Floor Statements

Madam President, I wish to pay tribute to the memory of our former colleague, Senator Jesse Helms, who passed away, fittingly on Independence Day, a day which meant so much to him.

A great deal has been written and said about Senator Helms. He was a man who provoked strong feelings--both pro and con--and he enjoyed being the subject of spirited discussions.

It is well known and well told that Senator Helms could be, and often was, a tough opponent but also could be and often was an invaluable ally.

He was a man of strongly held, deeply held views and was never hesitant to share those views with the rest of the Senate.

But it is less well known that Jesse Helms was a kind and considerate colleague. Fifteen years ago, he welcomed a new Member from Texas into the Senate. I always appreciated his advice and his love of the Senate as an institution.

Jesse Helms began as an editor at a newspaper in North Carolina and then went to a television station in Raleigh. It was the notoriety which he gained from being a TV commentator which led him to the U.S. Senate.

Today we have many former colleagues who started in the U.S. Senate and are now TV commentators. It was typical of Jesse to do it the opposite way.

He once said of his career in the Senate, ``I would like to be remembered as a fella who did the best he could and didn't back down when he thought he was right.''

Jesse Helms was a man who had the courage to stand against the often transient winds of political convenience. He wasn't always right. He was right a good part of the time, but he was always Jesse.

Mr. President, I know the time is late. This is a very important bill. It is one that has many good features, and the good features certainly outweigh the bad features. I know we never get everything we want in Congress. We certainly heard a lot about that a few minutes ago. I wish to talk about a couple of very important parts of this bill.

Also in the GI bill is something I worked very hard to put in that bill, which is the transferability of the education benefits that a person in the military now is able to transfer to a spouse or children.

There are many people who don't want to leave the military to take that education opportunity, but they would love to give their spouse or their child that opportunity. It is now in this bill. Very important.

It also incorporates a bill that I introduced early this year, again, for veterans. Who would have thought, Mr. President, that someone who dies serving our country in Iraq and leaves behind a $300 bill due the Veterans' Administration for education benefits--that they were not able to finish because they gave their life in the war--would then get a bill from the Veterans' Administration for that $385? In fact, Mr. President, that is what has been happening since we went into the war on terror.

The Secretary of Veterans Affairs asked me to introduce a bill so he would not have to do that because he knew it was wrong and that we wouldn't want it being done. This bill we are voting on tonight will go retroactive to 9/11, 2001, and it will assure that every family who has been sent a bill and paid that bill, after their loved one has died in service to their country, will be reimbursed, and no bill will ever go out again. That is in this bill, and I am very proud we finally passed it.

Also in this bill is the Merida Initiative, as part of the supplemental. In my home State, and all the border States with Mexico, we are seeing violence with drug cartels that are now targeting our law enforcement officers on our side of the border as well as those in Mexico. They are dying trying to stop the drug cartels that are importing drugs into our country. The Merida Initiative that President Bush and President Calderon have put together is a part of this supplemental. I had hoped that we could also help our local law enforcement officials who do not have the equipment they need to deal with these more violent, more sophisticated drug cartels, but I am telling you right now I am going to pursue that in the next bill we pass that is an appropriations bill because our local law enforcement officials are certainly in need of our help.

We didn't get that in this bill, and I am disappointed, but there will be another day. We have to do this together. We have to stop the drug infusion into our country and stop these heinous crimes that are being committed by the drug cartels in Mexico.

So I support this bill. I hope we will all support it. It is a supplemental. Most of it is what the President asked for. We didn't all get what we wanted, but it is a worthy bill to support.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the bill before us is, pure and simple, a pathetic attempt to even call itself an energy plan. The American people are looking for leadership from the Congress. They are looking for something that will help small businesses not be eaten up with energy costs, the American family not be eaten up with the cost of gasoline at the pump, and what do they get in response? They get a bill that does not produce one ounce of energy. Not one ounce.

This bill does three things: It enacts a windfall profits tax, it suggests that we sue OPEC, and it forms a commission to investigate price gouging. What the American people are looking for is lower gasoline prices at the pump and lower electricity costs in their small businesses.

The Republican plan that was put forward so well by Senator Domenici, the ranking member of the Energy Committee, is a balanced plan that will produce results. What it does is what we have done in America for the last 200 years when we had a problem and that is use our ingenuity, use our natural resources, use our creativity, and come together to meet and beat our problems. That is what the Domenici plan does.

We have passed legislation that gives incentives for renewable energy--wind energy and solar power--and those are great things. They are small, but they are great things. We wish to continue that. We wish to promote conservation, which we have done in past Energy bills. We wish to also expand nuclear power. We haven't had a nuclear powerplant open in this country in 25 years. So the Energy bill we passed under Senator Domenici's leadership does have incentives for investment in nuclear power because we know it can be done clean, it can be done efficiently, and it will bring down the cost of electricity.

We have expansion of refineries in the bill that was passed 2 years ago, again under the leadership of Senator Domenici. We have to have expanded refineries because the problem in this country today is we don't have enough supply. Our refineries are running at full capacity, but we have not had expansion of our refineries because the regulatory environment has kept any sound management and business plan from being operative for an expanded facility. But we did pass legislation to expand facilities, again with environmental safeguards to do it right and expand the amount of energy we would have in our country.

Our plan also creates a State option, so States will have the ability to explore off their Outer Continental Shelf and get a reward for it, get a royalty. That could produce as much as we import from Venezuela, and that is a modest suggestion of what we might be able to get. It could be much more.

ANWR. Senator Reid said: Forget ANWR, we are not going to do that. It is not going to pass here. Well, no, it is not going to pass. As long as we have no leadership from the majority in the Senate, it would not pass. But it did pass. It did pass in 1995. If President Clinton hadn't vetoed it, we would be pumping almost the same amount of oil that we import from Saudi Arabia every day, and we would not have $4-a-gallon gasoline at the pump for hard-working Americans. So it can pass with leadership.

We are talking about ANWR. In an area the size of the State of South Carolina, the area that would be drilled is 2,000 acres, the size of Washington National Airport. It is a grassy plain. It gets to 70 degrees below zero in the wintertime. It is not part of the beautiful, pristine wilderness of ANWR. Yet it could bring gasoline prices down at the pump. Oil shale in Colorado and Wyoming. We have a balanced approach that will produce energy.

What does the bill before us do today? Well, let us talk about the windfall profits tax. In 1980, Congress passed one. What happened? It increased imports, it increased our reliance on foreign oil for our energy needs, and it made America more reliant on foreign sources of energy for our country. That is wrong for our national security, and it is wrong for our economy. It exported jobs overseas. It was such an abject failure that Congress repealed it. Why would we be going backward to something that has been proven to take jobs from America and increase our dependence on foreign sources?

OPEC. They say OPEC should be increasing its output. This is ludicrous. First, it ignores that OPEC could retaliate; that they are not going to abide by American law. At the same time the Democrats are saying we should sue OPEC for not producing more, they do not pass anything that would produce more of our own energy in our own country. Does anyone think OPEC is going to think that is a credible position for the Congress to take? Yet that is the position that is in the bill before us today.

It is almost laughable that every proposal we put forward that would increase our output is defeated by Congress. Yet they want to sue OPEC for not increasing their supply. You cannot have it both ways. We don't want to drill here, but we want to drill there. It is the old ``you do it, we will talk about it'' mentality that will not work.

What about forming another commission to investigate price gouging? We have had commissions on price

gouging, and they have turned up nothing. This is a bad bill. We should reject it, and we should look for leadership, bipartisan leadership, to solve this problem with our ingenuity.

I yield floor.

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

Mr. President, in about 20 minutes, I know we are going to turn pay tribute to Lyndon Baines Johnson. This is LBJ Day in the Capitol, and there are many speeches that will be made, there are many celebrations, there is a huge reunion of the LBJ family and his former staff people and supporters and Cabinet officers, and I am going to speak in that designated hour. But right now, in morning business, I would like to speak about another great Senator. I wish to speak about my colleague, Senator Ted Kennedy.

We all know we got a shock yesterday; that Senator Kennedy has been diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor, and he has just been released from the hospital. We are all so grateful he has been able to go to the comfort of his own home with his family as they are deciding how the treatment will go forward. But I wish to take a moment to talk about something we have been working on together.

If I could think of one word for Senator Ted Kennedy, it would be ``fighter.'' He is a fighter for the causes in which he believes. In his 46 years as a Senator, he has fought on behalf of the American people, waging so many battles to advance the causes of justice, opportunity, and peace. Now, he is set to wage the greatest fight of his life, and in that fight he has the support and prayers of all his colleagues and all the American people.

Senator Kennedy's startling diagnosis comes the week after he and I announced our commitment to renew the war on cancer. For the last several months, Senator Kennedy and I have been working on a bill to evaluate our progress on cancer research and treatment, address our shortcomings, and renew our commitment to eradicating this disease. There is no other person I would rather be working with on this initiative--now more than ever.

Senator Kennedy's diagnosis is such a poignant reminder that the battle has not been won. On May 8, the committee he chairs--the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--held a hearing to discuss the Kennedy-Hutchison bill. Advocates and survivors of cancer such as Lance Armstrong and Elizabeth Edwards spoke about the need for progress and reform in all areas of cancer research and treatment. In the 37 years since the national declaration of the war on cancer, the age-adjusted mortality rate for cancer is still very high. When it is compared to the mortality rates of other chronic diseases, it is extraordinarily high. While there have been substantial achievements since the crusade began, we are far from winning this war. Let's look at the statistics.

Today, one out of two men and one out of three women will develop cancer in their lifetime. In my home State of Texas, approximately 96,000 people are expected to be diagnosed with cancer and 35,000 are expected to die of cancer in 2008 alone. The NIH, the National Institutes of Health, estimates the overall cost of cancer to our Nation in 2007 was $219 billion.

These grim statistics should not belie the wealth of knowledge we have gained over the years, but it is time for legislation to address the shortcomings in the structure of cancer research and treatment. Senator Kennedy and I are leading the effort to renew our war on cancer. We want to continue our search for cures, more effective treatments, and better preventive measures. The cancer community must embrace a coordinated assault against this disease. We must start looking at more cooperative efforts that focus on the big picture. The bill Senator Kennedy and I will introduce is targeted at the following: removing barriers currently hindering our progress in cancer research and treatment; improving access to early detection measures and cancer care; reducing disparities in cancer treatment; increasing enrollment in clinical trials--this is a very important part that I think is one of the keys we are missing; and encouraging additional opportunities for cancer research and more cooperative cancer research.

Our bill will encourage the movement of medications and treatment from the laboratory to the bedside more quickly. It is time we started sharing more information. There is great research being done at many of our institutions--some in my home State of Texas and some in his home State of Massachusetts are the very best; in Maryland at Johns Hopkins; in Minnesota. We have wonderful research institutions. But we are not sharing the information enough. We need to

make sure this is a wholesale war and we are all in the same army, that we are marching in the same direction, and that we are coordinated in doing that.

As Senator Kennedy wages his own personal war on this dreaded disease, he will also be leading America's war on cancer with the Kennedy-Hutchison bill that we will introduce in the Senate. So many times Senator Kennedy has been the voice for the American people. He will truly be the voice for this bill to renew the war on cancer at this very difficult time in his life.

I know he is going to be standing on this floor, he is going to be negotiating this bill, he is going to be relentless in making sure it goes through with bipartisan support. We will work with the President-- he will work with this President--because I have seen how he has worked with President Bush to further public education.

Senator Kennedy and I are going to renew the war on cancer with a new vigor and we are going to do it together, and he is going to pass this legislation. I know he will be by my side in his fight and in his fight for the American people. We are going to support him at this time in every possible way.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about one of the most significant Presidents of the 20th century, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Of course, I am especially proud that he is a Texan, my home State, and was the first President to be elected from Texas.

This is the 100th anniversary year of the birth of President Johnson. We all know, during his 6 years as President, he was a passionate advocate for equal rights and expanded opportunities for all Americans.

I did not know President Johnson personally because I was a freshman member, very new member of the Texas legislature, when he died in 1973.

But the gracious family, Lady Bird Johnson, that ever wonderful hospitable wife whom we all loved, wanted to make sure all the legislators in Texas were invited to his funeral. So I was able to attend at the Texas ranch, which of course was a beautiful tribute to his life in the place he loved the most.

Though I did not know him, I will certainly say that since I came to the Senate, I have heard story after story after story about his service in this body. The book about his life, called ``Master of the Senate,'' is considered required reading for all of us here.

Because, in fact, he was a master of this Senate. He did things as majority leader that had never been done before. I have been privileged to know his wonderful wife Lady Bird Johnson, who is one of our most loved First Ladies in the history of our country.

Lady Bird died last year, as was mentioned before. She, in her own light, left a legacy. He worked with her on many of the things she did. The beautification efforts Lady Bird contributed to our country are a part of the overall LBJ legacy. Of course, Head Start, which is one of the major accomplishments of the LBJ administration, giving every child that head start before they enter the first grade so there would be a more level playing field, was also a Lady Bird Johnson initiative.

They worked together to make sure the children of our country had that opportunity. I wish to talk a little bit more about that in a few minutes. But I do wish to mention two of the people I now consider among my real friends, Linda and Luci.

Linda and I went to the University of Texas together. We became friends there. She is a wonderful person. I have become friends with Luci as I have worked for the LBJ Library.

I will never forget, as long as I live, that I was in Austin and was promoting giving blood for one of the disasters,

and they needed more blood at the blood bank. I heard on the radio that Luci Johnson had gone to give blood after she heard I was there and promoting the giving of blood. That is the kind of person she is.

She and Linda truly carry on the legacy of their mother, Lady Bird who was a gracious, thoughtful, wonderful person.

Linda and Luci take after their mother, and, of course, the President whom we all appreciated so much for the leadership he gave. They had a wonderful partnership, where they filled in for what the other did not have.

Lyndon Johnson was born in Stonewall, TX, in 1908. After graduating from high school and spending a year as an elevator operator, he began his career in the field of education.

In 1927, he borrowed $75 and started attending Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos, which today is Texas State University. After graduating in 1930, he devoted a year to teaching Hispanic children at the Welhausen School in Cotulla, which is 90 miles south of San Antonio.

Decades later, when he was in the White House, President Johnson reminisced:

I shall never forget the faces of the boys and girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up his mind, that this Nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.

Lyndon Johnson never did rest. After serving as a teacher and principal in 1935, he was appointed head of the Texas National Youth Administration. Then 2 years later, he ran for, and won, a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was subsequently reelected to the House in every election until 1948 when he was elected to the Senate. He later went on the ticket with President John Kennedy. It was on November 22, 1963, that fateful day that none of us will ever forget, that Lyndon Johnson became the 36th President of the United States. During his Presidency, Lyndon Johnson moved aggressively to confront the problems that plagued America, especially the extraordinary challenge that had vexed our country since its very beginning, the challenge of racism.

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson used his formidable legislative skills, honed from his days right here in this Chamber as majority leader, to pass the Civil Rights Act. Then, in 1965, he pushed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act.

The Civil Rights Act was the culmination of a decade-long civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But in a real sense, it was the fulfillment of a two-century struggle to give life to the words in our Declaration of Independence, ``that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.''

During his term in office, President Johnson also embarked on a war on poverty, creating government programs such as food stamps, the Job Corps, the Community Action Program, and Vista, among others. The war on poverty was a part of a larger initiative that President Johnson called the Great Society. One of the most important aspects of the Great Society was improving American education. President Johnson believed that every American needed a solid public education to turn the aspirations of the Great Society into reality. In his words:

We must open the doors of opportunity, but we must also equip our people to walk through those doors.

From 1963 to 1969, President Johnson signed over 60 education bills, including a pair of landmark achievements: the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act. He also launched Project Head Start. In a very real sense, he was America's first education President.

As President, Lyndon Johnson opened the doors of opportunity for millions of Americans, but he would be the first to acknowledge that we still have a long way to go. As a former teacher, he knew how important education was to the competitiveness of our country. Because of his achievements in the field of education, I worked with all of my colleagues to pass a bill last year naming the Department of Education headquarters after President Johnson. This is the only building in the District of Columbia that bears the name of our 36th President. While attending the naming ceremony last year, I couldn't help but think of Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson looking down on us and smiling with pride.

I want to also mention something that my colleague, Senator Bill Nelson, mentioned because another of his legacies, of course, is NASA. We all remember when President Kennedy renewed our space initiative, but it was President Johnson who took that initiative--the wonderful words we all remember of President Kennedy, that we would put a man on the Moon--and implemented that vision and made sure that we had the wherewithal to do it. We needed the money. We needed to encourage scientists to propel us into space and put us eventually on the Moon. It was President Johnson, and we now have the Johnson Space Center near Houston, Texas, where we still remember the words: Houston, the Eagle has landed. When we did land on the Moon, it was the first words back to the Johnson Space Center that people heard Neil Armstrong say on that wonderful day.

As a Texan and an American, I am certainly proud of the achievements of President Lyndon Johnson. In his farewell speech, President Johnson said:

I hope it may be said, a hundred years from now, that by working together we helped make our country more just, more just for all its people, as well as to ensure and guarantee the blessings of liberty for all of our posterity.

It has been almost 40 years since that speech and 100 years since his birth. Looking back, I think we can safely say that our country is more just, and it is more prosperous, thanks in part to the leadership of President Johnson.

On this LBJ day in our Nation's Capital, let's remember a man who helped our country reach the promise of her founding document and gave us a vision of a better America that even now is worthy of our commitment. I am a cosponsor of the resolution honoring President Johnson's service and his positive legacy for our country.

I am pleased to note that in the gallery we have the President's family, and we have the President's extended family. He always considered the Members of his Cabinet, the members of his staff, his extended family. We have the people who are carrying on his legacy, the people who run the LBJ library and the LBJ school, which is such an important part of my alma mater, the University of Texas. It is such a wonderful place for students to come and learn about his era in office, public service. We are in the process of expanding and renovating the library, making sure the library stays the wonderful edifice that it is, with all of the wonderful artifacts in it. There will be a plaza called the Lady Bird Johnson Plaza that will also celebrate the beautification she gave to our country right there on the campus of the University of Texas. The people who are keeping that legacy alive are also with us today. The LBJ ranch that he loved so much, where he and Mrs. Johnson are buried, is also now a park. It is a State park and a national park where people can come and have the freedom to roam. They will be able to walk on trails. They will be able to see a great part of the State that I love so much and he loved so much. The fact that we are preserving that as a park will be one more way to show the love that he and Lady Bird Johnson had for our country.

This is a great day for us in the Capitol. I am proud to be a part of the resolution honoring this wonderful family.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the bill we are going to vote on starting at 11 o'clock. We have an amendment filed by the distinguished Republican leader. The Senator from New Mexico is the prime sponsor of this amendment. I commend Senator Domenici for his continuing leadership in the energy arena.

In January of 2007, when control of Congress changed hands, the price of gasoline was $2.33 a gallon. Today, it is $3.73 a gallon. That is a 60-percent increase, and it is going in that direction even further.

The reason for the record-high price is simple economics. The global demand for energy has soared, especially in fast-rising countries such as China and India. Meanwhile, the supply of energy has remained largely stagnant. This is a simple, classic economic principle: The law of supply and demand. When the demand goes up and the supply stays the same, the price goes up. Knowing that, the best way for Congress to reduce the price of energy is to increase the supply of energy. We need more American oil, more American natural gas, more American clean coal, and we need more American nuclear power. That is why I joined the ranking member of the Energy Committee to introduce the bill today that would do exactly that.

First, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Two weeks ago, I wrote a letter to the President, signed by 13 Republican Senators. I noticed it was announced by the majority leader that 51 Senators on his side had signed the same type of letter in March. I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record with the signatures of the 13 Senators.

Mr. President, what we are asking the President to do is temporarily halt deposits of oil into the SPR. Today, the SPR holds 118 days--almost 4 months--of reserve for an emergency in this country.

I wish to stop now to ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor of the Dorgan amendment No. 4737.

Because what the Dorgan amendment does--and what is also included in our bill--is to ask for a temporary halt on any more oil going into the SPR. Halting the daily deposits of 76,000 barrels a day into the SPR would allow 3 million additional gallons of gasoline to be available on the market. If we halted the 13 million barrels of oil the Department of Energy has sought contracts for to go into SPR, it would be more than the total February 2008 imports from Libya, Syria, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Azerbaijan, and China combined.

The amendment offered today would halt additional contributions to the SPR for 180 days and ensure that these resources could be utilized immediately in the marketplace. In addition, we would open the grassy plains of ANWR, which is unavailable for drilling today. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there could be as much as 10 billion barrels of oil in ANWR. This would be almost enough oil to replace what we import from Saudi Arabia every day. What would be drilled in ANWR isn't near a forest or a stream. It is a grassy plain. It is 2,000 acres, about the size of National Airport, in an area of ANWR which is the size of the State of South Carolina. So drilling in this grassy plain would be environmentally safe, and it would make America much more independent, much more reliant on ourselves and our resources for our energy needs--a place we need to go.

Another area, the Outer Continental Shelf, could contain as much as 115 billion barrels of oil.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I have 3 more minutes.

There could be 115 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf. That is more than Venezuela's proven reserves of 80 billion barrels.

We need more refinement capacity. This amendment encourages refinement expansion to alleviate supply concerns with refined petroleum, which is gasoline.

This amendment we are voting on today would not do much to bring down the demand because, in fact, we can't control what China and India are demanding in oil and natural gas resources, but it can affect supply. That is what Congress has turned a blind eye to doing.

All they talk about is a windfall profits tax on oil companies. We tried that once before and what happened? Jobs went overseas. We had to import more from overseas, so we became more dependent on foreign sources and we lost jobs for our country. The price would not go down. It would just come from foreign sources instead of ourselves. So let's don't talk about things that will not help; let's talk about supply, which we can help by working together to increase our utilization of our own natural resources.

This year we will spend about $500 billion to import oil. All those dollars

could stay in America, creating good jobs in America and making us self-reliant. If there is anything America stands for, it is the spirit of self-reliance, of knowing that if we are running into a crisis, if our economy is down, that we would be dependent on ourselves because we have the resources to meet this demand. We have the resources. Now we need the willpower. We need the good old American spirit to say we can prevail. We can reduce prices. We can help the American family get over the hump. We can do something by relying on ourselves. That is what the amendment we are voting on will do.

I hope the American people will look at these votes. Do they want political rhetoric, windfall profits taxes that send jobs overseas or do they want real solutions short term, by not putting any oil in SPR right now and putting it on the market to start bringing that price down and to let those who are hedging on commodities know America is going to act. The best we can do for America to show those hedgers we are going to act is to say we are going to take the long-term steps. We are going to drill in our own areas that we control. We are going to put jobs in America. We are going to help the States get their royalties if they want to drill offshore. We are going to stand up and say: This is America, and we will take care of ourselves with our own natural resources. That is the vote today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today in my capacity as the ranking member of the Senate aviation subcommittee. I would like to take a few minutes to discuss the Senate FAA reauthorization bill and the substitute on which we will be voting later this afternoon and respond to some of the recent remarks that have been made on this process.

The lack of progress last week and the parliamentary action of filling the amendment tree are very disappointing to me. Today, for the 19th time this session, we will be asked to vote on cloture on a bill we have not even had open to amendment. In the present situation, we are being asked to vote on cloture before we have cast a single vote on an amendment. What the leader is doing is blocking amendments, preventing debate, forcing a cloture vote, and hoping the Republicans vote against it. Then press releases will be sent out blaming Republicans for obstructionism. But I have to say, what is obstruction? I don't think most Americans would define obstruction as insisting that an FAA bill; that is, the Federal Aviation Administration, not include unnecessary and imprudent tax increases, even worse retroactive tax increases, unrelated to aviation.

I have suggested several options in an attempt to produce an FAA reauthorization package upon which most Members could agree. But those suggestions have been turned down by the other side. Unfortunately, this bill is being bogged down by trying to make it an omnibus tax and special projects package.

It is so important that we pass an aviation bill. That is why I have introduced S. 2972, which is currently at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Ted Stevens be added as a cosponsor of S. 2972.

Mr. President, the text of S. 2972 is identical to the substitute we worked on last week. It is the bill that came out of the Commerce Committee with complete bipartisanship, but it does not include the unrelated and extraneous tax provisions. It does have aviation taxes that came out of the Finance Committee to which all of us agreed. It does not have all of the other tax provisions that have nothing to do with aviation--some of which are retroactive--and have nothing to do with FAA.

I have also conveyed to my friends and colleagues on the Finance Committee that I am supportive of moving forward on a bill that would replenish the highway trust fund. I think we could all agree on that. But this is a workable FAA reauthorization bill, and it is very important to me because of

the important role of aviation in our country and in my home State.

In Texas alone, aviation accounts for nearly 60,000 jobs and over $8 billion in total economic output. In addition, we are also home to 2 of the top 10 busiest airports in the Nation. We have 23 commercial service airports and over 300 general aviation airports. Beyond infrastructure, we are also the proud home of two legacy airlines, American and Continental, and the home State of the predominant low- cost carrier Southwest. My State has a dynamic aviation footprint and a substantial interest in the future of this challenged industry.

Since the year 2000, the U.S. airline industry has gone through its most fundamental restructuring since Congress deregulated the industry in the late 1970s. We all know so well the horrific impact of 9/11 and what happened to the industry after that, and that is still affecting it today. Put on top of that the high fuel prices which are affecting aviation even more than regular gasoline at the pump and you have a situation in which we have an industry that is really teetering on the brink of disaster.

Since taking over as leader of the aviation subcommittee earlier this year, I have worked closely with my friend and colleague Senator Jay Rockefeller. We have developed a bill upon which all of us agreed, with the complete support of Senator Inouye, the chairman of the subcommittee, and Senator Stevens, the vice chairman. We have worked hard to develop a package that would foster air traffic modernization, doing it without doing damage to the commercial airline industry and with the complete support of the general aviation community. We produced a bill that was bipartisan with the support of our committee.

Here are some of the important provisions in the bill we produced:

It has important safety and passenger protections. The U.S. commercial aviation industry is experiencing the safest year in our history. However, recent high-profile aviation safety incidents have given the public some concern. In response, the committee has crafted several new safety initiatives in the substitute, based on the recommendation of the Department of Transportation inspector general.

The new package ensures the FAA's voluntary disclosure reporting process requires inspectors to verify that the airlines actually took the corrective actions they stated they would, evaluate if an air carrier has offered a comprehensive solution before accepting the disclosure, and confirm that the corrective action is completed and adequately addresses the problem disclosed.

The bill implements a process for second-level supervisory review of self-disclosures before they are accepted and closed. Acceptance would not rest solely with one inspector.

It revises post-employment guidance to require a ``cooling off'' period of 2 years before an FAA inspector is hired at an air carrier he or she previously inspected. I personally would like to see that extended beyond 2 years to 3 or 4 years. If we had an amendment process, that would have been one of my amendments.

The bill implements a process to track field office inspectors and alert the local, regional, and headquarters offices to overdue inspections.

It establishes an independent review through the Government Accountability Office, the GAO, to review and investigate air safety issues identified by its employees.

It develops a national review team under the supervision of the Department of Transportation inspector general to conduct periodic reviews of FAA's oversight of air carriers.

It develops a plan for the reduction of runway incursions through a review of all commercial airports and establishes a process for tracking and investigating both runway incursions and operational errors that includes random auditing of the oversight process.

I am a former Vice Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. I understand the crucial mission of the FAA in overseeing the Nation's airlines and aviation system.

Aviation safety and the public trust that goes along with it is the bedrock of our national aviation policy. We cannot allow the degradation of service to the flying public.

I believe the bill we crafted in the Commerce Committee that is part of the substitute that I would agree with today, and all that is in the bill I have introduced but without the extraneous provisions that have nothing to do with aviation.

The other part of the bill that is in what the Commerce Committee produced and is in my substitute as well is the timely issue of consumer protections or a passenger bill of rights. The substitute includes several crucial reforms directed at making the airlines more accountable and responsive to passengers.

The managers' amendment would incorporate several additional protections to strengthen airline service requirements. The DOT would review and approve the contingency service plans of every air carrier. The Secretary could disapprove an airline's plan and return it to the carrier with the option for modification and resubmittal, and the DOT then would be authorized to establish minimum standards for such contingency plans. It would require a mandate that such contingency plans are to apply to aircraft that are delayed, whether on departure or arrival.

Now, we have all heard stories about people who have been stranded on airplanes for 5 hours without any food service, without the opportunity to use the facilities.

That is cruel and unusual punishment. I myself have been on airplanes that have been delayed 2 hours and more, and I know it is very uncomfortable for passengers. That is why we included in this bill requirements that airlines either have a plan that is approved by the Department of Transportation or there would be a 3-hour maximum or the passengers could get off; the establishment of an Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protection would also be put in this bill.

It would advise the Department of Transportation on carrying out air service improvements and what would be necessary to make them better. The committee would be comprised of four members to be appointed by the Secretary with a requirement to report to Congress annually over a 2- year period on its recommendations to the Department of Transportation to improve this service and an explanation of the Department's action on each of the recommendations.

So these are some of the important provisions in the Commerce Committee bill. They are in the bill that would be before us, and they would be in the bill I would like to see us pass that I have introduced and is being held at the desk.

The substitute also addresses rural air service funding challenges by including additional funding for the Essential Air Service Program for our smaller underserved communities at $175 million annually. These funds would go a long way toward improving access for our most rural communities, communities that had air service, commercial air service, in the past but lost that after deregulation.

As I stated last week, I hope my colleagues will appreciate the months of stalled negotiations that took place in trying to move this legislation forward. There is a very good balance in the Senate bill regarding FAA financing and labor-related provisions. If the Senate wants a final bill, we need to preserve that balance without including highly controversial unrelated provisions that many people would agree do not belong in an FAA bill dealing with aviation.

We have an opportunity to pass FAA legislation this week. The bill I have introduced with Senator Stevens would be everything the Commerce Committee passed on a bipartisan basis and the provisions of the Finance Committee report on aviation taxes that would go toward modernization.

It does not include the controversial pension provision that changes the previous law this Congress has passed and affects some of our airlines in a way that could be so destructive as to possibly bring that air carrier down. It does not include all the taxes that were put in, all the projects, all the earmarks that have nothing to do with aviation.

It is simply the Senate bipartisan bill on aviation and the Finance Committee package that deals with aviation. We could pass this bill and send it to the President and the President would sign this bill. He would sign the bill Senator Stevens and I have put

forward. He will not sign the bill that would be put forward by my distinguished colleague, Senator Rockefeller.

There are provisions of that bill that would not allow this bill to go forward at all, period, because there are policy matters unrelated to aviation that more than 41 people in this Senate will object to putting on an aviation bill.

So I think we have a way forward. I have introduced a bill that I believe could get the majority of the votes in the Senate. It would be signed by the President, and it would do all that I have mentioned relating to aviation safety improvements, passenger bill of rights, it would modernize our air traffic control system, it would keep the balance in the system we all agree we should have between air carriers and commercial airports, general aviation and general aviation airports.

It is a good bill. We have a way forward. We have made agreements we can all agree would push the bill forward. But the substitute we are going to vote cloture on without the process of amendments being open is not that bill. There is no reason for the Commerce Committee bill on aviation to take on all these taxes and special interest projects that have nothing to do with aviation.

If those projects can stand on their own, let's vote on those projects alone. The Finance Committee has many vehicles on which they can put their legislation. But to try to put nonaviation taxes on an aviation bill is going to bring this bill down.

I hope we will not allow that to happen. We will vote no on cloture. Cloture probably will not be given because it is not an aviation bill we are going to be voting on. But we have an aviation bill. Let's vote on that one. Let's vote on the bipartisan bill from the Commerce Committee and the taxes from the Finance Committee that relate to aviation and let's move forward. I think we can do it.

This is the Senate. We can work on a bipartisan basis. My colleagues, Senator Rockefeller and I and Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens and the members of our committee have done an incredibly good job of bringing that balance together. So I hope we will not waste that effort and that we will be able to put up as one of the accomplishments of this session of Congress an FAA reauthorization bill that modernized our system, that created a passenger bill of rights, that created a safety program that further enhanced a good program, that included war risk insurance, a bill that balances all the aviation interests of our country, which are so important to our economic viability.

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

Mr. President, I am happy to go to the vote. But the problem is we don't have the opportunity to amend and strike. That has been taken away from us by the majority. The bottom line is we should go to a vote, reject this bill, and we should go back to the drawing board with the Commerce Committee, to a bipartisan bill for FAA reauthorization.

Thank you.

cloture motion

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for taking the lead on this very important amendment. He and I are in complete agreement. I have never seen a time or an amendment or an issue before our Senate that has shown the companies fighting so hard to do the right thing for their employees; the employees standing with them in total solidarity, saying: This is something we should be encouraging companies to do, not discouraging companies from doing; that is, to provide the very best pension plan.

These are huge corporations. American, Continental, US Air, these are big corporations. They are trying to do the very best. They are going the extra mile for their employees. Yet they can't rely on the Congress to make a law and then keep it.

Let's go back a little bit in history. First, we settled this issue in a very hard-fought negotiation last year. We had airlines that chose to keep their defined benefit plans, doing the very best for their employees they could, making added contributions based on the law as it was. So they got ahead in their backup payments because, under the law as it was, anything in excess of their backup payments would help them offset their going-forward payments. They were in relatively good shape, as good shape as an airline could be last year. They had extra money. They poured it right into their pension plans. They overfunded their past obligations or the obligations they had for their past pension deficits. They did that, thinking that if they got into a cashflow problem, they would be able to offset those overages, which is what the law has been.

Now, in an aviation modernization bill that is to modernize our air traffic control system, that will address the safety issues we want to make sure are the very best that we can provide for consumers and passengers, a bill that will provide a passenger bill of rights--when a passenger is in an airplane and it is delayed, there are going to be new rules; there will be plans that have to be submitted for airlines to take care of them--in a bill that has so much good, that came out of the Commerce Committee, of which I am the ranking member of the Aviation Subcommittee and Senator Rockefeller is the chairman, it came out with complete bipartisan support. Now we have in the

package that is going to be put forward a rehash of long negotiations that were settled last year.

I will take a moment here to say that I had a very telling conversation with the CEO of a major international corporation based in America.

I said: Why are you opening plants overseas instead of America? Why are you sending jobs overseas instead of America?

This CEO said: Well, really, basically two things. One is, the regulatory environment is better overseas. And secondly, the regulatory laws are more stable.

I said: More stable? This is America. What do you mean? There is a country overseas that has more stable regulations?

He said: Absolutely. Because we can't count on the law being the law. We see time and time again Congress or a regulator coming in, after a law has been on the books, we have done things in compliance with the law, relying that it is the law, and Congress changes something that affects something that we have done in reliance on that law.

I said: If there is one thing that the United States should be able to do, it would be leading in stability in laws and regulations. Maybe there are too many laws and regulations. Maybe there are too many taxes. But at least we should be able to be stable. We are the greatest economy on Earth.

Yet here we have a prime example of a law that was passed, contributions were made from the company to these pension systems based on the law that was passed, thinking we had come to an agreement. It was hard fought. A deal is a deal.

Let's go back and look at that law. In 2006, Congress passed the Pension Protection Act. Included in that legislation was a change in funding rules for airlines that had chosen to freeze their defined benefit pension plans. I argued strongly at the time that the playing field should be leveled for those carriers that continued to meet their obligations. There was virtually unanimous support for this view in the Senate. But in conference, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House, who is no longer a Member of Congress, refused a provision that would level that playing field. Accordingly, we reached agreement with the leadership of the Senate at the time that we would take the first available opportunity in the next Congress to rectify this inequity. That is why on January 4, 2007, my colleague from Texas, Senator Cornyn, and I introduced S. 191. This bill was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. My staff also provided it to Finance Committee staff and personally briefed them on the bill on January 26, 2007.

The bill, which was subsequently enacted into law, established funding rules that, while not as generous as those given to airlines that froze their plans, were at least more equitable and created a better unlevel playing field than we had seen in the 2006 bill. It was very clear, when we introduced this bill, that we had it out there for the purpose of everyone knowing that we intended to offer it when appropriate legislation came through. That is the way things work in the Senate.

The provision adopted by the Senate and agreed to by the House is the exact language we drafted in S. 191. It should be a surprise to no one that we would offer that bill at the first available opportunity, which was the last omnibus appropriations bill. There has been something said in writing in opposition to our amendment, that this was a big surprise that was crammed into the supplemental appropriations bill. It was not a surprise. It was out there in the open. All of the relevant committees had been briefed and knew this was a bill that was pending that would be available for amending a proper vehicle. The proper vehicle was the appropriations omnibus, because there was not anything else that was going through.

None of the airlines adversely affected by the proposed change in the pension laws has missed a pension payment under current law. The greatest risk to pensions is bankruptcy. I am not saying the proposal in the bill would necessarily result in bankruptcy of these carriers, although that has been brought up as one eventuality. But at the very best case, it is going to restrict their cash reserves precisely at a time when they need it the most. Jet fuel is now being sold at $160 a barrel. At these prices, it is a race against time for airlines to preserve their cash. For Congress to intervene now, undo a law that was passed and relied on by the airlines to restrict the flexibility of a few airlines that need the maximum flexibility to meet this crisis, would be irresponsible.

It is as if maybe some of our Senators who I think have very good motives are not realizing the situation today, which is 10 times worse than it was last year when this legislation was passed. Prices of oil have gone up. Every airline is on its knees. Everyone is struggling. We are seeing the beginning of mergers, which I don't like, but it is a free world, and I don't think we have the right to intervene. But I don't want to have fewer airlines. I want our airlines to be robust, compete, and do the best for their employees they can possibly do.

It is as if we are living in another world to think that this is not a crisis time for the airlines. I don't want to hurt the other airlines either. I have nothing against Delta and Northwest. I hope they survive. I hope they do very well, because the more airlines we have doing well, the better it is for consumers and passengers. But I want to make sure that airlines that have kept their defined benefit plans, that are trying to go the extra mile for their employees and do the very most they can, as they are at the same time struggling with the higher cost of fuel, especially, I don't think we ought to penalize them. I don't think we ought to retroactively change what they relied on and made contributions to their pension plans, relying that the law was the law, and that the Senate and the Congress was a body of intelligent people who could reasonably look at the economic news in the world and know this is not a time when we would destabilize and further hurt an industry that is so important to commerce and the overall viability of our country.

Let's put it on the table. In the past 5 years, American Airlines has made $1.7 billion in contributions to its pension plans, when--I may be wrong; I am not saying that I know exactly--in the last 5 years, I might remember two quarters, maybe three, where they have actually shown a profit. Maybe it has been 1 year out of 5. But every time I pick up the papers, I am not seeing airlines with robust profits being reported at the end of a quarter. Last year alone, as oil prices were going up--and jet fuel is even more expensive than gasoline--they made a contribution of $386 million, which is more than they needed to make to keep their obligations current. Under the rules in place today, before this change would take place, they are 115 percent funded.

Continental Airlines has made a $1.3 billion contribution to its defined benefit pension plan in the previous 5 years, including $336 million last year--significantly above the minimum funding required. So if there is anything our Senate ought to be able to do, it is, No. 1, when a law is passed and relied on, that we would not retroactively change that law to penalize one company in an industry. It is not the place of the Senate to pick winners and losers. We are the model of free enterprise in the world, and we must keep that stability.

Secondly, if the parts of the bill that are being added that are extraneous to the underlying FAA modernization bill stay in, it is going to bring down a great bill, a bipartisan bill, that my colleague, Senator Rockefeller, and I have worked on very hard, along with Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens, the chairman and vice chairman of the committee.

We have all supported the bill that came out of Commerce almost unanimously. It has been a joy to work on a bill that provides a better consumer environment, a safer environment for passengers, that would modernize our air traffic control system even further, that would address the issues that have been raised in the last few months about passengers being held hostage on airplanes that are on the ground, and giving them rights, and requiring airlines to do right by them. It is a great bill.

But if we do not strike this pension plan--which I do not think is right in any sense of the word--if we do not strike this from the bill, and if we do not take out some of the other extraneous tax provisions we will deal with

later that do not have anything to do with aviation, it is going to do great damage to the flying public and to commerce in our country.

I urge my colleagues to look at the arguments and help us remain stable--as stable as an airline can be in this very volatile environment. Let's not change the rules. Let's not give advantages to one over another. Let's try to help all of the airlines make it, be profitable, be robust, provide competition, and, especially, give the very best benefits to their hard-working employees they can possibly do. And, please, let's do not penalize those that are going the extra mile and giving their employees what is becoming more and more rare in this country today, and that is defined benefits for their pension plans.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we have been talking about the Durbin- Hutchison amendment during most of the day. I have heard some of the debate going back and forth. I want to address some of the issues raised in the debate, trying to stop our amendment from going forward.

First, let me say I so appreciate Senator Durbin joining with me to make sure we have a bipartisan effort that stands for the companies that are trying desperately to keep their defined benefit plans for pensions for their employees.

These airlines that are doing this are doing it at the same time that the price of jet fuel has gone up exponentially. For instance, since January 2007, a little bit more than 1 year ago, the price of jet fuel has increased 107 percent. Continental Airlines' year-over-year increase in fuel costs is approaching $2 billion. This year, American Airlines' fuel bill is going to be $9.3 billion. Everybody who is driving an automobile to their job or to pick up their children from school knows how much it costs to fill up the tank of a car. Just multiply that for an airline whose entire business is flying back and forth across the country and across the globe. You can imagine what that does to the bottom line of a business.

Here we are, looking at actually three airlines that are trying to make their benefits the most generous they can be while they are looking at rising fuel prices that are about to sink them. They are all showing unprofitable months and quarters. Now we have legislation coming forward that would take away a law that was passed last year that attempted to equalize the airlines that have benefit plans that are defined benefits and plans that are defined contributions, which are 401(k)s. We want to keep the playing field as level as we can. If you put on top of that the fact that the timing of this could not be worse because of the rising fuel costs, it is just impossible to imagine that the Senate will do this.

The underlying provision, it has been suggested, would have no effect on the bottom line. Of course it is going to have an effect on the bottom line. It requires full funding of pension obligations, irrespective of past overfunding. In plain English, the carrier must come up with more cash, even if they have overpaid. According to one carrier, the new cash demand would be $1 billion over the next 3 years. Where are we going to find that amount of cash?

Domestic fare increases are not even covering the rising cost of fuel. As compared to January 2007, the price of jet fuel was 65 percent higher and domestic average fares have risen 9 percent. You are beginning to see they are not going to be able to recover this at the fare box. But if we pass this legislation requiring one airline, instead of putting in $80 million, to put in $350 million, how is it going to offset those higher costs? There is only one way, and that is higher ticket prices. Are we going to pass a law that is going to raise ticket prices at a time when the airlines--and every American--are feeling the pinch of this economy? I cannot even imagine we would do that.

I have also heard it argued that the provision in the bill that we are trying to eliminate is fair. The truth is the current law is equitable and fair. Changing the current law in the manner suggested would treat two carriers differently from the other carriers that do not have defined benefit plans. We had the equity debate. The current law is the product of that debate. Ask the carriers if they think the current law is equitable. They will say yes.

The carriers that are not affected by this have told me they are agnostic on this issue. They are not pushing for a competitive advantage because I think all the carriers know that this is not the time that anybody wants to go into bankruptcy and they do not even want their competitors to go into bankruptcy because we can't handle the commerce in this country without the airlines we have operating without a disruption.

We settled this debate. We settled it in 2006. It was undone. We settled it again in 2007. The law we passed must be adhered to because these businesses made decisions based on the law.

The employees of these airlines will be the biggest losers if this bill is allowed to stand with this provision in it. Senator Durbin and I are trying to take this provision out to protect the employees and to, hopefully, keep the airlines from having a hit they cannot take right now.

I have heard the argument on this floor that the amendment we are putting forth would mean less money to employee pensions. It is exactly the opposite. The carriers that are hurt by this provision are trying to do the right thing by maintaining their pensions and providing their employees with strong retirement benefits. In fact, these impacted carriers have been prepaying their pension obligations in good years, showing their employees they are committed to these benefits. The excess contributions helped ensure that, in tough times, if cash becomes tight, the pensions of these hard-working employees are protected and funded. If the pension rules are changed to disallow the flexibility of using past excess contributions, they will actually discourage overfunding of pensions. The carriers will only provide the minimum contributions in order to preserve cash in difficult times.

Some have challenged this claim on the belief that cash contributed to pensions can be pulled out in tough times, so they wouldn't be in any way discouraged from overcontributing to pensions. But this is not true. Once cash is contributed to the pension plans, it cannot be taken out. In fact, that is one of the reasons the current law allows companies to offset ongoing pension costs with previous overfunding. If they couldn't do it, a company would never put extra cash into pension funds. Instead, they would put it in a bank account where they could get it out. In the end, a carrier would never contribute in excess to the plan because they just couldn't do it.

Employees are at risk with the underlying provision we are trying to take out. The cash demands this language places on the carrier trying to secure solid pension benefits for its employees will simply be too high. If we destabilize this environment, we could very well jeopardize the ability of these carriers to weather the current storm, and the outcome would be devastating to employees. Bankruptcy is not kind to employees. Ask any person who has worked for a company that has gone into bankruptcy. Whether it is their present livelihood or their pensions, the employees would lose. That is why they support striking this provision with our amendment.

The current pension laws for air carriers are fair and equitable. They do not need changes. They especially do not need changes retroactively, after they have made decisions to overfund pension plans based on the law as it is today. The change could lead to disastrous consequences for impacted carriers and especially for their employees.

Why would we take such a risk? We should be doing everything to help these companies during difficult operating environments, not destabilizing them, not giving advantages to some in the industry.

No one in the industry is asking for this. This is something that has come up seemingly because there were process arguments about what bill the fix went into. The bill that the fix went into was the only available bill where you could put an amendment, and the amendment had been given to all of the relevant committees, so they knew what we were trying to do. There was nothing hidden. There was nothing sudden. Everybody knew we were going to try to correct the inequities, as we have all negotiated at the table to do. If you ask any of the carriers I have spoken to, no one is asking for this to be retroactively fixed in a different way from the present law, a law that has been relied on.

The bottom line is some airlines have overfunded their pension obligations because they had cash and that is where they wanted to put it, to assure employees of a safe and sound pension system, more than the law required. American Airlines is 115 percent funded. But that was always done because, under the present law, you had the flexibility to just catch up with the current obligations with a credit for the overobligation as these airlines are working out their pension plans according to the law we passed last year and the year before.

I hope we can get a vote on the Durbin-Hutchison amendment. The members of the committee who have worked on this--the Commerce Committee, Senator Rockefeller, the chairman of the Aviation Committee--have been very supportive of us having our bill, which we worked so hard in a bipartisan way to produce, which has such good effects for the aviation industry, not to be hobbled by an extraneous issue that has been put in by another committee that does not have the aviation jurisdiction but is a tax committee.

I hope we will keep the underlying bill, which is very solid. Senator Rockefeller and I, Senator Inouye, and Senator Stevens have worked very hard. We have a great bill. It is a bill that will fund more safety measures. It will put more inspectors in the FAA. It is a bill that has a passengers bill of rights--Senator Boxer has worked on this for a long time. It will assure that passengers who are stranded in a plane that cannot take off will have accommodations for comfort or they will be able to get off the airplane--something we have never had before.

It is a bill that will modernize the traffic control system so we will have more service in our country. This bill has so many good features. I hope we can pass the Durbin-Hutchison amendment that will keep the bill intact that was hammered out by the Commerce Committee and not have it taken down by a tax bill, most of which has nothing to do with aviation at all.

The aviation part of the bill is great. It is a good, solid compromise. But the pension and the extraneous provisions are going to sink this bill, and it will be a sad day for the consumers in the aviation system in this country if that happens.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, parliamentary inquiry: Could I ask what the amendment is?

Just a date change.

Could I ask, on the amendment that was offered by the Senator from West Virginia, is that the bill that has been discussed that has already been on the table without the pension provision? Is that the new substitute that was just put forward?

Madam President, I am greatly disappointed that we have come to the time when we are not going to be able to move this bill because there is not an open amendment process. I have worked with Senator Rockefeller on the aviation bill; this is the FAA reauthorization. We have come to agreement on the basic bill. It is very bipartisan. Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens, the chairman of the Commerce Committee and the ranking member, have come to an agreement on the aviation portions of this bill. The distinguished majority leader said we don't want to take amendments that are not relevant to the bill, but, in fact, the tax package that is in the substitute that was put forward deals with many issues that are not in any way related to aviation, not in one instance. So we would like to be able to pass a bipartisan FAA reauthorization bill.

We have come to agreement in the Commerce Committee on the importance of the bill--the passenger bill of rights, the added safety features. It will modernize the air traffic control system. Yet now we have a bill that has no amendments allowed unless we get permission to offer amendments, when the underlying bill has many extraneous provisions in it that were added by the Finance Committee. They are not relevant to this bill, and they are not agreed to even by the leaders on the Commerce Committee whose bill this is.

So I am disappointed. I think it is going to stop the consideration of the FAA bill. If we could pare it back to FAA reauthorization, modernization, then I think we would have a bipartisan step forward for the consumers and passengers in this country.

I wish to thank my colleague, the Senator from Illinois, for working on the pension part, which has now been taken out. I think that is an excellent step in the right direction. It is very important to me. I was the cosponsor of his amendment. That amendment has now virtually been adopted. But I can't walk away from the rest of the people on my side of the aisle who want to offer legitimate amendments and who have very great concerns about the tax provisions in this bill that have nothing to do with aviation.

So I hope once we get to the point the bill doesn't move forward, which is where I think we will go, we can once again come together in a bipartisan spirit and have the aviation bill we have agreed to, with the tax provisions that relate to aviation that we have agreed to, and get this bill going. There will be legitimate amendments on perimeter rule, on some other safety issues. Those will be relevant. But we can't move forward when half our body virtually is unable to be a participant.

Madam President, parliamentary inquiry: Wasn't the tree filled up so that there are no possibilities of offering amendments?

Madam President, I appreciate what the Senator from Montana and the Senator from Illinois have said. I do hope we can continue to

work on this. I know the situation, as it stands right now, would not be acceptable: having a major piece of legislation that needs to be debated, and we need to have the ability for the minority voice to be heard. I don't think that it is going to happen with this particular procedure, but that doesn't mean the door is closed.

We do want to work on this bill because, as I have said many times, the underlying bill is one I fully support. It may be that one of the options would be to separate the tax part of the bill and the aviation part. I agree with the aviation tax part as well. Most people on our side of the aisle do. It is the taxes that have nothing to do with aviation that have been put into this bill that are the problem. That is what is killing this bill right now. If we can come to an agreement on the aviation taxes and the aviation bill and let the other tax provisions that relate to the subway and the railway and the highway fund, if those can be done in a separate package and then we have the votes up or down, then I think that is one option we ought to consider.

So right now, in this particular procedure, I think we are going nowhere. But we are going to continue to talk, and perhaps one of these other options would be doable. The pension part is so important to me. I have worked with Senator Durbin all day and ever since I learned the pension part had been changed in the tax part of the package.

I hope we can come to a conclusion. I would like to come to a conclusion with the Finance Committee because I think there are some compromises, perhaps, that could be made. But I know what is in the bill now would be very detrimental to some of the airlines in this country. I think, as a matter of fairness and equity and protection of employees, that we could not accept the language that is there. That doesn't mean the door isn't open to talk. But if we can do something in a separate bill and let the aviation bill--taxes and authorization--go forward, I would hope that would be an option to consider.

Mr. President, if I may respond briefly to the Senator from Montana, there is a lot of room for us to work on the highway trust fund issue. Everybody wants to replenish the highway trust fund. I do think there are issues with paying for it, and I think there is the view that we don't have to put a tax on some sectors in order to make this whole, because it is stimulative, and I think we could work on something that would get the highway trust fund replenished but not have to then find the issue of how we pay for it-- particularly, one of the things is the retroactive tax version which is a problem for some people.

With the highway trust fund, I think we are replenishing something we can all agree is necessary. If we can come to terms on paying for it and in what manner it will be paid for, that is an area we would like to discuss.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I commend the Senator from New Hampshire. He was, indeed, a very important part of the negotiations on this bill. It is a complicated bill. He represents a State that has general aviation. It is very important to the service in his State. He spoke up for that service. In fact, in the bill, there are some very important components that are strong for general aviation, and also cities that have lost service in the past after deregulation we want to try to help get back in service with some incentives for service by smaller, maybe startup airlines.

The Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Sununu, has been a very important part of helping us negotiate this bill that we have brought to the floor.

I know my chairman, Senator Rockefeller, is going to be here soon. I hope we will be able to come to closure on the aviation part of this bill. I have very strong concerns about some of the provisions in the Finance Committee part that is going to be put into this bill. I hope the Finance Committee will work with us to take away some of the extraneous tax provisions that have nothing to do with aviation so that we can pass a good, solid bill that addresses aviation safety, which every consumer is interested in doing, that addresses the need for better service to our smaller communities, that increases the modernization of our air traffic control system, and that assures that passengers are taken care of when there are inordinate delays, and especially when they are on an airplane, maybe sitting on a runway for several hours at a time, and there are some very important parts of the bill that address the rights of passengers and the needs of passengers.

I hope we can get an aviation bill passed. I hope we can move out the extraneous provisions out and let the Finance Committee do those separately, which they certainly have the capability to do. But I do not want to hold up this good consumer bill.

I look forward to working with my colleagues, Senator Rockefeller, Senator Inouye, and Senator Stevens on the committee, and Senator Sununu who just spoke, to get a good bill on which we can then go to conference with the House.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, will the Senator from Illinois further yield?

I want to say I am in complete agreement with what the Senator from Illinois has said. I know he is going to finish his statement, but he is making exactly the point I think needs to be made in this debate.

We will have an amendment tomorrow. Senator Durbin and I are going to cosponsor an amendment that would fix the issue about which he is speaking. The idea that we would pass an FAA reauthorization that would modernize our facilities, that would put more safety precautions in place, that would give passengers more rights and, oh, by the way, would also bankrupt some of our airlines in the meantime is ridiculous.

The bill will be so good. Senator Rockefeller has done a great job. We have compromised. We have worked on a bipartisan basis. Then, all of a sudden, we see this pension issue rise up that would put one, maybe two airlines into bankruptcy, and then we have taken away all the advantages of this very good bill.

I commend the Senator from Illinois. I look forward to working with him tomorrow on an amendment--or whenever we are designated to put our amendment in place--and hope the balance we had is restored in the pension issues so that airlines that are offering defined benefit plans--which are so rare these days--will still be able to offer employees that, even at a greater cost.

I look forward to working with my colleague from West Virginia to make sure this very good bill goes forward without the bad tax provisions and the pension provision that was added, not by our committee, but by the Finance Committee.

I thank the Senator for yielding. I look forward to working with the Senator to fix this pension issue.

Thank you, Madam President.

Madam President, I ask the distinguished Senator how long his presentation is?

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized immediately following the Senator from Iowa.

Madam President, I come to the floor today as the ranking member of the Senate Aviation Subcommittee. I am going to encourage my colleagues to support cloture on the motion to proceed to consideration of the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill.

I have been working with my colleagues on the Commerce Committee and the Finance Committee to develop a bill that we can all agree on. On the main parts of the Commerce Committee bill, and the main parts of the Finance Committee bill, we have come to agreement. There is one major part that was put in at the last minute that I think will bring everything down if we are not able to negotiate it. I am going to discuss that in a minute.

But I believe we have been able, in the main Commerce committee bill, of which Senator Rockefeller is the chairman, I am the ranking member of the Aviation Subcommittee that put together the package, and in the main part of that bill, we have struck a balance that would finance the modernization of the FAA airport development, rural air service that is so important in our country, and the labor-related provision.

If we want a final bill, I tell my colleagues that we must keep that balance. We cannot load up this bill with controversial provisions, many of which are in the House bill, which is the bill we are going to go to cloture on, after which there will be the substitute on with the Commerce bill.

The House FAA bill already has a veto threat against it, and the prospects of a multiyear reauthorization for the FAA will diminish quickly if we do not resist the temptation to make this a political document. We have the opportunity to pass critical funding increases for the modernization projects, timely improvements for the safety programs at FAA, improvements to small community air service, and consumer and passenger protections.

Senator Boxer and I have worked on the passenger protections, especially when an airplane is sitting on the runway unable to take off. In the bill we have before us, which we will talk more about when the substitute is put forward, there is a 3-hour limit on how long an airplane can stay on the ground without letting passengers off. We think this is a major step in the right direction.

What I am going to be looking at, as we go through the week, is that we cannot do further harm to the aviation industry in this country. Rising fuel prices, tight credit markets, and the slowing economy are wreaking havoc on our U.S. carriers. There is not one that is saying: We are doing well.

As we move forward, I hope we will keep that in mind, rather than adding burdens that cannot be maintained. If this bill is going to throw any one of our airlines into a bankruptcy position, we will have failed.

Now, I am very concerned about the pension provision that was put in at

the last, I guess in the last couple of days, that would take away a careful balance that was passed by this Congress last year. We worked very hard to make sure that the airlines that have kept their defined benefit plans, meaning they give full pensions to their members, are not held in a position that would be detrimental versus carriers that have gone to a defined contribution or 401(k) plan.

The new pension provision that was put in the Finance section of the FAA reauthorization bill does create an inequity for carriers trying to maintain their defined benefit plan. The language would create a disincentive for the airlines to fully fund their pension liabilities, because the new proposal would disallow past excess contributions being carried forward in future years as currently allowed.

To put this in perspective, for instance, American Airlines currently has about a 93-percent funding level in their defined benefit plan. However, the required level of funding for their plan is 80 percent. So they have a significantly higher level of funding than is required.

In difficult times, which everyone should see all of the airlines are in, they would be allowed, under present law, to use the excess funding level to meet their ongoing obligations like a downpayment.

Unfortunately, the language that was put in the Finance Committee bill strips that ability to use these excess contributions and instead forces them to fully fund their ongoing obligations at 100 percent. So rather than owing roughly $80 million for their annual contribution, they would instead owe $350 million. Over 3 years, that would be almost about $1 billion, even though they are 93 percent funded on their obligations.

This penalizes companies for having done the right thing in providing significant prior funding for their pensions, and it changes the rules of a carefully balanced congressional directive.

I hope we can work this out before we come to the point at which we are trying to put the Finance Committee portion of this bill with the Commerce Committee portion. I very much hope our members will become very educated on this issue, because if we are going to do this kind of harm, we should not be passing an authorization bill at all and instead do a long-term extension of the FAA authorization bill, and try to work these issues out so that no airline will be harmed or put in a significantly disadvantaged position relative to their competitors.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have always supported efforts to ensure fair pay and fair process. I would support a longer statute of limitation for gender discrimination in the workplace, but the bill before us eliminates any statute of limitation. A reasonable statute might be 1 or 2 years after the discovery of the inequity. The purpose of statutes of limitation is to ensure that witnesses are available and defendants have records to defend themselves fairly. That is the reason that statutes of limitation are an integral part of our legal system.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President? I would like to ask the Senator from Illinois if germane amendments include a substitute amendment? I have heard the debate, or at least the statements of the two Senators. But the issue is not going to the bill. We have not filibustered the motion to proceed. It was unanimous. The question is are the minority rights going to be recognized? Will we be able to offer amendments, germane amendments, substitutes?

I would like to know, before we proceed further to the bill, if we are going to be able to have enough amendments so the minority rights are protected.

That would be my question.

Mr. President, the Senator from Georgia is also waiting to speak, so I would like to be notified at 4\1/2\ minutes, and I will split it down the middle with the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about General Petraeus' testimony. I was able to watch a little bit of it before I came over here. I was beginning to see, of course, the questioning from the Armed Services Committee. I think it is so important that we look at the big picture and what General Petraeus is saying. Also, of course, we have Ambassador Crocker who is doing a terrific job over there.

I was there at the end of February, just 6 weeks ago. I met with both of them. But what I saw was an incredible change from the other time I had been in Iraq. As General Petraeus said himself, from June 2007 through February 2008 deaths from ethno-sectarian violence in Bagdad have fallen 90 percent. American casualties have fallen sharply, down by 70 percent. In the last year, the number of high-profile attacks have fallen by 50 percent.

All of us believe one American death is not worth the price we would pay if we had a choice. But every one of those who are there understand our mission and how important it is. Every one of those with whom I have met, both the people who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan and the families of those who have lost loved ones, say: Do not leave. Do not leave without a victory, without seeing through the successes that we have gained.

They understand this mission. Unfortunately, it does not seem that the majority in the Congress see it as those who are on the ground and who have suffered the most do. As recently as February, the Senate leadership was trying to stop the surge by requiring an immediate and arbitrary withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq when we didn't even have the results. Yet those of us who have been there recently have seen the results.

I went to a police station with our embedded forces and to a security regional center with embedded forces. I did that because I was very concerned. I wanted to see it myself. I was very pleased with the fact that our troops embedded there were causing the Iraqis to come forward and do more and help us.

The Sons of Iraq, which are now 91,000 strong, are serving as neighborhood watches. They are manning the checkpoints. They are taking us to the weapons caches. Do you know that, since the beginning of this year, we have found, because of the Sons of Iraq's cooperation, more weapons than we discovered in all of 2006? We are making progress. Mr. President, 21,000 of the Sons of Iraq have now been accepted into security forces or government work. It is amazing that we are seeing military gains, and we are seeing political gains. It is not as fast as we would like to see it, of course, but it is progress. It is in the right direction.

The consequences of leaving precipitously are consequences that would be unthinkable. People talk about the cost of Iraq, the cost of the war on terror, as if the costs are prohibitive. The costs are high. But the cost of leaving and letting al-Qaida have a base in Iraq are much more expensive. We are talking about 9/11 costing over $1 trillion, if you put it in monetary terms, which I don't think we should--this is not the thing that we should even be considering. We should be supporting our troops, and we should be supporting the effort that would require complete success for our country. This is the United States of America.

I met with the Vets for Freedom who just met by Senator Bond as well. They are the patriots who have been there, who know what it is like, and who are saying stay and fight and win. It is the right thing for the United States of America to do.

I yield the floor.