Tax On Bonuses Received From Certain TARP Receipients

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, FAA authorization expired in Octobeer of 2007.

For more than 2 years, we have been operating on short-term extensions.

I thank Chairman Rockefeller and Senators Hutchison, Dorgan and DeMint for working together to bring this bill to the floor.

The bill before us will improve the safety of air travel, modernize our air traffic control system, boost the economy and create thousands of jobs.

Senator Dorgan and Senator Rockefeller have had many hearings over the last few years on aviation but each hearing had one theme: safety.

This bill will improve safety by creating an Aviation Safety Whistleblower Investigation Office that can catch problems before they result in serious accidents.

The bill also requires the FAA Administrator to re-evaluate flight crew training and certification.

We also require FAA to establish safety standards for training programs for flight crew members and aircraft dispatchers.

Another key component of this bill is NextGen.

NextGen is the term we use to describe our transition to a more modern, satellite-based air traffic control system.

NextGen will give pilots and air traffic controllers the ability to ccurately pinpoint aircraft in the sky--to avoid problems, to monitor traffic, to move things more smoothly, safely and efficiently.

The FAA released its aviation forecast study last Tuesday.

Last year, we saw 704 million passengers carried on U.S. airlines. Soon, hose numbers will increase significantly. The FAA reports we will see more than 1 billion air passengers by 2023 and more than 1.2 billion passengers by 2030. We just do not have the capacity with our current air traffic control sstem to handle this increase in traffic. But with NextGen, we hope to triple the capacity of our national aviation system.

This technology will allow planes to fly the straightest, quickest route from point A to point B. And with more precise information and better communication between the ground and the cockpit, we can fit more planes safely in our airspace. Doing so will save airlines at least 3.3 billion gallons of fuel a year or more than $10 billion annually by 2025. NextGen should also reduce airport delays significantly.

Chicago's Midway Airport was ranked dead last in January for on-time departures among the nation's 29 busiest airports. Chicago's O'Hare airport has won that dubious distinction more than once. One of the main reasons for these delays is the lack of capacity in airspace. Fully implementing NextGen should reduce delays by half.

This is a great investment. This bill will help airports and air travelers in Illinois and nationwide save time and money.

In Illinois, we are in the middle of the largest airport expansion project in U.S. history at O'Hare airport.

This $6.6 billion project will completely reconfigure the runways at O'Hare to make sure we can move more traffic in and out of Chicago more efficiently. Moving this project along means a lot to the people of Chicago and Illinois. O'Hare already generates 450,000 jobs and $38 billion in economic activity for the Chicago region and the State of Illinois. The O'Hare modernization project will create 195,000 more jobs, and another $18 billion in annual economic activity. This bill will allow O'Hare to keep moving forward by streamlining the passenger facility charge application process.

And it isn't just O'Hare. Airports in Illinois will benefits from more than $4 billion per year for the airport improvement program, AIP.

Last year, airports in the Quad Cities, Rockford, Decatur and Springfield all used AIP funds to make critical improvements to their airfields.

Keeping this funding flowing will allow these airports to handle the traffic of today and the future increases of tomorrow.

The bill helps rural areas keep the commercial air service they have now and attract new service in the future. For a long time, the Essential Air Service, EAS, program was relegated to the back bench at the Department of Transportation.

In Illinois, two air carriers provided subpar service for too long.

In 2007, the EAS carrier providing service from Quincy, Decatur and Marion, IL, to St. Louis was shut down by the FAA. The next carrier promised each community four round-trips each day and codeshare agreement with a major airline. That carrier broke those promises and left town as soon as they could. This administration is taking a different approach and so is this Congress.

This bill fully funds the EAS program and puts in place important reforms so the Department of Transportation works with businesses, local communities and the airline industry to start and retain quality air service to rural communities.

Without a robust EAS program, many rural communities would have no commercial air service at all, and residents of smaller cities would have to travel significant distances for flights. But with reliable and safe commercial air service, communities can retain and attract businesses.

The bill also helps smaller airports gain new commercial air service by increasing funding for the Small Community Air Service Grant program.

This program has helped airports in Illinois, including Rockford and Springfield, bring new routes to their cities.

I want to thank Senator Rockefeller for including the Essential Air Service and Small Community provisions in this bill and for creating an Office of Rural Aviation within DOT to make sure rural areas are not forgotten.

Safety, efficiency, capacity and even the connectivity in smaller communities--all of these aspects of the FAA reauthorization also generate jobs.

The FAA estimates commercial aviation is responsible for 5.2 percent of gross domestic product and generates $1.142 trillion in economic activity.

The aviation industry provides $346 billion in earnings and 10.2 million jobs.

And this bill will help grow those numbers. In 2010, DOT estimates this legislation will support 150,000 jobs. The economist Mark Zandi said, ``Aviation is the glue that keeps the global economy together.''

This bill will boost our economy now and lay the foundation to keep the United States competitive in the global marketplace moving forward.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, when we reflect on the great families in American politics--we have had our fair share--we certainly think of John Adams and John Quincy Adams and what they gave to America. In our time one thinks of the Kennedy family and how much those brothers gave to this Nation. Some of us were honored to serve with Ted Kennedy and the sons and daughters of those great Senators of the past. But there is another family from the West who has given so much to us. That would be the Udall family.

I was blessed to serve in the House of Representatives with Morris Udall. He was a joy, not only a great man of principle but a great sense of humor. It was fun to be around Mo Udall. He had an ill-fated run for the Presidency which probably generated more one-liners than any race in American political history. But he was one of two brothers, Stewart Udall being his brother before him who had served as well in the House of Representatives from the State of Arizona and backed a man for President named John Kennedy in 1960. Because of his early support of John Kennedy, when President Kennedy was elected, he called on Stewart Udall to serve as his Secretary of the Interior.

Last Saturday, Stewart Udall passed away. I came to the floor this afternoon to say a few words about this great man and the great contributions he made to America. He was one of the first real activists as Secretary of the Interior. I want to read, if I may, some of the things he managed to achieve in the time he served as Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson: the acquisition of 3.85 million acres of new holdings, four national parks--Canyonlands in Utah, Redwood in California, North Cascades in Washington State, Guadalupe Mountains in Texas--six national monuments, nine national recreation areas, 20 historic sites, 50 wildlife refuges, and eight national seashores. He had an interest in preserving historic sites and helped to save Carnegie Hall from destruction. What an amazing legacy Stewart Udall left as the leader of America's efforts toward conservation.

He was an extraordinary man too, a real Renaissance man in his interests. He held evening meetings at the Interior Department and invited the likes of Carl Sandburg and the actor Hal Holbrook, as well as Wallace Stegner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who he invited to become the Department's writer in residence.

It was Stewart Udall who suggested that John Kennedy invite Robert Frost to recite a poem at Mr. Kennedy's inauguration, which is one of the most celebrated moments in history in the last century when Robert Frost stood before that frozen crowd on Inauguration Day for John Kennedy.

I think back too of his work when it came to the environment. In the early days Rachel Carson was the inspiration for many. Her book ``The Silent Spring'' inspired Stewart Udall to look beyond conservation to protecting the world we live in.

He did so many things that were ahead of their time. Under the Kennedy administration, he began efforts to establish the Nation's first national seashores, and it wasn't welcomed by a lot of the people affected. People living in Cape Cod, MA, Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, and Point Reyes in California objected to taking coastal lands out of private hands, saying it would ruin the local economy. Exactly the opposite occurred. When these became protected areas, they drew more tourism and more economic development than anyone had ever before realized.

Stewart Lee Udall was born on January 31, 1920, in St. Johns, AZ, a small community in Apache country. His family had strong ties to the Mormon Church. They used to say that you could find Udalls all over the political history of the West. His brother Morris, of course, represented the State of Arizona for so many years. I remember one story I read recently in Sports Illustrated. I mentioned it to Tom Udall, his son, who now represents the State of New Mexico. It is a story that isn't well known, and it goes back to the early 1960s, when Stewart Udall, as Secretary of the Interior, decided to challenge the Washington Redskins football team. It turned out in the early 1960s it was an all-white team, and the man who owned the team, Mr. Marshall, took great pride in the fact there were no black players on the Washington Redskins football team. Stewart Udall contacted the President and said: Mr. President, it turns out the Federal Government has the lease on the stadium that Mr. Marshall is using for his football games, and we want to make it clear to him that he better integrate that team.

Well, Mr. Marshall wouldn't hear anything about that. He was going to fight him all the way. There were pickets and protests and demonstrations and harsh words back and forth. But in the end, Stewart Udall and President Kennedy prevailed. The Washington Redskins were integrated. In fact, some of their first Black players ended up in the Hall of Fame. Interior Secretary Udall did the Washington Redskins and their fans quite a favor. That was in the early 1960s. Those who know the fight song for the Washington Redskins may be surprised to learn that the refrain that talks about ``fight for old DC'' before this battle used to say ``fight for old Dixie.'' Things have changed in the capital city, and Stewart Udall was part of that change.

In his life too he was a man who relished physical challenges, as his son still does, my colleague Senator Tom Udall and his cousin Mark Udall of Colorado. He was an all-conference guard on the University of Arizona basketball team, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Fuji, headed up American delegations to many regions. At the age of 84, Stewart Udall, at the end of his last rafting trip on the Colorado River, hiked up the steep Bright Angel trail from the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the south rim, a 10-hour walk at age 84. And it says in the New York Times:

..... he celebrated at the end with a martini.

What an amazing man, an amazing life, a great contribution to America. His passing is a reminder of some of the greats who have served in so many different ways and have left a mark, an indelible legacy, and a heritage.

Stewart L. Udall was one of those men, and among his legacy items would include not only a great family but a great colleague in the Senate, his son, Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico. We should honor his service, note his passing, and remember his inspiration. His leadership made America a better place. His legacy in conservation will serve generations to come. We need more like Stewart Udall.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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