and i got to see my 7-month-old granddaughter. and anybody that's a grandparent knows what's it's like to see your grandchildren. it's just -- there's nothing wrong with it and everything right with it. you get to picture and see in your grandchildren aspects of your children. it draws back memories. but i was struck by that encounter with my daughter and granddaughter, and, by the way, her dog, what are her hopes and dreams about? what are the hopes and dreams that we have for our children and our grandchildren? and our hopes and dreams are that they will have great opportunity to flower and blossom in a way that they can take advantage of their god-given talents and their hard work and become a success in their life's endeavors.

and when you contrast that with the heritage of our nation, a heritage which is about sacrifice, where one generation makes hard choices, makes difficult decisions, their sacrifice of their own benefits, from their own endeavors to create opportunity so that the next generation of americans can have that to fulfill and expand their heart's desires. we heard the senator from utah today talk about where the problems were with our nation and he talked about where all the gold was in terms of fixing what's wrong. i would have to say i would disagree with it. when i look at the u.s.

constitution and then i look at all the government programs that the federal government has fostered, passed and funds, i see a black-and-white slate. i see on the one hand the very limited intent of our founders that was spelled out very clearly in article 1, section 8 of the enumerated powers. here are the powers you're to have. we are designing you to be a limited federal government, and we're going to reserve everything else to the people and the states; ie., through the 10th amendment. but those words are actually in there. what is not spelled out for the u.s. federal government is explicitly reserved for the people and their states. and so when we consider the mess we're in, the fact that we had a $1.56 trillion deficit last year, that 43 cents of every

penny that we spent -- every dollar that we borrowed from our grandchildren, that this year it's going to be $1.8 trillion, that over next anyone years we're going to spend $10 trillion that we don't have, and i would put forward most it was on things we don't need. and especially if you look at it in the light of what our constitutional charge is. and i've made this statement from the floor several times, but the oath we take. when i was sworn in in january of 2005, the oath i took was to uphold the constitution. and the constitution is our good line, our direction for what is our responsibility and what should be left to the states. so when i hear my colleague -- and i agree with him -- that unless we reform entitlements,

we're going to have a difficult time solving our problems. but there is another answer. actually, there's two other answers. one of the other answers is to go through with a tune-tooth comb and look at every federal government -- with a fine-teut come and look at every federal government program and say is it really the responsibility of the federal government. and if it is, is it a program that we need? you know, in two weeks my staff found 640 duplicative programs in the federal government across all agencies that all do the same thing. 105 programs to encourage students to go into technology, math, engineering, and science. 105 different programs. so as we look at comparing what is our obligation and what is our charge under the constitution with what's really happening, all of a sudden a

wide world opens up of moneys that we don't have to spend, that aren't absolutely necessary, that aren't absolutely a priority that we shouldn't be spending at a time when we're borrowing and stealing the future of my little granddaughter, katie rose, and everybody else's granddaughter. why would we not demand that we do the hard work of going through what is truly our obligations and eliminating what is not and eliminating the multitude of duplications that the federal government has and ask ourselves, why shouldn't we be put to the same test that every other family in america is put to? you know, once you max your credit card out, once you've passed your limits, they don't continue to extend you money.

unfortunately, what they do is they jack up your interest rate. well, guess what's getting ready to happen to us? we do not have an unlimited credit card. and what's going to happen to us over the next few years, you're seeing 30-year bond obligations today going at a higher percentage than what they've ever gone for in the last four or five years, and you're going to see that trend climb. and out of the $10 trillion that we're going to spend that we don't have in the next nine years, $5.6 trillion of that is to pay interest on the national debt. so what we're going to do is we find ourselves what that person that's maxed out our credit card is now we're paying interest on the interest instead of paying off the debt. i said there were two ways of looking at it. the second is to go through the federal government and eliminate the waste, fraud, abuse and duplication. one is to eliminate where we

don't truly have the responsibility nor authority for what we're doing under the constitution, but the second is we have identified $350 billion a year of waste, fraud and duplication in the federal government. we've done that over a period of hearings over the past four years. one amendment out of about 800 that i've offered over the last five years has been accepted to eliminate some of that. just one. they've all otherwise been voted down. they've been voted down because members of this body refuse to make the hard choices about priorities because they think we don't have to. well, the gig's up. the american people, there's a rumble, a real rumble in america about holding us to be accountable for the future of this country. which means no longer ignoring the hard choices, no longer adding to the credit card.

and i say all that to talk about the bill that's before us. we have a bill before us that is called the tax extender bill, but that's not what it is. it's the debt extender bill. because this bill, in light of all the speeches you're going to hear in this body and all the excuses and all the press releases that are going to be released, is going to add $104 trillion -- $104 billion to our children's credit card. and this body yesterday voted to go forward with that. this voted to not make the hard choices, not offset the spending. if these are priority items that we should be doing in this bill, then why aren't we going after some of the waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government to get rid of it? that's $104 billion over the next ten years just with this one bill alone that we're going

to add to the debt. now, that comes down to $10.4 billion a year and we've got $350 billion worth of waste, and yet we refuse to go into that $350 billion worth of waste, fraud and duplication and eliminate anything to pay for this. instead, we're going to steal that opportunity, we're going to steal that future, we're going to put a blight on the blossom of opportunity for our children and grandchildren. i beg america to hold us accountable. to not accept business as usual anymore. when you get down and start talking about what this means, when you take the $104 billion and take the 300 million people in this country, and then you take the average family size,

when you get is $1,282 per family that this bill is going to aide. so, if, in fact, you go to sleep day after tomorrow when this bill passes the senate and 60 senators vote for it to go and we go on and do it, 35 or 36 will vote against it, but the 64 or 65, when you go to put your head on the pillow at night, you can thank them for jeopardizing the future of your children. not because what they want to do in the bill is necessarily wrong, but because they lack the courage to stand up and make the hard choices that are required in times of distress in our country. and if you study our history, our greatest leaders exhibited courage in the fate of -- in the face of adversity, and they pulled us through by making hard choices, not running away from the hard choices. we've had a lot of people

critical of senator bunning because he raised the issue on a $12 billion jobs bill that isn't going to do anything and said we ought to pay for it. and we voted him down. we said no. but do you know what? as i read the american public, about 80% of them say we should have paid for it. we should have done it. and those people who were most critical of senator bunning on the floor are people who hardly ever voted against any spending bill until their entire career in the senate because they honestly believe it's okay to mortgage the future of your children to benefit your own political career. so what we have developing in the senate isn't partisanship, it is policy differences that will make the difference for this country. and if the fair in the naer thf

doing it the same way win, our children don't have a future. what they have is a debt burden that we will never get out of. and we hear speeches like the senator from utah that tend to push us and think well, we've got to go and figure out how we fix medicare and social security, well, how do we fix medicare and social security? we've got to delay retirement, lessen benefits, eliminate fraud in medicare, delay eligibility? those are the only answers. or raise taxes. how do you raise taxes on the american people when you know you're spending $350 billion a year that's wasted? how do you in good conscience even consider that? i'm not against having a tax increase when and if we've done everything we can do to get this government efficient, eliminate

what is not our role and get rid of the fraud, waste and duplication. and most of america wouldn't be against that either. but right now they don't trust us and for good reason they do not trust this body, because we're not shooting straight with them. we're not telling them that we're going to add 1, 200 bucks to their kids' debt. and when you really take this number, this $347 number, you and look at kids 25 years and younger and go out 20 years, here's what you find. is not only are they going to be responsible for the debt we have today plus the $78 trillion of unfunded liabilities for medicare, medicaid, social security and all the other trust funds, including federal employee retirement, which adds up to $1,300,000 for every person in this country under 25.

now, ask yourself how in the world they will ever own a home, send their kids to college if, in fact, they're having to support $60,000 a year in interest on a debt that they didn't create. the promise of america was freedom. debt is a hard task master, but it's doubly hard when it wasn't your debt, when it's your parents and your grandparents' debt. and yet your tasked with changing your lifestyle, your opportunities, your hope and vision for your children because we didn't have the courage to stand up and say, enough is enough. when will it ever be enough?

when we can't sell our bonds? when will it ever be okay to offend those who are on the dole who don't deserve to be on the dole? when will it be okay to eliminate the waste in the federal government? not a a time when we're going to have a $1.8 trillion deficit. not at a time when $50 billion is going to be defrauded out of the stimulus program? when will we ever do it? we've never been in the financial situation that our country's in today. never before in our history. our whole foreign policy is now being affected and impacted because of our debt. we have to keep an ear towards china as we conduct our foreign policy in the fear that they may dump our bonds.

why would we put ourselves in that position when we don't have to? because there's no spine in the united states senate. there's no spine in the u.s. congress. there's no spine to go out and say, yes, i made the hard choices. you may not like it, but your children deserve that we make hard choices, and difficult decisions. and if i'm not here, it's okay. i did the right thing. i secured our future. i will be able to sleep at night knowing that i was not a part of taking and stealing that blossom of potential from our children and grandchildren. i'll finish up, mr. president, by asking a question of the american people: is it right that you have to make choices within a finite budget, but yet

your elected leadership in washington doesn't? is it fair for you to have to sacrifice to create a future for your children when we're destroying that future in washington? it is a time for americans who have never been involved in the political arena before in our nation to get involved, because your children and your children's children future depends on it. and we have a very short window with which to recapture the potential of an economic renaissance in our country, and it's less than four years. if you look at what we're coming to in terms of debt to g.d.p. and in terms of the size of the government to the size of the g.d.p., we will be on an irreversible course that will eliminate american exceptionalism forever.

because the thing that made us free and kept us free was a fairly limited federal government. and what we have in front of us is an attempt not to get it back down to a size that's manageable and within the intent of our founders' vision and american people's expectation. we have an intent to grow. the discretionary budget of the federal government on the rate that has been passed by this body the last two years alone, not counting the stimulus, will cause the federal government to double in size in five years. we're 40% bigger than we were two years ago. actually it's 38.6% bigger. and we hear that the average federal employee now makes $72,000 and the average private employee makes $40,000, and

we've added 172,000 new jobs in the government in the last seven months while we've lost three times that in the private sector. things are out of whack, and the only way they're going to change is if the american public demands it to be changed. so i'll go back. this isn't a tax extenders bill. this is a debt extension bill. we're going to extend another $104 billion of debt across the threshold of opportunity for our children and grandchildren. i'm not going to be a part of that. i'm not going to be complicit in it. and if that's not satisfactory with the people of oklahoma, i'm fine with that. i'm ready to make the hard choices to make us a lean, mean fighting machine again as an economy, a lean, mean fighting machine as far as opportunity. and the way to do that is to downsize the federal government, put it back within the roles of

its intended purposes and return to the states both the money and the authority to handle what is rightfully theirs in the first place. and the second thing that's important is to get rid of the $350 billion worth of waste, fraud, abuse and duplication that occurs every year that we will do nothing about. we do nothing about it. we send out press releases, but when it comes time to vote to make a hard choice, we don't do it. we refuse to do it. we refuse to offend those that are well-connected and well-heeled while we send our country into the trash heap of history through financial collapse. my hope is that my colleagues will stand up and say we're not going to pass this debt extender bill until you pay for it, until you make the hard choices about what's waste, what's duplication, what's fraud and get rid of some of that to pay if these are really priority items. if they're really priority, if america really needs them, there's got to be something

that's a lower priority that we can take away. but we don't have that kind of thought in the senate, because we just keep putting the credit card in the machine. thank you, china. thank you, china. thank you, china. and it's not going to be too long before we'll be saying, may we please, china? may we please? may we? watch what's happening to greece. look at the articles on ireland today, the hard choices they had to make to get themselves out of trouble. but they're doing it. we're ignoring it in this body, and we're going to pass another $104 billion along to our children and grandchildren. mr. president, i would yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mrs. hutchison: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mrs. hutchison: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. hutchison: madam president, we just had a beautiful, really incredible congressional gold medal ceremony honoring the wasps. it was the largest number who ever attended or any ceremony in the capitol because we have now the wonderful new capitol annex that allows us to have a visitors center and a place to accommodate very big ceremonies. and this one had over 2,000 family members of the women air force service pilots who were honored by congress. and i thought it was worth making sure that the american people know that today was, in

fact, a wonderful day of honoring women who did so much in world war ii and serve deserved the accolades that they got, but they did not get them after world war ii. they got the accolades today when congress recognized them with the highest honor that congress can give. i'd like to read the speech that i gave at the ceremony and also just embellish a little bit about the wasp. i wrote a book called "american hero wins, the american women who shaped our country." and in that book i did chapters on trailblazers who had ton so much to -- had done so much to open doors for the future women leaders in our country. and i did it in different areas. i did a chapter on aviation. and the pioneers that i profiled were amelia earhart and

jacqueline cochran. and jack rin cochran was -- jacqueline cochran was a true pioneer as amelia earhart was. they were contraries, amelia earhart a bill before jacqueline cochran. jacqueline cochran was the first to break the sound barrier. she was a protege of chuck jagr, who is the man who did break the sound barrier for the first time. he was a test pilot and a fabulous aviator. chuck jagr is still alive today. i saw him a few weeks ago. he was in dallas. and he wrote to anyone who knows anything about aviation. and he took jacqueline cochran under his wing and helped her and then she actually was the first woman to break the sound barrier. she also was tx -- she also was the woman who

conceived the women air force service pilots and she was the leader during world war ii of this incredible group of women. and i want to read the remarks that i made because it tells much of the story of the wasps and jacqueline cochran's leadership. as we celebrate women's history month, this is the perfect time for us to gather to honor the women air service pilots -- the air force service pilots now -- they were not in the air force at the time but they were called the wasps. we gave them the congressional gold medal, for these women truly did make history. america's first women to fly military aircraft, they blazed a trail in the sky that opened the door for today's women military pilots. by the time the war ended, 1,074 women had earned their wings at avenger field in sweetwater,

texas. 38 of those women were killed in the line of duty. throughout the war, these courageous women flew over 60 million miles around the world in every type of aircraft and on every type of mission flown by male pilots except direct combat missions. they were never commissioned, were never afforded active-duty military status and were not granted veteran status until 1977, 30 years after they had served. all these women volunteered to serve their country in wartime, and the reason they were formed, madam president, is that the men were needed to fly combat missions, they were the fire pilots, but we needed every person who could help in the noncombat fields and so for the first time, women were recruited and they flew the ferry missions, they flew -- they delivered aircraft, they

delivered -- and they trained, they trained pilots, they trained male pilots. so they did all of the things that someone in the air force would do today except combat missions and that freed up more men to fly the combat missions. that's why they were recruited and why jacqueline cochran decided that this was a necessity and women were dying to help, they wanted to serve. that's why all the wacs were created, that was the women's army corps, and that was headed by alvita colcaby, a wonderful woman in history, who also became part of president roosevelt's cabinet -- i mean president eisenhower's cabinet. and so these women volunteered by the thousands during world war ii, women's air corps and then the woman's army corps. these women volunteered to serve

their country and they paid their own way to texas for training. when the war ended, the program ended and they paid their own way back home. those who were killed, the 38 who were killed, were buried by their families, they had to pay their way -- for their bodies to be transported back to the burial grounds. they were not accorded the honor of having a flag on their caskets, and many of them were buried because the other wasps took up collections for the burial expenses. because they were not part of the military and, therefore, not accorded the honor of one who died in action. i wrote about the wasp in my book, "american hero wins: the spirited women who shaped our country," and these women surely did. despite their patriotic impact, the wasps were never formally recognized by congress for their wartime military service until today. in both houses of congress, our

senate and the united states house of representatives, passed the resolution to present the congressional gold medal. it was unanimous on both sides of the aisle. and it is the highest award given by congress. we honor their service, the history they made and the history that they made possible for other women to make as a result of their courageous service. today we right a wrong and acknowledge our debt to these great patriots, women who are so worthy of this award and this recognition. i recognize today tom brokaw. tom was on the podium with us at the ceremony and, of course, tom wrote the book, "the greatest generation" that i think raised the awareness of america, about these people who served in world war ii. of course, the combat veterans who served in world war ii. and he chronicled those because they served so valiantly in

horrendous circumstances and they came home, never talked about it, didn't talk about it to their wives or their friends or their children. and they just we want back to life as normal and considered that that was their duty and now it was time to go back to work. well, tom brokaw i think did a wonderful service for all of us that he raised the awareness of that greatest generation and made us appreciate so much what they had done. but i said in the ceremony today that tom brokaw, who did come to this ceremony because he got to know about the wasps as well in all of his research, but really we were closing a circle of many of those who served in world war ii and were never recognized. we recognized the veterans, we recognized their incredible service in combat and in battle,

but there were groups that have now received the congressional gold medal, and the wasps were the third of the three. the first was the tuskegee airmen, because they were an incredible group who served our country without recognition, they were all african-americans who flew missions, they had a huge success rate and they did not get the recognition until really the -- well, i will say they got recognition later, before we gave them the congressional gold medal, but that certainly topped off the recognition of their honorable and incredible service. and then there were the code talkers, the navajo code talkers, who did an incredible service in secret. they promised they would not ever tell what they did and they didn't until they were given leave to talk about it, after which there was a movie made and

they, too, have been recognized. and now the wasps, the women who were the first women to fly military missions but never made a part of the military. i'm proud to have introduced the legislation. it was started on the senate started with barbara mikulski, my colleague from maryland, and myself. and that culminated in the celebration today. senator mikulski and i sheparded that bill through the senate and then it went to the house with representatives susan davis and iilliana ros-lehtinen who passed it on the house side. and it passed in record time for gold medal resolution. and for this, i thank my colleagues in the senate and the house. it was barely a year, just a tad over a year, that it took to pass this, and many of the other -- there have not been too many gold medal resolutions, usually one per year, two at the

most, but this usually takes much longer. but because these women are, of course, older and we wanted to do it as quickly as possible so as many of them as possible could come and, in fact, over 2,000 of the family members and these women did come. there were a couple of hundred who actually came who were in the wasp, and of the 1,076 -- 1,074 women who earned their wings, a couple of hundred were there today. and i wanted to thank them. and i ended my remarks today by saying that i thank the wasps and their families who have waited so long and traveled so far to be here today and hear these words. on behalf of a grateful nation, we thank you for your service. and the speaker was eloquent.

the distinguished minority leader in the house, our leader, senator harry reid and senator mitch mcconnell, all participated with the secretary of the air force and then, of course, the four of us, the senate and house side who sponsored the resolution, spoke as well. and it was a beautiful ceremony, and i wanted to put that in the "congressional record" so that they get the recognition that they so richly deserve and for which they have waited so long. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida the a senator: madam president, i rise to talk for just a few minutes today. the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call. a senator: may i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with and be able to speak as if in morning business.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lemieux: thank you, madam president. yesterday, the president of the united states was in st. louis, missouri -- actually, st. charles, missouri, and he talked about a new effort that the federal government would undertake to go after waste, fraud and abuse in our health care system. and he focused on the use of payment recapture audits and the teams of auditors who will now go through the process of looking at the payments that are being made in medicare, for example, health care for senio seniors, to make sure that the money is actually going for health care to seniors and not going to criminals who are stealing the money from the system. i want to commend the president for doing this. it's the right thing to do. republicans and democrats can work together. this is a good initiative. but i would like to request of the president, as i've asked of this congress, to take further steps and more bold steps to stop fraud in our health care system. i want to thank leader

mcconnell who, in his opening remarks this morning as the senate opened its session, commented on a piece of legislation that i have offered that will not only go after the fraud after it happens, which is what the president's proposal does -- and i again, i commend him for it. it's estimated by the folks who are looking at his proposal that it might save $2 billion a year by going through and auditing and trying to find out where the bad guys are taking the money. i have some experience in that, madam president, when i was the deputy attorney in florida, we had a medicaid fraud unit. on the medicaid side, we did what these teams that the president is putting together now are going to try to do for medicare. we had teams that looked at the data. we'd break down the list of the top 50 folks who were receiving reimbursements from the federal government.

and if the number and the amount of money that they were receiving was abnormally high, we'd go look at it and make sure it was legitimate. i mean, you can just go where the money is; right? they say look at where the money is going, and if you can find out where the money is going, you can find out where the problems are. we looked at the top 50 or 100 folks receiving reimbursements from medicaid and we found problems. the president's idea is effective. but let's not just do pay and chase. that's what we've been doing in medicare for years and years. madam president, the senator from north carolina agrees with me on this issue. she has been a leader trying to advocate that we stop the health careud starts. we were trying to change the health care bill last year at the end of the year to put in something more robust. and we don't have to start from scratch. there is an idea out there that already exists that,'s already working in another sector of the economy that's very similar to what could be done in health

care. health care's about a $2 trillion a year business. we know that in medicare, there is at least $60 billion, if not $1 hundred billion a year of health care fraud. that is worth repeating: $60 billion to $100 billion a year of waste, fraud, and abuse in medicare alone. my colleague, senator and dr. coburn, has been a leading advocate about trying to go after this waste, fraud and abuse. so what could we do with that money? we could put that money back into medicare, make sure we're actually helping patients, and make medicare solvent for years to come instead of where we're looking at it right now, that in the next seven years medicare is going to have a real financial crisis. so how do we get at that $60 billion to $100 billion a year? the health care industry is about $2 trillion. another industry that does a fantastic job of fighting fraud, that's also about $2 trillion is

the credit card industry. now, in health care, at least in government health care, we believe that $1 out of every $7 is fraud. in the credit card industry, they lose 7 cents on every $100. $1 out of every $7 versus 7 cents on every $100. how do they do it? they don't just do pay and chase. they don't just set up auditors and prosecutors to go after the bad guys after they've stolen the money. they stop the stealing before it starts. technology is a wonderful thing, and it has created tremendous abilities for us to prevent fraud before it begins. you have all had this experience. you've gone somewhere and used your credit card, and your credit card company has e-mailed you or called you and said, was that really you making that purchase? and why is that? well, a mechanism was triggered

by their computers where you were doing something you normally don't do. you were outside your normal spending habits. you were in washington, d.c. visiting, not at home in orlando, florida. that's not something you usually do? red flag goes off because they've built a computer model that tracks your normal purchasing. and if something is out of the normal, if you're traveling or you're purchasing more than you usually do or you're buying things that are the targets of people who steal credit cards, the model goes off, the phone call happens, and if you don't verify, they don't pay. this is call predictive modeling, and it makes all the sense in the world that we put this in to our health care system. and we can. i have a bill -- senate bill 2128. it's got bipartisan support here in the united states senate, about a dozen cosponsors. and it is a bill to do three things: one, create this predictive modeling system.

set up a computer program where if we have health care fraud, we can try to detect it before it starts. let me give you an example. my home state of florida is rampant with health care fraud. rampant. in fact, i think south florida is the capital, unfortunately, madam president, of health care fraud. here's one example to give you. we have in south florida about 7% of the aids population of the united states. but the reimbursement to health care for aids patient for the united states of america, 82% of it is in miami dade county. 70% of the popblgs, 82 -- population, 82% of the health care. is that because they're getting the best health care in the world? no. it's fraud. there are people in organized crime who are running these health care codes, stealing medical records from hospitals, finding out your patient information, saying that you

have aids, running a $2,400 vaccine, running those vaccines all day long, sending the bill to the federal government, the federal government's paying. it's a lot better deal for the crooks. it's a lot better than illicit drugs. we hear from these criminals that they'd much rather be stealing from the federal government -- no one is shooting at them, and it is a lot easier to rip off uncle sam. we've got to stop this. if you put this predictive modeling in place, you could actually have a trend that occurred and the computer would say wait a minute, this health care provider has sold this wheelchair 100 times in an hour. or they've sold this other medicine, this very expensive aids medication, they've prescribed that more than anybody else. the model goes off and the payments stop until they're verified. we stop the fraud before it starts. my bill does two other things. one is it requires a background

check for every health care provider in america who is going to try to bill medicare or medicaid. can you imagine that we don't do this right now? we don't do background checks of people who are allegedly providing health care to our seniors and to the poor. can you imagine? we've got a convicted murderer in florida who is an alleged health care provider, who is scamming the system. there are bad guys scamming the system for $10 million, $20 million, $60 million. so we've got to do a better job. the third thing this bill does is it creates some accountability. we're going to create an assistant secretary of health at the department of health and human services whose only function will be to fight fraud. so we have some person accountable, madam president, that we can call in front of our committees and say, how are you doing in the battle to fight fraud? now, as much as i appreciate what the president did today, and that can save $2 billion, a

group here in town has evaluated this bill with bipartisan support and says it could save $20 billion a year. so, madam president, why aren't we doing this today? i know that this health care bill is very important. we've got differing views on whether we should pass this big bill or not. why can't we pass my bill now? why can't we start preventing this health care fraud now and save $20 billion a year? imagine what we could do with that money. imagine what we could do to put that money back in medicare, make it more resilient so our seniors know that their health care is going to be paid for. so, madam president, i applaud the efforts of the president of the united states today. it's a good step, but it's on the pay-and-chase side. it's not on the prevention and the fraud side. so i hope that my message -- i

keep coming to the floor and talking about this, madam president, because i feel so passionately about it. it is a commonsense thing to do. it is problem solving. no one is for fraud. everybody should believe that we should try to spend the government's money more effectively and more efficiently. with that, madam president, i yield the floor. i suggest the -- i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. kaufman: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. a senator: madam president, i ask consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kaufman: madam president, this afternoon i'll preside over a foreign relations committee hearing on the future of u.s. public diplomacy. never has public diplomacy been more important for promoting u.s. national security interests, especially in volatile regions and areas where we are engaged in counterinsurgency. in order to evaluate past achievements, successes and challenges, the committee invited three former undersecretaries of state for public diplomacy to testify on the matter earlier today.

given their wide experience, they will share their views about lessons learned from their tenure and the recommendation on tools and future strategy. the three former undersecretaries who were participating are he havely lieberman -- evelyn lieberman, karen hughes and james glassman. i'm grateful they will be able to be here for the hearing today. not only are they important voices on public diplomacy, they are dedicated public servants in the clinton and bush administrations. they don't -- like the vast majority of the people we talked about have spent 10, 15, 25, 35 years in the government. these three come from a different group. they're the group that come for a short period of time many times and bring incredible expertise. and intelligence to issues that we -- that we serve. and, by the way, expertise and intelligence that we in the

federal government could never afford to pay. and these three are a perfect example of that and that's one of the reasons why i want to recognize them today. during the years of service as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy they oversaw our state department's efforts to promote american foreign policies abroad using tools such as educational exchanges, public affairs and embassy outreach, international broadcasting and establishing the american corners or centers. they did this through communication within audiences, academic grants, and international visitors programs. publicly -- public diplomacy programs like the full bright fellowship bring emerging leaders from foreign countries to visit the united states promoting a cross cultural exchange and contributing to sharing an american per suspect with the world. although these three officials come from different sides of the

aisle, and each hold unique perspectives on american public policy, all share -- and i can say from firsthand -- all share a love of country and dedication to service that call them to government service. i was honored to work with each of them in various capacities over the years especially during my tenure on the broadcasting board of governors. evelyn lieberman -- evelyn is a native of new york and a graduate of state university of new york in buffalo. she first entered government services in 1988 as press secretary to my predecessor now vice president joe biden. i was serving as chief of staff and i had the privilege of working with evelyn early in her career. in 1993 she moved over to the white house and served as assistant to the first lady and now secretary of state hillary rodham clinton. three years later after serving as deputy white house press secretary she was appointed

white house deputy chief of staff under leon p panetta. president clinton appointed her as the director of voice of america. i i was a member of the broadcasting governors and i was fortunate to work closely with evelyn once more. in 1999 president clinton nominated evelyn to serve as the state department's first undersecretary for public dloam si and she was confirmed by the -- diplomacy and she was confirmed by the senate. we took the u.s. information agency and split it in two pieces, took the broadcasting board of government, created an independent entity for that and brought the rest of the usai and evelyn got us started and got us started on the right foovment she stayed there until the bush administration since 2002, she served as director of communications and public affairs for the smithsonian

institution. the second is karen hughes who was appointed by president bush to this position after serving as counsel to the white house from 2000 to 2002. a texas native, she holds a bachelors degree from southern methodist university. before working in politics, she worked in broadcast journalism for seven years. in 2005 karen was given the rank of ambassador to underscore the importance of public diplomacy as an essential component of u.s. foreign policy. while there karen implemented important changes including important changes to the rapid response unit at the department of state and many others. upon leaving state in 2007 to pursue work in the private sector, karen told the bbc that her greatest achievement was and i -- quote -- "transforming public diplomacy and making it a

national security priority central to everything that we do in government." unquote. which is the goal i believe continues to this day. during tenure as undersecretary she represented former secretary of state ms. rice. these are extraordinary public servants. republicans and democrats, people that a -- have great disagreements on many things, but came to the government, took incredible financial sacrifice, worked together to solve bipartisan problems that really put the public dloam si effort -- diplomacy effort in a positive way. when she left the state department, president bush nominated james glassman to take her place. james is a harvard graduate, prominent writer an journalist. he was confirmed by the senate in june of 2008 as undersecretary for public

diplomacy. jim's done a whole lot of things. he was a senior in the "new republic," the "atlanta monthly" and editor of "roll call." jim served as a fellow at the nonprofit american enterprise institute for 12 years. 2007, president bush nominated him to be the chairman of the broadcasting board of governors and served in that role until moving to the state department several months later. as i said, i worked with jim during my service on the bore. i saw firsthand his dedication to promoting american values an policies overseas. since the bush administration left office, jim has been working in the nonprofit sector and recently selected to lead a new public policy institute at the george w. bush presidential library. i mean, think about. this here i am -- think about this. here i am, a democrat, and i can tell you there aren't three

better people to work in the whole world than evelyn lieberman who was former chief of staff in the clinton white house, karen hughes and jim glassman who are the best kind of republican, karen, we had a lot of fights about a lot of things, when it came to public diplomacy, these three individuals did incredible work. when a president -- political appointees make up an important constituency in our federal government. when a president requests their services they often make real sacrifice to respond to ta call. these three made incredible sacrifices, financial and personal sacrifice to answer the call of this country. i hope my colleagues will join me in thanking evelyn lieberman, karen hughes, and james glassman for eangs the call to -- answering the call to serve and for their work on behalf of the american people. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

mr. kaufman: revise that. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: madam president, thank you very much. i want to thank the senator from delaware for not relinquishing the floor too quickly. we're grateful for that and the transition. i appreciate the many times he comes to the floor to celebrate what's working here in washington and the good work that's done by so many public officials, but also public employees in our federal government. madam president, i rise this afternoon to talk about the recession, unemployment, job loss. all of -- of all of those related topics. and in a very particular way to focus on the -- the trauma -- the suffering that a lot of pennsylvanians, a lot of americans are living through right now. this has been and continues to be a horrific recession.

-- recession for the american people. and when you have that -- when we're confronted with that kind of economic difficulty, we need to respond to that in very bold ways. i think we have over the last couple of years and even the last couple of weeks. i'll talk about that today. but we do need bold action to put people back to work and to keep our economy moving in the right direction, as i think it is now, more than a year after the recovery bill was enacted. in pennsylvania the unemployment situation is as follows: our rate is about 8.8% as of january. that's lower than a number of states of comparable size. but, unfortunately, the rate really doesn't tell you much. it doesn't often reflect the true meaning of the true impact of unemployment. we have 560,000 people in pennsylvania out of work through no fault of their own.

and i think it's also important to put this in the context of where we've been and where we are now. not only in pennsylvania, but across the country. in late december of 2008, congress took action to stave off the impending collapse of our nation's financial system. months later the downturn required congress to pass, as i mentioned before, the recovery bill known as the american recovery and reinvestment act known as the acronym as aara. these actions were at the time, meaning the legislative actions, were unpopular, but absolutely necessary. and i said we've worked on job creation strategies and legislation more recently within the last couple of weeks. our majority leader, senator reid, has led us in that and we're making progress. we have more to do. first, let me go back in time a little bit to the basically the

fall of 2008. i happened to be a member at that time of the banking committee and we were given briefings at that time on how perilous our financial system was at that moment. that we were really on the edge of a cliff in terms of the collapse of our financial system and, therefore, the collapse of our economy. we passed legislation which included the troubled asset relief program, known by the acronym tarp. i know as soon as i say it, it doesn't bring back positive recollections for people. it was not popular. the bill itself was not that popular. the emergency economic stablization act. and part of that was the so-called troubled asset relief program or tarp. but i think it's important to put facts on the table about what has happened since that time. the troubled asset relief program was, indeed, unpopular.

but we should note that to date the treasury department has spent, invested or loane loaned $500 billion through the tarp program. to date almost 190 -- $19 190 -- $190 billion of th the $500 billion has been returned or paid back to the treasury department. by the program's conclusion we expect all but $100 billion of that $500 billion to be repaid, which makes the troubled asset relief program significantly -- significantly less expensive to taxpayers than earlier estimates. and it met some of the predictions at the time by some of us that the money would be paid back. so that's good news. it's not enough though to report on -- on good news. we had to take other action. we took action when we passed the recovery bill in the early part of 2009.

just by way of example, pennsylvania is on track to receive more than -- more than $26 billion through the-offry bill including billions -- recovery bill including billions in direct tax relief. we had 4.9 million pennsylvanians who got tax relief as par of the recovery -- part of the recovery bill. part of that more than 26 billion, 13.5 billion was in so-called formula driven funding for health, education, infrastructure, job training and other aid. a tremendous boost to the economy of pennsylvania. not only creating jobs, but preventing the erosion of -- of our job creation strategies and preventing people from being laid off. teachers in school districts, law enforcement officials and jump-starting the economy of pennsylvania. we still have a ways to go. we still have basically another year of jump-starting effect for the recovery bill. across the country when we

measure the impact of the recovery bill, the nonpartisan congressional budget office, known by that acronym, c.b.o., we hear about it all the time, but they're a referee, in a sense, in washington, an arbiter of what the numbers mean. the c.b.o. ord a few weeks ago that the recovery act added between one million and 2.1 million jobs by the fourth-quarter of 2009. again, still in process. halfway basically, or almost, i should say, halfway through the implementation of the bill -- the bill's implementation one million to two million jobs. the c.b.o. said that the recovery act raised economic growth from -- by 1.5% to 3.5% over that same period. so it's contributed to growth. the c.b.o. director doug elmendorf said during an economic hearing said and i quote -- "the policies enacted,

meaning the recovery bill, increasing g.d.p. and employment relative to what it would otherwise be." unquote. so that's the c.b.o. talking about the recovery bill. there's another way to measure it. there's lots of ways to measure the impact and i would argue the success of it. january and february of 2009 the country lost 1.9 million jobs. january, february, 2010, the job loss as of the most recent report for february, 60,000 jobs, just about 62,000 jobs. so that reduction or diminution in the jobs lost from 1.5 million jobs to 62,000 jobs is, indeed, substantial progress. but again, it's not enough. we have to keep going. we have to continue to put in place strategies that create many, many more jobs. madam president, i think the facts speak for themselves. more people are currently employed and more goods and

services are being produced as a result of the recovery act. put another way, if the recovery act was not enacted, the economic situation would be much worse than it is today. i think that's a -- an understatement if we didn't pass that legislation. but we need to -- to do more and moore forward, we need to pass legislation to continue to create jobs. that's why i'm standing today in support of passage of the american workers state and business relief act, the legislation we're considering right now. this legislation contains vital policies that will support our workers and our businesses as we recovery from the recent economic recession. the most important part of the legislation is the extension of unemployment insurance and cobra health insurance through december 31 of this year. the national unemployment rate of 9.7%, that's what it is now, but it's expected to remain at this level, unfortunately,

through most of 2010. i mentioned earlier that in pennsylvania, it's about a point lower, 8.8%. 560,000 pennsylvanians out of work. these numbers are far too high for us to in any way be satisfied with the positive impact the recovery bill has had and other measures we've taken. we passed or about to pass and enact into law the hire act, four provisions agreed to in a bipartisan way, but we have to do more than that as well. congress must continue to provide for comprehensive unemployment benefits and a subsidy to pay for cobra health insurance for those who have lost their job through no fault of their own. the eligibility for emergency unemployment compensation and cobra premium assistance, that program will expire at the end of march. according to our state's department of labor and industry, hundreds of thousands of pennsylvania workers could

lose unemployment benefits over the next several months without an extension. an extension of federally funded unemployment compensation and the cobra health insurance subsidy through the end of this year, december 31, are necessary for several reasons. first of all, state labor departments -- i think this is true across the board -- will not be under pressure to constantly update their systems and inform constituents of the changes in fearl law. why should we keep passing an extension of a month or two or three when we could pass legislation to give certainty most importantly to that unemployed worker and his or her family -- they're the most important -- they're the most important part of this story -- but also, too, state labor departments so they don't have to continue to make changes to their system. people who were recently laid off will constantly be reminded that their unemployment benefits

might run out sooner than expected, especially at a time when there are six applicants for every one job. and finally, in terms of a reason to do this, to extend unemployment and cobra health insurance, our state labor department also makes a point that at a time when millions of people don't have health care coverage, failure to provide an adequate safety net to ensure that people maintain adequate and affordable health coverage will only add to the rolls of the uninsured in the country. during my travels throughout the commonwealth of pennsylvania, i've met and i continue to meet or i hear from numerous people who are in desperate needs, desperate need of help. recent the hanlin family of pleasantville, pennsylvania, contacted my office to share their story. here's but one story, but very telling about what families are up against. lisa and jeff hanlin have four young children. until recently, jeff and lisa were both unemployed by the same -- i'm sorry, both employed

by the same company and, in their words -- quote -- "the family lived on a solid middle-class experience." jeff worked at the company for nearly eight years. over time, he began to experience severe health problems, including suffering three -- three -- heart attacks. when the economic downturn hit, jeff was downsized by the company and the family lost their health insurance. the blow of losing health insurance could not have come at a worse time. just one of jeff's hospital bills was $398,000. due to his medical condition, jeff was unable to work. too sick to work, it took a long time nor jeff to apply for an and -- time for jeff to apply for and receive social security. during this time, the family experienced severe hardship and sold everything of value. sold everything of value to be able to keep their home and stay afloat.

mrs. hanlin told our office that their children went without medical help for a year, young children going without medical help for a year because their father or mother, someone in their house, lose their job. that's unacceptable. we should say and act upon that statement, that that's unacceptable in america today. what the hanlins had to do was choose what bills to pay to feed their children. without means, the children were not able to participate in sports or any school activities. even now, the family's current income is a fraction of what i it -- of what it was. another example in addition to the hanlins. janet lee smith is a single mother of two girls. her difficulties began back in 2003 when she was laid off from a 26-year career. as janet tells the story, the company began outsourcing to mexico which made her position

obsolete. faced with the tremendous responsibility of raising two young girls, she decided to go back to school while also working. in 2005, they graduated from penn state extension campus with an associate's degree in human development and family studies. unfortunately, additional education was not enough to get her a job in this tough economic climate. so once again, janet turned to odd jobs and part-time jobs until 2008, when she was finally blessed with a full-time job as an administrative assistant. nine months later, once again she was told that the business was slow and she would, in her words -- and i'm quoting -- "once again become a statistic as a 'dislocated worker.'." today, unable to find full-time work, janet is back in school and working part-time. she says she feels she has to do

whatever she can to -- quote -- "get her girls through school healthy and strong." "get her girls through school healthy and strong." in janet's words, it's not a -- and i'm quoting here again -- "it's not a good feeling at all being told that you are going to be laid off, especially when you're the only income that your family depends on. it has been a great struggle" -- i should say, "it has been a struggle, keeping up my spirits and trying not to let my girls see that i am stressed." so that's what janet tells us and that's what the hanlin family tells us. but despite thee challenges -- and i've seen this across our state -- despite these challenges, janet is still optimistic. she says -- "and i quote again -- "i'm confident that this time i'll be able to find that one jo

job. i know that they're out there. i've had a good job before and i will have a good job again." i'm telling you, i've heard this in many instances across our state. i was at a jobs center in south central pennsylvania just outside of gettysburg, met with eight of those 560,000 people out of work. heard the same thing there. eight pennsylvanians, six at least of the eight over the age of 50, several over the age of 60, never been out of work in their lives, never had to rely upon food stamps, in almost every case, never had to rely upon unemployment insurance and they find themselves in this predicament. but despite that -- despite that -- there is a burning flame of optimism inside them. despite their setbacks, they're willing to keep filling out forms, keep applying, keeping their head up and keeping moving forward. debbie, a woman who is one of those eight that we spoke to that day, probably said it best. she said very simply, all we

want to do is get back to work. and i think you see that across the board. so what are we going to do in congress? are we going to preach and say, well, we're only going to have unemployment insurance for another couple weeks or another few months. we're only going to have cobra health insurance for a couple of -- a couple of months, a couple of weeks. very easy for us to say when we have health care, federal employees that we are, and we have job security. so for those who say that shouldn't do it, we shouldn't extend these safety net progra programs, before you make a speech about it, you should tell your constituents about why you don't want to support it. tell janet smith and tell the hanlin family why it's not a good idea to support unemployment insurance and cobra health insurance. the security of washington allows a lot of people to avoid that conversation. the security of being a federal employee, being a senator or house member and having health

coverage and job security allows us the luxury of not having to look those families in the eye and tell them. but i think if people were more honest about it around here, they would. so in addition to aiding families who are desperately in need of putting food on the table and a roof over their heads, an extension of the unemployment insurance has a direct impact on our nation's economy. we know, for example, again, the congressional budget office says that for every $1 spent in unemployment insurance benefits, upwards of $1.90 is contributed to the gross domestic product. mark zandy, an economist i've quoted often, a pennsylvanian -- i realize i'm a little biased there -- but he's also -- had worked on senator mccain's presidential campaign, so not a -- not someone coming from a purely democratic point of view. mark zandy has stated that, for every $1 spent on unemployment insurance benefits, upwards of

$1.63 is contributed to gross domestic product. so you spend a buck on unemployment insurance, taxpayers get $1.63 back in return. but in addition to unemployment insurance and cobra health insurance, the american workers state and business relief act provides a range of tax credits that will help businesses and state governments to create and retain jobs. for example, the bill contains an extension of the biodiesel fuel credit which will put a number of pennsylvanians back to work and across the country. the bill contains a research and development tax credit which will provide businesses the financial resources to compete in a global marketplace. and finally, mr. president -- madam president, the bill will assist our teachers by providing a tax deduction for those teachers that spend their own money to buy supplies for their classrooms and students, something i've seen in pennsylvania for many, many years, teachers constantly reaching into their own pocket to buy supplies and equipment

and things that they need in order for them to teach our children. so, madam president, i'll say, in conclusion, that i and i know many others strongly support passage of the american worker, state and business reliefage. this legislation is necessary to continue -- business relief act. this legislation is necessary to continue to spur economic growth and create jobs in pennsylvania and across our country. and with that, madam president, i would yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. morning business is closed. under the previous order the senate will resume consideration of h.r. 4313 which the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 4213, an act to amend the internal revenue code of 1976 to extend certain expiring provisions and for other purposes. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. reid: the pending

amendments, 3342, 3368, and 3327 are not germane postcloture. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: the point of order are they well taken? the presiding officer: the amendments all propose new subject matter. the amendments are nongermane and the point of order is well taken. mr. reid: and the amendments fall, is that right? the presiding officer: correct. mr. reid: what is the business before the senate? the presiding officer: the question is on the baucus substitute 3336 as amended. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed say no. the substitute amendment, as amended, is agreed to. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloature. the clerk: cloture motion:

we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the debate on h.r. 4213, the tax extenders act, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that the debate on h.r. 4213, an act to amend the internal revenue code of 1976 to extend certain expiring provisions and for other purposes shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote: the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber who wish to vote or to change a

vote? if not, on ts vote the yeas are 66, the nays are 3. three-fifths of the senators -- nays are 33. three-fifths of the senators duly affirmed having voted in favor of the motion, the motion is agreed to. without objection, so ordered. under the previous order, all time is yielded back. the clerk will read the bill for the third time. the clerk: h.r. 4213, an act to amend the internal revenue code of 1986 to extend certain exring provisions, and for other purposes. a senator: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: the question is on the passage of the bill as amended. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll.

vote:

vote: the esiding officer: are

there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the yeas are 62, the nays are 36. the bill, as amended, is agreed to. a senator: mr. president, i move to reconsider and table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. tester: mr. president, i rise today to urge the immediate confirmation of michael punk to be the u.s. ambassador to the world trade organization. the united states has been without an ambassador for more than six months because one republican senator has been holding up his nomination for no good reason. mr. president, this is another example of standing in the way of doing what's right for our country. michael punk is well-qualified, he's ready to serve, he happens to be from montana. michael's qualifications are as follows: michael received his undergraduate degree in international affairs from george washington university. he then attended cornell law school, where he earned his juris doctorate with a specialization in international legal affairs. he also served as editor in chief of the cornell

international lawdjourn a for 14 years, michael surgeoned in government and private practice in washington, d.c. from 1991 to 1992, he acted as international trade counsel to senator max baucus, the then-chairman of the finance committee's international trade subcommittee. mr. president, michael has been fully vetted. he received strong bipartisan support from the senate finance committee hearings. and the finance committee unanimously approved his appointment. let me repeat that, mr. president. michael punk passed out of finance committee with the support of all the senators on that committee. that means all the democrats and all the republicans supported his nomination. including the junior senator from kentucky, who continues to hold up his nomination. and the reason senator bunning is giving for his hold? he wants canada to repeal parts of the antismoking law that they

passed in the canadian parliament. i don't think that holds water. mr. president, this job is too important pho to remain open because one senator has a flimsy policy beef with a foreign country. common sense has a prevail. expanding u.s. exports will help rebuild our economy by creating jobs. michael punk is an important part of that goal. michael will be responsible for promoting and securing u.s. trade interests abroad to create jobs for america's farmers, workers, and businesses right here at home. our trading partners use his absence as an excuse to stall process on serious negotiations. mr. president, standing in the way is hurting america's businesses and workers who are affected by these very important negotiations. michael could be working right now to create jobs for american farmers, workers and businesses. but instead some issue about tobacco in another country is keeping us from moving forward. that is not right.

that is why a broad coalition of america's farmers and businesses have been calling for quick approval of michael punke by the united states senate. a coalition of 42 food and ag groups wrote senator reid and senator mcconnell last january to call for michael's quick confirmation saying -- and i quote -- "u.s. food and agriculture exports are under assault in many markets with trading partners erecting even more barriers in recent months. the longer the delay in confirming mr. punke, the more likely that the united states loses exports and jobs. so, mr. president, if we act today to confirm michael punke, the senate will have done something right now to help create jobs in america. holding up michael punke does just the opposite. for all the reasons -- oh, and did i add this guy's one quality individual. i would request that we confirm michael punke in the senate, we do it as soon as possible and confirming to the position as -- confirm him to the position of

u.s. pwapls tkor to the u.s. world trade association. i rise with tphrus my hometown of big sandy, montana, a town of just over 700 folks. that means in montana, it is a class-c town. in montana, class-c is a way of life. for a lot of montanans the entire year revolves around that basketball season. mr. president, last week coach royal actner led his boys to the class-c basketball tournament. they fought their way to the championship game on saturday night and played kwroer outstanding class-c team in the power pirates. it was one of those games folks will be talking about for years. after a last-second foul with whether he is less than a second on the clock, a senior broke the 49-49 tie by sinking both free throws. i was six years oeltd last time -- old the last time the

big sandy boys won a state championship. i rise today in honor of coach lackner and the big sandy boys basketball team, including lake brumwell, taylor ofis, zack hraoerbgsd corbin pearson, trevor lackner, jeff zigger, dallas breeze, cayden, beck, mack gullenson. i'm sharing this good news not just because these men tpr-r my hometown -- from my hometown -- although i'm proud of that. i'm sharing this news because we could all use a reminder about hard work and team work. it pays off. the coach said winning a state championship is a matter of perseverance. it is. the big sandy preserved. they won and we congratulate

them on that. mr. president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. rockefeller: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. rockefeller: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the order of the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rockefeller: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate now proceed to calendar number 36, h.r. 1586, and that once the bill is reported, that i be recognized to offer a substitute amendment. the presiding officer: is there an objection? without objection, so ordered. the clerk will report.

the clerk: calendar number 36, h.r. 1586, an act to impose an additional tax on bonuses received from certain tarp recipients. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from west virginia, mr. rockefeller, proposes an amendment numbered 3452. strike out all after the enacting -- mr. rock fell: i ask that reading of the amendment be waived. -- mr. rockefeller: i ask that reading of the amendment be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rockefeller: mr. president, i'm very happy to be here this afternoon with the most excellent ranking member of the commerce committee, senator kay bailey hutchison of texas, and we lay down our transportation bill and in so doing we say that our transportation system is at a crossroads and not a comfortable one. for decades, the federal aviation administration has done an excellent job of operating the world's most complex airline

system. nobody close. the system has served us very well. not only is it the safest airspace system in the world, it's a critical component of the national economy. i cannot understate the importance of a vibrant and strong aviation system. it's fundamental to our nation's long-term growth, from the largest cities to the very smallest of towns. because it connects our citizens and it connects our businesses with the global economy. increasingly, however, our air transportation system and the f.a.a., the federal aviation administration, they're strained beyond capacity. our skies and airports have become plagued with congestion and delay and, what's more, on a pretty regular basis. over the past decade, we have seen passengers delayed for

hours on runways, and we hear about it. during peak times, such as the holidays, the system is often paralyzed, stopped, disruptions at just one key airport -- maybe j.f.k., maybe o'hare, maybe los angeles -- any one of those places can quickly cascade throughout the entire system. should they be in trouble. with airline capacity cuts, these delays can easily extend to days for passengers that cannot find flights with empty seats because the capacity has been reduced. our constituents are frustrated about flying, and, frankly, rightly so. when our economy recovers -- and i believe that growth has slowly begun. we shall see -- congestion and delay will only get worse. the f.a.a. predicts that

commercial air traffic will increase by nearly 50% over the next decade. put that in other terms, from our current level of 700 million passengers a year, it will be well over a billion passengers per year. in a complex system as ours, everything has to work. so the possibility of a meltdown of the air traffic control system may, in fact, become a reality, and this will put passenger safety at extreme risk. these are not only troubling signs, there are more. while aviation has an excellent safety record, as i have indicated, the federal aviation administration and the industry's focus on safety and vigilance in maintaining it as the highest priority have come into question, question of safety. the grounding of thousands of aircraft throughout the system

in 2008 raise questions about the quality of airline maintenance practices and the f.a.a.'s ability to provide sufficient oversight of air carriers. the tragic accident of flight 3407 has exposed problems with pilot training, crew fatigue, and the ability of the industry to assure the traveling public that there is one level of safety throughout the entire system, and that does not exist. for all these reasons, i stand here along with my distinguished colleague and encourage my colleagues in as strong a fashion as i can possibly muster to move forward and pass s. 1451, to-wit the f.a.a. air transportation modernization and safety improvement act. i will only say that once.

i want to spend a few minutes discussing how and why we have made so little progress in addressing the issues facing our nation's aviation system. in 1999 and 2000, the aviation system was experiencing the worst congestions and delays in its history. there was indeed a growing recognition that fundamental change was needed. nonetheless, i worked with senator lott to author vision 100. in effect the 2003 f.a.a. re-authorization bill. this bill laid the foundation to build a modern digital satellite-based air traffic control system. we created the joint planning and development office and authorized a significant increase in f.a.a.'s capital budget to meet the specific air

traffic control modernization needs. a lot of what i say will be based on that. an increase based upon the administration's own budget request. but instead of investing in the system in 2004-2005 -- in 2004, 2005, and 2006, the previous administration proposed dramatic cuts in the f.a.a.'s facilities and equipment, the f&e, account. the accounts that fund air traffic control modernization. the urgency of 2000 understandably but regrettably waned as air traffic fell after 9/11. today we find ourselves in a similar situation. the recession has prevented widespread delay, temporarily. we must not let this temporary reprieve keep us from taking action to address these concerns

once again. our economy has begun, as i indicated, to slowly turn around, and i'm confident that demand for air travel will soon begin to grow. if we do not act quickly, our system will simply not have the capacity to cope with the growth in demand. that's where you get in trouble. i believe that everyone in aviation recognizes the need to modernize our national air transportation system in order to meet the growth in passenger traffic. in addition to creating much more capacity, a new satellite-based a.t.c. system, air traffic control system, will allow airplanes to move more efficiently by taking more direct routes, being able to be closer to each other but without danger. these improvements will save our economy billions of dollars annually. most importantly, the next generation air transportation system, which we refer to as

nextgen, nextgen, will dramatically improve the safety of air transportation by providing pilots and air traffic controllers with better situational awareness. they will be able to see other aircraft and detailed weather maps in real time. president obama clearly recognized the value of investing in our air transportation system, and this is, in fact, reflected in this fiscal year 2011 budget request. the administration has proposed spending a total of $1.1 billion in fiscal 2011 on nextgen program, which is a more than 30% increase. that is not in line with the so-called freeze. so it is a 30% increase over 2010. we oversee all of transportation

trains, cars, airplanes, trucks, whatever you have. and i would just say at this point for the record that the same financial requests or needs for the surface transportation board which interacts with railroads and shippers has not been increased sufficiently. it's $31 million and it needs to be closer to $44 million. these efforts, however, are only the first steps of a long journey. modernizing the a.t.c. system will require a sustained focus and substantial resources. s. 1451 takes concrete steps to make sure that the f.a.a. accelerates the nextgen -- that's the modern system -- programs and that the agency implements modernization efforts in an effective and efficient

manner over the long run. the f.a.a. estimates that nextgen will cost the agency agency $20 billion through 2025, and the articles another another $20 billion in aircraft equipage, how they as an individual airplane responds and reacts to that system so it can work. i have worked with senators inouye and baucus to reach a deal that i believe moves us in the right direction. s. 1451, the bill under discussion, will create a new subcontract with the aviation trust fund to fund f.a.a.'s modernization efforts. this modernization sub account will dedicate $500 million annually to nextgen efforts. i appreciate the hard works of my colleagues in this provision

to develop it, to make it become possible. safety. now, i'd like to spend some time talking about the highest priority in aviation, and that's called safety. statistically, the u.s. has the safest air transportation system in the world. i indicated that. but statistics don't tell you the whole story. it has been a little more than a year since the tragic crash of flight 3407 in buffalo, new york, took the lives of 50 people. it is clear from the national transportation safety board investigation that we need to take serious steps to improve pilot training, address flight crew fatigue to make the cockpit isolated from extraneous conversation and reform air carrier employment practices. i commend senator dorgan in

particular for the work he has done to promote the safety in the aftermath of this action. he has attached himself to this cause ferociously. the committee's work has prompted the f.a.a. to initiative a number of activities to improve aviation safety. the agency has been able to get many air carriers to make voluntary commitments to implement important safety measures, and the agency is committed to issuing new regulations on flight and duty time limitations in coming months. despite this progress, our work remains far from complete. we must also make certain that the f.a.a. remains as vigilant on other safety priorities, the oversight of airline operations, and the maintenance, reducing runway incursions and air traffic controller staffing issues. just as with modernization, we must make sure that the f.a.a. has the tool and -- tools and

the resources to accomplish these safety objectives. i'm especially proud of the safety title that we have developed and included in this bill 1451. this title will do the following, in part -- address pilot fatigue by mandating the f.a.a. revise flight and duty time limitations based on the latest scientific research. ensure one level of safety exists throughout the commercial aircraft operations by requiring that all carriers adopt aviation safety standards. the bill also requires stronger safety oversight of foreign repair stations, which is a very controversial subject. there are a relatively small percentage of air maintenance. most of it is done in this country, but there is some

argument as to how well it's done overseas. these are critical measures that will help us identify safety issues and prevent problems before they occur, and this is the best way to address safety. a word on community air service. the state i come from is not large. in fact, it's small and it's rural, but it's important and it's a good place. we need to keep america's small communities connected to the rest of the world. if one lives in a rural state or in a rural part of a rural state, one is no less important if one lives on fifth avenue in new york city. the nature of the people is the same. the entrepreneurship may be the same. but access to international aviation or transcontinental aviation is not the same. the continuing economic crisis

has hit the united states airline industry very, very hard. they are in and out of bankruptcy. we have all read about that. they are cutting back on things that they offer, that they used to offer in flight and don't now. and we grump about it, but there is a reason that they do that so i don't grump about it. and this affects the future of hundreds of rural communities across our country. in their effort to cut costs, air carriers have drasticcally reduced service to small or isolated communities. from a business point of view, i guess that makes sense. from my policy point of view, that doesn't make sense and it's not fair. they are the first routes to go, the rural ones, and they go in tough economic times, and that's where we are right now. the reduction or elimination of air service has a devastating effect on the economy of a community. having adequate air service is not just a matter of convenience but also a matter of economic

survival. without access to reliable air service, no business is willing to locate their operation in these areas of the country, no matter what the attractive quality of life. airports are economic engines that attract critical new development opportunities and jobs. the federal government needs to provide additional resources and tools for small communities to help them attract adequate air service. my legislation does this, our legislation does this by building on existing programs and strengthening them. authorizing funding for the essential air service program is increased to $175 million annual ly. the bill also extends the small community air service development program. incredibly important for small airports. this program has provided dozens of communities with the resources necessary to attract and retain air service.

in conclusion, when i began work on this bill, i had four simple goals. one, take steps to address the critical safety concerns. that was always number one, always will be. two, to establish a road map for the implementation of nextgen and accelerate the f.a.a.'s key modernization programs. three, make certain we adequately invest in airport infrastructure. and four, continue to improve small communities' access to the nation's aviation system. i believe we have worked hard in a truly bipartisan fashion with senators dorgan, obviously senator kay bailey hutchison from texas, senator demint from south carolina to develop a bill that i think advances these goals and which all of my colleagues can support. this bill is not being held up and there is a reason for that.

we worked our problems out early. this bill takes the steps needed to advance the system. the f.a.a. must be provided with the tools, the resources and the clear direction and deadlines to make sure that the agency provides effective oversight of the aviation industry itself. i think we all recognize that the u.s. must significantly expand capacity of our nation's air transportation system. there are no quick or easy solutions to the problem, and i believe that our situation is going to get worse before it gets better. but we do have to take the actions that we can right now. we cannot ignore the aviation system anymore. we cannot float on nice memories of a glorious past. the united states is losing its position as the global leader on aviation. the american public is not happy with the aviation system or with

us. we must move boldly, just as we have with our investments in high-speed rail, or risk losing our leadership in the world. given the challenges our nation's aviation system faces, we must act now, mr. president, to pass s. 1451, the f.a.a. air transportation modernization and safety improvement act. before i yield to senator hutchison, i ask unanimous consent that the following finance committee fellows and interns be accorded floor privileges for the consideration of the f.a.a. bill: a disevment lin baker, mary baker, brittany dur religion, scott matthews, greg sullivan, maximilian updike and mina sharma. and i ask consent,

mr. president, that jim kineely and roshat guthren, both detailees, be granted floor privileges throughout consideration of this bill. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rockefeller: is it the order that the senator from texas will have the floor? if not -- the presiding officer: there is no order to that effect. mr. rockefeller: business as usual. the presiding officer: correct. mr. rockefeller: i yield proudly to the senator from texas. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mrs. hutchison: thank you, mr. president. i want to thank the distinguished chairman of the committee, and i want to say, as the ranking member of the commerce committee, that i believe this f.a.a. reauthorization bill is a very good, solid bill. it is very bipartisan, and we

have worked through many of the sticky issues that have held up the long-term extension of f.a.a. reauthorization, i think, in a bill that most everyone on this floor will support, if the bill stays as it has come out of the committee. i want to say also that i believe the aviation subcommittee chair and ranking member, senators dorgan and demifntdemint, deserve a lot of credit for this bipartisan bill as well, because it does provide a solid road map for the direction and future of our aviation system, and its enactment is long overdue. so, i very much appreciate -- as a matter of fact, senator rockefeller and i had been the chairman and ranking member of the aviation subcommittee when this bill was written, and then

we both went to the full committee, chairman and ranking member slots, and so we have now two new aviation subcommittee chair and ranking members who have also done an excellent job. so i feel really strong about this bill and how much it's going to do for the stability of our system. you know, when you're looking at the reason for an f.a.a. reauthorization bill, you've got to have stability. we need to improve aviation saivment we neesafety. we need to modernize our air traffic control system, known as nexgen. we are behind the other nations who have major traffic control systems. if we are glg going to keep up

with the air traffic, we need to have nexgen. we need to make the investments in infrastructure where there is a knowledge that this infrastructure support will be ongoing. i know the crucial mission that the f.a.a. has in overseeing our nation's airlines and the aviation system. aviation safety and the public trust that go along with it is the bedrock of our national aviation policy. we cannot allow for any degradation of safety to the flying public. i believe this bill goes a long way toward achieving that goal. while i continue to have great confidence in the safety our aviation system, it was made obvious that there is still need for improvement after the crash

of coal began flight in buffalo new york last year. despite the remarkable record of the u.s. aviation industry, that accident reminds us that we must remain vigilant and always looking for ways to improve our safety system. while tremendous strides have been made in recent decades, little has been done to address the human factor side of of the equation in areas such as pilot fatigue, quality of pilot training, commuting, and pilot professional responsibility. over the course of a year and through six commerce committee hearings regarding the aftermath of the colgan accident, we worked in a bipartisan manner to craft proposals to address these human factors issues. during these hearings, the family members of those lost in flight 3407 were there every

step of the way, and i applaud their continued activism for improving aviation safety. a few of the safety improvements that we call for in this legislation include mandating the f.a.a. complete a rule making on flight time limits and rest requirements for pilots; improving safety for helicopter emergency medical service operations; addressing inconsistent application of f.a.a. airworthiness directives by improving voluntary disclosure reporting processes to ensure adequate actions are taken in response to reports; and limiting the ability of f.a.a. inspectors to work for air carriers over which they had oversight; and also conducting independent reviews of safety issues identified by employees. requiring enhanced safety oversight of foreign repair stations; taking steps to ensure one level of safety exists in

commercial aircraft operations, including a mandate that all carriers adopt the aviation safety action programs and flight operational quality assurance programs. mr. president, this legislation would also require air carriers to examine a pilot's history for the past ten years when considering hiring an individual and annual recording on the implementation of ntsb recommendations and the reevaluating flight crew training, testing, and certification requirements. another priority and centerpiece of this bill is focusing and expediting the f.a.a.'s air traffic control modernization program known as nextgen. the f.a.a. operates the largest and safest air traffic control system in the world. in fact, the f.a.a.'s air traffic control system handles almost half the world's air traffic activity and the united states is a leader in developing and implementing new

technologies to create a safer, more efficient airspace s however--efficient airspace sys. today's system is not much different from that used in the 1960's. it is still fundamentally based on radar tracking. nextgen will move much of the infrastructure from ground-based to satellite-based by replacingg antiquated ground structure with satellites and onboardate automation. the f.a.a. will be able to make our aviation system more safe and efficient while also increasing capacity. some of the modernization modern provisions in the bill include establishing clear guidelines -- deadlines for the adoption of existing global positioning system navigation technology.

airports. finally, the bill would also increase our nation's investment in airports. as we all know, you can have the best planes and the best air traffic system, but they mean nothing without the proper airport it will be aopb are an important step toward improving our aviation system and aviation safety towards the millions of air passengers that should expect no less from this congress. mr. president, i do hope that we are able to keep the bill pretty much intact, but i know that there are amendments that some members will have.

i will urge the members who do have amendments to come to the floor and begin to let us see their amendments so they can offer them and we can begin to address the amendments and try to expedite the bill as much as possible. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: mr. president, first of all, i am pleased with the work that the chairman and the ranking member of the commerce committee have done. i'm chairman of the aviation subcommittee and have worked closely with them to produce a piece of legislation that i think is bipartisan, is a very important and urgent piece of legislation that will strengthen this country's system of air

travel. and i want to talk some about that today. a couple of things this legislation will do. i'm not going to repeat everything that my colleagues have said. but it will advance aviation safety, which i think is very, very important. it will accelerate modernization of the air traffic control system t.'s going to support -- it's going to support jobs by investing in aviation infrastructure. that is airports and runways and the kinds of things that accommodate our air travel system. it will ensure that rural communities in states like north dakota, my home state, have access to the nation's aviation system. so i'm very pleased with this bill. and since the last f.a.a. reauthorization bill expired in 2007, the congress has passed 11 separate extensions of this law. there was a suggestion that we pass another one-year extension, which i opposed. we don't need to extend this.

what we need to do is pass new authorizing legislation that addresses the fundamental issues we need to address with respect to air travel in this country. the federal aviation administration is charged with operating chaining is the -- which i think is the world's most complex system in the world. i think by and large they do an outstanding job. the united states has the safest skies in the world; no question about that. but we have seen changes in the aviation industry, in the airline industry that have impacted safety. and we need to take some action to deal with it and address it. the f.a.a. predicts that air travel in this country will increase by 50% in the coming decade. that brings to probably 1 billion passengers a year. that is a big system, a system that is very strained at this point. and as the economy recovers, we will see the substantial increased growth. as we do that, we desperately

need to modernize this system. now let me describe the circumstances of commercial air travel, and then i'm also going to talk about general aviation. i learned how to fly many years ago. wasn't much of a pilot, so didn't keep it up. but i learned how to take off in an airplane and go fly it someplace and land. it's an straerd thing. it's -- an extraordinary thing. it's one of those moments you never forget when the instructor gets out of the plane and says you go fly the airplane by yourself. when you take off wearing this metal suit with an engine, you think this is pretty unbelievable to be able to fly an airplane. general aviation, people flying their own planes around for recreation, for business, is a very important part of our air travel system. i'm going to talk about that at another time here during this discussion. but commercial aviation is the companies that put together the

structure, the company, the airlines, the capital, the airplanes, rather, and the capital, and then haul people around the country and the world at scheduled times and places. and so that is very important. it is significant that in many areas of our country now -- my home state of bismarck, north dakota -- when you go out and see that strip of runway, maybe 6,000, maybe 8,000, maybe 10,000 feet of runway -- you are one stop from anyplace in the world. you take off from that runway and one stop later go to south america, go to europe, go to asia. you are one stop away from the world. that is what air travel has done for us. it's extraordinary. go back to the origins of commercial air travel and airplanes were used originally to haul the mail. i mean, you go all the way back to december 17, 190 3, when

orville and wilbur wright left the ground for the first taoeufplt it was only 59 -- first time. it was only 59 seconds but it was an extraordinary achievement. they learned to fly. they didn't just fly that day. they did it again and again and again, continually failing until one day at kitty hawk the engine took hold, the pilot was laying on the fuselage of this reubgty looking -- rickety looking structure and they flew above the ground for 59 seconds. it wasn't too long after that after having decided we can shape a wing with a power that will escape gravity and fly, it wasn't too long after that we were flying in combat. yes, american pilots were in europe flying in combat. we began flying mail, hauling mail with commercial airplanes around the country. but then you could only fly

during the daytime because you can't see at night so you can't fly an airplane at night because where would you land? as they began to haul the mail, what they began to do is build bonfires every 50 miles or 100 miles. and then a pilot could fly in the dark of night towards a fire and mail. so you could haul the mail at night. when they decided they could do something better than that, they put up light stanchions and shined lights into the fly. a pilot would fly to the lights that were flashing in the sky. then they invented radar. then you have ground-based radar so we could determine here's an airplane in the sky. we could direct that airplane and put a light in the runway. all of that changed air travel 24 hours a day. yes, during the day, daylight hours, but also at night. ground-based radar, what an extraordinary thing. if you get up on an airplane

today, a commercial airplane and there is going to be a control tower someplace and in your cockpits you will have a transponder. it will send a signal. 125 people riding in the airplane and you're sending a signal that goes to a control tower and it's on the screen. it's a little dot on the screen that pwhreufrpbgz and that's -- blinks and that's your airplane. all that does is say here's where that airplane is right this nanosecond. but in the next nanosecond that airplane is somewhere else especially if it's a jet. all we know is that at this moment the airplane is here, and for the next seven or eight seconds as the sweep goes around on the monitor, that airplane is somewhere else. perhaps a mile away, perhaps eight miles away, but the airplane is someplace else. we know about where the airplane is based on ground-based radar. because we don't know exactly where it is except for that nanosecond, we space those airplanes for safety and have them fly certain routes for safety. contrast that ground-based

radar, contrast that with your child. your child has a cell phone, and if your child has the right cell phone at this moment -- and there are cell phones in this technology -- your child can ask ten of their best friends, "do you want to track each other of our whereabouts with g.p.s.?" if the friends say yes, the ten of you can decide to link up with your cell phones and you can figure out with your cell phone, where's my friend mary or where's my friend lester? and the g.p.s. will tell you exactly where mary and lester are because they've got their phones with them. we know exactly where they are. our kids can do that with g.p.s., with cell phones. we don't do it yet with commercial airliners. isn't that unbelievable? so that's what this is about: modernization called next-generation air traffic control, ground-based radar to g.p.s. it is complicated, it's difficult but it's where we're going.

and we're not going there in the next 20 and 30 and 40 years. we want to go there soon. i've met with the europeans and others. they're moving in the exact same direction. here's what it will allow to you do. if we know exactly where an airplane is, just as we know where a car is with g.p.s. -- a lot of people have g.p.s. in their vehicles and get directions from it, so you know exactly where that vehicle is at every moment, if we do that for airplanes, you can have more direct ruth from one -- more direct route tpr-g one city to another and less spacing between the planes because you know exactly where they are. you save energy. you have less pollution into the air. you get there faster for the passengers. it does all the things that are advantageous for everybody. it is called next gen, next-generation air traffic control. modernization, we could have extended this bill for another year as some wanted to do. but instead what i wanted to do and what my colleague senator rockefeller and others wanted to

do is we want to get about the business of getting this done, modernizing our air traffic control system, bringing it into the next age. that is what this is about. i'll describe briefly what we do with that. we set up time lines on -- things that require navigation peformance and the arnab system at 35 airports must be completed by 2014. we were create circumstances where the entire national airspace system is to be covered by 2018. we provide best-equipped, best-serve status for those providing the right equipage with their planes and come in with g.p.s. we create a nextgen officer if he f.a.a., a new position at the f.a.a. to help guide and create

these programs for modernization. we're doing all of these things. i think it's so important that we complete them and truncate the time with which to complete them. the other issue that i think is so important -- and there are a number of them -- is the issue of aviation safety, and we've worked a lot on that. i guess i've done now four hearings on aviation safety, three or four hearings, especially focusing on hearings we've discovered from the colgan aircraft which krapblgically killed -- tragically killed 49 people in buffalo, new york. the colgan air crash raised a lot of questions. i think i would speak for a lot of people on the committee. the relatives, the families of those killed in the colgan crash have made it their mission to be at every hearing, to be involved in every decision about this issue of air safety.

and god bless them. i mean, the fact is their diligence and their work is making a difference, and made a difference in this bill. there are provisions in this bill as a result of their diligence and their great concerns. but let me describe the circumstances of that particular crash. it was an evening flight in weather that wasn't so good, with icing conditions for an airplane. they were flying a propeller airplane called a dash 8. and it was colgan flight 3407. two pilots, two flight attendants and passengers lost their hraoeufts that evening, including one person on the ground. the airplane operated by a captain and a copilot. now, what we've discovered in reviewing the circumstances of that crash was quite extraordinary. the pilot of that airplane had not slept in a bed the two

previous nights. the copilot had not slept in a bed the night before. why? the pilot commuteed from his home in florida to his duty station at laguardia airport in order to begin flying. the copilot flew from seattle, washington, dead headed on a plane that i believe stopped in memphis, tennessee, and then continued on to new york in order to reach her duty station at laguardia, an all-night long flight. and there's no evidence the night before the flight that either the pilot or the copilot did anything other than stay in the crew lounge. and there's no bed in the crew lounge. for the pilot, it was two nights there is no record of him sleeping in a bed. so you have two pilots who commuted long distances just to get to work without any evidence that they had a night's sleep in a bed prior to the flight that were on the airplane. by the way, if you read the cockpit, the transcript of the

cockpit voice recorder, a series of problems existed in that cockpit. there was not a sterile cockpit below 10,000 feet, which is supposed to be the case. there was visiting about careers and a range of things as they were flying through icing conditions, vile alternative of the -- violati sr*e of the regulations the copilot, by the way, it is said was a young woman who worked two jobs in order to make ends meet. i think the copilot was paid something in the neighborhood, it was between $20,000 and $23,000 a year. again, commuting all across the country just to get to work. when they ran into icing conditions, there was a stick pusher that engaged in a -- a stick shaker as well. as it turns out, there had not been adequate training with respect to that. a whole series of things that occurred with respect to that flight that raises lots of

questions about training, about fatigue; a whole series of things. and as a result of that, just that case, to try to understand what does this mean for others, what does it mean for regulations that are necessary? randy babbitt, the new head of the f.a.a., someone for whom i have great respect, has just finished a rule making on fatigue. and i believe that now exists at the office of management and budget, awaiting action by o.m.b. a step in the right direction, in my judgment. this bill has another piece that needed to be done that we discovered in this crash. the pilot of that airplane over the years had failed a number of competency tests and then subsequently succeeded, or passed those tests. but nonetheless, had a number of failures. but the airline that hired that pilot didn't know that because the records were not

transparent. and the airline has since said had we know that record of failure, that pilot would not have been hired by us. but they didn't know. this legislation will correct that. when you're hiring a pilot, you will know the entire range of experiences that pilots has had, including the tests and the passage or failure of certain competencies along the way. that is a very important provision in this piece of legislation. pilot training and experience is another thing that we are talking about and working with. it is not an irrelevant issue. there is supposed to be one standard and one level of safety with respect to airlines in this country. i believe -- it's just my belief that with the growth of the regional carriers -- and, by the way, regional carriers are now carrying 50% of the passengers in our country. 50% of the passengers. they get on an airplane, and they see the airplane and it's painted "continental" or "u.s.

air" or "united" or "delta." but that may not be the company that's flying that airplane. it may be pinnacle. it may be any number of other regional carriers. and the passenger doesn't know. all the passenger sees is what's marked on the side of that fuselage. and so, this legislation will also require information on the tickets of who is transporting that passenger. there are a number of things that this legislation does in the area of safety that i think are very, very important. we prohibit the personal use of wireless communication devices and lap to which -- laptop computers in the cockpit. personal use of wireless communications devices and laptop computers. we all remember the pilots that were flying, i believe, from phoenix, arizona, or maybe it was san diego to minneapolis and flew well into wisconsin, well past the city of destination,

and didn't know where they were. apparently they indicated that they were busy visiting or they were busy on their laptop computers. but whatever the circumstances, while it is in many cases an airline requirement that they not do that, there is no f.a.a. requirement that personal use of wireless communications and laptops in the computers, or laptop computers in the cockpit are prohibited. we do that. we also require enhanced safety oversight at foreign repair stations. that also is very, very important. the outsourcing of repair and overhaul work is a routine practice. well over one half is outsourced in this country by the major carriers and our legislation will require enhanced safety oversight an inspections with respect to -- to that outsourcing. so those are a a few of items that are included in this bill.

i should also point out that this bill includes the passenger bill of rights, which i think is important. i just mentioned a couple of the provisions much one that has gotten the most attention is to say you have a requirement as an airline and you have a right as a passenger not to be stuck on an airplane for six hours sitting on a runway somewhere. this is a three-hour requirement as part of the passenger bill of rights. they're not going to be able to keep you an on airplane five or six hours sitting on a runway waiting in the middle of a big storm. three hours, back to the gate, and allow the passengers to deplane. we also have substantial amounts of airport improvement funding here. this authorizes the a.i.p. program. it streamlines what is called the passenger facility charge, the p.f.c. we provide greater flexibility of the use of the p.f.c. we improve, i think, the airline

service and small community service provisions. some communities in this country have essential airline services called e.a.s., which is a way for them to get the -- the service they were guaranteed when we deregulated in this country, which is, by the way, another subject for perhaps another day. although i -- i, again, say, as i said on the floor previously, deregulation might have been a wonderful boon mothers who live in very large cities an travel to other large cities. if you do, you are given a lot of opportunity. you are given many opportunities for different carriers an different pricing. and i would just bet that if we left the floor this moment and decided to go to one of the search engines and buy a ticket from washington, d.c., to los angeles in order to visit mlicki mouse at disneyland, or we decided we'll have two -- mlicki mouse at disney land or we go

from washington, d.c., to los angeles to visit mickey or bismarck, north dakota, to see the largest cow stand, called salom sue. the choice go see mickey mouse or see the largest wholestein cow. i will bet that the search engine on the computer is that we get to pay half as much to pay twice as much to go half as far. you get to pay half price to go double the miles or you get to pay twice the price to go half the miles. and, yet, that's the kind of circumstance that we in our country today. the higher yelled tickets ron the end of a spoke on a hub and spoke system where there is little or no competition. we're not addressing that on the floor of the senate today. but it is something that i think is of great concern because if

you are flying from chicago to los angeles, you have plenty of competition, plenty of price competition and opportunities to get better prices and that is not the case for a number of small states on the back end of a hub and spoke system. well, mr. president, there are many other provisions -- as i indicated earlier, i am going to speak some at another point on the subject of general aviation. because while we focus a lot on the issue of commercial aviation, generally -- general aviation is a very important part of this country's air travel system. the folks who live out on a farm someplace and have a small, little airplane in a shed from -- from -- from those folks to people that fly corporate planes and move people around so they can leave in the morning from washington, d.c., fly to los angeles, down to dallas and

get back, that's general aviation and a very important part of our air travel system. and i'm going to talk about that at some point later. again, let me say that i think that we have at last -- at long, long last put a piece of legislation together that avoids some of the controversy of past attempts that will substantially improve infrastructure, substantially address the safety issue. i'll talk a little later about pilot hours and some related issues that we've been talking about that will -- we hope to be in the managers' package. but all of these things, i think, timely bringing to the floor this bill is a victory for those who want to modernize the system. i know there will be some amendments we have -- we've not addressed some issues that are in the house bill. but our concern is to try to get a bill through the senate into a conference with the house and get something signed by the

president to get something done. we will, i think, be dramatically advantaged as a country if we can enhance the efforts in a short period of time to modern eye the system and go to -- modernize the system and go to a completely different air traffic control system called nexgen. it will save energy, create safety in the skies, allow people to be transported more directly with less time and i think it will be a positive thing for our c and i make a point of order that a quorum is not present. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. mr. dorgan: mr. president, i ask to withhold the call of the quorum. i did want to make one addional point and i did not do this when i talked about the -- the issue of the colgan tragedy. the larger question is not

addressed directly in this legislation. we addressed many of these issues. but we don't address the larger question of commuting. i wanted to show something that senator rockefeller and i and others have used in the commerce committee. this describes where the colgan pilots commute from. this chart could have been describing any regional airline or trunk airline or major airline for that matter. pilots live in one part of the country and work out of another part of the country. and the -- the fact is with respect to this tragedy, the colgan crash, i am convinced that mattered. i'm convinced that flying through difficult, nighttime tieing conditions with two pilots, neither of whom had slept in their bed the night previous, i'm convinced that this kind of commuting has caused significant difficulties. there was a -- a quote in the --

excuse me a "wall street journal" piece that pretty much says it all. this was an 18-year veteran pilot describing the routine of commuter flights with short layovers in the middle of the night, which is pretty typical. he said -- quote -- "take a shower, brush your teeth, pretend you slept." that is something that we have to pay some attention to. i'm not suggesting today that you cannot commute. we don't in this legislation prohibit commutes. but i -- i think these are instructive pieces. this is what is called a crash pad. i was completely unaware of a crash pad until we began to hold these hearings. but this is a pilot watching a movie on his computer at a crash house in sterling park, virginia, they can have 20 to 24 occupants at a time. are designed to give flight crew from regional airlines a quiet place to sleep near their

airports. many can't afford hotels, so they use crash houses where the rent is $200 a month for a bed. when i described the co-pilot of the colgan tragedy, a co--point making $22,000 a year, if the co-pilot traveled the day before, are you in a position to travel and stay in hotel rooms when you're making $22,000 a year? i believe there is a substantial cargo operator that pays for hotel rooms for their pilots who come in night before. i don't believe there's an airliner that does that. i did not make the point during the colgan discussion, i wanted to make the point i think fatigue commuting and other issues are serious and significant. and i know that administrator babbitt believes as well. we need to continue to look at these and visit with pilot organizations and others to understand how we might see how

we can reduce some of the risks here. we have a safe system of air travel to be sure. but the colgan crash and all of the details and circumstances of it should remind us that there are -- that not everything is as it seems and we need to take action from time to time to address some of those important issues. mr. president, i yield the floor and i make a point of order that a qru is not present. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: i have an amendment number 3453 at the desk. the presiding officer: the senate's in a quorum call. mr. sessions: thank you, mr. president. i wou ask that the quorum call be dispensed with.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: i have an amendment at the desk number 3453 and ask that it be called up. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from alabama, senator sessions, for himself and senator mccaskill proposes amendment 3453 to amendment 3452. at the end -- mr. sessions: i ask that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: i would call my colleagues' attention to this serious bipartisan effort with senator mccaskill of missouri to contain our penchant in this body to violate or manipulate the budget and spend more money than we intend to spend. sometimes we're our own worst enemies and truly members of both parties have been guilty of that. so i originally offered a very similar amendment that adopted

the budget amounts that were passed by this congress, our democratic leadership, and would make those amounts that we said would be our top spending amounts, the budget maximum, that we would make that a statutory cap, a statutory limit and say that we were going to violate that -- if we were going to violate that limit, it would take a two-thirds vote to do so. a number of people were concerned about it, but it received broad bipartisan vote. and when we voted, 56 people voted for it. four short of the 0 necessary to -- 60 necessary to be adopted. but i thought a positive step. and i know senator mccaskill felt that was. the -- i remain of the view that we can dispute how much we ought to spend, but one of the biggest

dangers and problems that the senate confronts and often fails to meet is breaking our own budget. so this would have made hard to break the budget an 56 -- and 56 senators voted for it. and so then we listened to our colleagues because people were saying this year, jeff, i just believe we've got to do some things we don't want -- may not have to do in the future. don't want to do in the future. but this year, this economy is such we can't, we'd be so limited. so senator mccaskill and i proposed legislation, and we voted again, that would have exempted this year and make it a -- a shorter bill. not including this year would remain under the normal budget rules for this year. and would not be there r --

would not be, therefore, creating a power to block the stimulus legislation that a number of senators were -- were concerned about. and, frankly, i felt that was a compromise we could make. i would have preferred to have it included this year. i understand that concern and we made that change. an 59 senators voted for it. one short of the necessary vote to make it a -- a part of the legislation. and so now we listened again to some of the concerns that we've heard from our colleagues and senator mccaskill and i believe that this bill, with the changes that we made again, will be the kind of legislation that could contain perhaps very broad bipartisan support and could actually make it into law and would help us in a significant way honor the budget process,

send a positive message to the world markets and the financial world that some of them rightly think we've lost our spending bearings and we are spending crazily here. and we'd send them a message we've got a budget out here and you may or may not like it but at least we're not going to bust it wide open and we'll be more faithful to those limits and it would suggest less of a danger of massive deficits as we've had the last two years. what were the changes we made? well, we exempted emergencies from that. in other words, some people felt that we may need to do emergency legislation and that a two-thirds vote, 67 votes, is too much and that they'd prefer to do emergencies by 60 votes.

so we've -- we've acquiesced in that, put that in there. so if the persons and the senators proposing extraordinary spending, they would have to openly state that it was a emergency, advocate for that and the current law would still be in effect then. we only take 60 votes to declare an emergency. and we made another change, one that's -- i kind of hate to do but i'm not unwilling to do and that is we would exempt year 2014. so it would only be really a three-year statutory cap on spending. some people said well, we don't know what will happen in 2014, we may be in better financial condition, we won't have to contain our spending to the budget levels we passed last year and that we could do it in

that fashion, and i think that's all right, i'm willing to accept that if it helps us get the votes necessary. and so we then have a three-year legislation that does not change the law with regard to what is an emergency. still, you could violate the budget if it's an emergency and we have the votes to spend it, but i think it would still be a good bit harder to take basic spending levels and break the budget on those. well, technically, you know, you could declare it an emergency. most anything if we vote 60 votes can be an emergency, but i think most senators have some conviction that we shouldn't abuse the emergency spending level, and maybe we'll leave the

emergency spending definition as it is, the same number of votes, but say for the basic spending of our country, we need to be within the budget caps. and remember, this is the level of spending that our democratic majority voted last year to do. i voted against it. i thought it had too much spending in this -- particularly last year and this year's spending was too much -- but the out-years were a pretty tight budget, 1% or 2% spending increases was what we budgeted for last year. and the congress and the senate voted for it. so i think if we live with that, we might surprise ourselves to see that it would create a positive impact on the size of our deficit, and i'm confident that we're moving in the right direction. and, again, it's a statement to ourselves if we pass this

legislation, it's a statement to the world markets that we're going to be less likely to violate our budgets in the future, more likely to contain our spending increases to levels that are acceptable. and i would note one more thing. president obama, in his state of the union, announced a freeze in the next three years, and he believes in our discretionary spending accounts -- and that's what this covers essentially -- that we should actually have a freeze. and i intend to support him on that. but this bill does not call for a freeze, it allows a modest increase of 1% to 2%, consistent with last year's budget. so i would just say that we should and hopefully we will pass a budget this year that has a freeze level of -- in the discretionary accounts, but if we don't or if people attempt to

break it and go above it, at least we would have a stronger high ground from which to defend budget-busting legislation. so i think this is a bill that deserves bipartisan consideration. i think it has gotten bipartisan consideration. 18 democrats i know voted for it last time and every republican did last time. we've listened to the concerns that some of our members have and adopted -- amended the legislation to be more amenable to those concerns. and i hope that we can pass it. now, i'll just say one thing, as an obvious matter of law, and that is if my colleagues -- 60 of our colleagues feel like that this is too restrictive and that

they can pass a piece of legislation with 60 votes, that wipes this out entirely from the books. it's mostly a self-imposed discipline, but it would be harder to pass legislation to wipe out the two-thirds vote level just because somebody has got hard feelings that they didn't get enough spending in this so that bill is part of the normal governmental process. so i think it would be an effective tool, but as a matter of power in the senate, make no mistake, this is not a two-thirds rule that would keep the senator from doing anything. the senate can pass legislation promptly to eliminate this statute any time we want to, but i do believe it will work. it worked before. in the early 1990's, such legislation was passed and it was extended periodically up

through 2001 or 2002. and from sizable deficits in the early 1990's, the spending was contained to much lower levels than we've adopted in recent years and resulted in a budget surplus at the end of the 1990's. and i'm absolutely convinced a significant tool in the effective effort to contain spending and put our budget back in balance was the statutory limit on spending consistent with what we vote in a budget. that's what we're doing today rntl --today, not new legislatin absolutely but reestablishing legislation we had previously. i thank the chair and would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: mr. president, let me just make a point, this is an authorization bill that's on the floor, the f.a.a.

reauthorization. we've waited a long time to get it here. we've had 11 extensions to get this bill to the floor, and the senator who offers the amendment certainly is allowed to offer the amendment on this bill. of course, his amendment really doesn't reality to passing a f.a.a. reauthorization bill, so i hope he would withhold at some point and do this on -- at another moment on another piece of legislation, because i fear that after -- at long, long last after trying to get an f.a.a. reauthorization bill done, three years after it previously expired, with 11 different extensions, my hope is we can stay on f.a.a. reauthorization, have amendments that relate to this bill, debate them and then vote on those amendments. that would be my hope. you know, i understand that the senator would have a right to do that. i mean, somebody could bring an amendment on abortion or whatever -- whatever somebody wants, to the floor of the senate on an open authorization bill, but i do hope that the senator has had two other opportunities to offer this.

i hope he will find a third at some point. i -- the budget deficit is a very serious problem. we are on an unsustainable path. let me -- let me give just a slightly different observation on the subject as long as i'm on my feet. it is true that ten years ago, our country was running a budget surplus. it is true ten years ago we had a budget surplus. it is also the case that when president george w. bush came to town, he said, do you know what? we have a budget surplus. alan greenspan's not going to sleep at night, he said, because he worried that the surplus was going to pay down the federal debt too fast. he literally said that, i worry about paying down the federal debt too fast, so we need to be a little careful about accruing these surpluses. and so president bush said, what we need to do is have a very large tax cut. i stood here on this floor of the senate and said, do you know what? these surpluses exist this year only and the next ten years of projected surpluses don't yet exist, they are simply projections. let's be a bit conservative.

what if something happens? and they said katie, bar the door, we're going to do this anyway. they did it. didn't support it. very large tax cuts, very substantial reductions in federal revenue. about 50% of the structural budget deficit at the moment is the result of reducing the revenue base ten years ago -- nine years ago. i said on the floor of the senate, you know, let's be a little conservative, what if something happens? well, guess what happened almost immediately? we passed tax cuts -- not with my vote -- the majority of which, the bulk of which went to the wealthiest americans. very quickly we discovered we were in a recession. very quickly we discovered that there was an attack on our country on 9/11. then we were in a war in afghanistan and then a war in iraq. we sent young men and women off to war and did not pay for one penny of it. not a penny. so we cut the revenue base very substantially, we experienced a recession, an attack against our country, engaged in two wars,

sent men and women to other parts of the world to fight and did not pay for a penny of it, added it all to the debt and increased deficits. now, i happen to think that the senator's presentation about the danger of the deficits is very real. i agree with that. i agree with that. but, you know, in order to reduce these deficits, this is not rocket science. going to send young men and women to afghanistan to risk their lives, who are going to get up this morning and put on body army because they're going to face real, live bullets? let's pay for it. pay for it. let's ask the american people to sacrifice, not just the soldiers. we're going to cut spending? then let's really cut spending. i offered an amendment on the floor and lost it that says let's cut television marti, tv marti. i couldn't get it passed. tv marti broadcasts signals into cuba. we've spent a quarter of a billion dollars broadcasting television signals into cuba

that the cuban people can't see. from 3:00 in the morning until 7:00 in the morning, we spend taxpayers' dollars broadcasting television signals into cuba that cuba blocks and the cuban people can't see and we've spent a quarter of a billion dollars and we can't cut the spending? i don't understand that at all. the prescription drug amendment i offered on the floor of the 123459 would is -- floor of the senate would have saved the federal government $28 billion in spending and i lost it? if you're going to cut the deficit, you have to cut real things. when those things come to the floor and you have an opportunity to really cut spending, let's do that. and, by the way, it is not just spending. we need to work on spending and i've offered amendments to cut spending. it's also the revenues. i hope the senator would agree with me that when the richest person -- well, maybe -- let me rephrase it. when the person in america in 2008 who made the highest