Providing For Consideration Of Senate Amendments To H.R. 1586, Tax On Bonuses Received From Certain TARP Recipients

Floor Speech

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Mr. SESSIONS. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman, the chairwoman of the Rules Committee, for extending me time on this FAA Reauthorization Act.

Mr. Speaker, this may not come as a surprise to you or Members of this body, but once again we are here to discuss a bill on the floor that has come to the floor under a closed rule. We continue this process in this House of Representatives despite the promise from the majority that they would lead this floor with open and honest and ethical debate and, once again, this is neither open, and I do not believe it's an honest process if Members of this body are shut out day after day after day after day after day in the Rules Committee, Republicans and Democrats, who cannot come to this floor as a result of the Rules Committee action that we took yesterday. They are not even opening this process up to the Members. I think it's bad for this body, I think it's terrible for the Rules Committee and, even worse, I think, to extend the expectation that we would be open on this floor is a misnomer, and it has been for almost 4 years now.

This Democrat majority has not allowed for one open amendment process this entire legislative session, not one, not one, Mr. Speaker, and that's unprecedented. Last week, as we were up over the weekend Saturday in the Rules Committee for the important health care debate, Members came to the Rules Committee the entire day with over 80 Republicans amendments, presenting ideas, ideas that they had, some which were outstanding bills and some which were small and minor fixes.

Yet at the end of the day, before we voted on Sunday, gleefully the Rules Committee majority, including our chairwoman, gleefully announced all 80 Republican ideas were defeated, all 80 Republican ideas were slam dunk in the Rules Committee. All 80 Republican ideas that Members came to express themselves up on the floor, slam dunk, and gleefully the bill was held as is, no additional outside comment necessary, Democrats have it down. This has happened day after day, bill after bill.

We are here, Republicans on the floor of the House of Representatives today, saying, again, that's not right. That's not the way to run this ship, this is not open, and this is not the process that should be followed.

So I guess that when the Speaker promised we are going to be the most open, the most honest, the most ethical Congress, I don't think she was referencing how she and our chairwoman would be running the Rules Committee or the legislation on this floor. Not only is this rule closed, but it allows for martial law authority, meaning that whatever the majority wants to do, they can do on this floor, all the way throughout the weekend, all the way into Monday.

The Rules Committee continues to shut out Republicans, our ideas, and to circumvent the rules that this committee has traditionally had simply to pursue an agenda. I believe last weekend, as thousands of people were outside trying to have their voices be heard, once again, this body did not listen to them and rejected their pleas, which really begs the question, I think, would the majority each time a bill comes up for consideration eliminate the amendment process from the debate?

Is that what they are afraid of? Are they afraid to debate these? Are they afraid to have Members like the gentleman, Mr. Mica, come and present his ideas, ranking member of the committee, a gentleman who has spent lots of time working with people to make this bill better?

What are they afraid of? Are they trying to protect their Members from tough votes? Are they afraid of the process? What is it that continues this process with not one open rule this legislative session? Oh, by the way, we are in the second session right now, this is the second year.

Today's closed rule is all about the Federal Aviation Administration, known as the FAA, and this is their reauthorization act. This bill would reauthorize the FAA for 3 more years. While U.S. air travel plays a fundamental role in our economy, and making safe provisions, a cornerstone of this legislation, is important, yet there are controversial provisions, including cost increases for passengers, excessive spending and labor negotiations, and job losses. Today I would like to talk about those parts of this bill that were not amended, do not allow for Member contest, for amendments.

Keeping up the tradition of Democratic Party spending, this bill authorizes $70 billion over 4 years. This is a historic level of funding for the FAA, which should come as no surprise from this Democrat-controlled Congress that has already set record levels of deficit and spending over the past 4 years and, once again, aiming for a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, $200 billion worth of deficit last month alone.

This legislation reiterates the 1998 labor agreement between the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and the FAA. This is a terrible precedent to have Congress interject itself in a current labor dispute, especially when it is on the back of the American taxpayer. According to CBO, this agreement is going to cost taxpayers $83 million this year and over $1 billion throughout the 4-year reauthorization. This bill puts funding for other important safety and air traffic control modernization programs at risk. Forget the negotiation--we will just take care of that here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Additionally, this legislation directs the FAA to conduct biannual inspections on all foreign repair stations. This completely disregards the bilateral safety agreements and invites foreign retaliation that threaten 130,000 American jobs at service stations. Mr. Speaker, why does this Democrat leadership continue to bring bills to the floor of the House of Representatives that threaten American jobs?

We should be all about ensuring that American jobs are taken care of, not putting them at risk. We have seen record unemployment over the last year. As a matter of fact, in the last year since President Obama has become our President, here in several months, we have doubled the amount of people who are unemployed in this country. More and more people are out of work every day directly because of the political agenda and will of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi on this floor of the House of Representatives with votes of Democratic Members.

Americans want jobs. We want a pro-growth strategy. We want to make sure and should be on this floor talking about being competitive with the world, not here trying to satisfy union concerns and raise taxes and diminishing more jobs and putting them at risk.

Despite the record unemployment and the 130,000 jobs this bill currently threatens, it goes one step further by invalidating all antitrust immunity grants to airline allowances 3 years after enacting their contracts. This will hurt U.S. carriers' competitiveness and threaten another 15,000 jobs.

Mr. Speaker, why would we want to become less competitive with other foreign nations? Why would this Congress want to place America in a defensive position against the things which have strengthened Americans' relationship with other countries and ensured, not just that we would get along, but American jobs in the process.

This legislation also increases the Passenger Facility Charge, known as the PFC for those of us who are regular travelers, up to $7 per flight. That is a 56 percent increase from the current allowable $4.50 per flight charge.

At a time when our airlines, not unlike all other areas of this economy, are struggling, we are now going to stick it to those who are flying to pay for these boondoggle expenses that I believe this Congress is creating. While the FAA says the fees are important to fund FAA-approved projects to enhance safety and security, what it's really all about is being able to pay for this union contract.

You know, these projects also include things like bike storage for passengers that are laid out in the bill, bike storage for passengers on airlines. I don't know about you, but I don't know how many passengers who bike to the airports with their luggage, but that's what we are going to do. We are going to go and make bicycle areas available at airports. That's just a lot of money, and it's a lot of wasted money that does not make sense at a time when we should be making tough decisions, not adding to the expense that is required at every airport in this country.

This reauthorization does very little to improve our Nation's air traffic control modernization program, known as NextGen. Despite concerns and growing congestion in our Nation's airspace, the bill does not provide a dedicated funding source, does not establish an air traffic control modernization board, and does not provide NextGen with needed borrowing authority, authority to be prepared for our future. Without proper funding and oversight, NextGen will fail to properly deploy the congestion in U.S. airspace, which is reaching critical levels, to ensure the safety areas are fully adopted to.

This legislation does include the bipartisan bill H.R. 3371, the Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act, that passed the House of Representatives last year. This is a step in the right direction for the future safety of airline travel, ensuring our pilots have the appropriate screening and training that is necessary.

Over a year ago, Mr. Speaker, the President promised that unemployment would not reach 8 percent. Over 3 million Americans since then have lost their jobs. That was a promise. We have now reached a 10.2 percent record unemployment rate and continue to hover well above the 8 percent that we were told would be the margin. Congress needs to stop the record spending, needs to focus on creating jobs, not diminishing them, as this bill threatens 130,000 jobs today.

Mr. Speaker, I believe we have the ability to make progress in Congress, create jobs, and grow the economy. America should be called the ``Employer Nation,'' and, instead, this Congress fails to understand how jobs are formed through investment and reinvesting within businesses in this country.

We should work with the investor and the free enterprise system to become the global leader. We should not rely on governments to pull us out of this economic stumble that we are in.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 8 minutes to the gentleman from Florida, who is the ranking member of the Aviation Subcommittee, Mr. Mica.

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Mr. SESSIONS. I once again would like to thank the gentlewoman for the time she has extended to us. And I appreciate the gentleman, Mr. Mica, for being here today on the floor.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate that the House is operating an unprecedented restrictive rules process, once again, continuing the 4 years, into our fourth year of this very interesting process to deny Members the opportunity to come and to place their ideas on this floor, to debate their ideas, and a chance to vote on them. I think it is a bad way to run the House.

Every time a rule is up, we get to say, Well, brand-new record. Brand-new record here for the House of Representatives.

I think you heard the frustration that came from a gentleman who has devoted his life, not only his career, to the transportation infrastructure areas of this country, but also the FAA and a lot of initiatives and ideas that he wishes he could have been a part of to make this better. But, once again, our friends on the other side of the aisle refuse to work with the Republicans. They refuse to allow amendments or even a motion to recommit, and then given themselves martial law, same-day suspension authority, and other circumventing activities just to get their job-killing agendas through this House of Representatives.

If it weren't just job killing, it would be simple for the American people to understand, but it is also record taxing and spending. Big Government. Big Government, empowering government-types of rules and bills on this floor. And we oppose that.

If we continue to borrow, tax, and spend down this pathway that the Democrat majority has that we have been pursuing since 2007, we are going to keep finding that not only do we keep losing jobs, but our country functionally will be broke. Not just broken, but bankrupt-type broke. We are noncompetitive, and we are doing nothing to create competitiveness around this world. As a matter of fact, we are trying to play hardball with other countries.

No wonder this President is seen, and America is seen, in the world's eyes the way that we are. We are told that others diminished America's reputation, but what we are doing here today is just another opportunity to go stick our finger in the eye of our friends around the world.

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed. We heard the gentleman from Florida say he is outraged. All we can do is that which is given to us. We will vote ``no.'' We will vote ``no'' on this rule. We will vote to try and gain some opportunity to where we can have balance back on this floor, and we will continue to stand up and talk about how we would like for this country to be an employer Nation.

We would like to have this Congress aim at its business and what it does, instead of part-time or summer jobs; full-time jobs, employment, and opportunity for the American people. We would like to see this Congress take on the opportunities to say that we recognize that the way we will have jobs is by lowering taxes and giving investors an opportunity, a chance to place their hard-earned money into the free enterprise system where jobs can be built and grown, an opportunity not to have the three largest political agenda items that this Democratic Party, this President Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi stand for, three major political items that would net lose this country 10 million jobs.

This last weekend as we were up in the Rules Committee, we were talking about the diminishment of jobs or the guess of diminishment jobs in this health care bill, and I stated what I believe was factually correct: around 4 1/2 million jobs would be lost. And one of my Democratic colleagues yelled back, It's only 3 million jobs--only 3 million jobs are expected to be lost by this health care bill.

That is 3 million American jobs today that we are knowingly, willingly, voting to say, That's okay. We don't care about those jobs, because what we want to do is to take care of some 25 million people who do not have insurance coverage and are underinsured on health care today, and yet remaining another 25 million that are out there.

The cost-benefit ratios are staggering from this Democrat majority. It is staggering what we are doing to the free enterprise system, to families, to jobs, to people who want to have an opportunity to have a job, the dignity to take care of themselves. It's staggering to me the amount of debt, the amount of spending that takes place from this Democratic House of Representatives. It's staggering to me to see that this leadership and the votes that are made on this floor of the House of Representatives day after day are from our past and perhaps our future.

We don't even care if we read the bill. We don't care about the process. We care more about our political agenda, a political agenda about making government bigger, about bankrupting this country, about taking jobs from American people, about the cavalier nature in which this is done.

And then we look at the opportunity as we go through the bill to see that this health care bill, and other bills like we are having here today, simply empower other people, bigger government: 16,000 new IRS agents will be hired simply to make sure that this health care bill is enforced.

It's these kinds of questions, Mr. Speaker, which Republicans and I believe others are raising about the leadership of Barack Obama and the leadership of Nancy Pelosi; and yet we look up and see day after day the votes that are on the floor.

Don't even worry about reading the bill. Let's just get this done: this is why we are having problems in this country. We should open up the process.

We should have open, honest, ethical debates. We should be willing to accept Republican ideas. We should not be gleeful when, Well, we reject it. Eighty Republican ideas. Job well done, Democratic team. Let's slam-dunk those Republicans. Let's not allow their ideas.

Mr. Speaker, for this country to work, and to work properly, it's going to take all of us working together, not just the Democrat majority because they have the votes to slam-dunk Republicans. We believe process is important. We believe ideas are important. We believe that the Republican Party has lots of ideas that we will continue to stand up for. We are an alternative party and we will continue to show up every day faithfully for the American people; faithfully to say that we believe in not only freedom and opportunity, but we believe in the free enterprise system and people to have the dignity of jobs.

And we are going to fight these job-killing Democrat ideas. We're going to fight these taxes and the spending that takes place, and we will make sure that the American people understand this is just another chance today to put America further and deeper into debt. It makes us sick to our stomach when we have to have Members who come and say, I was shut out of this process. No wonder I'm going to vote against this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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