[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12282-12286]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE FAA REAUTHORIZATION

  Mr. BENNET. I thank the Senator from Alaska for allowing me to jump 
ahead in the queue. I will have a word to say about the issues raised 
by the Senators from Iowa and New York at the end, but I am rising to 
talk about an issue that is actually separate. I have been out on the 
floor week after week talking about the debt limit and debt reduction 
negotiations, but today I want to talk about another absurd and 
needless Washington-inflicted, what I can only think of as a mistake, 
and that is the partial shutdown of the FAA. This shutdown--while 
buried in the headlines--is affecting Colorado jobs and the economy 
across the United States. Unable to walk and chew gum at the same time, 
Congress's inability to resolve this impasse has caused the furloughing 
of thousands of workers nationwide and put at risk several very 
important summer construction projects at our airports in Colorado.
  Earlier this year, the Senate worked together to pass a long-term FAA 
reauthorization bill. This important bill, which I supported, will 
modernize our Nation's air transportation system and reduce frustrating 
and costly delays. The American people would be astonished to learn how 
antiquated our system is right now. But the House and Senate conference 
committee have been unable to finalize the bill.
  Last Friday, Congress failed to pass a short-term authorization 
measure to buy negotiators more time. Now certain FAA functions have 
been shut down. This shutdown makes absolutely no sense to the people 
in Colorado who rely on this industry for their livelihoods, their 
businesses, and travel.
  I know the same is true in Alaska. It is more than that. Colorado has 
a short summer construction season--probably not as short as Alaska's, 
but nevertheless short--and many airports set aside the summer months 
to complete much-needed improvement projects, so this shutdown has come 
at the worst time for them.
  In Loveland-Fort Collins Airport in Colorado, they are very near 
cancelling a planned runway improvement project. Loveland-Fort Collins 
is a one-runway airport. Officials had already canceled summer flights 
to accommodate a $7 million runway rebuilding project. Now they could 
be forced to shelve the project, which was bringing around 150 jobs to 
the area.
  At Pueblo Memorial Airport--by the way, keep in mind this is about 
Washington's dysfunction. There are not big policy debates here. It is 
Washington turning its back on the rest of the country once again. At 
Pueblo Memorial Airport, officials have said they may be forced to 
delay a $12 million runway rebuilding project.
  At the Durango Airport, officials are concerned that an ongoing $3 
million apron rehabilitation project--which currently employs 30 
Coloradans--will receive a stop-work order next week if Congress 
refuses to act.
  At the Denver International Airport, one of the crown jewels in this 
country, officials are concerned that the shutdown will affect 
scheduled concrete and asphalt work on a runway and maintenance on 
passenger loading bridges.
  These delays could affect the overall safety of Colorado airports and 
they are affecting jobs right now.
  Nationwide, an estimated 3,500 FAA workers began to be furloughed 
this past Saturday; 27 of these workers are in Colorado. They were 
either sent home or forced to work without pay.
  To his credit, Chairman Rockefeller recently introduced legislation 
that would allow the FAA to continue to pay those workers during the 
shutdown. I have cosponsored the legislation. I hope the Senate 
considers doing it today, but we need to do more than that. We have 
been asked to do more than the bare minimum by our constituents. We 
have gotten to the point around here where just keeping the lights on 
somehow is a success. That is a pretty low bar. It is a low bar to 
Heather Hilgers of Englewood, CO. She is an engineer. Airports hire her 
to complete construction projects so they can meet FAA safety 
standards. She wrote to my office:

       Next week, if there is no one to reimburse the contractor, 
     the job has to stop. The stall is affecting engineering 
     contracts. The visible impact would be the construction 
     contractors' jobs.

  Andrew Vogt of Denver, CO, is also an engineer. He wrote:

       It's a frustrating experience that this whole industry has 
     gone through. We are hoping a long-term solution can be 
     achieved in short order.
       As a professional engineer, certified construction manager 
     for airport improvement projects, there is literally no work 
     to do this year. . . . Put me back to work.


[[Page 12283]]


  Jeff Campbell, also of Engelwood, CO--these are not government 
employees, by the way. We are talking about private-sector employees 
whose jobs and expectations and salaries and plans for their families 
are being put on hold by the games that are being played here in 
Washington.
  Jeff Campbell, also of Engelwood, CO, is an aviation engineer who is 
involved with five projects that are being affected by the shutdown. 
One is the failing runway at Fort Collins-Loveland. He said 150 people, 
expecting to begin work next week, are about to be put on hold and the 
project will have to be rebid for the third time.
  A lot of people in Congress talk about putting people back to work. 
They talk about fiscal responsibility. But this delay is costing 
thousands of jobs and an estimated $30 million a day in lost revenue. 
If this shutdown continues, these losses could dwarf the entire yearly 
budget of the EAS Program, which some claim is holding up the bill. 
Congress must not allow the debate over our debt limit or deficit to 
prevent action on a short-term FAA extension. Such inaction only proves 
once again to the American people how broken this place is.
  It would be a terrible shame for Members of Congress to resolve this 
debt debate, adjourn, and board their planes home for recess without 
resolving this issue. What a slap in the face to people all across this 
country. On behalf of our constituents who make a much more forceful 
case than I ever could, I implore my colleagues and Members of the 
House to resolve this impasse and reauthorize FAA now.


                             The Debt Limit

  With the indulgence of the Senator from Alaska, I want to take the 
opportunity to say a word or two about this debt limit discussion we 
are having right now. We face enormous challenges in our country right 
now. Our economy is almost producing what it was producing before we 
went into this terrible recession, but we have 14 million people who 
are unemployed. The great productive American economy has figured out 
how to produce what it was producing before with fewer people. But we 
have not figured out how to put people back to work. My own view is 
that we need to look hard at our Tax Code, our regulatory code, and 
other things to make sure we are inspiring innovation and job growth 
here in the United States and we are not just shipping it overseas and 
saying it is too bad for everybody who is here.
  We are at the end of a decade when median family income has declined 
for the first time in our country's history. It never happened before. 
The cost of health care has gone up. The cost of higher education has 
gone up. It is harder and harder for the middle class in this country 
to survive. If you are a child living in poverty in the United States, 
your chances of getting a college education are 9 in 100 in the 21st 
century in the greatest country in the world.
  There are countries all over this globe that sense weakness, that are 
trying to out-compete us, trying to out-educate us, trying to out-
invest in their infrastructure while we play foolish political games. 
They are not waiting for permission from us to out-compete us.
  One of the single greatest assets this country has had since almost 
its founding has been our bulletproof credit rating. It has been the 
fortress that is our full faith and credit of the United States. 
Financial transactions all over the globe, spanning decades, centuries, 
have been financed based on the strength of our credit, the full faith 
and credit of the United States, and generation after generation of 
politicians has done everything they could to protect it, as any mayor 
in my State, as any superintendent of schools in my State, would do 
anything to make sure they protected the credit rating of their city or 
of their school district.
  Now we face, for the first time in our country's history, a threat of 
downgrade, a threat that our interest rates would spike. That is not a 
political observation; that is coming from the credit rating agencies. 
They are not politicians. What the math tells us is that every 1-
percent increase in our cost of borrowing adds $1.3 trillion to our 
debt over the next 10 years, making the problems we face today even 
harder to solve.
  The President knows I have supported for a long time a comprehensive 
approach, one that would actually make a meaningful difference to our 
debt and to our deficit, and I will continue to fight for it, as will, 
I know, the Senator from Alaska. But it is time for Washington to move 
past these political games and reassure our capital markets that we are 
not going to be the first generation of Senators to blow up our credit 
rating over politics, to reduce the full faith and credit of the United 
States to rubble--for politics. I don't want to be somebody who, 30 
years from now or 40 years from now where somebody comes and says: Hey, 
we detect you were once in the Senate, you were 1 of 100 people here 
when we compromised one of the greatest assets this country has.
  I implore the leadership of both parties, both here and in the House, 
to work this out. Then let's get on with the tough discussion we have 
to have about our debt and deficit.
  Mr. President, I thank again the Senator from Alaska for allowing me 
to speak ahead of him, and also for his leadership throughout this 
entire debate. He, like a number of us, has been working hard with 
Members across the aisle to try to get a bipartisan solution that is 
balanced and that makes sense heading toward the future. I thank him 
for his leadership.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. BEGICH. Mr. President, my friend and colleague from Colorado is 
always so passionate on the floor when it comes to the issues pertinent 
not only to his State and his country. He has laid out such a logical 
case on the debt of this Nation and why we need to deal with it. I will 
address the debt also.
  But I came down here, like the Senator from Colorado, to talk about 
the FAA reauthorization bill. I was not planning to come down. I was in 
my office. As Senators, we have lots of meetings, events, activities 
and photo ops--meet and greets, they call them. People come in and say 
hello and chit-chat take a few photographs with you. They are residents 
from your State.
  I was sitting there and having a great conversation with young 
people, four of them from Girls and Boys Nation here from the American 
Legion Auxiliary: Clara Farley, from Kodiak, Joseph Mueller from Healy, 
Derick Hanna from Palmer, and Marissa Torgerson from Anchorage. Then 
there was another young woman who was there, a young leadership 
student, Jocelyn Cayce from Juneau.
  You know, to have a ``photo op'' is what they call them. We shake 
hands and take some photos. It was interesting having this 
conversation. The first question they asked me was what was going to 
happen with the debt of this Nation. Before I elaborate on my thoughts 
and what I told them, I, first would like to talk about the FAA 
extension because they are both related. The FAA bill and what is going 
on with the debt is all related. It is related because of the House 
majority's inability to function and their inability to do their work.
  The FAA is a great example. I know the Senator from Colorado 
mentioned that the conference committee has not brought out a bill. 
What is amazing about this is the Senate appointed their conferees in 
April. For those who are watching, the way this works is the House 
passes a bill and the Senate passes a bill. They are not always exactly 
the same, so they go to a joint conference committee made up of Members 
from the House and Members from the Senate--Democrats and Republicans--
and they work out a compromise. The Senate appointed their Members to 
the conference committee in April. The House has not appointed anybody.
  The battle we are in is because of one person. There is one person 
who has decided that 4,000 people should be furloughed--about 80 in 
Alaska--to stop projects that are critical to the safety of air 
transportation. I can tell you

[[Page 12284]]

there is no other State that depends on air transportation like Alaska, 
with 82 percent of our communities not able to be accessed by road, 
they are predominantly accessed by air. For one person in the House to 
decide he wants to play politics with aviation safety because he 
doesn't like something--oddly enough, the items he wanted to eliminate 
are from States that are represented by Democrats and chairmen of 
committees. It is unbelievable.
  I did not come here 2\1/2\ half years ago to play those games. I came 
here to do the work the people of Alaska sent me to do. Part of that 
work was to make sure the Federal Aviation Administration actually has 
a reauthorization they can operate under because they haven't had it 
since 2007. I was elected in 2008. There have been 20 short term 
extensions of the FAA's authority while the House and Senate try to 
pass legislation and work out the differences. The Senate did pass a 
bill. We did our work. We did it, and we did it with a lot of debate.
  I sit on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee 
with jurisdiction over the FAA. Senator Rockefeller and Senator 
Hutchison, Democrat and Republican, worked in a bipartisan manner with 
all the members. The Senate passed our FAA bill. The House passed 
theirs, and now we are waiting for the House to appoint conferees. We 
are waiting for the House to do something. Not one person. That is not 
how this system should work. They need to appoint conferees so we can 
sit down and resolve these final minor issues. Instead the chairman in 
the House decides he knows best.
  Here is what happens: Yes, 4,000 FAA employees get furloughed all 
across this country. These are people who have mortgage payments to 
make and kids planning to go to college this fall, or maybe they are 
the only breadwinner in their homes--but 4,000 people are furloughed.
  There are 79 FAA employees in Alaska who have been furloughed. 
Compound that with the next piece of the equation. Part of the FAA 
reauthorization bill is to invest in our aviation infrastructure. I 
think I will hit 100,000-plus miles this year, maybe more, 125,000 
miles flying back and forth from Washington to my home State, visiting 
communities all across my State. I pay a small fee like everyone who 
flies does. We pay for our airline tickets and a portion goes to the 
FAA, who then invests this money into making our runways and our air 
traffic facilities safer. It is the people who fly who pay for our 
aviation system, and their money goes to the FAA to pay for the 
improvements that we use to make sure we fly safely. It is not 
complicated. Yet what is happening because the FAA doesn't have the 
authority to collect this fee, is the airlines and passengers are 
getting a tax holiday. That fee is important. I will get back to that 
fee and what has happened with that money.
  First, without that money, we cannot do airport construction 
projects. It is all part of the system. In Alaska it is a pretty 
important piece.
  In Bethel, a project now has a stop-work order issued by the FAA 
because they cannot complete the project without an extension. As my 
friend from Colorado mentioned, Colorado has a short construction 
season, and we have a very short construction season in Bethel, Alaska. 
We are trying to build a project that improves the approach lights to 
make it safer for people to land at the Bethel Airport. That project 
has been stopped. There is no other access to Bethel except by air. 
Bethel is 400 miles from Anchorage, the largest city in the State, by 
air. We cannot drive to Bethel. That project has stopped because the 
House hasn't passed a clean FAA extension.
  Another project makes seismic improvements to the air traffic control 
tower in Anchorage. People say it is just a tower, what does it matter? 
The tower is old. It needs improvements. It is not only important for 
Alaska and the people who would work on the project, it is important 
for this country. We are the third busiest air cargo airport--in the 
sense of cargo throughput--in the world. We move products that are 
produced in this country and around the world through Anchorage. If you 
are shipping something to Europe or Asia and you are west of the 
Mississippi, the odds are you are coming through Anchorage's 
international airport.
  Almost 700 wide-body jets fly through Anchorage every single week 
carrying cargo. It is the third busiest airport in terms of cargo 
throughput in the world. It is an economic engine. It is a job creator. 
I remember almost 25 years ago when the idea came from a couple of 
companies, FedEx and UPS. They said: We will look at Anchorage as our 
international hub because of its location. Today it is a robust 
facility and many other airlines cargo carriers use our airport 
facilities. It is huge.
  Instead of the House doing their job and appointing conferees to 
resolve this issue, one person in the House decided he wanted to play 
politics over the life-safety of our air traffic system, the Federal 
aviation system, and now that project is not happening. Not only are 
the 79 FAA employees furloughed in Alaska, but projects in Bethel and 
Anchorage are not moving forward. So that means the private 
contractors--it is not government employees who make these improvements 
and build lighting systems or remodel the tower. It is private 
contractors who employ people who then pay mortgages and buy cars and 
spend money in the economy and help our economy move forward. This is 
clearly a job-killing action. That is what it is. They will say some 
other reasons, but that is what it is doing. It is killing jobs, and it 
is hurting America.
  Again, it costs more because when the construction season in Bethel 
is over in the next month or month and a half, we don't get to come 
back in November and say we are going to finish this project. We can't. 
The weather conditions don't allow it.
  What will happen is, next year the costs will go up because the 
private contractor will have to remobilize--I hear a lot from folks on 
the other side over there in the House talk about the private sector. I 
am from the private sector. I don't know how many of those guys worked 
in the private sector, but I have. That is where I made my living, and 
that is how my wife makes her living, from the private sector. They 
spout off about how they want to support the private sector. Well, pass 
the FAA reauthorization legislation that the private sector supports 
and wants moved forward for the creation of more jobs and the 
opportunity to make our air safer.
  Again, it is astounding to me how dysfunctional the House majority is 
and how they are unable to do their work. They complained a lot earlier 
this year that the Senate doesn't do their job, and we are not doing 
our work. We are doing our work. We passed the Military Construction-VA 
bill. We passed the FAA bill. We passed several things. They go over 
there and they die. They go over there, and they have one person who 
decides they know best.
  A lot of those guys ran in 2010 on the effort to open government, 72 
hours to review bills, which is great. I have not seen it. They had 
some Rules Committee meeting earlier last night or whatever late night 
they did it to set the rules on what they are going to vote on in less 
than 12 or 13 hours. I am sure that has been notified to a lot of 
people. It is amazing they ran on the fact that they want to open 
government, the system is broken, and then it is so dysfunctional over 
there.
  The FAA bill, as I mentioned, these airlines collect fees that then 
go to the FAA to make sure all this happens. It is part of the fee we 
pay to travel. Now the FAA is not authorized to collect it, but what 
happened? Several of these airlines jacked up their fees to collect the 
money for their own. There is $200 million a week coming from consumers 
into the pockets of these airlines for their profit, not to improve the 
safety of the airports, which is what the money is supposed to be 
designed for. I will say Alaska Airlines--and I am proud to say Alaska 
Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, and Spirit Airlines are three examples of 
companies that did not do that. They did not jack up the price to the 
consumer for their own bottom

[[Page 12285]]

line. Also, remembering that those fees are for the purpose of 
improving airports and not improving the corporate profits or the CEO's 
million-dollar-plus checks they get at the end of the year for the work 
they do.
  The problem is--something like this happened many years ago--we are 
not going to be able to get those resources back to make sure these 
airports are safer.
  I, of course, implore the airlines to do one of two things: Lower 
those fares they jacked up or put that money aside and work with 
Congress to make sure that money goes into the fund to ensure that we 
improve these airports. I challenge every one of those airlines that 
have done that.
  As a consumer who is watching this issue, you should be appalled that 
$200 million a week that you thought was going to improve the airports 
you fly through, it is not. It is going into the pockets for profit for 
some of these companies. Again, I point out Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian 
Airlines, Spirit Airlines are a few of the only major airlines that are 
not doing that. I commend them for that. I commend them for doing the 
right thing by the consumer.
  I was originally coming down and going to talk--as I got inspired by 
the students sitting there--about the budget, but then I wanted to talk 
about the FAA. I want to get back to the budget.
  As I mentioned, these young people came to my office and asked the 
first question: What are we going to do about the debt? Great. It is 
the question of the day. What are we going to do? We can debate how we 
got here. Everyone got us here: Democrats, Republicans, current, past, 
everybody. We have a problem. We have a challenge. I know the Presiding 
Officer is new. You came here to solve problems, create solutions, not 
just play the politics and push it off for another day, but actually do 
some things. That is why people sent me here, and I know that is why 
they sent you here: to do the job the American people expect us to do--
I know Alaskans expect me to do.
  There is no question in my mind why we are here today. It is because, 
again, the House majority, I will point out, cannot do their job. They 
are unable to do their job. They are not dealing with reality.
  Do I want to add more debt to the Nation? No. No one does. As my 
colleague from Colorado earlier said--and I know the Presiding 
Officer--we have been working on ideas. One thing that is unique about 
the Senate is there is an effort here--it may not be as visible as the 
press would like to portray because they would like to see the battles, 
that is better press. There is a lot of bipartisan discussion going on. 
The Gang of 6, you can argue if that is good or bad, but the point is 
three Republicans, three Democrats sat down for months. In the Budget 
Committee, we sat down for months. We came up with proposals. We are 
talking to Republicans. Republicans are talking to Democrats. We are 
looking for solutions. We are trying to weed through this. The Senate 
is trying to do this. We are trying to solve this problem and create a 
solution that moves us forward. But there are several in the House 
majority over there who believe to drive off a cliff is good policy. I 
don't know, I don't think that is good policy. I would rather drive on 
the road, going somewhere. That is what we are trying to do over the 
next few days.
  As I think of the differences--and people say: Well, why don't you 
just take that deal or this deal? Here is the difference. They are 
fundamental. They are not complicated. The deal the leader, Speaker 
Boehner, has in the House is about $900 billion in reductions. It is 
short term. It has a joint committee to look to the long term. What is 
the Reid proposal? The Reid proposal, as it is now scored by CBO--the 
Congressional Budget Office, for those who are watching and wondering 
what all these things mean--is $2.2-plus trillion in reductions, almost 
2\1/2\ times more than the House version, and it is long term. Here is 
why that is important. I am not voting for anything short term. Let me 
make that very clear to the Presiding Officer and others who might be 
watching. If we want to disrupt and continue to disrupt this economy, 
keep doing these shenanigans and keep doing these 2-, 3-, 4-month 
deals, that is disastrous to this economy.
  I have heard and talked to business leader after business leader, 
from associations, to individuals, to people back in my home State, and 
they say over and over: Don't do short term. Whatever you decide, give 
us certainty--certainty.
  The unique thing about the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House: Only we 
would describe long term as 16, 18 months because that is all we can do 
around here. But short term, as one can imagine, is 3, 4 months. That 
would be more disruptive to this economy than anything we can imagine 
because all we do as we shift it--and I can describe this because I 
understand this business. I have been in it. My wife is in it. Here is 
what happens. We will have this same debate in November, probably. Here 
is what happens in November. This is the biggest time for people who 
are buying. For retailers, this is the most important time--actually, 
back to school a little bit, but November through December is when 
people make their expenditures and are buying things, consuming, and 
spending money in our economy. But people always like to blame 
Democrats: It is all about government. I come from the private sector. 
As I said earlier, that is where I made my living. It is an important 
part of our economy.
  So here we are going to debate, create more uncertainty at the most 
important time, when consumers are going to try to judge what to do. 
What do they do? Do they spend a little bit extra for a gift for their 
friend? Do they go on that trip they were planning? Do they make that 
extra expenditure? Yet we will have the same debate. So long term is 
important--again, 16, 18 months, but that is better than the short-term 
plan.
  No businessperson has come to me--and I challenge any businessperson: 
Pick up the phone. Call me. Let me know. Tell me you want a short term, 
and I will be happy to come down here to the floor and say that. I will 
mention your company name. I will tell people: This company is 
interested in short term. I would be happy to do that. I am not going 
to get those calls because they know that is not the way to run a 
business, that is not the way to run a household, and that sure as heck 
should not be the way we run our government.
  So there is a clear difference. For all of those people who--I get a 
lot of pro and con on this issue, calling my office, sending me e-
mails--for all of those people who say: Hey, just vote for the Boehner 
thing, I will tell them why I will not. I want people to understand 
clearly my position. It is not about, he is a Republican, I am a 
Democrat. That is irrelevant. It is short term. It is fewer spending 
reductions. It keeps us in turmoil. It doesn't move us forward. It is 
all about shenanigans and game-playing and politics. That is what he is 
presenting.
  Now, maybe the Reid proposal isn't perfect. I know there are 
Republicans who have some ideas here in the Senate who want to modify 
it. Great. But it is long term, it has more significant reductions, and 
it moves us down a path in the right direction. It is not perfect, but 
I can tell my colleagues that the idea they have over there will not 
work for this economy.
  I have probably spoken too long, but those kids from Juneau and Healy 
and Anchorage and Kodiak had a great question. When kids are asking 
that question and they say to me--and I give them the same exact 
presentation. I say: Here are the differences. I give them the papers 
and say: Here, you look at it. And they say to me: Why aren't we doing 
a long term, because these kids are now at an age where they are 
thinking about their future. They are not thinking about the next 
weekend; they are thinking about their future. They have a position we 
could learn a lot from around this place, I will tell my colleagues 
they made it very clear to me: Whatever you do, make it long term, 
because they are thinking about their future and where they want to be. 
It is an incredible commentary when we have kids who have more 
wherewithal in the sense of

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their knowledge of what should be done in the body we sit in today. It 
should wake us up.
  The last thing I will note is this. I think about what my colleague 
from Colorado said about the value of our position in this world when 
it comes to ensuring that people understand America will stand behind 
everything we do--the debt we do, the positions we take. As a matter of 
fact, it was so important, it was written into the Constitution that we 
should never question the ability to pay our bills.
  For those on the other side who like to spout off, and they pull out 
of their pocket the little portable Constitution--all of us get those; 
we all have those--and they cite the Constitution, sometimes they 
forget sections of it. I hope we don't forget this section. We should 
never be questioned in regard to our debt. We pay our bills. We stand 
behind what we do. That is what makes our country different from any 
country in this world.
  So I challenge them to get their job done, maybe on the FAA bill, 
maybe on this issue involving the debt, but the House needs to get 
their act together--the majority. Let me make that clear. The majority 
over there needs to get their job done, quit killing things over there, 
from jobs to legislation, and focus on the work people sent them here--
especially the group of 2010--but who sent me here and sent the 
Presiding Officer here--we were sent here to do a job.
  It is outrageous to me that we cannot move forward when it is so 
simple in the sense of a plan that gets us on a path that is long term 
and has better spending reductions. Maybe it is too logical. Maybe that 
is the problem around here: If it is too simple, too logical, it 
doesn't work. It has to be complicated with a lot of gamesmanship is 
the only way it works. I want to prove that wrong.
  I thank the Chair for allowing me the time to say a few words. 
Hopefully, the people who are watching us and listening will hear the 
real debate and cut through all the moment-in-time politicizing. Maybe, 
hopefully, they will hear those five kids whom I heard and will hear 
their concerns and what their position is.
  So, again, I thank the Chair for the time, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are in morning business.

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