[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Page 3804]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        FAA REAUTHORIZATION BILL

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I agree with the Republican leader that it 
is important that we get the FAA bill done as soon as possible, but I 
would just have everyone reflect--when we were in the majority, we 
tried to bring up the FAA bill, and that went on for weeks and weeks, 
with unnecessary filibusters. The FAA came to a screeching halt.
  As we have said, if you are a responsible minority, you work to get 
things done. That is what we have done. We have worked hard with the 
majority to come up with an FAA bill we can support. So I hope everyone 
understands that obstruction doesn't work. We understand that. That is 
why we have tried to be as collegial as we can be on legislation.
  I just finished my ``Welcome to Washington'' this morning. A little 
boy asked me: How do you get things done?
  I said: Well, you know, things in Congress are done just like in 
life. I have had the good fortune in my time in public service, my time 
in Congress, to be able to have things with my name on them, bills that 
have passed, but I have never ever gotten something that I wanted--it 
was always a compromise. We always have had to compromise to get 
something passed.
  Frankly, that is the way life is. Life is a time where we work with 
people to try to get along to work things out. That is the way things 
used to be done here, but with the untoward obstruction during the 
Obama years, it has been difficult to get things done.
  So I agree that the FAA bill is something we need to pass. As I have 
said, we are constructively working with the Republicans--those on the 
other side of the aisle--to get things done.

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