mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: thank you, mr. president. first i want to congratulate my good friend, the senator from -- good friend and hunting buddy, the senator from nebraska, for the great work he has done on this. it's been a pleasure to work with him on it. we've had parallel interests and this amendment hopefully will solve a problem that has arisen lately. because of the full-body scanners that are being installed at airports. as everyone knows, late last year the t.s.a. began installing full-body advanced-imaging scanners at airports across the country. these new scanners are better able to quickly and accurately detect explosives than the old scanners and would likely afforded the christmas -- have thwarted the christmas day bomber before he had even goaten otoen pleafnlt but from the get-go, legitimate questions popped up about the potential for privacy violations from the use of these scanners. what happens if a rogue t.s.a. employee disseminates your image or what happens if a fellow passenger

mr. schumer: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: thank you. i, too, want to join in the accolades for our senator from west virginia, senator manchin. he is just one fine guy. i got to know him when he was governor and then campaigning. and he is doing a wonderful job here already. to have passion about where you come from is a noble thing. i think the great poets from greek times on have written that. and nobody has more passion about where he comes from and his roots than senator manchin, than joe man chifnlt and you can see it and feel it in everything he does, as we could in this speech today. and so i, too, want to join in thanking him for coming here. america needs his perspective and his wisdom. and i know he will make a greater senator and we're already great friends, and soy thank him here. i would also like to compliment my cleelg, the senior senator from west virginia, as we will. senator rockefeller, for his kind remarks. he's a great leader. joe and i have talked about how you can't go wrong watching and imitating and emulating se

mr. schumer: thank you, mr. president. i rise in strong, vehement opposition to the a amendment offered -- to the amendment offered by the minority leader to repeal the health care reform law. i would say to my good friend from nevada, yes, we would like to work together to further reduce costs. but this bill does reduce costs significantly. the c.b.o. has said in no uncertain terms that the appeal would balloon the deficit by more than a trillion in the second decade. the law smokes out a good deal of the waste, the inefficiency, the duplication that we all know is part of our system. and that is the place where we have to continue to work together. our country delivers the best health care in the world, but it's also the most inefficient. wepend 17% of our g.d.p. on health care. the next highest spending country is only 10%. under the reform law, we will begin the first large step in keeping quality care, but getting the costs under control. now, if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, you know, you're righ

mr. schumer: thank you, mr. president. i rise in strong, vehement opposition to the a amendment offered -- to the amendment offered by the minority leader to repeal the health care reform law. i would say to my good friend from nevada, yes, we would like to work together to further reduce costs. but this bill does reduce costs significantly. the c.b.o. has said in no uncertain terms that the appeal would balloon the deficit by more than a trillion in the second decade. the law smokes out a good deal of the waste, the inefficiency, the duplication that we all know is part of our system. and that is the place where we have to continue to work together. our country delivers the best health care in the world, but it's also the most inefficient. we spend 17% of our g.d.p. on health care. the next highest spending country is only 10%. under the reform law, we will begin the first large step in keeping quality care, but getting the costs under control. now, if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, you know, you're ri

mr. schumer: thank you, madam president. i have just come to address the two amendments that are before us. first i want to salute my colleague, senator rockefeller, and all of those -- senator hutchison -- and on all of those on both sides of the aisle who have brought this f.a.a. bill before us. it's something that's needed. it is something that's long overdue. it's sad that america -- in america we don't have a g.p.s. system, where just about every western country does, even mongolia does. tibet does not. and to move forward and modernize our airports, it's important for jobs, it's important for travelers' convenience, but i would say most of all it is important for america's productivity. when people sit and wait on a runway, where planes are delayed or flights are canceled, the amount of output that our country loses is enormous. and we're losing. more than a france or an england or germany. because they have these modern systems and it is about time we put them n and aid just make one other point about it. there are so

schumer. >> thank you, mr.president, and i rise in strong opposition to the amendment offered by the minority leader, senator mcconnell, to repeal the health care reform law, and first i would say to my good friend from nevada. we want to work together to reduce costs, but this bill reduces costs significantly. the cbo said repeal balloons the deficit by more than a trillion dollars in the second decade. that's because the law smokes out a good deal of the waste, the inefficiency, the duplication that we all know is part of our system. that's the place where we have to continue to work together. our country delivers the best health care in the world, but it's also the most inefficient. we spend 17% of our gdp on health care. the next highest spending country is only 10%. under the reform law, we will begin the first large step in keeping quality care, but getting the costs under control. now, if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, you know, you're right. we have to reduce costs. we have a better

schumer. >> thank you mr. president, and i rise and strong and vehement veh opposition to the amendment ofd -- offered by the minority leader senator mcconnell to repeal the r health care reform law and first i would say to my goodood friend from nevada yes, we wouldes we like to work together to furtherther reduce costs but this bill does reduce costs significantly.. has s the cboai has said in no uncertain the terms that repeal would ruin the d deficit by 230 billion in the first decade and more than a trillion in the second decade a good deal of the waste, inefficiency duplication thatthe d we'll all know is part of our system and that's the place we have to continue to work the wor together. 's a our counlstry delivers the best health care in the world but it's also the most m ineffic inefficient. heal we spend 17% of gdp on health care. the next highest spending unde country isr t only 10%. n t under the reform law we will begin the first large step in keeping quality care but getting the cost under contr

mr. president. and let me also thank senators kirk, boxer, durbin, casey, menendez, and schumer for their leadership on this issue. let me thank our partners in the house for their work, and let me thank chairman rockefeller and ranking member hutchison for considering this amendment. i hope senators from both sides of the aisle will join me in voting for this amendment that will protect our public safety against this new hazard. i thank you and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. rockefeller: i ask unanimous consent that i be added as a cosponsor to this amendment. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rockefeller: mr. president, i have some notes here but the distinguished senator from rhode island has exhausted my brilliant notes in his own speech. just let it be said that it is an extraordinarily dangerous situation. the whole concept of stronger lasers, more carefully targeted lasers from greater distances, being able to do it from behind trees and hidden places, blinding and probably temporarily at this point, but mayb

mr. nelson: madam president, the amendment that senators shiewcker, akaka, -- schumer, akaka, shaheen, tester, whitehouse, menendez, and i have offered is a commonsense approach to addressing the serious issue of protecting an individual's privacy when they pass through security checkpoints at both airports and public buildings. senator schumer and i have been working on this issue for some time and i appreciate very much his input and his counsel in taking this approach and i appreciate the support of the additional -- those additional sponsors as well as the chair, who is one of those sponsors. by creating a deterrent and establishing criminal penalties for those who take and distribute body scan images inappropriately, we'll help protect the american people's privacy while making sure we're using every resource available to try and assure their safety at the same time. this is not an an tract -- abstract concern. there's always been a case -- already been a case where these images, some 30,000 of them, have been taken and posted, some of them on-line inappropriately. so it's my hope that t

mr. schumer, proposes amendment number 71. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the amendment be considered as read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask consent that the reading of the amendment be waived. i did that. mr. president, i'm -- yield back the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. rockefeller: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent on behalf of senator brown of ohio to call up the brown-portman amendment number 105. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rockefeller: to the ensign amendment number 32. the clerk: the senator from west virginia mr. rockefeller for mr. brown proposes amendment number 105 to amendment number 32. mr. coburn: notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. rockefeller: i ask unanimous consent that the order of the quorum call be rescinded so that we may proceed to -- the presiding officer: without objection. mr. rockefeller: [i

mr. rockefeller: after that last sentence, i had to drink a little water so as to balance myself out. to be praised at such length by senator schumer is, you know, -- one can't take it lightly. i want to make a few comments on the health care bill which in and of itself interests me because we're here doing f.a.a. and if i remember correctly, i stood here at excessive length and gave a speech about the importance of the f.a.a. bill, and kay bailey hutchison did the same. then all of a sudden here we are on health. but -- and that's very interesting because we've sort of opened and made ourselves entirely transparent. anybody can offer amendments. the leader doesn't fill up the tree. so it's open. and what happened is immediately everybody pops in with their favorite amendment. i don't resent that. i just say it's an interesting if he the senator -- interestinn which is showing itself on the very first day. whether that is going to last or not, i don't know. but in any event, i think they're still working, senator baucus, senator hatch, others are working on some f.a.a. stuff and the 1099 matter. so i want to talk about a couple of

mr. president, as we go forward -- and chairman rockefeller has been very, very supportive of our efforts. we've discussed this many times. it's going to be possible to expand these sites. i and senator schumer and a number of colleagues are interested in this. this is a chance, colleagues, for the federal aviation administration to finally give these unmanned aerial systems the attention and the priority that's warranted. there is enormous potential here in the civilian sector. we've talked about it in the military sector. i want to yield now to the chairman of the committee, who's been exceptionally helpful to me not just on this question of the unmanned aerial systems, but for his patience as we worked through the slots issues where we finally got the breakthrough this morning. mr. chairman, i would be glad to yield to you for any comments that you have. mr. rockefeller: i thank the senator very much. i actually wanted to thank you. i've got our colloquy right in front of me, but i just want to say to you that i agree with what you're saying. i want to be helpful. and we will continue to be helpful. and there's some in a position not to be helpful on this and who are not being helpful. i