We need to make the investments in infrastructure where there is a 
knowledge that this infrastructure support will be ongoing.
  I am the former Chairman, Vice Chairman--actually Acting Chairman as 
well--of the National Transportation Safety Board. So I know the 
crucial mission the FAA has in overseeing our Nation's airlines and the 
aviation system.
  Aviation safety and the public trust that go along with it is the 
bedrock of our national aviation policy. We cannot allow for any 
degradation of safety to the flying public. I believe this bill goes a 
long way toward achieving that goal. While I continue to have great 
confidence in the safety of our aviation system, it was made obvious 
that there is still room for improvement after the tragic crash of 
Colgan flight 3407 in Buffalo, NY, last year.
  Despite the remarkable safety record of the U.S. aviation industry, 
that accident reminds us that we must remain vigilant and always look 
for ways to improve our safety system.
  While tremendous strides have been made in aircraft technology and 
maintenance practices in recent decades, little has been done to 
address the human factors side of the safety equation in areas such as 
pilot fatigue, quality of pilot training, quality of pilot experience, 
commuting and pilot professional responsibility.
  Over the course of a year, and through six Commerce Committee 
hearings regarding the aftermath of the Colgan accident, we worked in a 
bipartisan manner to craft proposals to address these human factors 
issues.
  During these hearings, the family members of those lost in flight 
3407 were there every step of the way. I applaud their continued 
activism for improving aviation safety.
  A few of the safety improvements that we call for in this legislation 
include mandating the FAA complete a rulemaking on flight time limits 
and rest requirements for pilots; improving safety for helicopter 
emergency medical service operations; addressing inconsistent 
application of FAA air worthiness directives by improving the voluntary 
disclosure reporting processes to ensure adequate actions are taken in 
response to reports; and limiting the ability of FAA inspectors to work 
for air carriers over which they have oversight; also conducting 
independent reviews of safety issues identified by employees; requiring 
enhanced safety oversight of foreign repair stations; taking steps to 
ensure ``one level of safety'' exists in commercial aircraft 
operations, including a mandate that all carriers adopt the Aviation 
Safety Action Programs and Flight Operational Quality Assurance 
Programs.
  This legislation would also require air carriers to examine a pilot's 
history for the past 10 years when considering hiring an individual, 
and annual reporting on the implementation of NTSB recommendations and 
reevaluating flight crew training, testing, and certification 
requirements.
  Another priority and centerpiece of this bill is focusing on and 
expediting the FAA's air traffic control modernization program, known 
as NextGen. The FAA operates the largest

[[Page 2950]]

and safest air traffic control system in the world. In fact, the FAA 
air traffic control system handles almost half the world's air traffic 
activity. The United States is a leader in developing and implementing 
new technologies to create a safer, more efficient airspace system.
  However, today's air traffic control system is not much different 
from that used in the 1960s. This system is still fundamentally based 
on radar tracking and ground-based infrastructure. NextGen will move 
much of the air traffic control infrastructure from ground-based to 
satellite-based by replacing antiquated, costly ground infrastructure 
with orbiting satellites and onboard automation. By doing so, the FAA 
will be able to make our aviation system more safe and efficient while 
also increasing capacity.
  Some of the modernization provisions in the bill include establishing 
clear deadlines for the adoption of existing global positioning system 
navigation technology.
  Airports: Finally, the bill would also increase our Nation's 
investment in airports. As we all know, you can have the best planes 
and the best air traffic system, but they mean nothing without the 
proper airport infrastructure in place. Our Senate legislation is 
different from the House-passed bill in several areas.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues on the bill this week. 
If we are able, and I hope we are, to pass a bipartisan, commonsense 
FAA reauthorization bill, we will still have a long way to go. But it 
will be an important step toward improving our aviation system and 
improving aviation safety for the millions of air passengers who should 
expect no less from this Congress.
  I do hope we are able to keep the bill pretty much intact. I know 
there are amendments that some Members will have. I urge Members who do 
have amendments to come to the floor and begin to let us see their 
amendments so they can offer them and we can begin to address the 
amendments and try to expedite the bill as much as possible.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first of all, I am pleased with the work 
the chairman and ranking member of the Commerce Committee have done. I 
am chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee and have worked closely with 
them to produce a piece of legislation that I think is bipartisan, is a 
very important and urgent piece of legislation that will strengthen 
this country's system of air travel. I want to talk some about that 
today.
  A couple of things this legislation will do. I am not going to repeat 
everything my colleagues have said, but it will advance aviation 
safety, which I think is very important. It will accelerate the 
modernization of the air traffic control system. It is going to support 
jobs by investing in aviation infrastructure; that is, airports and 
runways and the kinds of functions that accommodate our air travel 
system. It will ensure that our rural communities in States such as 
North Dakota, my home State, have continued access to the Nation's 
aviation system.
  So I am very pleased with this bill. Since the last FAA 
reauthorization bill expired in 2007, the Congress has passed 11 
separate extensions of this law. There was a suggestion that we pass 
another 1-year extension, which I opposed. We do not need to extend 
this; what we need to do is pass new authorizing legislation that 
addresses the fundamental issues that we need to address with respect 
to air travel in this country.
  The Federal Aviation Administration is charged with operating what I 
think is the world's most complex airspace system in the world. By and 
large, they do an outstanding job. The United States has the safest 
skies in the world. There is no question about that. But we have seen 
changes in the aviation industry, in the airline industry, that have 
impacted safety, and we need to take action to deal with and address 
it.
  The FAA predicts that air travel in this country will increase by 50 
percent in the coming decade. That brings it to probably 1 billion 
passengers a year. That is a big system, a system that is very strained 
at this point. As the economy recovers, we will see substantial 
increases in demand.
  As we do that, we desperately need to modernize this system. Let me 
describe the circumstances of commercial air travel, and then I am also 
going to talk about general aviation.
  I learned how to fly many years ago. I was not much of a pilot, so I 
did not keep it up. But I learned how to take off in an airplane and go 
fly up someplace and land. It is an extraordinary feeling. It is one of 
those moments in life that you never forget, when your instructor gets 
out of the plane and says: All right, now you go fly the airplane by 
yourself. When you take off wearing this metal suit with an engine, you 
think: Oh, my gosh, it is pretty unbelievable to be able to fly an 
airplane.
  General aviation, people flying their own planes around for 
recreation, for business, is a very important part of our air travel 
system. I wish to talk about that at another time during this 
discussion.
  Commercial aviation is the companies that put together the structure, 
the capital and the airplanes and then haul people around the country 
and the world at scheduled times and places. That is very important. It 
is significant that in many areas of our country now, such as in my 
home State, Bismarck, ND, when you go out and see that strip of runway, 
maybe 6,000, maybe 8,000, maybe 10,000 feet of runway, you are one stop 
away from anyplace in the world. Because you take off on that runway 
and one stop later change a plane and go to South America, go to 
Europe, go to Asia, you are one stop away from the world. That is what 
air travel has done for us. It is extraordinary.
  Go back to the origins of commercial air travel. Airplanes were used 
originally to haul the mail. Go all the way back to December 17, 1903, 
when Orville and Wilbur Wright left the ground for the first time. It 
was only 59 seconds, but what an extraordinary achievement. They 
learned to fly. They didn't just learn to fly that day. They had tried 
700 times, again and again and again and again, continually failing 
until one day at Kitty Hawk the engine took hold. The pilot was lying 
on the fuselage of this rickety-looking structure, and they flew above 
the ground in powered human flight for 59 seconds. It was quite an 
extraordinary achievement.
  It was not too long after that, having decided we can shape a wing 
that can allow us, with power, to escape gravity and fly, we were 
flying in combat. American pilots were in Europe flying in combat. We 
began flying mail with commercial airplanes. Then you could only fly 
during the daytime because you couldn't see at night. So you couldn't 
fly an airplane at night because where would you land. As they began to 
haul the mail, what they began to do was to build bonfires every 50 
miles or 100 miles, big old fires. Then a pilot could fly in the dark 
of night toward a fire and land. So you hauled the mail at night. Then 
when they decided they could do something better, they put up light 
stanchions and shined lights into the sky. So the pilot would fly to 
the lights flashing into the sky.
  Then they invented radar. Then you have ground-based radar so we can 
determine here is an airplane in the sky. We can direct that airplane 
and put a light on the runway. All that changed air travel 24 hours a 
day, during the daylight hours but also at night. Ground-based radar 
was extraordinary. So if you get up in an airplane today, there is 
going to be a control tower someplace. In your cockpit, you will have 
perhaps a transponder. Your cockpit from that airplane is going to send 
a signal. You have 125 people who are riding in the back, and you are 
sending a signal that goes to a control tower and is on a screen. It is 
a little dot on the screen that blinks, and that is your airplane, 
except all that does is say: Here is where that airplane is right this 
nanosecond. But in the next nanosecond, that airplane is somewhere 
else, especially if it is a jet. All we know is, at this moment, the 
airplane is here, and for the next 7 or 8 seconds, as the sweep goes 
around on the monitor, that airplane is somewhere else,

[[Page 2951]]

perhaps 1 mile, perhaps 8 miles away, but the airplane is somewhere 
else. We know about where an airplane is based on ground-based radar. 
Because we don't know exactly where it is, we space those airplanes for 
safety and have them fly certain routes for safety.
  Contrast that ground-based radar with your child. Your child has a 
cell phone. If your child has the right cell phone at this moment--and 
there are cell phones with this technology--your child can ask 10 of 
their best friends, do you want to track each other of our whereabouts 
with GPS. If the friends say yes, 10 of them could decide to link up 
with cell phones and figure out where their friend Mary is or where 
Lester is, and the GPS will tell them exactly where Mary and Lester are 
because they have their phones with them, so we know exactly where they 
are. Our kids can do that with GPS with cell phones. We don't do it yet 
with commercial airliners. Isn't that unbelievable? That is what this 
is about, modernization, next-generation air traffic control, ground-
based radar to GPS. It is complicated. It is difficult. But it is where 
we are going. We are not going there in the next 20, 30, 40 years. We 
want to go there soon. I have met with the Europeans and others. They 
are moving in exactly the same direction.
  Here is what it will allow us to do. If we know exactly where an 
airplane is, as we know where a car is with GPS--a lot of people have 
GPS in their vehicles and get directions from it, so you know exactly 
where that vehicle is at every moment--if we do that for airplanes, we 
can have more direct routing from one city to another and less spacing 
between planes because we know exactly where they are. We save energy. 
We have less pollution in the air. We get there faster. It does all the 
things that are advantageous for everybody.
  It is called NextGen, next-generation air traffic control 
modernization. We could have extended this bill for another year, as 
some wanted to do, but instead what I wanted to do, and what my 
colleagues, Senators Rockefeller and Hutchison and others want to do, 
is to get about the business of getting this done, modernizing our air 
traffic control system, bringing it into the modern age. That is what 
this is about.
  I will describe briefly what we do with that. We set up timelines on 
such things as Required Navigation Performance, and the Area Navigation 
or RNAV system at 35 airports must be completed by 2014. We will create 
circumstances where the entire national airspace system is to be 
covered by 2018. We ask FAA to study providing best-served status for 
those providing the right equipage for their planes and come in with 
GPS, best equipped, best served. We create a NextGen officer at the 
FAA. It is a new position to help guide and create these programs for 
modernization. We are doing all these things. It is so important we 
complete them and truncate the time with which to complete them.
  The other issue that is important is the issue of aviation safety. We 
have worked a lot on that. I have done now eight hearings on aviation 
safety, especially focusing on issues we have now discovered from the 
Colgan Air crash, which tragically killed 50 people in Buffalo, NY. The 
Colgan crash raised a lot of questions. Let me describe the 
circumstances.
  As I do, I think I speak for all my colleagues on the committee that 
the relatives, the families of those who were killed in the Colgan 
crash have made it their mission to be at every hearing, to be involved 
in every decision about this issue of air safety. God bless them. The 
fact is, their diligence and work is making a difference. It made a 
difference in this bill. There are provisions in this bill as a result 
of their diligence and concern.
  Let me describe the circumstances of that particular crash. It was an 
evening flight in weather that was not so good, with icing conditions 
for an airplane. They were flying a propeller airplane called a Dash 8. 
Colgan flight 3407, 2 pilots, 2 flight attendants, and 45 passengers 
lost their lives, and one person on the ground. It was a Bombardier 
Q400 airplane, operated by a captain and copilot.
  What we discovered in reviewing the circumstances of that crash was 
quite extraordinary. The pilot had not slept in a bed the two previous 
nights. The copilot had not slept in a bed the night before. The pilot 
commuted from his home in Florida to his duty station at Newark in 
order to begin flying. The copilot flew from Seattle, WA, deadheaded on 
a FedEx plane that stopped in Memphis, TN, and then continued on to New 
York in order to reach her duty station at Newark, an all-night flight. 
There is no evidence, the night before the flight, that either the 
pilot or the copilot did anything other than stay in the crew lounge, 
and there is no bed there. For the pilot, it was two nights, no record 
of him sleeping in a bed. So you have two pilots who commuted long 
distances just to get to work without any evidence that they had a 
night's sleep in a bed prior to the flight and were on the airplane.
  If you read the transcript of the voice recorder, a series of 
problems existed in that cockpit. There was not a sterile cockpit below 
10,000 feet, which is supposed to be the case. There was visiting about 
careers and a range of things as they were flying through icy 
conditions, violative of the regulations. The copilot, it is said, was 
a young woman who worked two jobs in order to make ends meet.
  The copilot was paid something in the neighborhood of between $20,000 
and $23,000 a year, commuting all across the country just to get to 
work. When they ran into icing conditions, there was a stick pusher 
that engaged, a stick shaker as well. It turns out there had not been 
adequate training with respect to that. A whole series of things 
occurred with respect to that flight that raise lots of questions about 
training, about fatigue, a whole series of things.
  As a result of that, just that case to try to understand what does 
this mean for others, what does it mean for regulations that are 
necessary. Randy Babbitt, new head of the FAA, someone for whom I have 
great respect, has just finished a rulemaking on fatigue. I believe 
that now exists at the Office of Management and Budget, awaiting action 
by OMB--a step in the right direction, in my judgment.
  This bill has another piece that needed to be done that we discovered 
as a result of this crash. The pilot, over the years, had failed a 
number of competency tests and then subsequently succeeded or passed 
those tests. But nonetheless, he had a number of failures. The airline 
that hired that pilot didn't know that because the records were not 
transparent. The airline has since said, had we known that record of 
failures, that pilot would not have been hired by us. But they didn't 
know. This legislation will correct that. When you are hiring a pilot, 
you will know the entire range of experience that pilot has had, 
including the tests and the passage or failure of certain competencies 
along the way. That is a very important provision in this piece of 
legislation.
  Pilot training and experience is another issue we are talking about 
and working with. It is not an irrelevant issue. There is supposed to 
be one standard and one level of safety with respect to airlines.
  Regional carriers are now carrying 50 percent of the passengers in 
our country. They get on the airplane, and they see the airplane, and 
it is painted Continental or US Airways or United or Delta, but that 
may not be the company that is flying that airplane. It may be 
Pinnacle. It may be Mesaba. It may be any number of other regional 
carriers. The passenger doesn't know. All the passenger sees is what is 
marked on the side of that fuselage. This legislation will also require 
information on the tickets of who is transporting that passenger.
  There are a number of things this legislation does in the area of 
safety that are very important. We prohibit the personal use of 
wireless communication devices and laptop computers in the cockpit. We 
all remember the pilots who were flying to Minneapolis and flew well 
into Wisconsin, well past the city of destination, and didn't know 
where they were, apparently. They indicated they were busy visiting

[[Page 2952]]

or they were busy on their laptop computers. But whatever the 
circumstances, while it is, in many cases, an airline requirement that 
they not do that, there is no FAA requirement that personal use of 
wireless communication and laptops in the cockpit is prohibited. We do 
that.
  We also require enhanced safety oversight at foreign repair stations. 
That also is very important. The outsourcing of maintenance, repair, 
and overhaul work is now a routine practice. Much of it is outsourced 
in this country by the major carriers, and our legislation will require 
enhanced safety oversight and inspections with respect to that 
outsourcing.
  So those are a few of the items that are included in the bill.
  I should also point out this bill includes the passenger bill of 
rights, which I think is important. I have just mentioned a couple of 
the provisions, but one of them that has gotten the most attention is 
to say: You have a requirement as an airline and you have a right as a 
passenger not to be stuck on an airplane for 6 hours, sitting out on a 
runway somewhere. This is a 3-hour requirement, as part of the 
passenger bill of rights. They are not going to be able to keep you on 
an airplane 5 or 6 hours, sitting on a runway, waiting in the middle of 
a big storm. Three hours: back to the gate and allow the passengers to 
deplane.
  We also have substantial amounts of airport improvement funding here. 
This authorizes the AIP. It streamlines what is called the passenger 
facility charge, the PFC. We provide greater flexibility of the use of 
the PFC.
  We improve the airline service in small community service provisions. 
Some communities in this country rely on essential airline services 
called EAS, which is the way for them to get the services they were 
guaranteed when we deregulated in this country, which is, by the way, 
another subject for perhaps another day. Although I again say, as I 
have said on the floor previously, deregulation might have been a 
wonderful boon for those who live in very large cities and travel to 
other large cities. If you do, you are given a lot of opportunity. You 
are given many opportunities for different carriers and different 
pricing. I would bet if we left the floor at this moment and decided to 
go to one of these search engines and buy a ticket from Washington, DC 
to Los Angeles, in order to visit Mickey Mouse at Disneyland or we 
decided we will have two alternative tickets: We will purchase one from 
Washington, DC to Los Angeles to visit Mickey Mouse or we will go to 
Bismarck, ND, which is only half as far, to see the World's Largest 
Holstein Cow sitting on a hill over New Salem, ND, called Salem Sue. So 
the choice: to go twice as far to see Mickey Mouse or go half as far to 
see the World's Largest Holstein Cow--I will bet the search engine on 
the computer will tell us we get to pay half as much to go twice as 
far, and twice as much to go half as far.
  So think of that. You get to pay half price to go double the miles or 
you get to pay twice the price to go half the miles. Yet that is the 
kind of circumstance we have in our country today. The higher yield 
tickets are on the end of a spoke in a hub-and-spoke system, where 
there is little or no competition. So we are not addressing that. It 
was just therapeutic for me to talk about that again. We are not 
addressing that on the floor of the Senate today. But it is something I 
think is of great concern. Because if you are flying from Chicago to 
Los Angeles, you have plenty of competition, plenty of price 
competition and opportunities to get better prices. That is not the 
case for a number of small States on the back end of a hub-and-spoke 
system.
  Well, there are many other provisions. As I indicated earlier, I am 
going to speak some at another point on the subject of general aviation 
because while we focus a lot on the issue of commercial aviation, 
general aviation is a very important part of this country's air travel 
system. The folks who live out on a farm some place and have a small 
airplane in a shed--from those folks, to people who fly corporate 
planes and move people around so they can leave in the morning from 
Washington, DC, and fly to Los Angeles, down to Dallas, and get back--
that is general aviation and a very important part of our air travel 
system. I am going to talk about that at some point later.
  Let me again say I think we have at last, at long, long last, put a 
piece of legislation together that avoids some of the controversy of 
past attempts, that will substantially improve infrastructure, 
substantially address the safety issues. I will talk a little later 
about pilot hours and some related issues we have been talking about 
that we hope would be in a managers' package.
  But all of these things I think finally bring to the floor in this 
bill a victory for those who want to modernize the system. I know there 
will be some amendments. We have not addressed some issues that are in 
the House bill. But our concern is to try to get a bill through the 
Senate, into conference with the House, and get something signed by the 
President to get something done. We will be dramatically advantaged as 
a country if we can enhance the efforts in a shorter period of time to 
modernize the system and go to a completely different air traffic 
control system called NextGen, which works off of the GPS system. It 
will save energy, create safety in the skies, and allow people to be 
transported more directly with less time. I think it will be very 
positive for our country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Pryor). The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I withhold that suggestion.
  I did want to make one additional point. I did not do this when I 
talked about the issue of the Colgan tragedy. The larger question is 
not addressed directly in this legislation. We address many of these 
issues, but we do not address the larger question of commuting.
  I want to show, if I might, something Senator Rockefeller and I and 
others have used in the Commerce Committee. This map describes where 
the Colgan pilots commute from. But do you know what. This chart could 
probably have been describing almost any regional airline or any trunk 
airline or major airline, for that matter.
  Pilots live in one part of the country and work out of another part 
of the country. The fact is, with respect to this tragedy, the Colgan 
crash, I am convinced that mattered. I am convinced that flying through 
difficult nighttime icy conditions--with two pilots, neither of whom 
had slept in a bed the night previous--I am convinced this kind of 
commuting has caused significant difficulties.
  There was a Wall Street Journal piece that pretty much says it all. 
This was an veteran pilot describing the routine of commuter flights 
with short layovers in the middle of the night, which is pretty 
typical. He said:

       Take a shower, brush your teeth, pretend you slept.

  That is something we have to pay some attention to. I am not 
suggesting today that you cannot commute. We do not in this legislation 
prohibit commutes. But I think these are instructive pieces.
  As shown in this picture, this is what is called a crash pad. I was 
completely unaware of a crash pad until we began to hold these 
hearings. But this is a pilot watching a movie on his computer at a 
crash house in Sterling Park, VA. They can have up to 20 to 24 
occupants at a time. They are designed to give flight crews from 
regional airlines a quiet place to sleep near their base airports. Many 
cannot afford hotels so they use crash houses where the rent is $200 a 
month for a bed.
  When I described the copilot of the Colgan tragedy--a copilot who is 
making $20,000 or $23,000 a year, traveling across the country, all 
night long, if that copilot had traveled the day before, are they in a 
situation to be able to purchase a hotel room at an airport when they 
are making $20,000 or $23,000 a year?
  In fact, I believe there is a substantial cargo operator that pays 
for hotel rooms for their pilots who come in the night before. I do not 
believe there is an airliner that does that. But I did not

[[Page 2953]]

make the point during the Colgan discussion. I wanted to make the point 
that I think fatigue, commuting, and other issues, are serious and 
significant.
  I know Administrator Babbitt believes as well that we need to 
continue to look at these issues. We need to visit with pilot 
organizations and others to understand how we might see if we can 
reduce some of the risks here. We have a safe system of air travel, to 
be sure. But the Colgan crash and all of the details and circumstances 
of it should remind us not everything is as it seems, and we need to 
take action from time to time to address some of those important 
issues.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Amendment No. 3453 To Amendment No. 3452

(Purpose: To reduce the deficit by establishing discretionary spending 
                                 caps)

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have an amendment, No. 3453, at the 
desk, and ask that it be called up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Alabama [Mr. Sessions], for himself and 
     Mrs. McCaskill, proposes an amendment numbered 3453 to 
     amendment No. 3452.

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, briefly, I will call my colleagues' 
attention to this serious bipartisan effort with Senator McCaskill of 
Missouri to contain our penchant in this body to violate or manipulate 
the budget and spend more money than we intend to spend. Sometimes we 
are our own worst enemies, and Members of both parties have been guilty 
of that.
  I originally offered a very similar amendment that adopted the budget 
amounts passed by this Congress, our Democratic leadership, and would 
have made those amounts that we said would be our top spending 
amounts--the budget maximum. It would have set a statutory cap at those 
levels and say if we were going to violate those limit, it would take a 
two-thirds vote to do so.
  A number of senators were concerned about it, but it received broad 
bipartisan support. When we voted, 56 people voted for it--4 short of 
the 60 necessary to be adopted. But I thought it was a positive step, 
and I know Senator McCaskill felt it was, too.
  I believe we can dispute how much we ought to spend, but one of the 
biggest dangers and problems the Senate confronts--and often fails to 
meet--is breaking our own budget. This amendment would have made it 
harder to break the budget, and 56 Senators voted for it.
  Then we listened to our colleagues because people were saying: This 
year, Jeff, I believe we have to do some things that we may not have to 
do in the future--and that we do not want to do in the future--but this 
year our economy is in such a state that we can't be so limited.
  So Senator McCaskill and I proposed another amendment that we voted 
on, which would have exempted this year and made it a shorter bill. We 
would remain under the normal budget rules for this year and would 
therefore not be creating the power to block additional stimulus 
legislation a number of Senators were concerned about. Frankly, I felt 
that was a compromise we could make. I would have preferred to have had 
it apply to this year, but I understand that concern and we made that 
change. So 59 Senators voted for it--1 short of the necessary vote to 
make it a part of the legislation.
  So now, we listened again to some of the concerns we have heard from 
our colleagues. Senator McCaskill and I believe this bill, with the 
additional changes we made, will be the kind of legislation that could 
garner perhaps very broad bipartisan support and could actually make it 
into law. It would significantly help us honor the budget process. It 
would send a positive message to the world markets and our financial 
world because some rightly think we have lost our spending bearings and 
we are spending crazily here. We could send them a message that we have 
a budget out there that you may or may not like, but at least we are 
not going to bust it wide open and we will be more faithful to those 
limits. It would suggest less of a danger of massive deficits than we 
have had over the last 2 years.
  What were the changes we made? Well, we exempted emergencies. In 
other words, some people felt we may need to pass emergency legislation 
and that a two-thirds vote--67 votes--is too much, and they would 
prefer to be able to pass emergencies by 60 votes. So we have 
acquiesced and put that in there. If a Senator is proposing 
extraordinary spending, they would have to openly state that it was an 
emergency, advocate for that, and the current law would still be in 
effect then. It would only take 60 votes to declare an emergency.
  We made another change, one that I kind of hate to do but I am not 
unwilling to do. We would exempt year 2014, so it would only be a 3-
year statutory cap on spending. Some people said: Well, we don't know 
what will happen in 2014. We may be in better financial condition. We 
won't have to contain our spending to the budget levels we passed last 
year, and we could do it in that fashion. I think that is all right. I 
really accept that if it helps us get the votes necessary.
  So now we have 3-year legislation that does not change the law with 
regard to what is an emergency. We could violate the budget if it is an 
emergency, and we would have the votes to do it, but I still think it 
would be a good deal harder to take basic spending levels and break the 
budget on those. Technically, you could declare it an emergency. Most 
anything with 60 votes could be an emergency, but I think most Senators 
have some conviction that we shouldn't abuse the emergency spending 
level.
  We will leave the emergency spending definition with the same number 
of votes, but the basic spending of our country needs to be within the 
budget caps. Remember, this is the level of spending a Democratic 
majority voted to pass last year. I voted against it. I thought it had 
too much spending in it, particularly last year. This year's spending 
was also too much, but the outyears had pretty tight budgets with 1 or 
2 percent spending increases. The Congress and the Senate voted for it, 
and I think if we live with that, we might surprise ourselves to see 
that it would create a positive impact on the size of our deficit.
  I am confident we are moving in the right direction. Again, it is a 
statement to ourselves if we pass this legislation. It is also a 
statement to the world markets that we are going to be less likely to 
violate our budgets in the future and more likely to contain our 
spending increases to levels that are acceptable.
  I would note one more thing. President Obama, in his State of the 
Union, announced a freeze over the next 3 years, and he believes that 
in our discretionary spending accounts--which is what this essentially 
covers--we should actually have a freeze. I intend to support him on 
that. But this bill does not call for a freeze. It allows for a modest 
increase of 1 to 2 percent consistent with last year's budget.
  I will just say that we should and hopefully we will pass a budget 
this year that has a freeze in the discretionary accounts. But if we 
don't or if people attempt to break it and go above it, at least we 
would have a stronger high ground from which to defend budget-busting 
legislation.
  This is a bill that deserves bipartisan consideration, and I think it 
has gotten bipartisan consideration. I know 18 Democrats and every 
Republican voted for it last time. We have listened to the concerns of 
some of our Members, and we amended the legislation to be more

[[Page 2954]]

amenable to those concerns. I hope we can pass it.
  Let me say one thing that is an obvious matter of law. If 60 of my 
colleagues feel as though this is too restrictive, then they can pass a 
piece of legislation with 60 votes that wipes this out entirely from 
the books. It is mostly a self-imposed discipline. But it would be 
harder to pass legislation to wipe out the two-thirds vote level just 
because somebody has hard feelings that they didn't get enough spending 
in this or that bill as part of the normal governmental process. So I 
think it would be an effective tool. But as a matter of power in the 
Senate, make no mistake, this is not a two-thirds rule that would keep 
the Senate from doing anything. The Senate can pass legislation 
promptly to eliminate this statute any time we want to.
  I believe it will work. It worked before. In the early 1990s, such 
legislation was passed, and it was extended periodically, up through 
2002. From sizable deficits in the early 1990s, the spending was 
contained to much lower levels than we have adopted in recent years and 
it resulted in a budget surplus at the end of the 1990s. I am 
absolutely convinced a significant tool in the effective effort to 
contain spending and put our budget back in balance was the statutory 
limit on spending, consistent with what we voted for in a budget. That 
is what we are doing today. This is not new legislation, really, but we 
are fundamentally reestablishing the kind of legislation we previously 
had.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me just make a point. This is an 
authorization bill that is on the floor, the FAA reauthorization. We 
have waited a long time to get it here. We have had 11 extensions to 
get this bill to the floor.
  The Senator who offers the amendment certainly is allowed to offer it 
on this bill. Of course, his amendment really doesn't relate to passing 
an FAA reauthorization bill, so I hope he will withhold at some point 
and do this at another moment on another piece of legislation because I 
fear that--at long last, trying to get an FAA reauthorization bill 3 
years after it previously expired, with 11 different extensions, my 
hope is we can stay on the FAA reauthorization, have amendments that 
relate to this bill, debate them, and then vote on those amendments. 
That would be my hope.
  I understand the Senator has a right to do that. Somebody could bring 
an amendment on abortion or whatever somebody wants to the floor of the 
Senate on an open authorization bill. The Senator has had two other 
opportunities to offer this. I hope he will find a third at some point.
  The budget deficit is a very serious problem. We are on an 
unsustainable path. Let me give just a slightly different observation 
on the subject as long as I am on my feet.
  It is true that 10 years ago our country was running a budget 
surplus. It is true that 10 years ago we had a budget surplus. It is 
also the case that when President George W. Bush came to town, he said: 
You know what, we have a budget surplus. Alan Greenspan is not going to 
sleep at night, he said, because he worried that the surplus was going 
to pay down the Federal debt too fast. He literally said that. He 
worried about paying down the Federal debt too fast, so we need to be a 
little careful about accruing these surpluses. So President Bush said: 
What we need to do is have a very large tax cut.
  I stood here on this floor of the Senate and said: You know what, 
these surpluses exist this year only and the next 10 years of projected 
surpluses don't yet exist. They are simply projections. Let's be a bit 
conservative. What if something happens?
  They said: ``Katy, bar the door,'' we are going to do this anyway, 
and did it--very large tax cuts, very substantial reductions in Federal 
revenue. About 50 percent of the structural budget deficit at the 
moment is as a result of reducing the revenue base 10 years ago--9 
years ago.
  I said on the floor of the Senate: You know, let's be a little 
conservative. What if something happens?
  Well, guess what happened almost immediately. We passed the tax 
cuts--not with my vote--the majority of which, the bulk of which went 
to the wealthiest Americans. Very quickly, we discovered we were in a 
recession. Very quickly, there was an attack on our country on 9/11. 
Then we were in a war in Afghanistan and then a war in Iraq. We sent 
young men and women off to war and did not pay for one penny of it--not 
a penny. So we cut the revenue base very substantially. We experienced 
a recession, an attack against our country, engaged in two wars, sent 
men and women to other parts of the world to fight, and did not pay for 
a penny of it. We added it all to the debt and increased deficits.
  I happen to think the Senator's presentation about the danger of the 
deficits is very real. I agree with that. But in order to reduce these 
deficits--this is not rocket science--if we are going to send young men 
and women to Afghanistan to risk their lives, if they are going to get 
up this morning and put on body armor because they are going to face 
real live bullets, pay for every bit of it. Pay for it. Let's ask the 
American people to sacrifice, not just the soldiers. We are going to 
cut spending? Then let's really cut spending.
  I offered an amendment on the floor and lost it. I said: Let's cut TV 
Marti. I couldn't get it passed. TV Marti broadcasts signals into Cuba, 
spends $\1/4\ billion broadcasting television signals into Cuba that 
the Cuban people can't see. From 3 in the morning until 7 in the 
morning, we spend taxpayers' dollars broadcasting television signals 
into Cuba that Cuba blocks and the Cuban people can't see. We spent 
$\1/4\ billion, and we can't cut the spending? I don't understand that 
at all.
  The prescription drug amendment I offered on the floor of the Senate 
would have saved the Federal Government $20 billion in spending, and I 
lost it.
  If we are going to cut the deficit, we have to cut real things. When 
those things come to the floor and we have an opportunity to really cut 
spending, let's do that.
  By the way, it is not just spending. We need to work on spending, and 
I have offered amendments to cut spending, but it is also the revenues. 
I hope the Senator would agree with me that when the richest--well, let 
me rephrase that. When the person in America in 2008 who made the 
highest income--$3.6 billion running a hedge fund--when that person 
pays the lowest income tax rate, would the Senator agree with me that 
perhaps we ought to increase that rate?
  This person comes home, and his spouse says: Honey, how are we doing?
  He says: Well, pretty good--$3.6 billion.
  That is $300 million a month; that is $10 million a day. Honey, how 
we are doing?
  Well, pretty good. I made $10 million. But guess what. I get to pay 
the lowest income tax rate in the country because I declare it as 
carried interest.
  Do we want to plug that loophole and ask that person to pay the same 
income tax rate that the people who get up and go to work and then have 
to shower after work because they have dirt under their fingernails 
have to pay?
  How about making those changes? I am for all of those things. I want 
to work with the Senator from Alabama and every other Senator who wants 
to do all of these things.
  What happened at the start of this past decade is, somebody put sand 
in the gas tank and the car will not run and we are up in the engine 
department trying to figure out how the carburetor works.
  This is not difficult. You are going to go to war, pay for it. You 
are going to cut spending, then take a look at the most egregious 
abuses and pay for those by cutting the spending.
  Take a look at the history on this floor. We have been through a 
long, tortured decade of what I consider irresponsible fiscal policy.
  I understand it is not the case where one side is all to blame and 
the other side not. I understand all that. But I also understand this: 
I was on this floor saying: Let's pay for the cost of war. I did 20 
hearings on the most egregious waste, fraud, and abuse in this country

[[Page 2955]]

by contractors doing work in Iraq and Afghanistan. I spoke dozens of 
times on this floor on those issues and could not get much support: 
cutting spending for contractors who were abusing the American people 
by sending contaminated water--more contaminated than raw water from 
the Euphrates River--to the military bases in Iraq for the soldiers to 
use and getting paid for it; getting paid bonuses to do electrical work 
at the military camps in Iraq and Afghanistan that was so shoddy--done 
by third country nationals hired by our contractors--such shoddy 
electrical work that Mr. Maseth, a Green Beret, goes in to take a 
shower and he is electrocuted, killed in a shower. We paid bonuses to 
that contractor for that work. It is unbelievable to me.
  We have a lot to answer for--all of us do. Every single Member on the 
floor of this Senate has a lot to answer for. But we can work together 
on spending and asking those who are not paying their fair share of 
taxes--by the way, the President, when he gave his State of the Union 
Address in the House Chamber, said something I have had a vote on four 
times on the floor of the Senate and lost all four times. The President 
said: Let's shut down the tax break that gives tax breaks to companies 
that shut down their American manufacturing plants, fire their workers, 
and move to China or some other foreign country. Do you know we do 
that?
  We have tried to shut that down. We give a tax break. If you lock up 
your manufacturing plant, shut the plant, fire every single worker, and 
move your manufacturing to China, we give you a big, fat tax break for 
doing it.
  That is unbelievably ignorant. The President said in his State of the 
Union Address: Shut that down. I have been trying to shut that down for 
many years and have been unable to do it. It is not as if there are not 
candidates for some common sense and some sanity in fiscal policy to 
bring us back into some balance.
  We need a revenue base that is a reasonable revenue base. We took a 
lot of that away about 9 years ago with a vote that I did not cast. 
Then we need to tighten our belt on spending and get rid of the things 
that do not work.
  I know I have gone far afield, and the Senator from Alabama--I have 
not heard him gritting his teeth, but he probably is.
  My point is this: He raises an important subject--an unsustainable 
fiscal policy. This President inherited an economic wreck; there is no 
question about that. We are trying to get out of this. But you cannot 
look out 5 and 10 years and see what we see without understanding this 
is unsustainable and all of us have to work together to fix it--all of 
us. I am committed to doing that.
  I say to the Senator from Alabama, I hope he will find another 
vehicle in the next few days on which to offer this amendment because 
Senator Rockefeller and I have put together this FAA reauthorization 
bill along with Senator Hutchison. We have worked very hard after so 
many years to finally get it to the floor of the Senate. We want to get 
this bill passed. Air safety, modernization--all of it--depends on us 
getting this legislation through the Senate soon.
  I thank the Senator from Alabama for staying and listening. I expect 
he will retort or respond. Again, these are all important issues, but 
we must get this FAA reauthorization bill done.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Dorgan for his comments 
and the frustrations we all share. He comes at it from one party's 
perspective, and I have my party's perspective. We can argue these 
issues for a lot of time.
  I have gotten to the point--and I think Senator McCaskill and a lot 
of Members of the body have as well--that we need to do something that 
might actually work. I say to Senator Dorgan, the reason I believe we 
should go forward on this amendment is because the first time we had an 
amendment with 56 votes and bipartisan support. Then the last time it 
was 59. We made some more changes to primarily assuage concerns of my 
Democratic colleagues that Senator McCaskill still believes could put 
us in a position to pass this legislation. It will make some 
difference.
  I was at a townhall meeting. The questioner criticized me for 
something. I said: I wrote a letter about that to the Cabinet person 
and complained. He sat there and looked at me.
  He said: You wrote a letter. Thank you a lot.
  I didn't have much to say.
  At some point we have to do something. I have made speeches. Senator 
Dorgan, one of the most eloquent--Members of this body, has made 
speeches. But we are not doing anything. Deficits are surging beyond 
limits. We have a possibility of passage here and that is why I think 
we should go forward. We have the possibility of reaching this 
agreement that for 3 years will place in statutory form the budget my 
Democratic colleagues passed, which is higher than what President Obama 
is saying we should spend. We could at least have that as a firewall. 
It would be difficult to go above those amounts, but it would not 
eliminate or make it even any harder to pass an emergency bill because 
we amended our amendment to change that part we previously had in there 
that would have made it harder to declare something an emergency.
  One thing I would like to share with my colleagues--I see Senator 
Dorgan is gone--about the allegations, which are not all wrong, that 
President Bush and Mr. Greenspan were insignificantly concerned about 
deficit spending after we had a series of surpluses.
  But first, let me go back. One of the great political efforts in this 
Congress--and it has had some success and partisan success--is to give 
President Clinton credit for the balanced budget. Not a dime can be 
spent by any President that is not appropriated by the U.S. Congress.
  Republicans took over the Congress in 1994 and shut down the 
government in a dispute with the President over how much money he ought 
to be spending. It caused a big controversy. But they fought and fought 
against spending. People were sleeping in their offices. But the budget 
got balanced for several years.
  After 9/11, we slipped into a recession. We were in a war. As a 
matter of fact I heard Mr. Greenspan, in effect, say he believed the 
country could take on more debt. Senator Rockefeller probably remembers 
essentially that. He serves on many of these committees.
  He said: I think we can take on more debt.
  What Mr. Greenspan and, I think, Mr. Bush did not realize was that 
once you start taking on more debt, it gets harder and harder to stop. 
We started a trend of taking on more debt as if it did not matter. Some 
people even said deficits don't matter. Some Republicans said deficits 
don't matter; we can handle it.
  We got into a bad habit. Both parties got into that habit, and it is 
roaring away today with spending levels the likes of which we have 
never seen.
  We passed a budget that I think has reality in it. I think if we hold 
to that budget, we might surprise ourselves how much progress we can 
make. These kinds of statutory caps were part of the success in the 
nineties.
  I ask forgiveness of my colleagues for trying to pursue a vote on 
this amendment. I say to my colleagues, if we get the 60 votes I think 
it will be an indication that it would not in any way burden the FAA 
bill. In fact, it might be attractive to some Members of this Senate to 
vote for the bill if this cap was in it--Members who might not 
otherwise vote for it. I don't think it would damage the prospects of 
the bill's passage. This amendment is building up with increased votes 
each time. We are near to success. I think it would be a great 
bipartisan statement of commitment to financial responsibility, and I 
think it is important to go forward.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Levin). The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise in support of the FAA 
reauthorization bill that has been put forward by Senator Rockefeller 
and Senator Hutchison. Both have worked hard on

[[Page 2956]]

this legislation. I have worked on this legislation for a number of 
years as well.
  My general aviation industry is centered in Wichita KS. It has had a 
lot of difficulty lately with markets and the recession and problems 
overall, and it needs a bit of good news. This would be a bit of good 
news, having FAA reauthorization. This is an industry that is roughly 
$150 billion in size. It is located primarily in the United States. It 
has created over 1.3 million jobs. It is key. It goes across a broad 
array of disciplines. It is a high-tech manufacturing business that we 
are very good at. This is something we need to have.
  Implementation of the NextGen technology for navigation and travel 
across the United States is in the bill. Also in the bill is 
maintaining inspection procedures that are important for the safety of 
aircraft, increased funding for essential air service for a State such 
as mine that has a need for essential air service in places where it is 
tough to get in and out of and the population pool is not large. It 
needs that to move forward. It expands passenger rights and provides 
increased Federal support for small airports.
  I think it also important that this legislation does not include 
language imposing disproportionate and onerous user fees on the general 
aviation industry. This is something Senator Roberts and I have been 
concerned about for some period of time, that the general aviation 
industry would get stuck with a disproportionate share of the funding 
for the overall FAA infrastructure. That is not in the bill. If it 
comes back to this body from the House with that in the bill, it is 
going to be something I am going to fight strongly against.
  The bill is a good bipartisan bill. It has been worked out. It 
certainly is not perfect. No bill is. It is something that has been 
worked out over a period of time, over a series of years, over a lot of 
interests. It is the way we ought to legislate and move forward.
  I say as a cautionary tale again to my colleagues that if the bill 
comes back with provisions from the House that are problems for this 
body, it is going to stop the bill and it then is not going to happen.
  My urgings to my colleagues here and in the House would be, let's 
keep with the primary design of what this bill has and not try to load 
it with other things that might be special projects for individuals who 
are going to kill the bill. I have concerns on any side, whether it is 
on my side or the other side, of provisions being added that would kill 
this bill that has been a hard fought, long legislative process for us 
to move forward. It is a bipartisan piece of legislation. It will 
create jobs. It will spur further development in our Nation's aviation 
sector, a sector that needs some help and support now. This bill does 
that.
  I can see a lot of ways this bill could get damaged and hurt along 
the way. I am not opposed to putting amendments in that make sense and 
that can continue to move the bill on through the legislative process. 
I am opposed to those amendments that would kill it and that would 
substantially harm it when this is something that has been worked on a 
long time through several committees to get it moving forward.
  For those reasons, I support it. I support it as it is. I think we 
ought to move forward with it and move forward with it with some speed 
to help this critical industry in our country, to support safety in 
flying in this country, to support this legislation.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I would like to say a few words about the 
aviation trust fund reauthorization. I support the bill, and I strongly 
urge my colleagues to support it as well.
  In addition to discussing the bill's specifics, however, I would like 
to give some perspective about our current aviation system. Our current 
system relies on the use of radio detection and ranging--more commonly 
known as radar. Radar was once a tremendous leap forward; that is, it 
was a tremendous leap forward right before World War II. Let me take a 
couple moments to retrace the history of air traffic control, starting 
before radar.
  Before radar, pilots followed prominent landmarks, such as rivers or 
railway lines, to navigate their routes. Naturally, bad weather and 
darkness made flying especially hazardous. In the 1920s, commercial 
night flights relied on something called the transcontinental lighted 
airway. That is an impressive-sounding name. What was it? It was just a 
series of bonfires. Local farmers maintained those bonfires across many 
parts of America. More developed areas could use gas-fueled beacons.
  In 1922, the first civil aviation midair collision happened in 
France. That collision created awareness of the need for some sort of 
air traffic control. I use the word ``control'' loosely. It took more 
than another 10 years before this country's air traffic control center 
opened up in Newark, NJ, in 1935. The following year, additional 
centers went up in Chicago and Cleveland. Elsewhere, the system still 
consisted of flagmen standing on the airfield, waving flags to 
communicate with pilots.
  But all that changed with the establishment of radar shortly before 
World War II. During the war, radar gave the British an extraordinarily 
positive tool--a defensive tool--for repelling Luftwaffe attacks. Soon, 
the Allied Powers were using it for offensive purposes.
  Radar provided air cover at Anzio and Normandy. It enabled air raids 
deep into Germany, despite overcast skies, and it helped us disrupt 
Axis Power shipping routes and attack the Japanese Navy. We spent more 
during the war on radar than on the atomic bomb.
  No less an authority than German Grand Admiral Doenitz, when captured 
at the end of the war, said this:

       We fell behind technically. We were unable to build 
     shortwave RADAR to compete with Anglo-American improved radio 
     location equipment.

  Following the war, radar was adapted for civil aviation. Ultimately, 
it spawned the tremendous rise of the commercial air travel industry. 
Incidentally, this led Congress to properly fund aviation. In 1970, we 
established the airport and airways trust fund--commonly referred to as 
the aviation trust fund--and that is what we seek to reauthorize today.
  The aviation trust fund built on the success of the highway trust 
fund. The idea behind the aviation trust fund was for the system's 
users to pay for its upkeep. Generally speaking, the aviation trust 
fund has managed to do that, to finance the needs of the air-traveling 
public.
  The aviation trust fund receives about $12 billion a year in user-
based taxes. Much of this funding goes into the Airport Improvement 
Program. The airports in my State of Montana rely heavily on it. The 
Department of Transportation has estimated that every billion dollars 
spent in Airport Improvement Program funding creates or sustains more 
than 20,000 jobs throughout the U.S. economy.
  But now we need to do more. Our system needs modernization. We need 
to improve safety and efficiency. We need to enable direct routes, 
rather than flying along zigzag flight corridors, as we have since the 
transcontinental lighted airway, and we need to keep up with air 
traffic growth. Look at how bogged down our New York-New Jersey 
airspace already is.
  We need Continuous Descent Arrival to reduce the amount of fuel that 
aircraft burn. This reduces both cost and air emissions. During a 
recent test in Atlanta, Delta Airlines saved as many as 60 gallons of 
fuel and cut carbon emissions by up to 1,250 pounds for every flight.
  The Senate bill would fund the aviation trust fund for a little more 
than 3 years. Importantly, the bill would provide needed funds for the 
establishment of NextGen. NextGen is the Federal Aviation 
Administration's plan to use satellite-based technology in order to 
modernize the Nation's air traffic system. We need to invest in it now. 
Our 2010 trust fund, established in the early 1970s, is still funding 
radar. That is a technology that predates the Second World War. Some 
radar beacons are still located on the same sites as those early 
bonfire beacons.

[[Page 2957]]

  NextGen, however, will enable planes to use global positioning 
systems to continuously transmit location, speed, and altitude to other 
planes, pilots, and controllers within 150 miles. That will improve 
efficiency and safety. This is a sea change. A number of other 
countries have already invested in satellite tracking technology. The 
United States is behind the curve, and we can change that with the 
passage of this bill.
  How do we pay for NextGen? The Finance Committee proposes the 
following:
  First, we set the tax for general aviation jet fuel at 36 cents a 
gallon. That is up from the current 21.9 cents a gallon. The general 
aviation community agreed to this proposal.
  Second, we treat fractional aircraft; that is, partially owned 
planes; as general aviation rather than commercial carriers. Owners of 
fractional aircraft believe this change will preserve their ability to 
fly and land in Europe.
  All told, we raise nearly an additional $180 million to get NextGen 
started. More will be needed, especially given the rapid state of 
technological change. I know that both the Finance Committee and the 
Commerce Committee plan to monitor NextGen's implementation.
  We will have a pretty good debate this week. I look forward to it. 
But first I wish to thank my colleagues, especially Senator 
Rockefeller, for his willingness to seek common ground. We have worked 
together on this for a long time--actually, for several years. In fact, 
we had an agreement a couple years ago, but due to an extraneous event, 
it was unable to be realized.
  Senator Rockefeller has written a very strong FAA reauthorization. I 
especially appreciate his continued support for the Essential Air 
Service Program, a program that matters a great deal to my constituents 
in eastern Montana.
  So let us adopt NextGen to improve safety and improve efficiency. Let 
us reauthorize the aviation trust fund. It is time to bring American 
air travel into the 21st century.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                Amendment No. 3456 to Amendment No. 3452

 (Purpose: To reauthorize the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, and 
                          for other purposes)

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up 
amendment 3456.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Lieberman], for himself, 
     Ms. Collins, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Byrd, Mr. Ensign, and Mr. 
     Voinovich, proposes an amendment numbered 3456 to amendment 
     No. 3452.

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I introduced this amendment with a 
bipartisan group of cosponsors, Senators Collins of Maine, Byrd of West 
Virginia, Feinstein of California, Voinovich of Ohio, and Ensign of 
Nevada.
  Its purpose is to reauthorize--in fact, to save--the Opportunity 
Scholarship Program or OSP for students here in the District of 
Columbia.
  We are introducing our amendment to this legislation, and I use the 
word ``save'' because without prompt action by Congress, there is a 
reasonable probability that the OS Program, the scholarship program, 
will not just be limited to the number of students who are in it now--
and, in fact, there have not been any new students admitted in the last 
2 years--but it will be doomed.
  As I explained here on the floor of the Senate yesterday, the current 
administrator has advised Secretary Duncan that it will no longer--the 
administrator being a corporation, an entity--that it will no longer 
administer the program without a reauthorization.
  No other entity has yet expressed a willingness to take over, given 
the constraints imposed by Congress. So despite President Obama's 
intent, stated in his budget message to continue this program, 
admittedly only for those 1,300-plus students currently participating 
in it, it appears that even that will become impossible.
  I think that would be a tragic result. This program has given a 
lifeline for students in failing schools in the District of Columbia, a 
scholarship to go to private or faith-based schools where, by all 
accounts, they are receiving a much better education and being given 
the talents with which they can make something much greater of their 
lives.
  We first offered our amendment to the American Workers, State, and 
Business Relief Act, which was passed earlier today. I was proud to 
support that measure. It is good for the economy, good for people 
hurting in our economy, good for businesses hurting in the economy. 
Unfortunately, we were not able to get a vote on this amendment on that 
bill. As promised, we are here today again in another attempt to get a 
vote in the Senate on this issue. It is time sensitive. It is urgent. 
The life of this program hangs in the balance and, in a very real way, 
the future of these 1,300-plus children in the District who are 
benefiting from the program.
  The truth is, the FAA reauthorization bill has been referred to as a 
jobs initiative. I believe it is. What is more important to getting a 
good job than getting a good education? That is what this bill is all 
about.
  Achievement gaps in our schools, including our schools in the 
District of Columbia, have a profound impact on the quality of our 
workforce and on the future of our economy and, in a classically, 
characteristically American sense, focusing on the individual children 
who, by twists of fate, have ended up in schools that are not 
adequately preparing them. I will have more to say about this, but 
these are schools I am not just personally judging to be failing 
schools but, under characteristics, standards created by the Federal 
Government under the No Child Left Behind Act, are designated as 
failing schools. The OSP provides these low-income students in the 
District with a chance at a better education.
  Dollar for dollar, this program accomplishes this goal at a very low 
cost. Personally, how did I get involved in this? Of course like all of 
us, I have an interest in education. I have an interest in overcoming 
the achievement gaps in American schools that are so profoundly related 
to income and to race. More particularly, I have followed the status of 
this program in the District of Columbia for several years in my 
capacity as a ranking member and now chair of the Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs Committee because of the committee's traditional 
jurisdiction in its governmental affairs aspect over and regarding the 
District of Columbia, our Nation's Capital.
  Last year our committee held a hearing on the Opportunity Scholarship 
Program and heard testimony from students in the program and their 
parents. It was evident from their testimony that this program has 
served as a lifeline to many students who otherwise would have been 
assigned to schools in which they would not have received a good 
education, as designated by No Child Left Behind.
  One parent whose annual income is only $12,200 testified that she had 
sought an opportunity scholarship, a voucher for her 8-year-old son 
after her 17-year-old nephew was shot and killed at the Ballou High 
School. Her son since has thrived in the Opportunity Scholarship 
Program, loves his school and his teachers, is part of the reading and 
debate club, and now wants to be a doctor. His hopes have been 
fortified and elevated, and his achievement has been remarkably 
improved. This mother believes that none of this would have happened 
had her son been forced to stay in the school he was in in the DC 
Public School System.

[[Page 2958]]

  Another young man, Ronald Holassie, started in the Opportunity 
Scholarship Program in sixth grade. He is now a high school student. He 
told the committee the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program ``has changed 
my life.''
  Then he said:

       No one should take away my future and dreams of becoming a 
     successful young man. No one should take that away from me 
     and the other 1,700 children in this program.

  Now, because of the failure of Congress to support the program over 
the last couple of years or fill the spots opened by graduation, it is 
down to 1,300 children. Ronald Holassie became the deputy youth mayor 
for legislative affairs of the District of Columbia and is now applying 
to college. What he said was right. This program provides a quality 
education to economically disadvantaged students at half the per-pupil 
cost of educating students in the Public Schools.
  Our committee also heard from Tiffany Dunston. She told us:

       Receiving a scholarship was a blessing for my family and 
     put me on the path to success. I grew up in a neighborhood 
     with a lot of poverty and crime. And there were such low 
     expectations for kids in my neighborhood schools. I would 
     watch kids hanging out in the streets and not going to 
     school. . . . My motivation to get the best education 
     possible was my cousin James who was shot and killed at 17. I 
     am always thinking of what he could have done. . . . With the 
     help of a scholarship my dream [has been] realized.

  Those are very moving testimonies, personal anecdotes, affirmations 
of the worth of the program. But has there been an independent 
professional evaluation of the program? Yes, there has.
  Required by Congress, the person chosen to carry out that program is 
a man named Patrick Wolf, Dr. Patrick Wolf, the principal investigator 
of the valuation conducted by the U.S. Department of Education's 
Institute of Education Sciences. This is a report required by Congress, 
carried out by an institute under the U.S. Department of Education.
  Dr. Patrick Wolf testified that the Opportunity Scholarship Program 
has had a statistically significant, positive effect on the test scores 
of students in reading in this program.
  I know some of the critics of the program, some of the opponents have 
downplayed these results. However, the fact is, as I have learned, most 
education innovation programs actually fail to show any significant 
gains, certainly in the first few years.
  Dr. Wolf has said when compared to all other similarly studied 
education innovations throughout our country--not talking about the the 
District of Columbia--``the reading impact of the DC voucher program is 
the largest achievement impact yet reported.''
  He went on, the principal independent investigator, to say:

       The DC voucher program has proven to be the most effective 
     education policy evaluated by the federal government's 
     official research arm so far.

  So why stop it? Why terminate it? Certainly not based on this 
independent evaluation, certainly not based on the testimony our 
committee and others have heard from the parents and students involved. 
The reasons I leave to others, but I fear it is because of the 
opposition of teachers groups and others who don't want this kind of 
competition.
  In sum, Dr. Wolf's study used the gold standard of research 
methodology and found that the Opportunity Scholarship Program is 
getting very impressive results. Those who oppose OSP argue in part 
that vouchers take away funds from the public schools in the District. 
This is simply false. When it was adopted in Congress, to overcome the 
argument that it would take money away from the public schools, this 
program did exactly the opposite. We reached an agreement to get the 
votes to pass the program that whatever amount of money was given for 
the OPS, the so-called voucher program in the District of Columbia, 
exactly that amount of money would be added, not subtracted, to the 
public school budget of the District of Columbia. They otherwise would 
not have received that money for the public schools.
  Incidentally, a similar amount was appropriated for charter schools 
in Washington. Why? Because there is no one answer at this moment to 
the challenge to give every child endowed by our Creator, as the 
Declaration of Independence says, with an equal right to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness which, in our time, is very much equated 
with the right to an equal education. The fact is, previous Congresses 
have been prepared to support all three of these ways because they were 
focused not on a single method of educating our children but on 
benefiting each and every one of our children.
  I know some say these scholarships are not the solution to the 
problems that beset the DC Public Schools. I agree. They are not the 
sole solution. But they can and should be part of the solution, 
certainly, while the reform efforts of the chancellor, Michelle Rhee, 
are going forward and until they reach a turning point, a tipping point 
where the schools really have been broadly improved.
  I strongly support Chancellor Rhee's efforts to reform and improve 
the public schools in the District. I strongly support efforts across 
the Nation to improve our public schools. That is always where we will 
educate most of our children. That is always where we should put the 
greatest emphasis.
  Chancellor Rhee, with the backing of Mayor Fenty, has moved 
aggressively to turn around failing schools in the District. She is 
getting results. She certainly has my full backing when it comes to the 
reforms she is working to implement. But Chancellor Rhee has said 
something so honest, so compassionate, so fair, so focused on the well-
being of the children in Washington, DC, that, to me, it should end any 
argument against the amendment we are proposing.
  She has said herself, Chancellor Rhee, that the reform effort in the 
DC Public Schools is making progress but it is not going to happen 
overnight. As one of the students I just quoted said before our 
committee, the DC Public Schools did not get to the troubles they are 
in overnight, and they are not going to get out of the troubles they 
are in overnight.
  But Chancellor Rhee said this is a multiyear process. In the 
meantime, many District schools are failing our most economically 
challenged children. For this reason, Chancellor Rhee, Michelle Rhee, 
the head of the public schools in the District, has said the OSP should 
continue. I ask my colleagues, why wouldn't we want to use every means 
at our disposal to provide the best education possible to all children 
here in Washington, DC?
  Chancellor Rhee has been very explicit about this. She said that it 
may take 5 years to turn around many of the schools that are failing--
officially failing--to give a decent education to the students in the 
District of Columbia. She said, in a very personal and moving way, 
until she could say to parents of children who are in schools now 
designated as failing that they were no longer failing and the parents 
could be confident that their children would receive a good education 
in those schools, she would support the Opportunity Scholarship Program 
5 years. Based on that assessment, our amendment reauthorizes the OSP 
for 5 years.
  Our amendment also continues to ask for a rigorous evaluation of the 
merits of the program. At the end of the 5 years, we will have better 
information on both the effectiveness of this scholarship voucher model 
and the reform effort in the DC Public Schools. I want to suggest to my 
colleagues, at the end of this 5-year period, we can determine whether 
we want to continue to provide Federal support for these opportunity 
scholarship, school choice programs based on conditions at that time.
  Our reauthorization proposal includes a number of improvements and 
enhancements to the program, including many sought by my friend and 
colleague, Senator Durbin, the chairman of the Appropriations 
subcommittee that has in previous years funded the Opportunity 
Scholarship Program. Specifically, we require that all schools in the 
program have certificates of occupancy, that core subject

[[Page 2959]]

matter teachers have appropriate credentials and schools meet the 
accrediting standards of the DC Public Schools; that regular site 
inspections be conducted; and that participating students take the same 
test as students in District of Columbia Public Schools.
  There are currently 1,319 students benefiting from opportunity 
scholarships in the District of Columbia. I repeat that no students 
have been allowed in for the last 2 years because of congressional 
inaction. At its peak, 1,930 students were enrolled in the 2007 to 2008 
school year. Because no new students can enroll, enrollment declined to 
1,721 last year and then 1,319 this year. Last year, 216 students who 
were offered a scholarship had the offer revoked by the Secretary of 
Education of the United States because of failure to support the 
program.
  I want to repeat, over 85 percent of students in this program would 
otherwise be attending a school in need of improvement, corrective 
action, or restructuring--in other words, a failing school designated 
under the No Child Left Behind Act.
  In closing, I would say this: 1,319 is the number of students 
benefiting from the Opportunity Scholarship Program. If we do not 
reauthorize it, at this point there is no one to run the program and it 
probably will simply die. Those are 1,319 reasons to save this program 
and offer hope and opportunity to these young boys and girls in this 
city who want as much as any child in this country to live a life of 
success and self-sufficiency and deserve that right as much as any 
other child in the country.
  So I ask my colleagues to consider what we would want for our own 
children. All of us have the resources to essentially exercise school 
choice, and that is precisely what many of us do because we want the 
best for our children. But there are many parents around America--in 
this case, particularly, who live in our Nation's Capital, the place 
where we work--who have much more limited resources and also want the 
best for their children. They want to make a choice, which the 
Opportunity Scholarship Program allows them to make. So I appeal to my 
colleagues to take up this amendment. Let's have a vote on it, and 
let's act favorably on it to preserve this lifeline for a gifted and 
hopeful group of children in our Nation's Capital.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). The Senator from West Virginia.

                          ____________________