Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019--Motion

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, this morning the FAA grounded planes at LaGuardia Airport, averaging more than 1,000 flights a day. They made this decision because of a shortage in air traffic control staff, who are not being paid because the President fulfilled his promise to shut down the government 35 days ago.

The FAA's website crashed as people looked for information. Stocks for airlines took a hit, and air traffic in other airports, including Philadelphia and Newark, were delayed because of staffing shortages. We will continue to see the ripple effects of this today. It is not like if travel in and out of LaGuardia is disrupted, it will be business as usual at other airports. More flights will be delayed. LaGuardia has resumed operations, but what is clear is that the ATC, or the air traffic control staff, is thin, and they are making game-time decisions--go, no go.

Apparently, we need another reminder that this shutdown is stupid and dangerous, that it leaves communities and commerce on the edge, because the voices of those affected already--Native Americans, Coast Guard servicemembers, FBI agents, IRS employees, National Park Service workers, and domestic violence victims--weren't enough. The FAA is unique because they have an obligation and the authority under the law to make a go-no-go decision based on safety. They can look at their staffing numbers and say: We can't do this safely, so stop. But the FBI and the Coast Guard don't get to say: Hey, hold off, everybody.

TSA agents and the TSA itself does not have the authority to make a similar call. They can raise the alarm, but they do not have the authority to stop people from coming through checkpoints. They just have to make do. The same goes for all of the families affected by the shutdown. There is no ``go-no-go'' decision. They just have to try to make it work.

The FAA decision demonstrates what is happening throughout the government and throughout society right now. People are right on the edge. Some of them have fallen off that edge. Today, the shutdown became an inconvenience to the very small percentage of Americans who fly regularly, but, more importantly, today is an indicator of what is happening to the government, of who matters to the government.

I certainly hope, as lots of pundits, and journalists, and politicians have mentioned, that once air traffic starts to slow, once airports get snarled, we are at the end of this process and the shutdown will end shortly. I don't know if that is true, but I sure hope it is true.

On another level, it should precipitate a little shame, a little introspection about how we got here, because to fix this now, when airports are snarled, is to say we were OK with people not getting food stamps, we were OK with Native American health clinics running out of medicine, Federal workers working without two paychecks, and Coast Guard men and women deployed without paychecks, so long as the President can build his wall. But if flights are delayed, if the elites are imperiled or inconvenienced in any way at the all, game over, and shame on us if that is what it takes to shut down this shutdown.

This entire time, as funding has run out for food banks and domestic violence shelters, everyone has been focused on whether or not Speaker Pelosi will win the State of the Union exchange with the President, and what are the polling numbers, and how are Democrats and Republicans positioning this, and will these polling drops matter in 2020?

But the moment the elite of this country have a moment of inconvenience, this thing seems to be wrapping up, and shame on us.

Everyone is focused on this slow, horrible train wreck that they can watch with some distance. Suddenly, air travel stops and everybody freaks out. Shame on us. It is day 35. People have gone without-- without food, medicine, gas in their car, paychecks--but delayed flights is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

This has to end. But it should never have even started. It shouldn't have taken a day like this to be, possibly, maybe not the end, maybe not the beginning but the beginning of the end of this shutdown.

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