Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2023, Part II

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, it is good to be here on the floor with my colleagues. I actually was going to talk about the FAA, but I came out here, and I got accused by the Senator from Texas of being irresponsible. And my friend Phil Washington, who is up for the FAA, was attacked for not knowing anything about airports.

So I just want to address those two things before I go into my remarks. One, to the gentleman from North Carolina, Phil Washington knows a considerable amount about transportation and aviation in this country. That was ignored by the Senator from Texas. It is being ignored this afternoon by the Senator from North Carolina.

He runs Denver International Airport. That is one of the largest airports in the United States of America. It is an airport that has been built more recently than any other airport in the United States of America. It has the third largest traffic in the world. It now has the United hub there. I was just talking to the President of United yesterday, CEO. They have more traffic coming through there than they do in Chicago.

So, for the record, let me just say, Phil Washington knows a lot about this, and I am sorry that his nomination didn't go forward. That is not why we are here today.

Let me also say, since he called me irresponsible, that it is nice to hear the Senator from Texas come out here and plead for some regular order, in terms of how our government should work, to worry about the fact that people could be furloughed or laid off; that they are uncertain of the future because the bill is not permanent.

These were all concerns he did not have the last time we were on the floor together when he had shut the government down while Colorado was literally underwater because of floods, when we were out here having that crocodile tears speech the last time, and I am glad that he has reconsidered all of that and that he wants the FAA to run in a proper fashion.

But I don't think it is irresponsible for me to be here today to object, and I will object to this request because I think it is critically important for us to use this moment to fulfill our obligations in the world, to the United States' national security, and to our commitment to democracy both here and throughout the Western world.

The Ukrainian people were invaded 2 years ago by Vladimir Putin. They didn't ask for that. By a tyrant. They did not ask for that.

The intelligence agencies told us that Kyiv would be taken in 72 hours. That is what they said it would take. My colleague from the Intelligence Committee is here on the floor, and he knows that. They were told that Putin would be able to install a puppet government in Ukraine and be able to dictate the future of the Ukrainian people, be able to keep Ukraine from being part of the West.

Well, as sometimes happens in human history, they were completely wrong. They were completely wrong. The Ukrainian people, much to the surprise of the entire world, because of their courage, because of their bravery, because of our support--both our intelligence support and the armaments that we have been able to ship them, which, by the way, have allowed us to restart our own national security efforts because we are building those weapons systems here in 38 States--the Ukrainian people have taken back half the territory that Putin took from them. Nobody would have ever believed that.

The Ukrainian people and their military have pushed Putin's navy out of the Black Sea without even having a navy. They have no navy, and those guys are so unbelievable that they have taken the tools that they have created and that we have given them to push Putin out of the Black Sea and to reopen those incredibly important grain shipments to the rest of the world to keep the rest of the world in this war. They have won battle after battle after battle.

I hear people around here--it is so tiresome--say that the stalemate on the frontlines between Zelenskyy and Putin, between Ukraine and the Russian troops, is somehow a failure for Ukraine on their part. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is a miracle--actually, it is not a miracle because they did it through their blood, sweat, and tears. It is a testament to the sacrifice that the Ukrainian people have gone through, to what their troops have gone through, to the number of Russian troops and Russian artillery that they have taken off the battlefield, that they have created a stalemate in this war. That is not an admission of failure; that is an admission of success.

What we are trying to figure out today, when we go into this long winter, when Putin is on television today saying that the Ukrainians are out of bullets, that the United States is going to stop funding the Ukrainian people, telling the Western world, the free world, which has been so inspired by what the Ukrainian people have done, so inspired by their courage and their bravery that they have come together, with the leadership of the United States, to strengthen NATO in ways nobody could have imaged, and to have free citizens all over the world say to people like the Senator from Texas and me: Do more. Do more. Do more.

That is what they are doing during this Christmas season. They are fighting for their lives. They are fighting for democracy. They don't get to say ``OK, it is time to go home'' 11 days before Christmas has happened. Their fight is our fight. Their fight is our fight.

(Ms. BUTLER assumes the Chair.)

Madam President, I held up the budget bill a few months--by the way, it is very nice to see the Senator from California in the Chair. I have never seen you up there. Good to see you.

I held the budget bill several months ago on this floor because it had no funding for Ukraine, even though we said that we would fund Ukraine, because there was no plan to get it funded. On the single most important thing we have in front of the world, not just the Senate of the United States, we had no plan to fund Ukraine, and I thought that was a lousy message to send, and it was a lousy message to

send. We left here without funding it. Actually, it turned out we left here without a Speaker of the House.

We left here with bright lights flashing on the institutional incompetence of our own democracy, which, by the way, that is not a great look for the United States of America. And what happened? We left, and a death cult called Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis while we were gone, and now we have a war going on in the Middle East. The world is an unpredictable place.

I am encouraged because a few days ago, it looked to me like this deal was dead. A few days ago, I was facing the prospect of calling up my mom, who was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1938, who is still alive-- the worst moment probably in human history to be born Jewish and the worst place on the planet to be born when she was born--who can't believe she has lived long enough, and thank God she has lived long enough--but she would say: I can't believe I have lived long enough to see another land war break out in Europe. But she has, and it happened.

I thought I was going to have to be in a position of saying to my mother: We haven't learned anything from history. We haven't learned anything about the 16 million people who were killed in the years after she was born just in Poland and just in Ukraine, just in those two countries, by Hitler and by Stalin. We haven't learned anything. We are too tired. We are too busy. We are too distracted by the other stuff that is going on in the United States of America to actually do our work--which, by the way, no other country in the world can do. There is no other country in the world that can turn on the leadership that we can provide. There is no other country in the world that can provide the munitions we are providing.

I want to say again to the American people that virtually 90 percent of the armaments that we are sending to Ukraine are being made here in the United States of America, 38 States--Colorado is not one of them-- putting people to work all over the United States, driving incomes up but also, more important than that, making us ready in a world where Hamas has attacked Israel, where Putin has invaded Ukraine, where Xi is watching every single day to see whether we are going to turn our backs on our allies in the free world who have done everything that anybody here could have asked for. In fact, nobody would have ever asked for it because nobody here would have believed it was possible. No one would have believed it was possible. And for what, by the way? Zelenskyy told us in the first Zoom call we had with President Zelenskyy: Just so we can live our lives the way you live your lives.

He said the other day, in front of the Democrats and Republicans who came to see him when he was here, that he thought he could win if we continued to supply him but that he would lose if we didn't continue to supply him.

He said: Either way, we are going to fight to the death--either way, with your help or without your help. One way, we will be successful. The other way, we are going to lose.

He said: The reason why we are going to do that is because the Ukrainian people love freedom, because the Ukrainian people want to live their lives the way you live your lives.

I mentioned the Middle East. Every day--and I hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say every single day Iran is now attacking our troops in Iraq. The Houthis are sending their missiles to attack shipping around Israel and around the Middle East.

There are flashing red lights going on all over the Middle East, and the Israelis have to worry about another front opening up there.

Finally, of course, China is watching what we are doing as well.

I would never have attached these border issues to the Ukraine bill. I would never have attached these immigration issues to the Ukraine bill. But some Republican colleagues have done it because they have said: This is an important bill. We are going to use this to leverage our concerns about immigration or the border.

I have a lot of concerns about a lot of things. I think our education system doesn't work well for poor kids in this country at all. I think our healthcare system doesn't work well for the American people. But I am not attaching those to this piece of business.

But I have heard Republicans who support Ukraine who have said they need to do this in order for us to have a bipartisan bill. I have heard the President of the United States say our immigration system is broken. I have heard the Homeland Security adviser, the Secretary of Homeland Security, say the same thing.

I will tell you, I think the American people do not want an immigration system that is run by transnational smuggling rings, transnational gangs that are sending people to the border of the United States at record numbers. I don't think the American people want that.

So if there is a way for us to have a negotiation here that can get us to a good result for the American people on immigration and on the border, and that is the price people have said they are going to insist on, I have been willing to have that discussion, and I will be willing to have that discussion. It is one of the other reasons why I think we shouldn't leave.

But as I said a few days ago, we were making no progress. Now, finally, we are making some progress, and the world is watching what we do here, and we can't fail. Given how screwed up American politics can be, it can make you wonder whether we ought to take an extra day or a day after that or an extra few days or whether we ought to just stay here and do the work or whether we ought to move on to other things, like the FAA bill, before we are done.

I know I have tested your patience, and I have tested the patience of the Senator from Texas, I am sure, this afternoon, and I am going to stop. But I want to finish by saying, at least speaking for myself, I don't think there is anything that anybody who is here will ever do in this Senate that is going to be more important than the vote we are going to take on additional funding for Ukraine.

I think we are going to either establish or reestablish America's very special place in this world and our leadership of free countries and democracies around the world or we are going to squander that in the face of what Putin is already telling us he is going to do, in the face of what the Iranians are already doing to our soldiers who are in the Middle East, and in the face of what Xi Jinping is thinking about with respect to Taiwan.

The authoritarian leaders in this world think they have a better way of running human affairs than democracy. I think they are wrong.

When the Ukrainian people have fought as hard as they have for the last 2 years and eclipsed any expectation that anybody could have had for them, the least we can do is continue our support.

Finally, let me say, as I close, that it is going to be really important for us to get back to a place where we can have a bipartisan discussion about how to create a functional immigration system in America.

Now, I am not just talking about the border. Immigration has been a fundamentally important part of our country's history, and it will be a fundamentally important part of our country's future. It is a massive advantage that the United States has over other countries around the world when it is working well. And there are people all over the world who want to be here. No one is crossing the Gobi Desert to get into Beijing, and we should be happy about that. They want to come here.

One of the highlights of my life has been in 2013, when I was part of the Gang of 8 here that negotiated an immigration bill that had a pathway to citizenship for 11 million people that were undocumented. It had the most progressive Dream Act that had ever been written. It had all the visa stuff for farmers and ranchers and for business people. It had $40 billion in border security to strengthen our southern border and be able to say to the American people that we are taking that seriously. Unfortunately, it didn't pass.

And times have changed since then. You know, these transnational gangs have made it their business to make billions of dollars sending people to the southern border every single day, and we have to take notice of that. We are going to have to adjust. But I hope that doesn't mean there won't be a day that comes back where we have a chance to do it in a bipartisan way.

In the meantime, we have to get our work done in Ukraine. In the meantime, we shouldn't leave. In the meantime, I don't think we should move on to other pieces of legislation. For all those reasons, I object.

I thank the Senator from Texas. Actually, it is fun to remember all this, and I am sorry I don't have a phone on my desk. Nobody can send me my prior quotes or his prior quotes. I wish I had thought to do that. But I have a pretty good memory, and the facts are on the floor. The facts are the facts.

When we were out here in 2019--and, by the way, I would never confuse the Senator from Texas with Senator Schumer. So let's establish that at the outset. I know you are two different people. You are very different people.

When we were out here in 2019, though, what I was talking about was, I was reminding people of the shutdown you led in 2013 while Colorado was underwater, while there were cities and towns all over our State who had been crushed by the floodwaters that had started in these unexpected storms and come rushing through these mountain valleys and ended up destroying towns and villages. It looked like bombs had gone off. The people in Colorado were digging themselves out.

There were people--local elected officials, Democrats and Republicans--who were doing the work they needed to do. And the Federal Government was shut down because of Senator Cruz from Texas. That is what happened. Those people are owed an apology for what the Senator of Texas did.

And then he came out here in 2019 pretending that he cared about trying to resolve--by the way, it wasn't Chuck Schumer's shutdown. It was Donald Trump's shutdown. He was the President. It was the longest shutdown in American history. And I don't have my phone to tell me this, but if you look it up--please do--you will find it was the Trump shutdown, not the Schumer shutdown. And it went on forever--not forever, but it was the longest shutdown ever. And Senator Cruz was coming out here with these Potemkin pieces of legislation to sort of trick Democrats or to force Democrats into taking a bad vote on the funding of the Coast Guard while the whole rest of the Government was shut down.

He might have believed that the most important thing to do at that moment, I suppose, was to fund the Coast Guard and to leave everything else shut down. I suppose that is possible.

I suspect the likelier reason was that he was trying to create a vote that said the Democrats are for shutting the government down--or shutting the Coast Guard down, not shutting the government down. Donald Trump had shut the government down, President Trump. And that is what we were out here discussing.

So you give me the opportunity to remind everyone of the 2013 events. And I won't withdraw what I said in 2019.

I will say that I want to thank the Senator from Texas for remembering that I even had a Presidential campaign at all. It is not a well-remembered event in the history of our democracy. I am grateful that he could have played a role in trying to get me off the ground. We will have to see. But that was not the great--as I have said to people--well, I won't go on.

I will say to the Senator from Texas that when I got in, even my mom said: Do we need one more Democrat in this race, Michael? So that was how I started that race.

Then, I will say, finally, that the FAA doesn't end up expiring until the 31st of this month. We have time in front of us to do the work that needs to be done.

I want to congratulate the Senator from Texas for the work that he did on the Nord Stream Pipeline. I think that was meaningful work.

I remember you standing out here at a time when a lot of other people didn't even know what you were talking about and having you stand here and make that case. So I give you that, for sure.

I would say, also, that I am sure you feel passionately that the position that you took before Putin invaded Ukraine might have had some effect on what he did. We have a disagreement about that, but that is OK. Neither of us can change what has happened in the past. But what we can do is make sure that we recognize that this tyrant has invaded Ukraine; that this tyrant has done something that is in contravention of the civil order since World War II, since my mom was born in Poland in 1938; that the world has come together to support the free people of Ukraine in their battle; that Putin's only allies in this battle today are North Korea and Iran and sort of China, which are kind of watching how this all unfolds.

So the question before us now is not, I don't think, did we have some vote in the Senate that went one way or another--and I am sorry to the Senator from Wyoming, I will stop--went some way or another or that Democrats or that Joe Biden are somehow responsible for Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine.

First of all, that is certainly not true, even if we have disagreements about what was going on here. But what is certainly true is that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. He decided to invade Ukraine. The Ukrainian people have exposed the weakness of Putin's army. They have exposed the weakness of his leadership. They have exposed the weakness of his strategy. They have exposed the strength of NATO. They have exposed the importance of American leadership. They have given us the chance to rearm the American people. They have pushed back Xi Jinping. That is not bad for 2 years of work.

And we should not go home. We should stay here and do the work we need to do to support Ukraine.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, over the next 2 weeks, more than 7.5 million Americans will fly to see loved ones and to celebrate the holidays--a record number.

This is no easy feat. A seamless travel experience depends on airlines, on air traffic controllers, on airport managers, on TSA screeners all working together for the aviation system to run efficiently during times of extreme strain like the holiday season.

At the center of this effort is the Federal Aviation Administration, but there is one problem: The FAA's authorities are set to expire at the end of the year.

Without the FAA extension, air travel and air cargo for those counting on quick shipping during Christmas and New Year's will be severely impacted. At the moment, we face a potential challenge of not extending the FAA's authorities because of the objections of a Senate Democrat.

This is irresponsible and, frankly, bad for the safety Agency's ability to operate effectively. For the past year, Senator Cantwell, the chairman of the Commerce Committee, and myself have worked to pass a long-term FAA authorization. The authorization we drafted on a bipartisan basis addresses airport infrastructure, workforce challenges, ATC staffing, protections for passengers, the safety framework, manufacturing. I could go on.

It is an important bill that makes progress toward solving some of the challenges facing aviation, but we need to make sure we get it right. We now find ourselves having to pass a second short-term FAA authorization in less than 6 months, without even having gotten the bill through committee.

This situation was entirely avoidable, but special interests, in particular the pilots' unions like ALPA, have decided that if they can't get their way, then the American people should pay the price.

There have been several times throughout this process where we thought we had a deal, but, inevitably, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, often spurred on by the union, have tanked these agreements.

Each month, it seems, there is a new issue we are told cannot be in the FAA bill because the unelected special interests are opposed to it. First, it was a modest reform to update pilot training. Then it was raising the retirement age for pilots. Imagine telling a perfectly healthy 66-year-old pilot who wants to fly, no, you can't fly anymore because your union has decided that younger pilots--with a lifetime of union dues still to pay--are more important than you are.

What next will unelected, unaccountable, special interests tell Senate Democrats that we are not allowed to have in the FAA bill?

Let me be clear. Short-term extensions are not good for the FAA. This extension until March should be the last extension. I am not satisfied with kicking the can down the road. I don't presume to speak on behalf of my partner in this effort, Senator Cantwell, but I am certain that she doesn't want to continue kicking the can down the road either.

I would prefer that we pass a serious, multiyear authorization, such as the bill Senator Cantwell and I agreed to in June, but, unfortunately, in the months since that stalled markup, we have not made substantial progress, and we still have numerous outstanding provisions.

I am very concerned that given the time we have, the limited progress we have made, and the constant moving goalposts in bill negotiations, that we are getting to the point that we will be forced to extend the FAA's authority until 2025.

I don't want to do that. I don't think Chair Cantwell wants to do that either. We need to get this bill done, and I am still committed to trying to do so if it is a bill that is actually bipartisan and not a special interest wish list that ignores very real problems like the pilot shortage.

In a moment, I will ask unanimous consent for the Senate to pass the FAA extension, which will last until March 8. The House earlier this week voted 376 to 15 to pass this legislation. The Senate cannot leave for the holidays without passing an extension.

Without an extension, here is what would happen: No. 1, all airport construction projects using FAA grants would immediately stop. No. 2, the FAA would lose the ability to make new expenditures from the aviation trust fund, causing many employees in airports, facilities and equipment, and R&D offices to be immediately furloughed. No. 3, special authorizations for drone operations would expire. No. 4, airlines would have no authority to collect ticket taxes that fund the aviation trust fund.

In 2011, the last time the FAA's authorization lapsed, more than 4,000 FAA employees were furloughed, and the FAA lost more than $400 million. The 2-week lapse halted billions of dollars' worth of construction projects and impacted more than 70,000 construction jobs.

Leaving town without giving the FAA the certainty to operate would be a mistake. I remain committed to working with Senator Cantwell to negotiate a truly bipartisan FAA bill that the Agency, the industry, and the flying public deserve.

And with that, I yield the floor to the Senator from Kansas.

Mr. President, at this point, I yield to the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 6503, which was received from the House; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, early in his remarks, the Senator from Colorado said the last time he and I were on this floor debating was when I had shut down the government and he was stepping forward to save those who had been shut down. Now, that would be entirely accurate if my name were Chuck Schumer; but since it is not, what the Senator from Colorado said is blatantly, objectively false.

The last time he and I were doing this, the date was January 24, 2019. We were in the midst of the Schumer shutdown. Chuck Schumer and the Democrats had forced a shutdown. The Government was shut down, and there was a particularly unfair aspect of that shutdown, which is that Congress had voted to fund the military--the Army, the Navy, the Marines, and the Air Force--but the Coast Guards had been left out because the Coast Guards are not in DOD, they had been left out. On January 24, 2019, Senator Sullivan and I came down to this floor to seek equity for the Coast Guard, to simply say: Pay our Coast Guardsmen the same as our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines--and the Senator from Colorado stood up and objected. So understand, what he just said is exactly opposite of what happened.

Our Coast Guardsmen went weeks in 2019 without being paid during that shutdown because the Senator from Colorado objected to their getting a paycheck. And during his remarks on that day, he jumped up and down and screamed at me and insulted me to great fanfare. And I think he was proud of his performance, because he then put it in his launch email for his Presidential campaign that ``I screamed at Cruz.''

Now, I suppose I should feel mildly offended that that was not a persuasive argument in the Democratic primary and he got maybe a percent.

That was the last contest: shutting down the Coast Guard where the Senator from Colorado was responsible for tens of thousands of Coast Guardsmen not getting their paychecks.

Understand where we are today. Today, the question is, does the FAA stay open or not? And once again, the Senator from Colorado is the shutdown Senator. The FAA extension would pass had he not said those two words ``I object.''

Now, we heard from the Senator from Colorado a long discourse on Ukraine. You know, remarkably missing from that discourse was acknowledgment that responsibility for the war in Ukraine falls very directly on the Biden White House, on Senate Democrats, and on the Senator from Colorado in particular who played a direct role in causing the war in Ukraine.

Now, how is that?

Putin did not wake up yesterday wanting to invade Ukraine. He has wanted to invade Ukraine for years. He did so in the year 2014. He invaded Crimea in the southern portion of Ukraine. But he stopped. He did not go into the full country.

Why? Because Russia's major source of revenue is selling oil and gas, and the natural gas pipelines run right through the middle of Ukraine. He could not risk damaging or destroying those pipelines.

So in 2015, Vladimir Putin began what is known as Nord Stream II, an undersea pipeline from Russia to Germany, the entire purpose of which was to circumvent Ukraine so once it was built and operational, he could invade Ukraine.

In 2019, I authored sanctions legislation to shut down the Nord Stream II pipeline. That sanctions legislation got overwhelming bipartisan support, including from the Senator from Colorado. It passed, and Putin shut down building the Nord Stream II pipeline literally the day President Trump signed my sanctions legislation into law.

In December of 2020, I again authored bipartisan legislation putting more sanctions on Nord Stream II. Once again, the Senator from Colorado and every Democrat supported it. It passed and was signed into law.

Joe Biden became President January 20, 2021. Four days later, on January 24, Putin resumed deep sea construction of the Nord Stream II pipeline. Four days later. Why? Because Biden had telegraphed weakness. He had told Putin: I am going to go soft on the Nord Stream II pipeline.

And what he telegraphed was accurate, because several months later, Biden formally waived sanctions on Nord Stream II. He gave a multibillion dollar gift to Putin and allowed him to complete the pipeline.

Now, in January of 2022, I forced another vote on the Senate floor--a vote to reimpose sanctions on the Nord Stream II pipeline. The Senator from Colorado just invoked President Zelenskyy. Oddly enough, he didn't seem to care what President Zelenskyy thought in January of 2022, because President Zelenskyy in January of 2022 begged the U.S. Senate: Please pass Cruz's sanctions legislation. It is the last best hope to stop Russia from invading Ukraine. The Government of Poland put out a formal statement saying: Please pass Cruz's sanctions. If you do not, Putin will invade Ukraine.

On the day of the vote, Joe Biden came to Capitol Hill. He came to meet with the Senate Democrats. It was the first time in his presidency he had done that. And he asked them as a personal favor: Will you stand with the Biden White House? Will you stand with Russia? Will you stand with Putin--will you vote to give billions of dollars to Putin? And, I am sorry to say, 44 Democrats flipped their votes.

On the day of the vote I stood here on the floor and said: If you vote no, we will see Russian tanks in the streets of Kyiv. But 44 Democrats flipped their votes and decided partisan loyalty to the White House mattered more than Ukraine, mattered more than stopping Russia, and just 4 weeks later, the Russian tanks rolled in. And the Senator from Colorado was one of those 44 votes who voted for Russia and Putin on the eve of the war. And if you don't believe me, go look at what Zelenskyy said in January of 2022: If you vote no, Russia will invade.

Now, I don't doubt that the Senator from Colorado today has genuine and good faith concern for the people of Ukraine. That is admirable. But understand what he is doing here. He is not doing anything related to Ukraine. He is holding the American flying public hostage. He is saying--because he is mad about what is happening on Ukraine funding-- he wants to shut the FAA down. He wants to shut jobs down in the Denver airport.

And I would just urge the Senator from Colorado to listen to a very, very wise Senator from this body. And I will read a quote:

Politics. Holding up FAA extension. Costing Colorado jobs. Hashtag ``FAA shutdown.''

Now the author of that tweet, that would be Senator Michael Bennet. He sent that on August 4, 2011--the last time we had an FAA shutdown. And I would say that Senator Bennet, I suspect, might not recognize the Senator today, but I would urge listening to the 2011 Senator who understood shutting the FAA down is bad for Colorado; it is bad for the country. And so I would urge the Senator from Colorado, if you are unhappy about Ukraine funding, don't hold the flying public hostage.

Mr. Speaker, this body is often fighting over things. We are at one of the most polarized points in our Nation that I have ever experienced, but in this case, this is an instance where Republicans and Democrats are coming together. I thank my good friend, Steve Cohen, not just for this bill but also for the 5-year authorization that we passed out of this Chamber back in July. I also thank Rick Larsen, the ranking member of the full committee; and, of course, Sam Graves, the full committee chairman, a good friend, and probably the best expert on aviation in the entire House of Representatives, for their work on aviation this year.

Mr. Speaker, I often hear people quote John Dingell, who said that the other party is the opposition, but the Senate is the enemy. In this case, I think that is exactly what we are experiencing.

Right now, we are in a situation where the House of Representatives, in this very polarized environment, passed a bipartisan FAA bill that we worked on for over 18 months.

The aviation team did an amazing job going through and distilling over 2,000 requests from Members of Congress and stakeholders and generating a bill, while not a metric of success, over 900 pages, ultimately passing the House Transportation Committee unanimously and passing the House of Representatives by a vote of 351 to only 69 people who didn't understand the bill.

Mr. Speaker, that shows huge momentum. We were able to work through complicated issues, as you heard others say, things like improving the passenger experience and making regulatory decisions for the FAA to ensure that we continue to play the leadership role in aviation innovation; to ensure that we have regulatory certainty and that we are not sending innovators and entrepreneurs to other countries to make investments because we don't have regulations, stability, or predictability in the aviation sector where new entrants are coming in at a remarkable rate; to ensure that we move the ball forward and properly strike that balance, as I know the full committee chair is so concerned about, between general aviation and commercial aviation; and to ensure that commercial space travel is properly regulated and has the certainty that they need.

Mr. Speaker, we reorganized the FAA. We improved the training of air traffic controllers. We improved addressing the major cliff that we are going over on pilots, A&P mechanics, and others involved in the aviation space who are so critical to this country.

Rather than sending a bill to the President's desk to do a long-term reauthorization of the FAA for 5 years, which addresses most of the problems in the FAA, we find ourselves now doing a 3-month extension until March 8 because the Senate has been unable to get their job done.

Just 2 weeks ago, we had a hearing in the Aviation Subcommittee where we went through and explored these issues. We looked at this.

The FAA now finally has an Administrator. I am fully supportive of the Administrator of the FAA, Administrator Whitaker, for being in there, but we have to have long-term certainty.

While I am voting for this bill and support it, it does not address the problems in the aviation space. They will not be addressed until the Senate takes up the bill and, ultimately, goes to conference with the House to where we are working on a conference report and sending a long-term authorization to the President.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, I thank the other members of the Big Four: Mr. Cohen, Mr. Larsen, and Mr. Sam Graves. I thank everybody for working on this. I thank the aviation team on both sides.

I support this legislation, and I urge its adoption, but we cannot take the pressure off of the United States Senate to ultimately do their job and pass a long-term FAA reauthorization.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6503) to amend title 49, United States Code, to extend authorizations for the airport improvement program, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend the funding and expenditure authority of the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material into the Record on H.R. 6503.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 6503 extends the statutory authorities of the Federal Aviation Administration through March 8, 2024. This bill also authorizes the continued collection of aviation excise taxes, which are user fees that are critical to ensuring the safe operation of our air traffic control system and for capital infrastructure projects at airports all over the country.

This subsequent extension is necessary because the Senate has yet to finalize their FAA reauthorization bill. The House did its part to provide for a long-term reauthorization when we passed H.R. 3935 in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion on July 20 with more than 350 votes.

I commend my House colleagues for their commitment to reauthorizing the FAA on time and ahead of schedule. I remain committed to enacting a long-term comprehensive FAA bill as soon as possible, and I know that that goal is shared by our counterparts in the Senate. In the meantime, however, we have to keep the lights on at the FAA to ensure continued safe operation of the national airspace system.

Failure to enact this legislation would result in a loss of revenue totaling $50 million per day from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. In other words, not passing this bill would directly and immediately increase our national debt by more than $50 million a day and leave our aviation system less safe.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all Members to support this bill so that we can maintain safety in the national airspace system in the absence of a long-term reauthorization. I urge support of this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the words of the gentleman from Tennessee.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves), the chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Again, I urge all Members to support this must-pass bill so we can keep our aviation system operating safely. Failing to pass an extension would cost the Federal Government more than $50 million a day in those lost revenues.

What is more, the FAA would be prohibited from making new obligations from the aviation trust fund to fund FAA's important safety, operational, and research functions.

To be clear, and I want to be clear to my colleagues, this bill provides a clean extension of FAA authorities. This bill does not include any policy riders at all.

Again, I know there is an appetite across the Capitol to enact a long-term and comprehensive FAA bill, and that continues to be my priority. I urge the Senate to act soon on its FAA bill so that Congress can deliver certainty to the aviation industry and the FAA.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I am standing in lieu of the ranking member Mr. Larsen, who can't be here, and he asked me to do this as I am the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Aviation, which this bill came out of.

I was here earlier today on a veterans' bill, and I mentioned that people sometimes don't think we work together, but military and veterans' issues are a place where Democrats and Republicans come together. We also come together on transportation issues generally, and this time we most assuredly did. There was an overwhelmingly large majority passing this bill on the floor, and it was because of the work of Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Larsen, and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves).

This is a good bill. It protects the flying public. It takes care of consumers who have been left in the breach either on the tarmac or left for hours with the plane not leaving or getting in late, giving them the right to get refunds, compensation, water, all those other things they would like to have. It takes care of trying to see that our air traffic controllers have a larger group of people to choose from, opening it up to minorities who have not really been encouraged and/or permitted so much into the air traffic control system.

We need more and more air traffic controllers, so this bill encourages more people to get involved in that because when we have a lack of air traffic controllers, we have got potential safety problems. We have had 9, 10, or 11--I don't know exactly how many--near- collisions because the air traffic controllers had too much work, some of them were doing other things, and they just don't have enough folks. For safety, we need to get this passed, as well as for consumers.

There are many other improvements detailed in the bill, but I am not going to go through these eight wonderful pages that my staffer has drawn up for me to read. I will just say it is a good bill. The Senate should get their work done and join with us in improving the public's safety in the air and their rights as consumers. The bill includes improvements in airport construction and also gives people with disabilities many more opportunities, too.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage everybody to vote ``aye'' and pass this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, in response to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), my friend, who wished us all merry Christmas, I wish him merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah.

Today is the Hanukkah party at the White House, and the Speaker has yet to limit votes so that the Members who attend can attend and not miss votes. We had votes moved on Christmas, and they should be moved on Hanukkah, too. I know the Speaker is very concerned about the Bible, and in the Bible, Moses said, let my people go. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I will yield back the balance of my time and not ask Mr. Graves who won the Heisman Trophy because he knows well-- the LSU quarterback.

New and persistent challenges facing the U.S. aviation system make clear that the status quo is unsustainable. We must extend the FAA's current authorization and recommit to passing a long-term, comprehensive reauthorization to avoid repeating this scenario. I support H.R. 6503 fully, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.