Andean Trade Preference Extension Act of 2011

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, this week the Senate began a debate about nothing less than the future of this country. Next year we face a $1.65 trillion deficit, the third year in a row where the United States will run a deficit of over a trillion dollars. Even more daunting, we are over $14 trillion in total debt.

According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, the debt held by the public is projected to reach $18.3 trillion--or 77 percent of GDP--by the end of 2021. This is a problem that truly threatens the well-being of this Nation.

CBO projects that the cost of simply paying the interest on all of this debt will rise to $792 billion--or 3.3 percent of GDP--in 2021. When you are pushing $1 trillion a year in interest payments alone, you are reaching a day when the national government will not have the resources to accomplish even the limited mission delegated to it by the Constitution This is what ADM Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meant when he testified today that ``our debt is the greatest threat to national security.''

The President could have led on this issue, when he released his budget earlier this week. But he took a pass instead. Apparently he and his Democratic congressional allies have done some polling that tells them two things.

First, the American people are demanding that Washington tackle our annual deficits and skyrocketing debt.

And second, Democrats can benefit politically by standing aside, letting Republicans propose solutions to this problem, and then demagoguing the daylights out of any effort to restrain spending.

The coming debate is going to be a bruising one. But as we go forward, it is critical that we keep one thing in mind. We cannot get out of this hole by taking more of taxpayers' hard-earned money. Our debt and deficit problems exist because Washington spends too much, not because taxes are too low. It is a terrible idea to propose raising taxes by over $1.6 trillion on net over the next 10 years alone. Yet, that is exactly what the Obama administration's budget, released earlier this week, proposes.

I said it earlier this week, and I will say it again. This budget proves once and for all that our deficits and debt are not caused by our taxes being too low.

The President has proposed a net tax increase of over $1.6 trillion. Yet for next year--and every year--of his 10-year budget, he runs a deficit. At their best, the annual deficits dip to roughly $600 billion. Even after these astronomical tax increases, the President is still unable to balance the budget. And there are not many more easy targets for Democrats to tax.

In 2012, in a foolish attempt at class warfare, Democrats are prepared to let the tax rates expire with far reaching consequences for the small business owners who account for half of all small business flow-through income. Those small business owners would see their marginal rates hiked by 17 percent to 24 percent under this budget. In Obamacare they taxed medical devices, insurance plans, prescription drugs, small businesses, and individual Americans. The result--a surprise only to the most hardened ideologues--is the loss of 800,000 jobs according to the Congressional Budget Office. And yet they still can't balance the budget. So who else do they propose to tax?

The bottom line is that there isn't anyone left to tax, unless the President and his Democratic allies are willing to crush the middle class with additional tax burdens. There is only one way out. We need to restrain spending. As the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Congressman Paul Ryan, explained, we need to get spending in line with revenue, not the other way around. The analyses of the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, confirm this.

The CBO is the nonpartisan official scorekeeper for Congress. According to its January 2011 Budget and Economic Outlook, from 1971 to 2010, taxes have averaged 18 percent of gross domestic product, or GDP. So in recent history, we have had an average level of taxation of 18 percent of GDP.

Take a look at this chart that was made using CBO's January 2011 document. CBO explains that if no changes in law are made, taxes will go up to 20.8 percent of GDP by 2021, and will average 19.9 percent from 2012 to 2021. Taxes at 20.8 percent of GDP would represent a tax increase of 16 percent from their recent historical average.

CBO also states that if most of the provisions from the December 2010 tax act were made permanent, then ``annual revenues would average about 18 percent of GDP through 2021--which is equal to their 40-year average.'' So, according to CBO, even if all the Bush-era tax rates were permanently extended, taxes would still be high enough when measured against the level of taxation in recent history.

So, if taxes are high enough already, should we raise them anyway? I will go ahead and answer my own rhetorical question. Of course we shouldn't raise taxes any higher.

On August 14, 2008, Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee wrote a Wall Street Journal editorial. In that editorial, Furman and Goolsbee stated that Candidate Obama's tax plan would reduce ``revenues to less than 18.2% of GDP--the level of taxes that prevailed under President Reagan.'' Today, Austan Goolsbee is the Chairman of the Obama administration's Council of Economic Advisers and Jason Furman is the Deputy Director of the Obama administration's National Economic Council. The President must have missed their editorial, because his recently released budget ignores the campaign promises of these top officials, and raises taxes well above their historical levels. As one writer has put it, all of the President's campaign promises seem to come with an expiration date.

As this debate over the debt and deficits rages on, pay close attention to the words that Republicans and Democrats use. You will hear Republicans say that we need spending restraint. By contrast, you will hear Democrats say that we need to deal with the deficit.

Let's be clear. Dealing with the deficit is code for raising taxes. Liberal pundit after liberal pundit will pronounce confidently that you can't deal with the deficit solely with spending restraint. Yet they won't say why, and they won't explain how you can deal with the deficit and debt through tax increases. That is because they can't. If they came clean with the American people, they would have to admit that their intention is to raise taxes on everyone and everything.

As I have already shown, taxes are high enough already, and we should not be raising them even higher.

Yet the bottom line is that rather than dealing seriously with out- of-control spending, tax-and-spend Democrats want to raise taxes to pay for more out-of-control spending. And guess what: If we raised taxes to eliminate the deficit, the current levels of spending would just cause a new deficit to arise.

I have a chart here that demonstrates just how futile it is to raise the top tax rate if the goal is to raise more money. When the top tax rate has been raised over the years, taxes as a percentage of GDP still hovered around their historical average of 18 percent. This held true even when the top tax rate was raised to a confiscatory level of over 90 percent.

The conventional wisdom on the other side of the aisle is that we can simply raise more tax revenue by increasing tax rates. However, the history is pretty clear. This strategy simply does not work. Just take another look at this chart if you don't believe me. Instead of raising tax rates, what we need to do is implement a pro-growth tax policy. That starts with not raising taxes.

For 2 years, we were able to fight off tax increases on small businesses proposed by President Obama and congressional Democratic leadership. However, I have another chart here that shows the relationship between the annual growth of Federal revenues and GDP. As you can see from this chart, when GDP increases, Federal revenues increase. Similarly, when GDP decreases, Federal revenues decrease. This should not be a shocking revelation.

When the economy is growing, the government collects more money in tax revenues because there is more taxable income being earned. The key is to have commonsense, pro-growth tax and regulatory policies. And as I mentioned before, a pro-growth agenda starts with refusing to raise taxes. Part of the difference between Republicans and Democrats on whether to increase taxes comes from different ways of looking at the world. Conservative Republicans look at the money earned by the American people and understand that it belongs to the people. As free men and women, America's citizens have a right to the fruit of their own labors. Americans work too hard--they sacrifice too much--for Washington to blithely raise their taxes to pay for an ever expanding Federal Government.

Yet liberal Democrats have a different view. Listening to President Obama and many congressional Democrats, it is clear that they view the money earned by the American people as the Federal Government's money first. It is only by the grace of the Federal bureaucracy that citizens are given an allowance to live on. This is a huge difference. You hear it when liberals talk about the cost of tax cuts. The cost of tax cuts? Cost to whom? When Democrats talk like this, they are effectively saying that anything you earn is the government's to spend. And it is a cost to the government when they decide to let you keep your money. For most Americans, this is an odd way of looking at the world.

Government costs money when it spends trillions of dollars on who- knows-what. The taxpayer does not cost the government money when he keeps what he earns. Yet this liberal worldview was on clear display in the recent debate about whether to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax bills.

President Obama and many congressional Democrats said that we shouldn't be giving tax breaks to certain taxpayers. Since when did keeping your own hard-earned money constitute the government giving you anything? That is not how the American people view it. And it is not how I view it.

President Obama and many congressional Democrats viewed a failure to increase taxes as a giveaway to taxpayers that increased the deficit. Republicans view the job-killing tax increase with nearly 10 percent unemployment as a terrible idea. The way to deal with the deficit is not to raise taxes. The way to deal with the deficit is to live within our means, as families and individuals do across America. The Federal Government should only spend what it takes in.

The President and his allies like to say they inherited these deficits. That is only a half truth. They inherited some debt and deficits. But they have helped create much more. For example, nearly $1 trillion was added to our debt by President Obama's partisan stimulus bill. That bill was loaded with pent-up Democratic agenda items and was sold with the promise that it would keep unemployment below 8 percent. We all know that by the President's own standard the stimulus bill has failed miserably. Unemployment has been at or above 9 percent for the last 21 months. That stimulus debt was not inherited by President Obama, it was created by President Obama, and he is bequeathing it to all of our children and grandchildren.

The numbers do not lie. When Democrats took over Washington, it was like setting Homer Simpson loose at an all-you-can-eat buffet. For too long, the desire of unions and government workers and special interest groups to create new programs and grow the size of government had gone unfulfilled, and when they finally seized the reins of power in 2008, liberal Democrats went hog wild. Our Nation's deficit has gone from $161 billion in 2007, when Democrats took over control of Congress-- remember, they had 2 years before President Obama even got elected. The Democrats were in control of Congress. It went from $161 billion in 2007 to $1.65 trillion in 2011.

With respect to the debt, when congressional Democrats took over control of Congress in 2007, the debt was $8.68 trillion. It is now over $14 trillion. So when Democrats are talking about what a bad situation they inherited, let's remember that these folks have been in charge of Congress for the last 4 years. They acted as though the bills on their spending would never come due. And like a college student who maxed out his parent's credit card, Democrats are now looking for someone to bail them out.

Unfortunately, they are looking to the American taxpayers to foot the bill. This cannot happen. The American taxpayer is already overburdened. Citizens are not going to stand for tax hikes when spending restraint is called for. The bottom line is simple. We cannot tax our way out of this problem. I personally will resist any effort to do so.

That is one of the reasons why I am for a balanced budget constitutional amendment. I have found Congress is incapable, fiscally incapable, of getting this mess under control. It is hard to believe we are that incapable, but we are. So we need to put some restraints on Congress, and the best way to do that, in my opinion, is a balanced budget amendment. I think that would be the best way.

There are some who are looking at putting caps on spending, and that sounds good, except for one thing. If you break the caps, you have got to increase taxes. I think we would find ourselves increasing taxes all the time around here, and that is a big mistake as far as I am concerned. So I am very strongly for the balanced budget constitutional amendment. I believe with the mess we are in, good people on both sides of the aisle ought to be interested as well.

The last time I brought up the balanced budget amendment, we had 66 votes for it in the Senate. It passed the House overwhelmingly. If we had had one more vote back in 1997 we would have had a different situation today, because the balanced budget constitutional amendment would have passed, and I believe 38 States would have ratified it in a very quick fashion, certainly within a year or so.

Had that happened, we would not be in the mess we are in today. We are in a terrible mess. One of the reasons is Congress cannot get its fiscal house in order, and the reason it cannot is because of what I have been talking about. I think it is going to take restraints that the balanced budget amendment would bring to force Congress to have to live within its means or at least vote to break the budget.

Most people who spend do not want that provision, because they know when they vote to break the budget, their constituents are going to see that and they may not be here the next election. So as much as I would prefer to not have any artificial approach, I have come to the conclusion that Congress plain cannot handle its own problems. It does not have the fiscal restraint to do it.

A balanced budget amendment would be a constitutional amendment, locked into our beloved Constitution. It would, like all of the States in this country, except Vermont, require us to balance the budget or at least show a reason why not and to vote so that we have to vote on why not.

Germany has a balanced budget amendment. They meet those restraints. Switzerland has a balanced budget amendment. They meet those restraints. If they can do it, why can't we? I think we have got to get real around here and start doing some things that will help save the country, rather than push it right into bankruptcy.

We spend too much. Congress and the President pushed Build America Bonds. Why do you think they did that? The government is going to pay-- it has been paying 35 percent on those bonds. Guess who pays that 35 percent. All of the States that have lived with fiscal restraint will be paying for the profligacy of States that do not live with fiscal restraint. That is not the way to go. It is not fair to the States that are careful with their money. We know which States they are. In almost every case, they are States that are dominated by my friends on the other side. The fact is, I am totally opposed to this proposal.

In this budget, the President wants to make these bonds permanent, while bringing down the 35 percent government match to 28 percent. But think about that. That is still 28 percent from American taxpayers, most of whom have lived with fiscal restraint in their respective States, to help States that have not and that probably will not behave responsibly. As long as they can get free money from the government, why not, in their eyes?

Some of these states are in such dire straits that even some of these Governors who have been big raging liberals in the past are starting to say, we have got to do something about it. I want to pay particular praise to them. I hope they will get spending under control, because their lack of fiscal restraint and our lack of fiscal restraint here is hurting our country.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill.) The clerk will call the roll.

The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the filing deadline for second-degree amendments be extended up until the cloture vote.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, Senator Boxer--and not everybody knows this--is the author of the passengers' bill of rights. It has been an obsession of hers. It is not about helping airlines; it is about helping human beings. That has been a long process on the committee. It is in the bill. It is a very good part. She is responsible for all of that.

When Senator Boxer talks about more flights to the West, she echoes my deepest thinking. It is hard sometimes for people to understand. We are the East, and we get the feeling that everything happens in the East. But the fact is, the West is growing and the East is not. All of our slots are predicated on the fact that everybody lives in the East. Yes, there are some people out West--well, there are a lot more people out West. Los Angeles is huge beyond belief. That happens to be the home of Senator Boxer. But there are a lot of cities out there which don't get service and should have service. We have tried to address that in this bill.

The slots issue has been a very difficult one in the bill. But we have tried to address that by allowing the Department of Transportation to say: Are they getting enough? Is DC overcrowded or is it not? If it isn't, then they allow more to come on.

I enormously appreciate Senator Boxer in general. She chairs an important committee, but she comes to our hearings and always makes enormous contributions. On this bill of rights she is the author, which puts her right up there with the Founding Fathers.

Madam President, I wish to make a couple of observations. First of all, I apologize to all of our colleagues having to postpone cloture and precloture votes. What has happened is a number of folks have come in at the very last second and asked for changes. That is not usually the way committee business is done. We have been on this for a number of years. But we have to face the reality of that fact. We want to get cloture, and we want the bill to pass.

I say to my friend from Arizona that I will work with him and with-- whether it is GAO, DOT, or whomever we decide to work with or both, which we can obviously do and which is in the legislation; the GAO is automatic for any Member--that I will work to try and resolve this problem as best as I can.

There are many problems wandering around, but the basis of the bill, the structure of the bill, the overall bill is actually not just about slots. That is a relatively small part. It has been virtually all of the conversation and the debate.

As Senator Hutchison pointed out, a new air traffic control system, airline safety, all kinds of other things, are so predominantly important that we have had to proceed in this way to try to accommodate our colleagues, and that we will continue to try to do.

Madam President, I wish to echo what Senator Hutchison has just said. In the process of legislation, if you look at it logically, you do it over a period of years--1 or 2--or a number of months, and people get their amendments in. That has not been the case here. On the other hand, one has to recognize that people feel very strongly, and when Senators feel very strongly, they have that right, and they have the right to try, therefore, to affect the legislation even though it may be at the very last moment. I think everybody is acting in good faith.

I appreciate very much the Senator from Washington, Maria Cantwell, because she has given up a lot and she has also been very cooperative. She is going to be the new chair of the aviation subcommittee, which I look forward to and appreciate. I also appreciate the leadership of Senator Hutchison and all other Members--the Senator from Virginia whose time I have taken, Senator Wyden--who have participated in trying to work this out. It is not a beautiful process, but it is one that throughout the Senate has been solid and strong, and it needs to be voted for when that time comes. As I said, slots are not the only issue. The other issues are huge, and they are resolved without any contentiousness at all. So in that spirit of really thanking all who fought for what they have a right to fight for and saying that we have tried to respond as best we could--and if nobody is entirely happy, that probably means it is a good bill, a good approach--I wish to thank everyone.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in about 5 minutes, we are going to be, hopefully, voting for cloture on the underlying bill, the basic FAA bill, which has been the product of an awful lot of work. I think, generally speaking, we have tried to bring everybody in. Senators do have rights, and as a bill comes closer to a cloture vote or passage vote, some of those rights are exercised, which then complicates things. On the other hand, it is what the system is, and people ought to have those rights. You cannot ask everybody to sort of sit back and think through a whole bill. Something occurs to them at the last moment, and they need to come down and address that. We have tried to do that.

I think we are pretty close to a slots amendment agreement. Not everybody is happy about it, but everybody has

given up and everybody has gotten from it.

So we will have this vote, and then we will continue work on various aspects of the bill. I hope we can get it done tonight from the Senate side. Then we have to go negotiate with the House, and their bill is quite different.

But what is interesting about the aviation bill, it truly does affect America vastly. I do not know how many times I have said it employs 11 million people. Actually, it employs, directly and indirectly, probably closer to 13 million people, and it affects people's lives in every single way. They are trying to build a high-speed rail system. You cannot build a high-speed interstate system. You can take a chance at it, but it does not work very well.

So travel by aviation is how people get to where they want to go. It is a complicated industry. Costs go up. Sometimes it is because of fuel. Passengers are held on tarmacs. Sometimes it is because there is just congestion or there is a crisis at the airport of some sort. Passengers, when they are on their way from one place to another, do not sort of think about the problems the airline industry or airports are going through. They just think about the fact that they are being inconvenienced, if, in fact, they are being inconvenienced.

But I think it is a very good bill, and it has been worked on a very long time by myself and an extraordinarily wonderful Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom I call cochair of the Commerce Committee, because she is.

People have operated in good faith. We have had a lot of scrums and huddles about on the Senate floor. But that is the way legislation probably needs to work. It is a very complicated bill, but it is a bill that I think we will get cloture on, and people should actually be very anxious to vote for it when it comes to final passage.

I will give a talk about that. But I just remind people again, we have an air traffic control system which is so antiquated that there are actually very many near misses in the sky because we are using a radar system and planes often come very close to running into each other on the tarmac. It is a very old system. It is a 50-year-old system. This bill will fix that and make it safer for people to travel. More planes can take off and fly.

So I hope we invoke cloture at 2 o'clock, and then we will continue to work on the bill. It is important for America, and it is important to satisfy as many people as we possibly can.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask to move to the vote.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, I thank the Senator very much. I thank him. I agree with what the Senator from Oregon is saying. I want to be helpful, and we will continue to be helpful. There are some in positions not to be helpful and are not being helpful. I understand that. Such is life. I will continue to be helpful on this issue, not just on the substance because he has been so important in the resolution of what he mentioned at the very end, the slots. He has been a nonstop peacemaker, sort of the Secretary General of the UN. He really has. I respect that, and I appreciate it.

This is complicated. It is emotional. He has been great. I will continue to work with him on this issue to try and get to our mutual goal.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oregon. I like what he said.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume consideration of the McCain amendment No. 4 and proceed to a vote in relation to that amendment; that upon disposition of the McCain amendment, the Senate resume consideration of the Paul amendment No. 18 and there be 4 minutes equally divided prior to a vote in relation to that amendment; that no amendments be in order to the amendments prior to the votes; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

I move to table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, on behalf of Senator Brown of Ohio, to call up the Brown-Portman amendment No. 105 to the Ensign amendment No. 32.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I yield back my time on our side.

Amendment No. 105

I move to table and ask for the yeas and nays.

I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

I am aware of these agreements.

I am aware that the Senator has filed an amendment on this issue, and I understand his concerns about this issue and its effect on his constituents.

I would be glad to continue working with the Senator on this issue, and I appreciate his work to ensure that there is fairness in this regard.

Mr. President, I believe this bill is fundamental to our Nation's long-term economic competitiveness. It will create good- paying jobs across the country. It will improve the safety and efficiency of our Nation's air transportation system. And it will help to make sure the United States remains the global leader in aviation.

As we approach a final vote on the FAA reauthorization, I want to close by touching briefly on why this is so important--and why we have spent 3 weeks working on this bill.

This FAA reauthorization is about more than aviation, it is about stimulating the economy and securing jobs and retaining jobs.

The aviation sector supports over $1 trillion in economic activity and over 11 million jobs in the United States. This bill will support hundreds of thousands of aviation jobs annually. Moreover, it is critical to the businesses that rely on aviation and will provide a base for financial success in an increasingly global economy.

This bill is about improving commercial airline service to small and rural communities, making sure all areas of the country have adequate access to the Nation's air transportation network.

It also establishes better consumer rights protections for travelers, giving passengers a more consistent and improved air travel experience.

Ultimately, it is about improving safety and modernizing our system.

In other words, it is about people's lives every day--the safety of our skies for passengers and their families is critical and we must get this right.

Statistically, the United States has the safest air transportation system in the world. But statistics do not always tell the whole story.

It has been just over 2 years since the crash of Flight 3407 in Buffalo, NY, took the lives of 50 people. This tragedy reminds us that we must remain vigilant in making the national airspace system as safe as possible.

Although we were able to take important steps last August to improve pilot training and fatigue, this bill still has several critical provisions that will further improve the safety of our skies.

Modernizing the air traffic control system will not just make our skies more efficient, it represents a quantum leap forward for aviation safety by providing our air traffic controllers and pilots' real-time traffic and weather information.

The bill also takes steps to strengthen inspections of airline operations, require better oversight of foreign repair stations, and improve helicopter emergency service operations.

This bill is also about equality and economic stability. It will provide needed resources to airports large and small, urban and rural.

Although the U.S. airline industry has begun to recover from the recent economic downturn, hundreds of rural communities across our country continue to struggle.

The future of small communities' economic standing depends on access to air service.

I have witnessed firsthand the positive impact that aviation has made on my home State of West Virginia, and I have seen time and time again how important a lifeline it is for local communities.

The Federal Government must continue the commitment it made when the industry deregulated to provide the resources and tools small communities need to attract adequate air service.

Our legislation accomplishes this by building on existing programs and strengthening them with appropriate reforms.

This bill also strengthens passenger protections by incorporating a passenger bill of rights to deal with the most serious flight delays and cancellations.

Passengers have had it with endless delays--especially when they are stuck on the tarmac. They have had it with being overlooked and dismissed by the aviation system.

The Department of Transportation, DOT, has already begun implementing similar measures and seen great success--this legislation makes certain the Federal Government continues to focus on passengers' rights.

Our air traffic control system is outdated and strained beyond its capacity.

America's air traffic control network is still using WWII-era technology. We are behind Mongolia, and that is unacceptable.

The Next Generation Air Transportation System, NextGen, will save our economy billions by creating additional capacity and more direct routes. This will allow aircraft to move more efficiently and effectively.

Drastic reductions in fuel consumption will reduce carbon and noise emissions in the aviation sector.

And as I noted before, NextGen will dramatically improve safety.

A modern air traffic control system will provide pilots and air traffic controllers with better situational awareness--giving them the tools to see other aircraft and detailed weather maps in real time.

But achieving a modernized air transportation system requires sustained focus and substantial resources.

This reauthorization bill takes concrete steps to accelerate implementation of a modern, satellite based air traffic control system so we can begin to reap these benefits now.

We must move boldly or risk losing our leadership in the world. Over the 3 weeks, I have spoken about the primary goals we set out to achieve with this bill: 1, to address critical safety concerns; 2, to establish a clear roadmap for the implementation of NextGen and accelerate the FAA's key modernization programs; 3, to invest in airport infrastructure; and 4, to continue improving small communities' access to the Nation's aviation system.

I am proud of how far we have come. I also want to thank Senator Hutchison, the ranking member of the Commerce Committee and my able partner, for her work on this bill. It is truly a bipartisan bill that reflects a shared vision and goal of making sure the United States continues to have the safest, most efficient, and most modern aviation system possible.

This bill passed 93 to 0 last year. I know a few of my colleagues have had substantial differences over the issue of slots at National Airport. But this issue is minor compared to the benefits provided by the larger bill.

Flights at National Airport should not bring down a bill that is critical to so many Americans and supports so many jobs.

I urge my colleagues to move forward and give the FAA the tools, the resources, the direction, and the deadlines to make sure the agency can provide effective oversight of the aviation industry.

I urge my colleagues to support reauthorization and advance our system now. We cannot afford to wait any longer.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, in a few minutes, I will ask the Senate to proceed to the consideration of S. 380. S. 380 extends the Andean Trade Preference Act. But first I would like to make a few comments about the importance of this trade preference act.

I am very aware that a lot is going on in the world and there is upheaval in the Middle East and there is a lot going on on both sides of the aisle on spending, and I am very aware of what has dominated the news and the attention of the Congress and the American people. I want to talk for a few minutes about the importance of the Andean Trade Preference Act and the need to reauthorize it.

I remind my colleagues that the Andean Trade Preference Act was first enacted by President George Herbert Walker Bush as a way to boost the licit economies of several Andean nations that were major producers of illegal drugs. Over the past two decades, this program has been supported by Democratic and Republican Presidents, it has been reauthorized by Democratic and Republican Congresses, and it has been widely recognized as a dramatic success--creating jobs for our workers, who can sell cheaper imports to American consumers as a result of these trade preferences, while also supporting the economic development of strategically important countries in our hemisphere.

One of these countries is Colombia. We have been rightly focused on other parts of the world over the past decade, but one of the untold success stories is Colombia's transformation from a failed state to a thriving democracy. It has been one of the world's great stories and one of the greatest bipartisan triumphs of U.S. foreign policy in recent memory.

Through the courage and perseverance of the Colombian people, the government and armed forces of Colombia took their country back from terrorists and drug traffickers and warlords who murdered the innocent indiscriminately and sowed our society with illegal drugs. We were with them every step of the way. It was President Bill Clinton, together with a Republican Congress, who first enacted Plan Colombia, and it was President George W. Bush, initially with a Democratic Congress, who expanded Plan Colombia.

Over the past decade, the U.S. taxpayer has invested more than $8 billion to help Colombia win its war, and it has been some of the best money we have ever spent on a national security program. Remember, the Plan Colombia and the war, where we helped the Colombians take back their country from FARC and the terrorists and drug dealers, were to prevent drugs from coming to the United States of America, where the demand was created.

So I am proud that as an act of generosity and help on the part of the American people, it was in America's national security interest to see Colombia not become a failed state, which it almost was 10 years ago.

The Andean Trade Preference Act has been a critical component of this effort. It has provided Colombia, along with other Andean nations, essential open access to our markets that has catalyzed their success. What is more, the vast majority of the products these countries are exporting to us Americans barely produce at all, such as cut flowers. So it provides a huge benefit for our partners, with little competition or displacement for our workers.

Unfortunately, after the long record of bipartisan support for this successful and vital program, the last Congress did something deeply shortsighted and terrible: Rather than extend the trade preferences, as previous Congresses have done, it made their passage and the passage of other vital free-trade measures conditional on the extension of a whole array of new government spending--spending our country cannot afford.

As a result, the Andean Trade Preference Act expired last weekend and with it the privileged market access that is so vital to key Andean partners, such as Colombia. What is even more terrible, we are failing Colombia at the worst of all possible times, as it is struggling to recover and rebuild from massive flooding. I saw with my own eyes the massive flooding, where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced. They have been devastated, and the estimated cost to rebuild is several billion dollars.

But it is even worse than that. Not only has this Congress denied Colombians vital trade preferences at a time when their country is literally underwater, it has done so amid the continued failure to ratify the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. This agreement mainly benefits us, leveling the playing field for U.S. workers seeking access to Colombian markets.

But the signal of strategic commitment that it sends to Colombia can't be understated. By failing for 5 straight years now to pass a Colombia Free Trade Agreement, we are sending the opposite signal--that the United States is an unreliable and untrustworthy ally and that we seem to be incapable of rising above our own domestic political differences to consolidate our strategic partnership with one of our best friends in the world. It is sad.

No trade agreement during a time of great need due to a natural disaster, and how have the Congress and the administration responded? By failing to extend critical trade preferences for Colombia and our other Andean friends. We have kicked an ally while they are down and right when they need us most. Colombian officials tell me that without these trade preferences, their cut flower industry, which is one of the pillars of the Colombian economy, could contract by 15 to 20 percent in the coming weeks.

Now is the time to right this wrong. Now is the time to come together and extend the Trade Preference Act--by itself, on its own, and on its merits, just as Congresses before us have done. This legislation will do that. It will extend the privileged market access for our Andean friends until November 30 of next year. After we have invested so much in the success of the Andean region--investments that have earned us enormous goodwill and gratitude--why would we do anything to call our friendship into question? Why would we do anything that harms our allies? We cannot afford not to extend the Andean Trade Preference Act.

Let me also explain something to my colleagues. Before we went out of session last year, we made an agreement--and the Senator from Ohio, whom I see on the floor and who was one of the negotiators--that the trade adjustment assistance would be extended along with the Andean Trade Preference Act. The interesting thing about that extension is that it was not only an extension of the trade adjustment assistance as it was prior to the stimulus being passed, but also after. In other words, the trade adjustment assistance had gone up to some $2.6 billion, an additional $620 million for the remainder of this year. So it is in existence today, with $1 billion being spent on various programs. There is a GAO study that severely questions these multiple employment and training programs that are in existence today. They talk about the $18 billion being spent to administer 47 programs, an increase of 3 programs and roughly $5 billion since their last reporting.

What I am asking my colleagues who are supportive of the TAA is to agree to an extension of the Andean Trade Preference Agreement in return for our extension, our agreement to extend the trade adjustment assistance at the level of pre-stimulus. The stimulus was supposedly advertised as a one-shot deal. So why should we increase trade adjustment assistance in keeping with the enactment of the stimulus package? Now that the stimulus is supposedly over, can't we go back to previous levels of adjustment assistance?

I wish to make the record perfectly clear: This proposal of killing off trade adjustment assistance is in being as we speak today. We are saying we don't want the increase that was put in in 2009 as a result of the stimulus package.

Things are not great in our Western Hemisphere. We have a return of Danny Ortega in Nicaragua, we have Hugo Chavez continuing to consolidate power in Venezuela. We are seeing other nations in the region--and I won't enumerate them--that are becoming more and more dictatorial, totalitarian, and anti-American. So when we don't extend the ATPA, the signal to our friends and our adversaries in the region is very clear: You can't count on the United States of America to keep its solemn agreements negotiated and ratified by Republican and Democratic Presidents and Congresses.

I understand and appreciate and respect the Senator from Ohio, the Senator from Pennsylvania, and the Senator from Montana and their dedication to trade adjustment assistance. I am not seeking to end TAA. We are seeking to leave TAA at its previous level prior to the stimulus package being enacted. I don't understand why that shouldn't be sufficient in this era of huge deficits and debts.

I ask my friend from Ohio and those on the other side of the aisle who oppose a long-term extension--who oppose the Andean Trade Preference Act being extended--that we would agree to the extension of the trade adjustment assistance only at the level where it was before. Isn't that reasonable? Isn't that reasonable? It is $1 billion a year. It is $1 billion a year that is going to be allowed under the TAA.

Again, I understand there are a lot of things going on in the world. There are a lot of things going on domestically. There are a lot of things happening, but shouldn't we pay attention to our friends, our little friends who helped us so much in this war on drugs? If they had become, as they nearly did 10 years ago, a failed state, the consequences to the United States national security would have been profound. We are watching the violence in Mexico and we are alarmed by it, including the death of a DEA agent and the wounding of another one in the last couple of days in Mexico. My friends, that was a Sunday school picnic compared to what was going on in Colombia before we helped them with the Andean Trade Preference Agreement. I urge my colleagues to please consider at least a short-term extension of this ATPA, along with the basic TAA, at least to give these people an opportunity to recover from the devastation they have experienced.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 380. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, all I can say to my friend from Ohio is we have deep sympathy for the plight of the citizens of Ohio who have been very hard hit in this economic disaster that this Nation has undergone in the last couple of years. There has been enormous loss of jobs and income on the part of the citizens of Ohio, and particularly that part of the country. I would also argue that my home State of Arizona has suffered rather dramatically as well.

But does it make sense to dramatically increase any program at this particular time? We are already spending $1 billion a year. That seems to be a significant amount of money.

I would also point out that a lot of these training programs have drawn scrutiny and even criticism from the GAO. This criticism has been kind of telling. It says:

In fiscal year 2009, nine Federal agencies spent $18

billion to administer 47 programs, an increase of three

programs and roughly $5 billion since they reported in 2003.

So I don't think we could see tangible benefits from the trade adjustment assistance. But we are willing, I say to my friend from Ohio, to continue to support a $1 billion program per year for trade adjustment assistance when we are slashing vital programs that people know are far--we are all having to make sacrifices. Can't my friend from Ohio be satisfied with $1 billion for trade adjustment assistance?

Again, I wish to say, we do have problems in our hemisphere. We do have Brazilians striking out on a new and independent course. We have Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia, we have these countries that are looking on us as either an adversary or an enemy, depending on which country we are talking about. So the message we are sending by not at least extending this agreement I think is a terrible one, and I ask my friend from Ohio to reconsider.

I also wish to say this: The President of the United States and the White House should be weighing in on this. The President of the United States has said he wants the Korea Free Trade Agreement and we want the ``Colombian and Panamanian Free Trade Agreement'' as well.

Well, if they want that, should they not want to extend the trade preferences that were negotiated by President Bush and extended under President Clinton? Should we not want that--and Republican and Democratic Congresses alike?

I have taken too much time of this body. Again, I ask my friend from Ohio to reconsider, negotiate, do whatever we can before we continue to send this terrible message to our friends in the hemisphere who have literally laid down their lives in the war against drugs, which we have felt is in vital U.S. national security interests.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, I certainly didn't want to get too much into this debate because the fact is that GAO concluded:

Based on our survey of agency officials, we determined that

only 5 of the 47 programs have had impact studies that assess

whether the program is responsible for improving employment

outcomes. The five impact studies generally found that the

effects of participation were not consistent across programs,

with only some demonstrating positive impacts that tended to

be small, inconclusive or restricted to short-term impacts.

We are talking about an additional $1.6 billion. We can't do that. Why in the world the Senator from Ohio and other Senators from his part of the country were satisfied for years with a TAA of roughly $1 billion and now are not satisfied with that in these times of economic difficulties confounds me. It is a sad day for our friends in Colombia and the Andes who have sacrificed so much on our behalf. I object.

Madam President, I yield to the distinguished chairman of the Commerce Committee, and I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak briefly after the chairman of the Commerce Committee has spoken.

Madam President, I appreciate the chance to speak for just a few minutes.

I particularly wish to thank Senator Hutchison and Senator Rockefeller and tell colleagues that last night, at 10 o'clock, after hours and hours worth of negotiation, I thought the prospect of working this out was absolutely gone. I thought that once again the Senate would walk away from the idea of trying to come up with a way to have a more competitive market-oriented system in the aviation sector.

Obviously, this is not all that needs to be done, but this issue of slots, I would say to colleagues and the folks who are listening, is not about adding more gambling machines; this is about the right to land a plane. In much of our country, we have crowded airports, and folks are very concerned about that because it really relates to the business climate and it relates to quality of life. And it is not just in my part of the country but lots of other parts.

So this morning we still had three or four outstanding issues. A group of Senators, on a bipartisan basis, got together. We were just a little ways up here in the building, and in good faith we worked through a variety of issues--issues to make sure everybody was treated fairly in terms of scheduling, issues to ensure fairness with respect to the new flights and to something called conversion, which essentially involves taking short distance of flights and turning them into long distance flights. We still have some matters, obviously, that we are going to have to review with respect to studying this issue and ensuring all airlines have equal access to the markets. It is a sensitive subject, particularly to folks here in Virginia and Maryland. So these are areas that are going to take some additional work, but I think, with the new provisions that have been added, particularly to make sure we would have the five new round-trip flights from Reagan National, ensuring these new slots would be intended for long-distance, for out-of-perimeter, we have moved a long way to ensure that the Senate will go into conference on a bipartisan basis in a unified fashion.

Madam President, I would like to take particular note of the extraordinary work done by Senator Cantwell, my colleague from the Pacific Northwest. When you reach an agreement such as this, which had three or four provisions, in effect, that were still being thrashed through this morning, it only comes together when colleagues say they have to find a way to get to some common ground and they can't simply go into a negotiation and have everything their way. Nobody, in my view, in these discussions moved more from the position they were most interested in than Senator Cantwell.

Chairman Rockefeller has been right to note that she will be the chair of the subcommittee. I can assure colleagues that no one will do more to protect the consumer, protect competition, and to protect the marketplace that we would like in the aviation sector than Senator Cantwell. She was instrumental last night and this morning, where we practically could have been fed intravenously and she just stayed put and kept negotiating to get to the point where we had an agreement on these slots.

I referenced, Chairman Rockefeller, when the Senator was off the floor, that we can continue this kind of cooperation as we have this bill pass the Senate and we go to conference. There is a reason we couldn't resolve the slots issue in the past; that is, despite efforts to come together, we just couldn't get Senators to focus on these three or four outstanding issues that were dealt with this morning. I think we have been fair to the big markets under this agreement as well as the smaller markets.

So as the chairman goes into the conference, I think the good will that came about as a result particularly of last night's efforts and this morning's efforts and all the cooperation he and Senator Hutchison have shown--he will be able to take an issue that was seen as absolutely impossible to resolve even as of late last night--because I felt when I walked in this morning that we were just going to hang drapes on this question and possibly the whole bill. I think now this bipartisan effort in good will shown by a lot of Senators on both sides of the aisle, led by the chairman and Senator Hutchison, is going to pay off. It is a very good start to an issue that isn't going to be resolved today, but some of the principles that have been laid out today are going to make a huge difference.

I wish to close by saying that my colleague from the Pacific Northwest, Senator Cantwell, who I believe knows as much about aviation as anybody on the planet at this point, did an awful lot to bring people together.

I look forward to working with the chairman as we go to conference, and I thank him for his cooperation. I also look forward to talking about some additional issues that he knows I care a lot about--the drones that are so important to central Oregon--but I acknowledge that he has made it possible for us to make an enormous amount of headway today, and I look forward to working with him and Senator Hutchison in the days ahead.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I and Senator Merkley and many of the Senators spent a great deal of time working on the question of slots, which, in plain English, is about the right to land a plane. I am very pleased we were able to work out our bipartisan agreement. I outlined why it was so important earlier in the morning.

Given all the attention that discussion received, I want to make sure the Senate did not lose sight of another important aviation issue. Chairman Rockefeller has been very supportive of our efforts to try to expand and improve the unmanned aerial systems--what are known as UAS programs--that are so essential for the future of the aviation sector.

In this part of the aviation sector, we have seen enormous growth in the last few years. A lot of folks know these systems are critical to military operations. They have been of enormous importance in Iraq and Afghanistan. But people may not be as aware that these unmanned aerial systems also have enormous potential in the civilian sector. I am talking now about firefighting, law enforcement, border patrol, search and rescue, environmental monitoring. Law enforcement in rural areas, that is much of my State, but I know other parts of the country are also very concerned about this issue.

As yet, the Federal Aviation Administration has not come up with a good plan for how to integrate these unmanned aerial system vehicles into the airspace.

I am pleased that the bill before us includes requirements for the Federal Aviation Administration to work on a plan for these systems and establish test sites for UAS research.

It is my hope as we go forward--and Chairman Rockefeller has been very supportive of our efforts; we have discussed this many times--that it is going to be possible to expand these sites. Senator Merkley, Senator Tester, Senator Baucus, Senator Schumer and a number of other colleagues are interested in this issue. This is a chance for the Federal Aviation Administration to finally give these unmanned aerial systems the attention and the priority that is warranted.

There is enormous potential in the civilian sector. We talked about it in the military sector.

I yield now to the chairman of the committee who has been exceptionally

helpful to me, not just on this question of the unmanned aerial systems but for his patience as we worked through the slots issues where we finally got a breakthrough this morning. I am glad to yield to him for any comments he may have.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the full committee. He has been exceptionally gracious. I think Senators understand we would not be here other than the fact that the chairman and Senator Hutchison have prosecuted this case relentlessly in a bipartisan way. We knew if we stayed at it on the slots issue we would get it resolved.

I thank him, given all the other things he has on his plate, for his help on the unmanned aerial systems. As my colleague knows, Senator Schumer and I have strong views on this issue, and we are fairly passionate characters. The chairman has been very patient. We know we have challenges in terms of working out the exact number of additional sites. We thank him for his thoughtfulness.

This is going to be a good bill. We are going to conference in a good position. It could not have happened without his tenacity and Senator Hutchison's.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I want to thank Chairman Rockefeller for the opportunity to have this colloquy with him today on the topic of through the fence agreements. Now, most folks don't know this, but there are a few different developments throughout the country that have houses with plane hangars near airports, and they have what is called a through the fence agreement to use the airway runway. Is the Senator familiar with these agreements?

As the Senator might know, one place that has had a residential airpark for many decades is in my home State, in a town called Independence, OR. Since 1974, folks at the Independence Airpark have had an agreement with the Independence airport to taxi their planes up to the runway and use it for recreation and travel purposes.

But recently, the FAA decided to change the rules on all through the fence agreements and the folks at Independence Airpark and elsewhere may not be able to continue an arrangement they have had nearly 40 years with no significant safety issues and no significant noise complaints.

That just doesn't seem fair. So I have introduced an amendment I believe will safely provide a path forward for places like the Independence Airpark to continue to exist. Is the Senator aware of the amendment I filed?

While I understand we may not have an opportunity to vote on my amendment, Mr. Chairman, as we moved forward on this FAA reauthorization bill, can the Senator commit to working with me to find a solution so folks who have never gone afoul of the law or regulations are treated fairly?

I thank the Senator, both for his important work on this larger FAA bill, and for his willingness to work with me in addressing this issue.

I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) is necessarily absent.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, the budget the President released Monday includes more than $1 trillion in deficit reduction and two-thirds of it comes from spending cuts. That puts the Nation on the path toward fiscal sustainability. But it also reflects the urgency to invest now in programs that will pay off for a long time. Investing in transportation and infrastructure is the best way to ensure economic recovery now and economic growth well into the future.

It has been 2 years since the President signed into law the American Recovery and Restoration Act. The investments made in infrastructure over 2 years have either saved or created over a million jobs all across the Nation. In the first year alone, that Recovery Act led to 350,000 direct on-project jobs. Direct job creation from these projects has resulted in payroll expenditures of over $4 billion.

Using this data, the House Transportation Committee calculates that $717 million in unemployment checks have been avoided as a result of this direct job creation.

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama challenged us to start rebuilding our infrastructure for the 21st century. Our aging network of roads and rails was built from a long time past. Our infrastructure used to be the best. But let's be honest, America has lost its lead. Mongolia has a more advanced air traffic control system than America. South Korea has faster and easier access to the Internet than America. Europe and China have high-speed rail systems far more advanced than America. Dozens of commissions, academics, groups, the smartest people in America, have all come to the same conclusion: Our infrastructure is old and we need to invest in fixing it.

We have to reduce the debt and deficit. I was a member of the Deficit Commission. I understand it as well as anyone. But the American people do not want us to do this at the expense of critical infrastructure that will be needed to grow our economy.

Unfortunately, the House Republicans currently are in a debate on the floor of the House proposing that we cut off our investments in transportation--right in the middle of the year, right before the construction season. House Republicans are debating that this week.

Their plan cuts billions in funding for roads, rail, and mass transit. It is going to cost us over 300,000 private-sector jobs. Let me repeat that: 300,000 private-sector jobs; not government jobs, 300,000 jobs in the private sector. Can we afford that?

Let me give you some examples of what the House Republican budget cuts. They cut money from the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund-- over $1 billion of it. That provides low-interest and no-interest loans to our local communities to help them build and make safe wastewater and drinking water. Most communities cannot afford to do this on their own without raising property taxes through the roof, and EPA's funding is vital if these projects are going to get done. This cut alone by the House Republicans would result in 454 fewer sewer projects and 214 fewer clean water projects across America. And it would cost us over 33,000 jobs.

There is a program called the TIGER grants. Mayors know all about it because what President Obama said is, we are going to cut out the middleman. We are not going through the State capitals and the State departments of transportation. If a mayor comes to us with a good idea of a transportation project right at the local level, we are going to send that money directly in a TIGER grant.

So what did the House Republicans decide to do? They took $1.1 billion from that program. That, unfortunately, would eliminate all funding for this program this year, cutting off this construction season, $500 million worth of investment in our Nation's infrastructure. Worse, it rescinds $600 million for projects that have already been awarded.

The Department of Transportation announced these projects last year. Now the House Republicans want to cut them off. Communities in 40 States across the country have been planning

for these funds for up to 75 projects, which would be absolutely abolished by the House Republican action.

The House proposal will literally take away funding promised for these projects, stopping work. Cutting $1.1 billion from TIGER programs will put more than 30,000 private-sector workers out of work in America.

Then they want to cut $7.1 billion from High Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Grants. I know all about that because, Madam President, as you know, that route from Saint Louis to Chicago on Amtrak is one of the prime areas for high-speed rail in America. The Republican proposal would completely eliminate it, stop it cold.

Worse, they would rescind more than $6 billion for projects already awarded funding. They take away funding from 54 projects in 23 States across the country. The U.S. Department of Transportation tells us that cutting $7.1 billion from high-speed rail will put more than 200,000 private-sector jobs at risk.

At a time when we should be creating jobs and building the economy and building the infrastructure for even more jobs to follow, the House Republicans have decided to start cutting jobs in America.

As the Speaker said when asked about whether he was concerned about the loss of jobs from the House Republican cuts, he said: So be it.

I am sorry, but the Speaker has missed the obvious message from the American people. They want us to create jobs, preserve jobs, right here in America. Killing jobs in the U.S. House of Representatives was not the mission that anyone was sent on in the last election.

Compare that cutting with the President's budget. The President understands we have to invest in infrastructure. The unemployment rate in the construction industry--a private-sector industry--is over 20 percent. Construction costs at this moment are low, and local governments are moving forward where they can on projects because they are saving money--at the same time the House Republicans want to stop construction in America on these important projects. We need to make these investments in infrastructure.

The President's budget calls for a 6-year, $556 billion reauthorization of national transportation programs, He frontloads this 6-year bill with a $50 billion infusion of investments in fiscal year 2012. This will help us get the biggest bang for the buck. He creates an Infrastructure Bank. Madam President, $5 billion is set aside to provide credit assistance and loans to attract private investment into public infrastructure.

The President is investing $8.3 billion in high-speed rail. He wants to bring that high-speed rail to 80 percent of the American population within 25 years. This is the first step in a long-term infrastructure investment by our country, while the President still freezes spending, reduces the deficit, and brings our domestic discretionary spending to a lower level than it was under President Eisenhower in the 1950s.

We can invest in infrastructure in a way that is fiscally responsible and will lead to stronger economic growth long into the future.

The House is proposing slashing investments in transportation and infrastructure. That will cost us jobs, and it will stop us from the economic recovery we desperately need. We need to enact a balanced plan: cut spending, reduce the deficit, but remember that education, innovation, and infrastructure are critical if America is going to continue to be competitive in the 21st century.

(The remarks of Mr. Durbin pertaining to the introduction of S. 386 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from Massachusettes (Mr. Kerry) is necessarily absent.

I yield back the time.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.