Floor Statements

Mr. President, as a member of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, I have the honor and privilege each year to recognize a West Virginia family for efforts to promote adoption. This is an exceptional program that highlights how policies and programs can change a child's life. In 1997, I worked on the bipartisan Adoption and Safe Families Act which sought to increase adoptions and improve foster care. Much work remains, but real progress has been made in encouraging adoptions.

While policy can help, the real angels are the families who open their hearts and homes to vulnerable children. There are many wonderful stories but in 2011 I have nominated Nick and Jorun Picciano as Angels in Adoption.

These caring parents already have teenage children, and they have incredibly hectic, fulfilling lives as paramedics. But they noticed that some of the children they met on the job were victims of abuse or neglect. As paramedics, they sadly saw a parent who was more interested in returning to a party than taking care of her burned child. According to their story, this was a turning point for them. They sought information about foster parenting, and they worked to find a program that would accommodate their challenging schedules.

Nick and Jorun were approved and welcomed a toddler into their home in 2009. They honestly admitted it had been a long time since they had cared for such a young child, and he already had challenging problems of nightmares, being separated from his siblings, and recovering from contact with his biological parents. This 3-year-old had already been placed in four different homes. But kindness, patience and love make a huge difference.

In 2011, after his parents decided to voluntarily relinquish their parental rights, the Picciano family was able to adopt their son, Joshua Nicholas Picciano. Joshua joins his older siblings, Jacob Hively who is 16, Michaela Hively who is 14, Jacynda Hively who is 13, and Lucia Picciano who is 13. And

this extraordinary family continues to welcome vulnerable children including two foster girls, ages 7 and 9, into their hearts and home. This is a special family, and they deserve our admiration.

I believe their willingness to see the tragedy of abuse and neglect in their challenging work as paramedics and their decision to make a personal difference by opening their own home and family to vulnerable children is a remarkable, inspiring story that has earned them the distinction of Angels in Adoption.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss my strong support for the Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act that the Finance Committee approved yesterday. This is an important bipartisan and bicameral bill that deserves to pass and become law. I am proud to be a cosponsor and I congratulate Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Hatch for their leadership on the important issue of adoption and prevention services for vulnerable children.

Over the years, I have been proud of the Finance Committee's bipartisan work to encourage adoption and improve child welfare services for our most vulnerable children, those who are at risk of abuse and neglect in their own homes. It is inspiring to know that, even now, members can come together to work on such critical issues. Bipartisan bills like this one may not attract headlines, but the policies and programs can change the lives of children and families.

This package continues previous investments in children and families, and it makes improvements on what lessons have been learned over the past 5 years. I am proud that the legislation continues to invest in the court improvement program that is making such a difference in West Virginia, and the country. Our judges are an essential partnership in the child welfare system because they decide when a child can return home safely or if adoption is the better permanency plan for a child. It is a difficult decision to make. Judges deserve specialized training in child development and trauma to help in their decision because this is not always provided at law school, but it is a critical factor in such cases. I am proud of our State training on trauma. The bill also continues the competitive grant program to combat substance abuse and to evaluate the grants so we make wise investments in the future. The bill invests in caseworker visits because such visits are the basics of good practice and essential for child safety and care.

As a former Governor, I support providing waiver authority for states to continue to try innovative programs. Under previous waivers, it became clear that kinship care was a good option for many children in the foster care system. I hope that our States will be creative in using this new opportunity to provide guidance for additional child welfare reform that is truly needed.

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

Mr. President, I rise today with a deep sense of honor and a deep sense of sadness to speak about the late Senator Charles Harting Percy of Illinois who passed away this past Saturday, with his family surrounding him.

Before I begin, though, I also wish to speak about two other losses to the Senate family. One, of course, is Kara Kennedy, the beloved daughter of Senator Ted Kennedy, as well as Eleanor Mondale, the beloved daughter of Vice President and Senator Fritz Mondale. Each of these two wonderful people died at the age of 51 and it is incomprehensible. It is terrible. They were far too young to be taken from us. The Percy and Rockefeller family love flows to their families.

Senator Chuck Percy was blessed to live a long and accomplished life. He lived to be 91 years old. Many of my colleagues know Senator Percy was a distinguished Republican Member of the Senate for 18 years, from 1967 to 1984, which is the year I came to the Senate. He was chairman, as people know, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a man with an absolutely vast talent that he poured into every aspect of his public service as well as his private business career. He was extraordinary in that way. He had brains. He had vision. He had stamina. He had energy. He was incredibly athletic. He could do anything for any amount of time and under all of this was built this incredible discipline that made him do it all.

Most importantly to this Senator, Chuck Percy was my father-in-law for more than four decades, since I was lucky enough to marry his unique and beautiful daughter, Sharon Percy, who, I might say, has many of the characteristics, nature and habits of Senator Percy. It just worked out that way. She has those characteristics. He extended to me in every way the great gift of joining the family he nurtured, watched over, cared for, and protected all of his life, and for that, obviously, I am forever grateful.

I wish to share a few remembrances of Senator Percy with my colleagues because many here didn't know him--a few did, but most did not; with the people of Illinois, and with all of the family and friends who are hurting from the news of his loss.

Chuck Percy was absolutely unshakeable in his belief in the future. He believed in our country and he believed in our ability to make this world a better place, if we would only put our minds and will and discipline to it. He was a believer. He always saw not through a glass darkly but through a glass brightly. It was his nature. He was guided more by what was right than by party label.

Interestingly, in a press interview in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama noted that his hope was that more Republicans would look at members of their party for inspiration and then compare them to Abraham Lincoln and Chuck Percy, two ``pretty good Republicans,'' he said.

What made Chuck so magnetic and so successful was his determination to share his optimism, to share his sense of promise with everyone around him, even at a very young age.

Chuck Percy began his business career not at Bell & Howell, where in fact at the age of 29 he became the youngest CEO and president of a major American company, but in fact he did it years earlier at the age of 4. His family was impoverished. They had been devastated by the Great Depression. They faced bankruptcy. They shifted from place to place in some of the most difficult parts of Chicago. So Chuck Percy at the age of 4 wanted to help, and he knew how to help: the entrepreneurial instinct. He took cookies, baked presumably at home, and sold them on the streets of Chicago for a very little amount of money, but he made money from that which he then turned over to the family.

He helped his impoverished family weather the Great Depression and pushed himself, by force of will, to get an education, all the way through the University of Chicago, on scholarship.

Before his business career took off, as did many men of his generation, Chuck Percy went off to war serving his country for 3 years as a naval officer during World War II. Upon returning home, he rejoined Bell & Howell and led that company from 1949 to 1964 through an astounding thirty-two fold increase in the expansion of sales, in what were then cutting-edge film products.

He launched his political career in large part to get back into public service because he missed it. He yearned for it. One could argue that business might have been his real calling, or maybe public service was, but to him he was interested in everything and wanted to do everything. So he had a chance to get back into public service, but he had no grand ambition. He simply wanted to find ways to challenge himself and to help make the country better.

Chuck Percy had a seriousness of purpose. As a young man he resolved to read all of the great books of his generation and generations that preceded his, the master works, as well as the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers. He not only read them, but he discussed them all with his professor. It was a stunning emphasis to drive himself to increase his knowledge to the highest level possible.

But Chuck also had a sense of fun and of sport. He loved to be active. He loved to ski, among other things. As fate would have it, he was skiing in Idaho when then-President Eisenhower called him in 1959 to see if he could be persuaded to work on a project to reinvigorate the Republican Party by leading a commission on national goals. It was an ambitious task and rife with political risk for Chuck, but Chuck didn't hesitate. His work helped pave the way for his election, in fact, to the Senate in 1966.

But even more than that, his report served as a template for the reflection and soul searching that went on in this country ahead of that 1976 bicentennial. He cared about the 200th anniversary of America. Everybody did, but he really did, and he wanted to know what we could do better, what we could do more of, and that is what he used that commission for. He wanted America to be a better nation.

As a Senator, Chuck Percy took a strong interest in the economy and international affairs. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee he traveled the globe, going to countries whose names were hardly known at a time when very few Senators were even traveling at all. He could do that as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, but he wanted to do that and he was good at it. He would get into the tiniest track of a small village to try and meet people, maybe even breaking cultural habits by trying to shake hands with people who were not allowed to shake hands because they were considered too impoverished. Nothing discouraged him, and he wanted to make himself a better person and a better Senator.

Chuck was on a trip to inspect the battlefields of Vietnam, even though he was very skeptical of that war. He was on a helicopter when his aircraft took fire from the Vietcong in a hamlet about 90 miles north of Saigon.

The helicopter lifted off for safety, but left Chuck with four other men and two guns between them to huddle against the ground as mortar shells exploded 15 feet away and small arms fire whizzed overhead. Additional U.S. helicopters soon arrived and rescued the men, and the story went on. He was fearless.

When he came to the Senate, Chuck took on the culture of the Senate. He didn't like a lot of what he saw. I am looking, as I speak now, at Senate pages. He thought there was no reason why girls could not be Senate pages as easily as boys, but that was the custom then. Girls were not deemed to be able to do the work. There was an attitude here in the Senate then that the opportunity of being a page was suited for boys, and during the debate, interestingly, some Senators worried about girl pages not being able to carry copies of the Congressional Record to the Senate desks.

He cosponsored the Equal Rights Amendment and spent the better part of his career arguing that women should have the same opportunities as men. Senator Percy knew firsthand from the remarkable women in his own life, his own family, and the remarkable women in his office that women can do anything men can do, and perhaps better. In fact, Senator Percy was furious when he found out that textbooks paid for by the Federal Government included sentences such as ``girls

should be nurses and secretaries, while boys should be doctors and businessmen.''

Chuck Percy also cared deeply about helping less fortunate Americans. People think of him as always having been very rich. No. He was very poor and his family was even poorer. He struggled for a long time. He is rightly credited for authoring and pushing the first-ever legislation to create opportunities for home ownership for low-income Americans.

He focused on older Americans. He wrote a book back in 1974 about the daunting process of growing old in America. This is back in 1974, 9 years after Medicare, and the shameful living conditions and hospital conditions the elder poor had to face. His book was a call to action and a moral imperative to restore dignity to aging.

Chuck favored open government and sunshine laws at a time when it was not popular. He felt strongly that in a democracy, the military establishment should be held accountable and answer specifically to civilian leaders.

He also opposed, for the most part, war and took many positions that undoubtedly hurt him within his party.

But, in fact, he defied party labels, describing himself as ``fervently moderate.'' So aggressively did he seek out evenhandedness that it was known by those who knew him that at his dinner parties at his house, they were always equally divided between Democrats and Republicans; specifically, one Republican, one Democrat, and different parts of the government and business. It was a matter of principle to him.

He wanted to hear all sides, though he was absolutely resolute when he made up his mind. One of the things I thought was most captivating about Chuck was the fervor with which he held his beliefs.

Senator Percy's desire to be President came to be well known--and he wrote about it publicly--but the timing was never quite right so that did not happen.

He lost his race for a fourth Senate term in 1984, just when this Senator was coming into the Senate, and it was one of several very difficult times Chuck Percy faced in his life with courage and with grace.

Early in his life, his family was literally penniless when his father lost his job and all their savings. Then later, at the midpoint of his career, he lost a beloved daughter, Sharon's twin sister Valerie, in an unspeakable and lethal crime that still tears at the soul of our family. Then, in his final years, he was struck down by Alzheimer's for a decade or more. There is no cure for Alzheimer's. The end was fated.

He was never downcast. He was always--until he no longer could-- trying to read, walk, play tennis, have meals outdoors, and do something. But it was through the whole of his dynamic and full life that Chuck Percy steadily became the great man whom I have been privileged to know, admire, and love deeply.

Chuck warmed to a challenge. He leaned into life in every way-- insisting for himself, his children, and his grandchildren that the best part of living consists of learning, improving, and trying to do better each day. His energy and his focus on this process, fueled in part by Christian Science, was amazing and unmatched, as far as I am concerned.

He was an incomparable father to Sharon and to her siblings. He lived what he believed--very simple--never wavered in his unconditional support and love, and sought and created truth.

America benefitted greatly from his life and from his service. The entire Percy and Rockefeller families have been incredibly and indelibly shaped by his legacy and by his love.

I ask unanimous consent that a statement from the Percy and Rockefeller families be printed in the Congressional Record. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition--very strong opposition--to the Paul amendment. The Senate voted on this earlier this year and turned it down very emphatically. The Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, is taken for granted by some. They just assume there will always be money and everything can go on constantly. The Senate has rejected this.

The FAA has raised very substantial concerns publicly--but more importantly, from my point of view, to me privately--that at all levels they will have to start compromising safety, although they will not intend to, and eventually we will put FAA at risk.

It is a very bad and dangerous amendment--a mischievous amendment-- and it should be defeated.

Sunday is September 11. It will be 10 years after thousands perished in the worst terrorist attack the United States has ever seen. It was a day America lost fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, and it was a day we will never forget.

With that historic date approaching, I think that it is imperative that we honor the tremendous bravery of our public safety officials. Every day they are on the front lines in one of our Nation's most pressing battles--protecting our neighborhoods, our communities, and responding fearlessly when tragedy strikes. And it is around this time every year that we particularly remember their bravery in responding to one of the most horrific tragedies of all.

The best way to honor our first responders is to make sure we are giving them the tools they need to be successful, to be safe and to do their job in a way that does not expose them to needless dangers. Right now, it is unimaginable, but we are not doing that. When it comes to public safety communications, these everyday heroes don't have the networks they need and depend on.

Too often first responders lack the interoperable networks that are essential to providing an effective response in emergencies. They lack the ability to communicate with one another, with other agencies and across different city and state lines. This hampers our ability to respond to crisis. Whether that crisis is a terrorist attack or natural disaster, it puts lives in unnecessary danger.

Shouldn't a firefighter be able to wirelessly download a floor plan of a burning building before running into it? Shouldn't a police officer be able to receive an immediate digital snapshot of a dangerous criminal? And shouldn't an emergency medical technician be able to receive life-saving medical information on a patient following an accident? If the average American traveler is able to wirelessly pull up a map to route a summer road trip why shouldn't our first responders be able to utilize the same type of technology to save lives?

Far too much time has passed for Congress to not act. That is why I have been working, side by side with the Commerce Committee's ranking member, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, to pass S. 911, the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act. This bipartisan legislation would implement a nationwide, interoperable wireless broadband communications network for our first responders.

It would set aside the 10 megahertz of spectrum known as the ``D- block'' for public safety to support the network and help foster communications for our first responders across the country.

It would also give the Federal Communications Commission the authority to hold incentive auctions based on the voluntary return of spectrum. These auctions, in turn, will provide funding to support the construction and maintenance of a public safety network and will free up additional spectrum for innovative commercial uses. In an industry that has created 420,000 new jobs over the past decade, this bill is crucial to that continued growth.

In short, this bill marries much needed resources for first responders with smart commercial spectrum policy. It can keep us safe-- and help grow our economy. That is why this legislation has the support of every major public

safety organization across the country including in my State of West Virginia. It is also why this bill has strong support from governors and mayors across the country and why we have the support of our President and the administration.

This week, as we come together as a nation to remember and honor the lives lost on 9/11, I also urge my colleagues to support the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act. And to those who say we cannot afford to do this now, I say we cannot afford not to. Because this effort is about saving lives. But if this reason is not compelling enough, it is important to know this: this legislation pays for itself. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and even the industry itself, incentive auctions will bring in revenue well above what funding public safety requires, leaving billions over for deficit reduction. This is a win-win-win.

In closing, let me say that we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to provide our public safety officials with the spectrum they need to communicate when tragedy strikes. And with voluntary incentive auctions we can pair this with funding.

Let's seize this moment. This is not Republican, this is not Democrat. It is quite simply the right thing to do. Let's do something historic--together.

Mr. President, today I celebrate the 225th anniversary of the incorporation of the city of Charles Town, WV. Charles Town has a rich history and heritage of great significance not only to West Virginia but to the entire nation.

Charles Town was originally founded in 1786 in what was then Virginia. The city was named after Charles Washington, the brother of our first President, George Washington. Charles Washington moved to the lower Shenandoah Valley in 1780 and there he began building his home known as ``Happy Retreat.'' In 1786, he asked the Virginia State Legislature for permission to incorporate a town there, which he named ``Charles Town.'' After Charles Washington's death, Charles Town became the county seat of newly formed Jefferson County.

Our Nation's focus turned to Charles Town in 1859 with the trial and execution of abolitionist John Brown and his followers after their historic raid on Harper's Ferry. The trial proceedings, and the words uttered by John Brown in Charles Town on the institution that held millions of Americans in bondage, helped shape our Nation's debate on issues surrounding the Civil War. When Virginia seceded from the Union, Charles Town became part of the newly created State known as West Virginia. Today, visitors come to Charles Town from all over to view an area steeped in the history of our Nation.

Charles Town has undergone many changes over 225 years. And those many changes are evident in its abundance of historic sites, including its architectural landmarks and museums, and transitions over time in its local economy. The residents of Charles Town have always met these changes with courage and vision, and have confronted challenges with resilience and strength of spirit. They are proud and hard-working, and will undoubtedly help carry the city into a promising future.

The city's local leaders--both past and present--also deserve credit for the city's success. Their leadership and inspiration have guided Charles Town as it has developed and grown, while remaining true to its heritage and our West Virginia values. I join Mayor Peggy Smith and the city council in celebrating this momentous occasion.

Two hundred twenty-five years ago, Charles Washington had a vision for the city of Charles Town and the people of the lower Shenandoah Valley who would establish their lives there. And, as the citizens and leaders of Charles Town look ahead, I believe strongly that the city continues to hold great promise for a prosperous future.

Mr. President, I rise to engage in a colloquy with my colleagues, Senators Durbin and Pryor, over the passage of H.R. 2715, a bill that passed on the House suspension calendar by a vote of 421-2 and the Senate by unanimous consent. Due to the fact that this bill bypassed regular order and failed to receive consideration in the Commerce Committee, I believe it is important to explain our intent in passing this bill.

I share the Senator's concerns about the CPSC's delay in promulgating its regulations in accordance with the mandates of CPSIA. While I sympathize with the CPSC over its resource constraints, the Commission must accelerate its efforts and complete the important regulations required under CPSIA. The provisions in section 2 of H.R. 2715 were not intended to delay or stop the Commission's current rulemaking under section 102 (d)(2) of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act to implement the critical provision related to the third-party testing of children's products. I fully expect the Commission to go forward with these important rulemakings with no disruption from the passage of this bill.

Given the limited resources of the Commission and recognizing the length of time it has taken to implement the provisions of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, it is intended that most of H.R. 2715's new mandates on the CPSC are not rulemakings. Some of the new authority, such as the functional purpose exemption and the authority to restrict the scope of the used products exemption, are subject to a notice and hearing requirement, but not to a rulemaking. Others, such as the creation of a new public registry for small batch manufacturers, can be implemented without notice and comment or even a hearing. As such, the Commission should act to effectuate the new mandates of this bill in a most expeditious manner.

Mr. President, it is my great pleasure to congratulate and pay tribute to Gary Locke, who has been the Secretary of Commerce since March 2009 and was recently confirmed by the Senate to be the U.S. Ambassador to China. Secretary Locke has been a truly outstanding public servant, and I applaud him as he continues his service to our country in China. His service truly makes our country a better place.

As Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke has been an aggressive leader at the Department of Commerce, and has earned a reputation as a strong manager and an innovator.

Among his many successes at Commerce, he has helped innovators by pushing the Patent and Trademark Office to streamline the process to get a patent.

Secretary Locke worked with the Economic Development Administration to streamline its approval process. The EDA is a crucial program, which makes business-development grants to distressed communities. Programs such as EDA help ordinary Americans and small businesses and will help move the economy forward. I appreciate Secretary Locke's commitment to programs such as EDA and helping these communities.

In this time of fiscal austerity, he brought the 2010 census in 25 percent under budget, saving taxpayers $1.9 billion. He led an organization that still got the census information that we need to get a true picture of the makeup of our Nation.

I also appreciate his hard work to meet the Obama administration's goal to double exports within 5 years. Currently, only 1 percent of American companies export, and Secretary Locke understands the crucial need for expanded U.S. exports as part of our economic recovery.

I know we will look back and say that Secretary Locke's time at the Department of Commerce was the beginning of America's return to prominence as an export nation. As he said, ``It is almost like [we're] building the foundation of a house or an office tower. All the foundation work takes a long, long time. You don't really see it. It is all happening below the street level. . . . After that, then things really begin to take off''

Thank you, again, Gary, now Ambassador Locke. You are a true public servant, and that is one of the highest compliments I can convey. I wish you luck as you continue to serve this great Nation in your new post.

The nominations considered and confirmed en bloc are as follows:

Mr. President, we are entering the second workweek of a partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration. I know the Congress, the President, and the American people have been focused on the debt and deficit crisis, but behind that, and not in the shadows to those of us who care about aviation, I want people to understand that what has been happening to the FAA is causing enormous pain throughout the country, and the pain will only grow because of an apparent shutdown of the attempts to pass the Federal aviation bill, primarily because of the House.

Because Congress has failed to pass the 21st short-term extension of the FAA--do you understand what that means? It is simply saying: I would like to have a clean bill of extension. That is all. No policy, just a clean bill. Give us another several weeks to work on some of the complicated issues.

So 20 times we have done that over 4 years, and there has been no objection. The 21st time, there is content--suddenly, policy is injected into the request for a clean extension, or the response to the request. In this time, nearly 4,000 hard-working Federal aviation employees have been furloughed. That means they go without pay. If things follow their current course, as I believe they will, they will go at least another month or more without pay. I do not know how many of them continue to stay in their jobs.

It has halted critical airport safety capacity and air traffic control projects. To be quite honest with you, the whole prospect of NextGen, that is, the GPS system of tracking planes and how far they are from each other--once we have that like every other industrialized country, they will be able to land quickly and more efficiently and with fewer delays.

They have suspended payments to hundreds of small businesses dependent upon reimbursement from contracts they have made with the FAA for their work. So that just stops. Things just come to a dead halt. Runways, control towers, whatever--they just stop, and they will stay stopped. They will remain stopped, as things are going now, throughout the month of August and the early part of September.

They have forgone more than $250 million in aviation tax revenue that is critical to supporting our aviation system. That is about $25 million a day that is meant to go into the airport trust fund that does not, and by the time we return, that will be about $1.2 billion.

Very shortly, I will seek unanimous consent to pass a clean extension of the FAA, and it will be objected to by the Senator from Utah. In some ways, you can say it is a futile gesture, but it is all I have left. It is all I have left in trying to take this incredible process which we have been working on, Senator Hutchison and myself, forever-- forever.

With so much damage being caused, you might ask why not all of my Republican colleagues but some of them have refused repeated requests to pass a clean extension, some here in the Senate, mostly all in the House, all of the leadership in the House. So I want to outline how we have, in fact, in my judgment, come to this point.

The chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which is called T and I--that chairman is my counterpart on the Commerce Committee. He has certain jurisdictions, and I have certain jurisdictions. They are not always the same. He is transportation and infrastructure; that doesn't comport exactly with the jurisdiction of the Commerce Committee. But in any event, he seems willing to shut down the FAA, you know, is certainly going to stick it to the FAA employees, and there will be many more of them by the time this has ended.

It is a tragedy that never had to happen. It is a tragedy about ego, about bullying, about an attempt to prove one side would cave. It is sort of the worst kind of political bickering the American people are so sick of, but this time, they are going to pay a terrible price.

They are insisting on antiworker language. It has to do with the National Mediation Board. They know full well this was destined never to happen in the Senate. They knew full well the President of the United States had already said publicly a number of times that he would veto anything which contained this kind of language for the National Mediation Board, basically changing 75 years of labor law.

To be just a little bit explicit about this because it is interesting, what they want to do is have a system wherein if, when-- you are voting to join a union or whatever, and let's say I am a worker but my mother is very sick, so I am at home taking care of her, so I do not vote. The fact that I did not vote does not mean I just did not vote; it means I voted no, thus helping the company, thus tilting, in a very odd way, very un-American way, what an election is all about.

We have not had a formal conference. Senator Hutchison and I have resolved over--and Maria Cantwell, John Thune--we have resolved over 250 differences between the House and the Senate, and now there are only about 12 that remain to be resolved, all of which can be resolved. But that is of no consequence.

I also sent over suggested language for a significant program such as the Essential Air Service Program, 6 weeks ago, to the chairman, Chairman Mica, that reforms in a way that saves $71 million each year for the 4 years of the bill in the Essential Air Service Program.

Six weeks ago, the House passed a clean, short-term extension--the 20th--like every other extension that has gone on around here forever-- passed it clean, no policy, nothing in it, just extend it so we have more chances to talk--but then they promptly left on a week tour of European and Middle

Eastern airports, which made it a little more difficult to talk.

Since they returned, I have been told that unless and until the Senate accepts House language on their proposed changes to the National Mediation Board, they would negotiate no further, and that message was reaffirmed in the strongest terms this afternoon.

You know, this all started with Delta Air Lines. Delta Air Lines is out of Atlanta, GA. They do not have any unions. That is their business, not mine. They have had four elections. Unions have tried to organize four times.

Four times the unions have lost. So it would appear their chances are not very good in the future. But that doesn't stop Delta. They want to make sure we put in place a structured system that is out of kilter to a fair election, and other purposes with other unions.

What they then did is sent over an Essential Air Service policy rider on the extension--unprecedented--with which we didn't agree. Therefore, when you don't do it in the first place, or if you do it, both sides have to agree before you send it over--and it is easy to say we will extend it and include that policy because both sides agreed to it. But they sent over an Essential Air Service program essentially targeting rural communities in the States of Democratic Senators. If the House was serious about reforming Essential Air Service, they would have stayed at the negotiating table. They would have welcomed the chance to come back.

The House-passed extension is not about policy; it is about politics, and everybody knows that. So here we are on the eve of the August recess, and we have a choice tonight. We can pass a clean extension and put people back to work--all the 4,000 people who are furloughed and have gone through some period of time without paychecks. They would automatically be taken back and life would be as it was before through September 16. So that is another month and a half of wages they would have to feed their families, and contractors could go back to work, and projects at airports and related facilities could continue. It is very important.

Aviation is 10 percent of the American economy--the GDP. We have inflicted far too much damage on our aviation system for the needs of one airline--one airline.

I urge my colleagues to allow this consent agreement to go forward. It won't. But if you believe in the goal of having an FAA system that is funded, and is well, and which can take on the incredible technological needs that we have to--in particular, the Next Generation system, which is not just ground-based, but avionics have to be placed in every single plane that flies. That is a major undertaking.

What they have done by their decision is to take $25 million a day outside, away from the airport trust fund. The airport trust fund cannot afford that. What I want the airlines to be thinking about over the next number of weeks, until we can get back at this--unless everything suddenly changes tonight, but I doubt that--is how they are going to divide up between themselves the $1.2 billion they will owe to the airport trust fund.

I commit to the President of the Senate and my colleagues that I will do everything I can to make sure that not just the $250 million, which they have already vanquished out of the airport trust fund, which we depend upon for everything, but the billion above that. That will happen at $25 million a day, because they didn't want to give up anything so they could have their National Mediation Board stacked the way they wanted it, and in a most unfair and most un-American way.

Having said that, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 109, H.R. 2553; that a Rockefeller- Hutchison substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read the third time and passed; and that the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

I object.

Mr. President, may I make a further comment?

I made one mistake in my remarks--which is very unusual. The repeal of the National Mediation Board's decision language did in fact pass the House. I said it didn't. It never passed the Senate and has never been debated in the Senate. The committee of jurisdiction has never brought it up, never had a hearing, and it was not raised during any of the floor considerations in the Senate.

I suggest that if we were operating under the rules the Senator from Utah wants to see happen, I don't think any of us would be here. I don't think there would be any mayors, Governors, or Senators, because most people don't vote. They would all be voting no. One way or another, we would not be here. It is ludicrous.

I regret very much that this card is being played. I regret even more the fact the business community and the airline community, in particular, led by Delta, was so quiet during all of this.

I got a message in the middle of this afternoon that the American Transportation Association, which is a legacy of the big airlines association, and Delta in particular, wanted to pass a clean bill of extension.

Well, that doesn't work, Mr. President. It is so easy to say we would like to have it passed. But it is much too late to do anything about it. There are no phone calls. The whole thing is really a sham. It is very painful, and potentially very threatening, to West Virginia. I therefore object.

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

I thank the Presiding Officer, as I always do.

Mr. President, Senator Tom Harkin is on his way from the meeting the Presiding Officer and I were just at because we both want to talk more about this National Mediation Board crisis and also the fact that the FAA is on hold, that we cannot do anything with it. What the House did--you see, one of the revelations of the modern era, which hopefully will last only a couple years, is that the folks in the House are willing to say ``no'' to the very end. In other words, the question I would raise is that my plan is to raise the stakes on the airlines, doing quite dreadful things to them, in hopes they will engage with the House Members to say we have to have an FAA bill.

As I said yesterday, all I seek is a clean bill of extension. That has been done 20 times on this FAA bill. It has taken us 4 years, and we have not been able to reauthorize it. There are some things to work out, but they can all be worked out.

The House sent over a message saying they did not like what we were doing on the essential air service. Well, the Presiding Officer knows what the essential air service means for rural communities, which is to have it in order that communities have an economic future of any kind at all. But, on the other hand, we have been willing to make reforms. In fact, the reforms we have suggested are more dramatic reforms than the House has suggested: put a cap on the number of airports--some quite dramatic things I actually hate doing in order to try to get agreement on that subject.

But what is more interesting is, that is not what they care about. Mr. Mica, who is my counterpart in the House, has often said he does not have a dog in the essential air service fight. Yesterday I was meeting with him and Secretary LaHood, who is completely with the Senate in our desire to get this done and to break the intransigence of the House, and my counterpart simply said--I said: Why did you send that over when that is not what you care about? He said: Well, sometimes it is a little political thing.

I was not shocked by that because that is why I knew he had done it, but what it says is they are willing to tank the Federal Aviation Administration unless the Senate caves to their position on the National Mediation Board, which would undo 75 years of labor law and which would take an extraordinary situation, which Senator Harkin, when he gets here, if he gets here, is going to talk more about.

But the principle they want and they like is the fact that if you have an election--it could be a union election, it could be any kind of an election, but let's say for the purposes of this it is a union election--and people do not show up to vote, as is always the case. Then for those people who did not show up to vote, their vote is automatically characterized as a ``no'' vote on the idea of certifying to get a union.

This is purely the work of Delta. Most of the legacy airlines are unionized. Delta is not. Delta's CEO makes $9 million a year, their top management another $20 million a year. They could practically pay for the whole Essential Air Service Program themselves. But they do not want to fool around with this language to protect their antiworker ambitions.

They have had four union elections in the last several years. They have prevailed. The airline has prevailed in all four of those elections. But they still want this language changed so that if you do not vote, you are put down as a ``no'' vote; that is, not to be able to organize. That is un-American. It is unprecedented in American history. And it goes against, as I said, 75 years of labor law. That is very dangerous.

What we have to do is to try and make it clear--frankly, the other airlines have been rather tepid in their support of my position. Airlines are a close group and they tend to stay together. They have to stop that. They have to make the House understand that if they persist in this rule, we will have a Federal aviation system that will shut down altogether. I am talking about air traffic controllers. I am talking about the whole deal. It is not a long process. It is a horrible process. It is an antiworker process which they are dumping in our laps. They want to see that happen. They are willing to see that happen. They will not compromise on the National Mediation Board. They will not compromise. They have said that. I have often talked with my counterpart over there, and he says: Well: I do not make those decisions. Those are made at a higher pay grade. He uses that word. Why does somebody run for public office if they simply take orders from other people? Well, that is sort of the way they do things over there in the House, but it is extremely dangerous.

The truth lies in the fact that the House provision that cuts the Essential Air Service Program by $16 million--that is what it does. At the same time, the House has been willing to let $150 million drain from the airport trust fund in less than a week. Every day we do not get this bill resolved, $25 million drops out of the airport trust fund, which is flush for now but is becoming very unflush very quickly.

The FAA extensions are very necessary. They are not something which people walk around here talking about all the time, but if they find they do not have flights to get to their homes on the west coast or in the South or anywhere else, they will be very angry. People will be very angry. I do not know of any alternative but to ratchet up the pressure, to make those who are blocking this understand they are

causing a national disaster and they need to back off from that position.

They have said they will not. Well, will that be the final solution? It may very well be, and we have to understand that. But you cannot negotiate something which is so antiworker. You cannot negotiate that. The President has said he will veto it if it appears in the bill in any form. The House has voted for it. The Senate has voted against it. We have been very clear that it cannot pass over here and will not pass over here. So why are they playing that game?

The airlines are not now even paying for their use of the national airspace system. The carriers also do not appear to care about the impact on the dedicated FAA workforce that serves them--once again, 4,000 already having been furloughed. Most of the airlines are not even passing any savings on to the customers they serve. Why do I say that? Because they are having a tax holiday now because our extension ran out. So all of a sudden they do not have to pay taxes on jet fuel and a number of other things, so they are getting a lot of money. But what will you do with that money? Would you keep it for yourself or would you turn it over to the trust fund or would you keep ticket prices the same and not raise them? Well, they keep it. Frontier Airlines, I think Alaska Airlines, Virgin, all have kept their fares exactly where they were. They are trying to protect the consumer.

Delta and the other airlines are raising ticket prices as fast as they can, even though, because the time has run out on the agreement, they are getting endless millions of dollars. They are choosing to keep it and make a profit for themselves. That is unconscionable behavior in terms of national policy.

What are the real benefits to Delta from what they are doing? How badly were they harmed by the decision, the NMB decision? After the change, several unionization votes were held among components of their work force, which I have already said. None of those units voted to organize. So what is their game? It is a game. It is politics. It is theology. You cannot let that stand. You cannot allow people to get furloughed who are serious about their jobs, who are engineers and technical people--the first 4,000. Many of them will not come back. They will choose to figure: Well, they will never get this settled. They will go out and find other jobs, and they will be able to get other jobs. It is unconscionable. It is almost you cannot believe you are in this situation, that you are in some ``Disney World'' somewhere where people do not take life seriously and do not take policies seriously.

I want to reiterate that the Senate appointed conferees--which is sort of necessary to try and reach resolution--on the very day the House sent over its FAA package for us to consider. We appointed conferees. More than 100 days later--1-0-0 days later--the House still dragged its feet. The House has still not named any conferees.

What am I to make of that? They are not serious about this. So if they are not serious about it, do we then buckle because they are not serious or do we stand for what is right and what is fair for the people who work for the Federal Aviation Administration and also, frankly, for consumers of aviation all over this country?

I will tell you, you wait until some of these air traffic control systems shut down, the towers shut down because there is nobody to man them. Then business, American business and these airlines are going to understand how bad it is going to be. The only policy I know how to adopt is to try and drive home to them what they are actually doing to their own futures. They will shut themselves down if they continue on their course.

We can still get this process working again, but we need to get the FAA stable first. We should pass a clean extension, that which we have done forever. All extensions are clean. Senator Corker was just talking about a clean extension on something else. We should pass a clean extension and then get to work finding a compromise on our remaining differences.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and await the presence of Senator Harkin who will be speaking on this subject.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I wish honor Pamela Lynne Weller, legal special assistant to Commissioner Thomas H. Moore at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, CPSC. Ms. Weller is retiring after more than 26 years of distinguished Federal Government service.

Pamela was born in Baltimore and has lived in Maryland for most of her life. She graduated with honors from the University of Maryland and received her law degree from Georgetown University.

Pamela began her Federal service during her last year of law school, when she worked for Senator Lawton Chiles on the Government in the Sunshine Act, Public Law 94-409, and later for Senator Richard Stone. For part of that time she actually worked for both Senators simultaneously, for Senator Chiles as part of a law school program and as a salaried employee of Senator Stone. After graduation, she continued working for Senator Stone on a variety of important issues through the end of his term of office.

After leaving Senator Stone, she went to work at the Civil Aeronautics Board, CAB, as an assistant to board member James Smith, as the agency worked through the deregulation of the national air transportation system, and then as it wound down its operations prior to being incorporated into the Department of Transportation.

Following nearly 10 years of continuous government service, Pamela went to work in the private sector, opening her own law practice. She continued in this line of work for over 11 years, specializing in family law and real estate transactions.

In 1995, she went back into the public service to become an assistant to Commissioner Thomas H. Moore at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. During her work for Commissioner Moore, the longest serving Commissioner in the agency's history, she advised him on all agency actions including rulemakings, enforcement actions and administrative matters. Additionally, she served as acting chief of staff during Commissioner Moore's 9-month stint as acting chairman of the agency in 2001 and 2002. She also helped construct his 2007 legislative proposals to Congress, a number of which were incorporated into the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, Public Law 110-314.

During her notable tenure at CPSC, Ms. Weller has played a significant role in protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury posed by consumer products. On numerous occasions, she has demonstrated inspiring leadership and has always been considered a valued employee at the CPSC.

Mr. President, I am pleased to thank Pamela Lynne Weller for her honorable service to our Nation, and I wish her a rewarding retirement.

Mr. President, last week I came to the Senate floor to

ask unanimous consent to pass something called--a very easy thing--a clean extension of the FAA bill, something the Senate has done 20 times. This is the 21st time--4 years waiting to pass a reauthorization bill.

But for the first time in these 4 years, the Republicans objected to this extraordinarily routine request. Shortly, I will renew my request to pass our 21st short-term extension of the FAA. But before I do, I want to highlight the very painful consequences of failing to pass this bill, which we can only do by getting a clean extension.

By objecting to my request last week, Republican Senators made sure that 4,000 hard-working FAA employees were furloughed already. Hundreds of critical airport safety capacity air traffic control projects were brought to a halt. Payments were stopped to hundreds of small businesses dependent upon reimbursement from the FAA for their work.

The Federal Government is being forced to forego almost $30 million a day in aviation tax revenue that is critical, obviously, to supporting our overall airport infrastructure program. The introduction of the newest Boeing aircraft is being delayed because the FAA cannot certify that the planes operate safely.

I know in Washington we have a tendency to view these fights as purely policy disagreements that have no real impact on people. I stress that there is an enormous effect on people and businesses, large and small, and on the economy of the United States. Because some Republicans have refused to allow another clean extension of the FAA programs, something we have done 20 times in the last 4 years, we are inflicting real pain on very real people.

People are suffering. Small businesses are hurting. We are losing jobs and will lose a lot more. Even consumers are losing out on the airline ticket tax holidays.

The majority of the airline industry has greedily chosen to pocket those revenues rather than reducing ticket prices. In other words, they have a tax holiday because the expiration of the tax has already taken place a number of days ago. So they are taking this tax holiday, and rather than leaving at the present level the cost of a ticket for consumers--as Alaska Airlines is doing and Virgin Airlines is doing and one other airline is doing--they are taking the money to themselves, giving it to themselves.

I find that extraordinary. It reminds me of ``Too Big to Fail''--the movie--the greed, the promise to help with small mortgages and they got all the money and didn't spend a dime to help with small mortgages.

The damage we are doing to our aviation system is incredibly real. If we fail to act in a timely manner, it may be so devastating as to become irreversible. It makes sense when we think about it. If one were to operate on somebody and cut beyond a certain point, they can't reverse the damage.

With so much pain being inflicted on so many, one may ask why my Republican colleagues have refused repeated requests to pass a clean extension--something we have done 20 times in the past 4 years.

They are willing, evidently, to hurt so many of these people for the benefit of one company. It is called Delta Airlines. As the chairman of the House Transportation Committee has stated publicly, the House inserted language on the Essential Air Service Program to leverage the Senate on including provisions relating to the National Mediation Board.

What do I mean? What they sent to us was all about essential air service. But that is not what it is about at all. The chairman, my counterpart in the House told me many times that essential air service is not a big deal to him. He doesn't particularly have a dog in this hunt. We need to do some reform on it, which we offered to do. He didn't mention a thing about the National Mediation Board. That is the only thing that motivates the House.

Delta Airlines is nonunion. The other airlines, for the most part, are union. Delta Airlines has had four elections in the last several years to unionize. Each time the company has prevailed over the union. So one might ask: Why is it that they are so strongly suggesting they need this National Mediation Board, which they changed in their bill.

It had been changed 2 years ago to say the number of votes that were cast were the number of votes that were reflected. In their bill, they want to say that anybody who does not vote in a union certification election, by definition, has voted no. I have never heard of that in America anywhere else. It is a rather ridiculous ploy.

This is not policy, this is pettiness. It has become the typical ``my way or the highway'' thinking of the House Republicans.

I note that we have forgone almost $150 million in tax revenues by failing to act. It will go up by about $25 million a day, which, when we think about it, would come close to paying for the whole Essential Air Service Program anyway, in just a week or so. Again, by the end of the week, we will have lost more revenue used for aviation infrastructure spending than on the entire Essential Air Service Program cost all of last year. It is embarrassing.

I wish my Republican colleagues would have defended the prerogatives of the Senate. Instead, some chose to back the House leadership.

Last week, as my friend from Utah--who is here now--outlined so honestly, Senate Republicans are not permitting the Senate to pass a clean extension because they want the Senate to accept language altering 85 years of labor law and legal precedent.

I wish I understood why the policy objections of one company--Delta Airlines--mattered so much to so few and also mattered so much more than the livelihood of thousands of American workers who have or will be furloughed.

Last year, the CEO of Delta made $9 million. Whether that was a salary or salary plus options, I know not. Delta paid its top executives almost $20 million. Yet it is fighting to make sure its employees cannot organize--they already had four elections, and in all four Delta has prevailed--for fear they may secure a few extra dollars in their paychecks.

At the same time, it is pushing for special interest provisions in the FAA bill. Delta is not shy. Delta announced it was abandoning air services to 26 small, rural communities--leaving many of them, obviously, without any air service. One only has to live in a small, rural community or a State such as mine to understand what that means and what the cost truly is.

Delta then had the gall to announce publicly it would seek EAS subsidies to continue this service. Maybe Mr. Anderson and his colleagues can forgo some of their own salaries to help subsidize the air service. That is not my business. Maybe they could use some of the millions of dollars they are collecting in a tax holiday windfall to pay for this service. That is not my business, but it is theirs, and it is shameful.

Let me be clear. House Republicans and their Senate allies have thrown nearly 4,000 FAA employees out of work already, stopped critical airport safety projects, hurt hundreds of small businesses, and gutted the Aviation Trust Fund--or began to--so Delta Airlines--that one company--doesn't have to allow its employees to organize in a fair or timely manner, if they chose to.

The needs of one company should not, in any deliberative body, dictate the safety and soundness of our aviation system. We need to pass a clean extension that will get people back to work and businesses and their employees back to work and build out our airport infrastructure.

It is so simple to pass a clean extension bill. We have done it so often. We have done it 20 times. The one time where there was some policy attached was 2 years ago, when the House and the Senate totally agreed on what was in the extension, and it passed. But it is such a simple thing to do. By not doing it, it is holding up our whole process.

Madam President, I object.