America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I wish to speak briefly to the legislation before us, the FAA reauthorization.

The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which I chair, was instrumental in bringing this bill to the floor. Our committee has a long and proud history of bipartisan cooperation on important matters under its jurisdiction. This extends to the bill before us today, the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2016, which I, along with my colleagues, introduced and marked up in front of our committee.

The legislation before us today includes the most passenger-friendly provisions, the most significant aviation safety reforms, and the most comprehensive aviation security enhancements of any FAA reauthorization in recent history. This bill helps passengers and Americans who use the national airspace for many different transportation needs.

For example, since the last reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration in 2012, the use of drones has increased dramatically. According to its most recent aerospace forecast, the FAA estimates that annual sales of both commercial and hobby unmanned aircraft could be 2.5 million in 2016--a number they estimate may increase to 7 million units annually by 2020. But the FAA has an outdated legislative framework being used to shape the use of this rapidly growing technology for both hobbyists and commercial operators. This is slowing down innovation and advancements in safety. Our bill gives the FAA new authority to enforce safe drone usage. This includes efforts to make sure drone users know and follow basic rules of the sky to avoid dangerous situations.

To support job growth in the aerospace industry, our legislation reforms the process the FAA uses for approving new aircraft designs. Our goal is to shorten the time it takes for U.S. aerospace innovations to go from design boards to international markets while maintaining safety standards.

For the general aviation community, we are also streamlining redtape and adding safety enhancements for small aircraft by including provisions from the Pilot's Bill of Rights 2.

Finally, we increase authorized funding for the Airport Improvement Program, which pays for infrastructure like runways, by $400 million with existing surplus funds. This allows us to help meet pressing construction needs without raising taxes or fees on the traveling public.

We developed this bill through a robust and open process that allowed every member of the Commerce Committee to help guide the content of this critical aviation legislation. Last year the Commerce Committee held six hearings on topics that helped inform our legislation. At the committee markup last month, we accepted 57 amendments, 34 of which were sponsored by Democrats and 23 of which were sponsored by Republicans.

Since debate began on the bill last week, we have successfully included an additional 19 amendments here on the floor of the Senate. Ten of these amendments are sponsored by Democrats and nine by Republicans.

This bill deserves the Senate's support. I urge Members to remember all of the important improvements this legislation puts in place for aviation security, consumer protection efforts, American innovation, safety, and job creation. I hope we will be able to send this bill to the House soon. We are on a pathway that will enable us to do that. As I mentioned before, we have had a number of amendments that have been disposed of, processed here on the floor already. Nineteen amendments have been added to the bill since it came to the floor, in addition to the 57 we adopted at the committee level.

I want to credit the hard work that has been done by the staffs on both sides. The Commerce Committee staff obviously has been very involved on the majority side as well as the minority side in helping to shape this as it came out of the committee and to the floor. Lots of hours were put into getting us to where we are today. I think where we are is we have a bipartisan bill which has been broadly supported coming out of the committee, which has numerous safety enhancements in it--the most we have seen in a decade--and a bill which is worthy of all Senators' support.

Having said that, there are other amendments that have been filed. I am not sure what the number is today, but we had 198 amendments filed to the bill, and we are continuing to work with the sponsors of those amendments to try to get additional amendments adopted. We obviously have to have cooperation from Members on both sides in order for that to happen. We have a list of another 10 or a dozen amendments we think could be cleared and could be added to the legislation, but we are going to need Members who currently have holds on that process to lift those holds.

We are on a glidepath to getting this bill to votes coming up tomorrow, so we have today and perhaps part of tomorrow in which to process additional amendments. I hope Members will decide to work with us. We think this bill has obviously been very well vetted. As I said, it was debated heavily at the committee level, and we have now had opportunities to offer amendments on the floor. But there are always ways in which it can be improved. There are a lot of worthy amendments that Members have interest in adding to this legislation, some of which are germane to the legislation, some of which are not. Obviously, once we get to cloture on the bill, only those amendments that are germane will be able to be voted on, but we would like to get other amendments processed.

So what I am saying is that throughout the day today, if Members will work with us, and for those who currently have holds on that process moving forward, if you would lift those, it will enable us to process a lot of amendments Senators are interested in having added to the bill.

We will continue throughout the day to negotiate with Members and hopefully have an additional list of amendments that we can adopt. I would say again that my colleague, the ranking Democrat on the Commerce Committee, Senator Nelson and I have worked very carefully throughout this process to make sure it is an open process and incorporates the best ideas from both sides. Today we have in front of us a bill which I think does that, and that is the reason I think it is very worthy of our Members' support.

We have had a lot of participation. Members of our committee on both sides have had ample opportunities to get amendments considered and voted on, 57 of which were adopted during the committee deliberations on this. It is the product of a lot of work.

I think we are at a place that when we report this out, it is a product we can be proud of, and we can send it to the House of Representatives in hopes that they will pick it up or, if they decide to pass their own version of this legislation, meet us in conference where we can work out the differences but get these important safety measures--these important measures that will support jobs and innovation in our economy--onto the President's desk where they can be signed into law and can be implemented and put into effect.

That is where we are at the moment. Again, I thank all of our colleagues for their cooperation to date and hope that we can see more of that moving forward because it will enable us, in my view, to continue to strengthen this bill before it gets to its ultimate passage, which I hope will be sometime later this week. We have been on it now for a couple of weeks, and it is time to get it off the floor, get it to the House, and, hopefully, eventually onto the President's desk.

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