Establishing the Commission on Freedom of Information Act Processing Delays-Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I have not wanted to pursue this issue, because the debt ceiling issue has absorbed all of the air in the room and in the United States, as it should; it is a huge priority. But I have to set the record straight a little bit about how this came about.

First, I agree with the House position. I would reverse the NMB decision because I think it is wrong. However, what happened here is that, after 20 extensions of the FAA bill because of disagreements on several issues, the House decided to put this one--well, actually, to be honest, the House didn't even bring up NMB; they put another issue on the extension language, and it is the Essential Air Service language, which we have been trying to negotiate but have not yet come to a full agreement on among all of the parties. It is really the NMB issue that is causing the House to shut down the FAA. So the entire FAA--not the air traffic controllers, thank goodness but 3,492 employees of the FAA have been shut down, and this affects 35 States. They are on furlough without pay, through no fault of their own.

And interestingly, airports that were in the midst of building runways or adding to their infrastructure or repairing their infrastructure also have had work stoppages because of the House action. The Associated General Contractors of America has estimated that 70,000 construction and related jobs are at risk because the House put an Essential Air Service amendment on a clean extension of the FAA.

Mr. President, I want the House position to prevail. But we are getting ready, in the next day or so, to leave probably for the month of August and then come back after Labor Day.

We should not shut down the FAA because of a rider put on the extension of the FAA legislation that has not been negotiated.

In fact, Mr. President, the House has not even appointed conferees. The chairman of the House committee has not called a meeting of the chairman of the Senate, plus the two ranking members. There has been no full negotiation with the principals. Yet the House put this extraneous amendment on the bill, and the FAA is shut down and the lives of 70,000 people are at risk.

We got a letter from Boeing because they are trying to get their new Boeing 747-8 certification, but the workers are not there to do it. So in addition to the work stoppages--and the FAA has now issued a total of 219 stop-work orders across the country--we also are seeing the certification of a great new airplane also on hold. That may start disrupting the capability for the airlines that have purchased these planes to be able to start flying the airplanes and upgrading their services.

This just does not make sense. We are going to lose $1 billion in the aviation trust fund if we leave this Congress for the month of August and we don't extend the FAA--$1 billion of revenue paid by passengers in a ticket tax. They are paying it, but it is just not going to the aviation trust fund. It is going to the airlines in the form of a higher ticket price. It should be going to the aviation trust fund because that is what we use to build the runways and to make the repairs and to keep our airports operating. So we are going to lose $1 billion in revenue.

Here we are, on the brink of cutting spending and raising the debt ceiling and trying to put our fiscal house in order. Yet we are going to let $1 billion be lost that rightfully should go to the aviation trust fund. The users are going to pay for it anyway, and that money is going to have to be made up. How is it going to be made up? It is going to have to come from general revenue because contracts have already been let. That money is going to have to be spent.

I cannot think of anything more fiscally irresponsible than to tax the users, not put it in the aviation trust fund and have to replace that money at some point.

I am a fiscal conservative, and I am trying to make the cuts that are necessary, trying to do the things that are right. But I have to question those who are saying we are going to not be for essential air service--which has a total budget of about $200 million--but we are going to waste $1 billion to not let a bill go through that keeps the aviation trust fund and the FAA going. That just doesn't add up.

If we are going to be sincere about the wise use of our taxpayer dollars, I don't think it is right taking money from people who are traveling on the airlines and who are thinking that money is a ticket tax to pay for airport infrastructure when, in fact, it is going into the airlines' pockets, and then having the taxpayer make up that money because these contracts have already been let. Is that fiscal responsibility?

Here we are on the eve of trying to show fiscal responsibility and do the right thing for our country. I don't think so, Mr. President. It doesn't pass the smell test.

I hope my colleagues, before we leave--and the House of Representatives and the people who are supporting them in the Senate--will relent and let the FAA keep operating. Let's come back in the month of September and negotiate an FAA bill as we normally do in this Congress. If we can't come to an agreement, then, on the NMB--and I am certainly going to support changing the decision that was made--maybe we can talk harshly and throw down the gauntlet, but not without any notice, adding it to this FAA extension without ever negotiating on it. That is not the way we ought to operate. It is enough to make the people of our country think: You know what. We expect better. We expect better, and I expect better.

I cannot believe my colleagues would let the FAA shut down and jeopardize 70,000 jobs and take money from airline travelers--when on their ticket it says ticket tax for aviation trust fund--and defraud them because that tax is not going to the aviation trust fund. Is that going to make the people of our country believe Congress is doing the right thing? It doesn't pass the smell test.

It is time for the airlines of this country to stand up and say: We need a clean extension of the FAA, and we need for the House and Senate to meet, as we normally do, in a conference and take up the issues. As I said, I am going to support the reversal of the NMB decision, and I am going to support a reform of essential air service in the context of negotiating perimeter rule and other issues that are in contention, which is the honorable way to proceed. But I don't feel very good right now about what the Senate is doing in supporting the House in an irresponsible position that is defrauding the airline passengers of this country right now because they are collecting a ticket tax that is not going to the aviation trust fund.

It is wrong, Mr. President. I hope in the next few hours our colleagues will come to their senses, do the right thing, pass a clean extension, and send it to the House, where I hope they, too, will act so that we can have a conference committee and work out the issues with honor and integrity.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I understand the anguish of my dear friend from Texas, and I don't disagree, except for one thing. The tax is not being charged, and that should be a savings to the customers and consumers who are using the air services. But whether it is or isn't, that takes away from the major issue, and there may be another issue on essential air service, I don't know, because I am not on these committees. I have been asked by our leadership to make these objections.

What is important here--and it is not some itty-bitty little thing--is that we have labor law regulators out of control. When the NMB--the National Mediation Board--which is run by a bunch of Democrats--comes out and does away with 75 years of labor law with just the stroke of a pen and makes employee votes not important, that is not some little itty-bitty issue. That is a big-time issue.

For 75 years unions have been winning union elections by getting a majority of the employees in a firm, not by getting a majority of those who vote. Those other people, whether they vote or not--and they may be sick, they may be ill, they may not have been able to be there, they may have been out of town--their votes are important as well. The unions have always had to get a majority, and they have done that year after year after year in most situations and in most union elections.

Let me give an example: Let's say you have a company with 1,000 employees and only 100 show up, and 51 of them vote for the union. Is it right to bind all 1,000 employees in the company itself when only 51 out of the 1,000 employees have voted for it? Of course, it is not. This is a very important issue.

All those who propose getting this long-term extension, or even a short-term extension, have to do is correct the National Mediation Board. Get union elections back to where a majority of employees are a requisite in order to have a union, and I don't think there would be any problem in solving this problem. It would be solved in a nanosecond.

Now, maybe this essential air service language is something that might cause problems. Well, I would suggest both sides get together and try to resolve those issues. But this is not some little, small issue. This is a big issue.

It even becomes bigger when you consider the National Labor Relations Board, run 3-to-1 by Democrats, and the President will not appoint the recommended Republican to make it an even 3-to-2, so it is 3-to-1. They are running ramshackle fast over labor laws in this country. This kind of oppressing is something they will do, if they can, in a nanosecond. They have been saying they are going to do it. They have been trying to enact card check for years. In fact, they have been trying to enact labor law reform--which I fought back in 1977 and 1978--for years so they can give the unions a decided advantage that should not be given under any circumstances in union elections.

If this gets through--the NMB--then what would stop the National Labor Relations Board, which handles millions of employees--millions of employees--from doing the same and continuing to do things that are just outrageous, like they are doing? They are usurping the ability of this legislature, the Congress of the United States, to run these issues the way they should be run. They should not be acting as a superlegislature, enacting laws from a partisan board to do these things.

This is not some little issue. This is a big issue. I wish I wasn't in the middle of it. I just happened to be here one day when I was the last one here, and I had to object. But I knew when I did object it was the right thing to do under the circumstances.

If we allow these boards to usurp our powers of the legislative branch of government and do anything they want to do because they have a supermajority--a superpartisan majority--then this country can't last, and the freedoms we all value will not last.

The freedoms we all value won't last. I don't want to see anybody not paid. I don't want to see anybody not be able to do their job. But, by gosh, I don't want to see a runaway National Mediation Board, either, or a National Labor Relations Board that will use a precedent such as this in ways it really shouldn't be used. So these are not small issues.

I hope we can get together. I hope the two committees will get together and resolve this issue. I am not on either of the committees. I am just someone who around here has had to stand up on some of these labor union issues--not against unions. I am one of the few persons in this whole Congress who actually earned a union card and became a skilled tradesman and worked for 10 years in the building construction trade union, and I am proud of it. But I have to say that I am going to call on both sides to get this problem solved and get rid of allowing the National Mediation Board to usurp the powers of the legislative branch of government and get the law back where it was, where it is more fair and where it makes sense. If we do that, I don't see why this would be held up for 10 seconds.

So I call on both sides to try to resolve this issue. I don't feel good being in the middle of it just because I happened to be on the floor at the wrong time. All I can say is that, having gotten in the middle of it, as much as I love and admire the distinguished Senator from Texas and appreciate and admire and love my friend from West Virginia--and I do--this could be resolved, and there is no reason we shouldn't resolve it. This is an important issue, and all I can say is that I would like to help get it resolved, if I can, and if I can, I will. But both sides have to get together, and that includes both sides of Capitol Hill. I think this problem could be resolved, but these are not little issues.

With that, I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The Senator from Texas.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Utah, and I appreciate his passion for the issue. I agree with him on the issue.

The way for us to get together and resolve it is to have a conference committee, to have the conferees appointed on the House side. The conferees are appointed on the Senate side already, and we are ready to negotiate this bill. And I am going to be for the same position as the Senator from Utah because I don't think NMB made the right decision. I think it is a terrible overstretch, overreach of that board to change the law or change the regulation about what is a union election. I think they are wrong.

But we cannot solve the issue with the House sending an extension of the FAA with a rider that is completely separate from that issue. NMB is not in the rider, it is not in the rider at all, but that is the issue everybody is negotiating unilaterally here. The House has sent over a bill that has an essential air service amendment that also has not been negotiated, but what they are negotiating on is the National Mediation Board. Well, if that is confusing, there is a reason--because it is confusing.

So why don't we unconfuse and have a conference committee the way we normally do here, and let's hash out these issues. If we would have a chance to actually have a conference, negotiate all the issues, and then if someone is not satisfied, there are procedures that are honorable to blow up a bill that you don't like, but it is not honorable for the House to send an extraneous amendment on an FAA extension and shut down airports that are being repaired and built in our country, jeopardizing an estimated 75,000 jobs, jeopardizing the certification of a major new airplane that wants to get out there and start being used and an aviation trust fund that will lose over $1 billion because we are not collecting the tax, and the airlines are pocketing the money by having a higher ticket charge, mostly. They may not all be doing that, but most of them are. That is just not right, and we are going to have to make that up because there are contracts pending that are going to have to be paid for.

It is not fiscally responsible, and it is not honorable, and it is time for us to pass a clean extension of the FAA. Let's negotiate until September 30, and then, if we can't agree, we won't sign a conference report and it won't come back. I will stand there and not sign a conference report, but it is kind of hard to do that if you are not doing the right thing by sitting down and talking.

I yield the floor.

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