FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act

Floor Speech

FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act

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Mr. DURBIN. Sunday is the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Ronald Reagan.

When Ronald Reagan was born, his father Jack looked at his new son and exclaimed, ``He looks like a fat little Dutchman but who knows, he might grow up to be President some day.''

In fact, Ronald Reagan grew up to become not just a President but one of America's most memorable Presidents.

As we mark the 100th anniversary of his birth, much is being said and written about Ronald Reagan's White House years, and understandably so. But in my State of Illinois, people are also remembering an earlier time in the life of this iconic American.

Ronald Wilson Reagan is the only American President born in Illinois.

He entered this world on Feb. 6, 1911, in the little town of Tampico, IL, in an apartment above a bakery on Main Street.

His father Jack sold shoes to support his wife and two sons.

Over the first 9 years of his life, the Reagan family moved four times, from Tampico to Galesburg, to Monmouth, and the south side of Chicago before finally settling in Dixon, IL, population 10,000.

Today, the white frame house at 810 South Hennepin Street in Dixon, the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home, draws visitors from around the world.

It was in Dixon that the shy boy would begin to discover self-confidence and the talents that would serve him so well in life. He acted in his first play in Dixon, and he was elected student body president during his senior year at Dixon High School.

From Dixon, Ronald Reagan went to Eureka College, a small college near Peoria. The tuition was $180 a year, twice that much with room and board, more than the Reagan family could afford. But Ronald Reagan did not let that discourage him. He received a ``needy student scholarship'' and waited tables and washed dishes at his fraternity house to help pay his way.

Once again, he was elected president of his senior class.

1935, Ronald Reagan was working as a radio sports announcer. He followed the Chicago Cubs to spring training in California and slipped away one day to visit Hollywood and explore whether there might be a future for him in movies.

Two years later, Ronald Reagan packed his possessions into a Nash convertible and moved to California, where he would become a successful actor and later Governor. But he never forgot his Illinois roots.

In his first inaugural parade in 1981, Ronald Reagan included the Dixon High School band.

On a visit to Eureka College in 1992, President Reagan told students, ``Everything good that happened to me, everything, started here on this campus.''

In 1990, 2 years after he left the White House, President Reagan travelled to Abilene, KS, for a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of President Eisenhower's birth.

He said that day:

I learned long ago that in order to find the heart of America you need only vosit the heartland of America.

It was a lesson he had learned years earlier in those small towns in Illinois.

Both the State of Illinois and the town of Dixon have created Ronald Reagan Centennial Commissions to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth. If you want to see the places that helped shape America's 40th President, come to Illinois this year, where it all began.

Ronald Reagan was President when I was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1982. While our views of government differed remarkably, I admired his optimism and his unshakable faith that America's best days were ahead of us. He restored a sense of confidence in many Americans at a time when we really needed it.

He told us:

America is too great to dream small dreams.

And he was right.

In 1992, 2 years before he announced he had Alzheimer's disease, Ronald Reagan addressed his party's nominating convention for the last time.

He said then:

Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will recall that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts.

In 1983, in one of the most important accomplishments of his Presidency, Ronald Reagan brought together Democrats and Republicans to head off a funding crisis in Social Security. That bipartisan agreement helped add years of solvency to one of the most successful programs this government has ever created. It brought 50 years of solvency to Social Security and is one of the crowning jewels of his leadership.

In 1986, he signed America's last major tax reform act to simplify the Income Tax Code, broaden the tax base and eliminate loopholes that allowed some to avoid their obligations while unfairly increasing the tax burden on others.

Today we face a far greater challenge. Not only do we have to protect Social Security for the long run, we also have to simplify our Tax Code again, and put in place a responsible plan to reduce our deficits even as we invest in a stronger economic future.

In this centennial year of his birth, it would be a fitting tribute to President Reagan if Democrats and Republicans could work together to solve our challenges in the same spirit of patriotic pragmatism that President Reagan and others brought to protecting Social Security a generation ago. I hope we can work together to help get Americans back to work today and to lay the foundation for a strong economic future so that our children can continue to say, as President Reagan said so often, that America's best days are still ahead.

After Ronald Reagan clinched the delegates needed to win his party's 1980 Presidential nomination, a newspaper reporter asked him what he thought he needed to do next. He replied that he wanted to dispel the notion that he was a hard-nosed radical who would oppose compromise on principle.

These are his words. He said:

You know, there are some people so imbued with their ideology that if they can't get everything they want, they'll jump off the cliff with the flag flying. As Governor, I found out that if I could get half a loaf, instead of stalking off angrily, I'd take it.

Ronald Reagan was a man who believed deeply in his core principles. He would not want any of us to compromise our own core principles in his memory.

But there is such a thing as principled compromise. President Reagan understood that. He knew that accommodation was needed to make the system work. We would honor his memory by remembering that lesson and working to restore to our politics the same civility that we associate with him. Let's remember that there is no dishonor in accepting half a loaf. That is how democracy works.

Finally, I wish to express my admiration for Mrs. Reagan. Her love and steadfast devotion to her husband during his illness moved us all, and her courageous work in support of new treatments for Alzheimer's disease will surely help other families. Our thoughts are with her and the rest of President Reagan's family as we mark this historic centennial.

(Mrs. HAGAN assumed the chair.)

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, the FAA authorization expired in October of 2007. For more than 3 years we have been operating on short-term extensions--17 total short-term extensions. The Federal Aviation Administration, airlines, and the flying public, all deserve a long-term authorization to provide certainty to our national aviation system. 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. This is a jobs bill.

The FAA estimates commercial aviation is responsible for over 5 percent of our gross domestic product and generates $1.2 trillion a year in economic activity. The aviation industry provides $346 billion in earnings and 11 million jobs. This bill will help grow those numbers. The funding provided in this bill will support over 280,000 jobs.

Economist Mark Zandi said:

Aviation is the glue that keeps the global economy together.

We know that in Illinois. We know it because of that great airport called O'Hare, which we are currently in the process of modernizing. This bill will boost our economy now and keep the United States competitive in the global marketplace. The Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Senator Rockefeller, with ranking member Senator Inhofe, has held dozens of hearings over the past few years on aviation. Each was different. All of them focused on safety. Last year we passed into law many safety provisions the committee recommended, but we need to do more.

This bill will improve safety by preventing runway incursions. Improving runway safety, according to the NTSB, is the highest priority. There were 988 runway incursions last year. This year there have already been 66. This bill will require the FAA to review all commercial service airports in the United States and initiate action to improve lighting, signage, and runway and taxiway markings.

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. I mentioned on the Senate floor before that I recently read a book by Steve Johnson about innovation. He told a fascinating story that on October 4, 1957, when the Soviets launched sputnik, America was caught by surprise. Here our adversaries in the Cold War had the capacity, with a missile, to launch a satellite that circled the Earth. It was the first manmade satellite. We knew they had the bomb. Now they had these missiles and the capacity to launch a satellite.

The Russians, to prove to the world they had launched the satellite, had this basketball-sized sputnik satellite emitting a signal. There were two scientists near Baltimore working for the Federal Government who decided they would try to track this signal. They found it. As they tracked it, they used their scientific expertise and the Doppler effect to determine not only the trajectory of this satellite but its speed. They reported their findings to the Department of Defense. They could tell the Department of Defense where sputnik was and how fast it was moving.

The Department of Defense challenged them and said: If you can tell us where that satellite is and how fast it is moving, could you tell where that signal is being received on Earth? They went to work. It took them several weeks. They came up with the means to determine from a satellite where the signal was being received on Earth. We know it as GPS.

GPS is in our pockets. We carry it with our cell phones. People can locate us based on the cell phone we carry in our pockets. The problem is, airplanes don't have GPS. They still rely on aging technology, radar and the like, to locate the planes and to move them safely. This bill is going to move us into this new generation of technology. It is about time.

NextGen will give pilots and air traffic controllers the ability to accurately pinpoint aircraft in the sky, to avoid problems, to move things more smoothly, safely, and efficiently. The FAA has called for action on implementing NextGen.

Last year U.S. airlines carried 704 million passengers, including a lot of Senators and Congressmen. Soon those numbers will increase. The FAA reports that U.S. airlines will carry more than 1 billion passengers by 2023 and more than 1.2 billion by 2030. Our outdated air traffic control system cannot handle this increase in traffic. But with NextGen we hope to triple the capacity of our national aviation system and not compromise at all when it comes to safety. This technology will allow planes to fly the straightest, quickest route from point A to point B. With more precise information and better communication, we can fit more planes safely in our airspace. Doing so will save airlines fuel and money. It will reduce airport delays significantly.

Chicago's Midway Airport was ranked dead last over the past few months for ontime departures. Chicago's O'Hare has won that dubious distinction more than once. The main reason is the lack of capacity in our aviation control system. Fully implementing NextGen could reduce these delays dramatically. It will also save a lot of fuel and money for the airlines. This is a great investment.

Illinois is in the middle of the largest airport expansion project in American history at O'Hare. The $6.6 billion project will completely reconfigure the runways and make sure traffic moves in and out of O'Hare 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 Chicago and my State. This modernization project will create 195,000 more jobs and another $18 billion in annual economic activity. We need to move forward as a nation, with the FAA, to make certain O'Hare is modern and safe and can accommodate the increased capacity in air service.

I hope we can take up this bill and the amendments that have been offered to it in a timely fashion and pass the legislation soon. This bill will help airports the size of O'Hare, but also smaller airports around the United States. It has already helped us in many ways.

The Essential Air Service Program has been critical for a lot of small airports, and certainly that is true in Illinois. We need to make sure that communities large and small across America have access to passenger air service.

There is a provision in this bill that tries to coordinate some of the bookings between Amtrak and airlines. During floor consideration of this bill in the previous Congress, my amendment was adopted that I hope can help travelers better coordinate and use both passenger rail and air travel. Particularly for travel to and from less urbanized areas, this option will help move people more efficiently. We can do offer this in more communities. And we can do so at less expense to the Federal Government.

I thank both Senator Inhofe and Senator Rockefeller for their leadership on this bill.

I yield the floor.

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