SENATOR HUTCHISON DISCUSSES THE FAA REAUTHORIZATION ACT

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.

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