Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (Senate - October 06, 2005)
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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise today to urge the Senate leadership to call up H.R. 3058, the Transportation, Treasury, HUD, and General Government appropriations bill for fiscal year 2006, once the Department of Defense appropriations bill is done.
We all want to make our country strong again. We all want to make our communities strong again. One way to do that is to invest in our transportation infrastructure, in public housing, and in the other priorities that are part of that important bill.
Every day we go without a Transportation-Treasury bill is a day that we fall short of making the investments we need to make to strengthen this country. We are not talking about our physical infrastructure, we are talking about our own safety. As I will show in a moment, the failure of the Senate to bring up the Transportation-Treasury bill could actually be threatening the safety of every American who flies on a commercial air carrier.
A floor debate on the Transportation-Treasury bill is long overdue. The House of Representatives passed this bill more than 3 months ago. The Senate Appropriations Committee reported this bill almost 2 1/2 months ago. Today we are almost a full week into fiscal year 2006, and still the Senate has been denied an opportunity to consider and debate and pass this important bill. The Senate needs to debate and pass this bill so we can avoid the unruly and unfair process of funding the Government through another Omnibus appropriations bill. The Senate needs to debate and pass this bill so all of the Senators, not just those on the Appropriations Committee, can have an opportunity to consider and, if necessary, amend that bill. The Senate needs to debate and pass this bill so we can urgently address the critical needs of our transportation and public housing sectors, including the pressing need to protect the safety of all of our citizens.
Mr. President, 2002 was the most recent year in which the Transportation appropriations bill was sent to the President as a freestanding measure. I was chair of the subcommittee at that time. Ever since then, the funding for the agencies under the subcommittee's jurisdiction has been enacted as part of a series of unwieldy Omnibus appropriations bills. The process by which these bills were put together did not reflect well on the Senate. It did not reflect well on the Congress as a whole.
Last year's process was the worst of all. Last year, the Transportation, Treasury, and General Government appropriations bill for fiscal year 2005 was never even debated in the Senate. Once the appropriations bill was reported by the Appropriations committee, the bill languished for months before Congress went home for an election. Then, just before Thanksgiving, Congress reconvened and tried, in 3 days, to assemble a final conference report for dozens of major Federal agencies, even though the Senate had never even passed many of the appropriations bills that funded those agencies.
I think Members of all political stripes in both the House and in the Senate recognized how poorly the public and the Congress were served by that process. In January, everyone said we will not do that again. We heard it from the leadership of both the House and the Senate and from the new leadership of the House and the Senate appropriations committees. I am glad they said it back in January. But
from where I sit as the ranking member of the Transportation-Treasury Subcommittee, it sure looks to me as though we are now heading toward another Omnibus appropriations bill.
The bottom line is this. The Transportation-Treasury bill has been sitting on this calendar, ready to be called up, for almost 2 1/2 months. If we want to avoid another Omnibus appropriations bill, we need to call up and pass that bill as soon as we are done with this Defense bill.
This process of sending bills approved by the Appropriations Committee directly to conference without appropriate debate on the Senate floor is not just grossly unfair to Democratic Senators, it is grossly unfair to all of the 72 Senators who do not sit on the Appropriations Committee. The appropriations bill that Senator Bond and I are recommending to the Senate was approved unanimously by the Appropriations Committee back in mid-July. It proposes to spend over $137 billion.
These are not just tax dollars that were collected in Missouri or collected in Washington or collected in States represented by members of the Appropriations Committee, these are tax dollars that were collected from all Americans. Since that is true, every Senator should have the opportunity to debate this bill and pass judgment on our recommendations. Every Senator should be given an opportunity to amend that bill.
We need to avoid another Omnibus to ensure a fair process. There are also some very practical programmatic reasons why we must call up and, importantly, pass this Transportation-Treasury bill as soon as possible. Now the Government is functioning under a continuing resolution. Under the requirements of that resolution, programs that are funded in the Transportation-Treasury bill are all operating at either the lower of the funding levels passed by the House of Representatives back in June or at the level the program was funded in fiscal year 2005. Some observers have speculated we could be operating under this continuing resolution until Christmas.
It would take hours for me to list all the programs and national needs that will suffer if they are required to operate for any length of time under the funding restrictions of this continuing resolution. If we do not get agreement soon to debate the Transportation-Treasury bill, I may well take up a lot of the Senate floor time to explain each and every one of them.
But today I want to focus on one topic and that is the topic of aviation safety and what our failure to move this Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill means for millions of Americans who travel by air in this country today. Over the last few years, our national aviation enterprise--our airlines, our airports, and the FAA--have been under an unprecedented amount of financial pressure. We now have no fewer than six airlines in bankruptcy. If jet fuel prices do not start declining soon, that number could grow even higher.
In the interests of cutting costs, airlines on which you and I travel have been cutting back on staff, have been renouncing their pension plans, and have been outsourcing an increasing percentage of their aircraft maintenance.
I know many other Senators, including myself, travel home almost every weekend, and we have all noticed the changes in the service the airlines offer. Staffing is leaner than ever and we have a lot of flight delays. Mechanical problems are on the rise. One important area of cost cutting has been the airlines' continuing efforts to contract out their aircraft maintenance activities to third parties, including, you all should know, overseas vendors known as foreign repair stations.
In the past, airlines maintained their planes with experienced veteran unionized mechanics. Today, they outsource more than 50 percent, more than half of their maintenance work, to independent operators. Airlines such as Northwest send some of their aircraft as far as Singapore and Hong Kong for heavy maintenance.
We have one major carrier, Jet Blue, that sends a large portion of their Airbus fleet to be maintained in El Salvador, Central America. That is where their planes are maintained.
America West Airlines, now merged with U.S. Airways, does the same thing.
Many of us watched in fear a few weeks ago when a Jet Blue A-320 was required to make an emergency landing at the Los Angeles International Airport. As we all watched on television, we saw its front landing gear facing sideways, at 90 degrees. That was not the first time the landing gear didn't engage correctly. In fact, it was not the 5th time, it was not even the 10th time, it was the 14th time that the FAA learned of the front landing gear of an A-320 aircraft not engaging correctly.
According to the FAA, these 14 dangerous and frightening mishaps have occurred as a result of 5 separate and distinct causes.
It is the job of the FAA inspectors to find out why these problems happen and to force the plane's manufacturer to fix that problem. We cannot afford to have an understaffed or an overwhelmed FAA safety office.
Our airlines are going through a period of dramatic and rapid change. That puts an extraordinary amount of stress on the aircraft inspection function of the Federal Aviation Administration.
We have received a disturbing series of reports from the DOT Inspector General, from the Government Accounting Office, and the National Transportation Safety Board citing deficiencies with the FAA's inspection effort.
In 2004, the NTSB found that deficient maintenance by an outside contractor and inadequate oversight by the airline and the FAA contributed to the 2003 crash of a commuter flight to Charlotte, NC. That crash killed 21 people.
The DOT Inspector General first identified serious deficiencies with the FAA's inspection efforts back in 2002. Just this past June, the IG reported that many of those deficiencies have still not been adequately addressed.
The IG found that the FAA focused too much attention on the airline's dwindling in-house maintenance function and not enough attention on the outsourced maintenance activities of their foreign contractors.
The IG found that the FAA inspectors were spending too much time inspecting maintenance facilities during the day, while a majority of the maintenance activities are actually conducted at night.
The IG found the FAA was doing an insufficient job of its surveillance of financially distressed or rapidly growing airlines. And the IG found the FAA was not able to meet its own standards for frequent inspections because it was short staffed.
In just the last few weeks, the FAA staffing shortage has become even more critical. As these airlines enter bankruptcy, the FAA is automatically required to step up its inspections of bankrupt carriers.
Today, the FAA must give heightened scrutiny to the six bankrupt carriers, as well as four other carriers that are in merger proceedings.
Following the liquidation of Eastern Airlines several years ago, a number of dramatic and horrifying revelations came out regarding the maintenance shortcuts that Eastern took in the interest of conserving cash in its waning days. The entire aviation community vowed that there would not ever be a repeat of the Eastern Airlines experience.
I would think with the external recommendations and the record that I have just cited, the FAA would now be rapidly hiring more inspectors to keep up with its growing and challenging workload. Unfortunately, over the course of the last year, the exact opposite has been the case.
Despite the fact that the Congress granted the FAA's inspections office every penny that was sought in the President's budget for fiscal year 2005, the office has been required to downsize by roughly 300 inspectors over the course of just this last year. That is right. As the requirements on our FAA inspectors to maintain safety in our skies has increased dramatically, the FAA has been downsizing its inspection force each and every month.
This unacceptable situation is one that Senator Bond and I pursued as part of our hearings with Secretary Mineta this year--and the House Appropriations Committee did the same. I am proud to say that on a bipartisan and bicameral basis, both the Transportation-Treasury bill passed by the House and the bill that has been reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee seeks to rectify the situation.
The House Appropriations Committee provided this office with an increase of $4 million over the President's budget request and committed those funds to the hiring of additional inspectors.
The Senate provided an increase of $8 million over the President's request, and we directed that funding be used to restore safety inspector staffing reductions that occurred during fiscal year 2005.
Personally, I still question whether we should be doing more in this area since we have now had two more airlines in bankruptcy since we marked up that appropriations bill.
But still, these actions on the part of the House and Senate committees indicate that Congress, on a bipartisan and a bicameral basis, is prepared to address this glaring safety vulnerability, even if the administration is not.
With that said, we can't make any progress in tackling this problem if we do not call up and pass the Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill.
Under the current continuing resolution, the agency can make no progress in restoring the necessary FAA inspectors to a level that could better protect us.
As I said, this was just one of several reasons it is imperative for the Senate leadership to call up the Transportation-Treasury bill.
I again implore the Senate Republican leadership to call up the Transportation-Treasury bill immediately upon the completion of this Defense appropriations bill.
We have to have the opportunity to debate this bill, not just for the fairness of our colleagues and to maintain the integrity of the Senate, but we must debate this bill and pass it so we can ensure the safety of our citizens.
VAWA REAUTHORIZATION
Mr. President, I rise today to speak about tbe Violence Against Women Act, which the Senate this week passed by unanimous consent.
For the last few months, we have been talking about reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, as it is better known.
Back in 1994, through this historic legislation, we created a national strategy for dealing with domestic violence, establishing a community-wide response. Since we took that historical step, VAWA has been a great success in coordinating victims' advocates, social service providers, and law enforcement professionals to meet the immediate challenges of combating domestic violence. We can clearly see that VAWA has been tremendously effective.
But there is still work to be done to protect victims of domestic violence--particularly when it comes to helping victims break the cycle of violence. And that is what I am here to talk about today--breaking the cycle of violence.
Financial insecurity is a major factor in ongoing domestic violence.
Too often, victims who are not economically self sufficient are forced to choose between protecting themselves and their children on one hand, and keeping a roof over their head on the other hand. It is critical that we help guarantee the economic security of victims of domestic or sexual violence who cannot pay the rent without their abusive partner, or who have been forced to leave their job because of abuse. Without our help, economic dependency will continue to force these victims to stay in abusive relationships.
The purpose of the Violence Against Women Act is to reduce domestic violence. The reauthorization legislation addresses several new issues that will help prevent and reduce domestic violence. One such--way as I already mentioned--is a national health care strategy. But the legislation as introduced contained another important tool to helping reduce domestic violence--it contained provisions that would have allowed victims to take up to 10 days of unpaid leave per year to address domestic violence.
Over 40 percent of American workers get no paid time off. They can't use vacation time to address their abuse, and missing work puts them in danger of losing their job.
This provision would have allowed these victims, and many others, to take unpaid leave to get a protective order, see a doctor, or make a safety plan to address their abuse. But sadly, amidst opposition and complaints of jurisdictional issues, these provisions were stripped from the bill during consideration in the Judiciary Committee.
The legislation that was reported out of committee--which the Senate just passed by unanimous consent--does not contain any economic protections for victims.
I did not give up on these protections easily. After the leave provisions were dropped, I asked the managers of this bill to include another economic security provision, unemployment insurance. Specifically, I asked them to provide victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking with unemployment insurance if they have to leave their job or are fired because of abuse.
We know that a job is often the only way for victims to build up resources for themselves to eventually leave a violent relationship, but abuse and stalking can make it impossible for a victim to keep a job.
We know of cases where abusers will deliberately sabotage a victim's ability to work, placing harassing phone calls, cutting off their transportation, showing up at the workplace and threatening employees.
When a victim loses a job because of violence, that victim should have access to unemployment insurance compensation benefits.
Are you aware that a woman is eligible for unemployment benefits if she has to leave her job because her husband had to relocate? But in many States, if a woman has to leave her job because she is fleeing a dangerous situation, she cannot receive the same benefits. That is unacceptable.
Currently, 28 States plus the District of Columbia already provide some type of unemployment insurance assistance for victims of domestic violence. We can offer that same protection to victims in every State, and we have an obligation to do it. But, since this provision is not included in VAWA either, we need to do it here and now.
It is important to recognize that this violence goes far beyond the home, too often following victims into the workplace, where it doesn't just hurt victims--it hurts their employers, too.
In fact, from decreased workplace productivity to increased health insurance cost, the data shows that domestic violence is bad for business. It has real and painful costs on employers. So for those Members who want to weigh this measure against its economic merits, the facts are clear.
Providing the tools that will allow abused women to escape abusive relationships can help offset billions of dollars in costs that domestic violence imposes on businesses.
As many of my colleagues know, I have been working on the issue of economic security for victims for many years. I have spoken with victims and their advocates, and employers. In fact, just this past Tuesday in my State of Washington, I held a roundtable discussion to meet with stakeholders. I heard from an employer--and owner of a small business in Snohomish County--who talked about the importance of flexible schedules and leave policies that allow employees to address their abuse. He said that helping them address their situations helps his bottom line.
I also heard from someone who works at the employment security department, who said that the numbers do not suggest that women are abusing unemployment insurance. And I heard from a survivor, who shared her story and talked about the crucial importance of these economic protections.
These are the voices we must hear. And these are the stories we must learn from and let guide our work here in the Senate.
I am going to keep coming to the Senate as many times as it takes, and I will tell these stories until my colleagues realize this is an issue that needs to be addressed. We need to provide these victims with the economic tools to help escape their dangerous situation.
For a long time, violence against women was considered a private matter. That attitude hurt women. Today, stopping domestic violence is everyone's business. That is in large part due to the Violence Against Women Act which I was very proud to work on and help pass. For the first time, the Violence Against Women Act recognized domestic violence as a violent crime and a national public health crisis.
Economic protections are the next logical step in the progress we have been making in fighting domestic violence. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues have not realized the critical importance of providing these economic protections. I brought this issue up last year when the Senate was considering the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. I tried to amend that bill with my Security and Financial Empowerment, SAFE, Act, which contains all the economic protections I have talked about today. I was told then it wasn't the right time to address preventing violence against women. My amendment was defeated on a party-line vote. I am here again talking about how the Senate is failing to address this issue and failing to help prevent domestic violence by overlooking these economic provisions.
I reiterate to my colleagues that I will continue to come to the Senate and talk about how critical this issue is in helping victims get out of abusive relationships. I will continue to introduce legislation and offer amendments providing economic protections to victims. I will continue to ask whether the Senators in this Chamber are serious about talking about the next crucial step to help victims of abuse. I urge the conferees on the Violence Against Women Act to send the powerful message to victims that they understand how important these economic protections are by including them in the conference report on VAWA.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
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