Providing for Consideration of H.R. 658, FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Webster) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, here we go again. Instead of bringing meaningful legislation to create jobs to the floor of the House of Representatives, the new Republican majority continues to show just how out of touch they are. Two weeks ago, it was cutting off funding for National Public Radio. Yesterday, it was private school vouchers in Washington, D.C. But today's bill is even worse, because this bill will actually destroy jobs.

H.R. 658 starts by reducing the Federal Aviation Administration's funding back to the Republicans' favorite sound bite number of FY 2008 levels. We know that every $1 billion of Federal investment in infrastructure creates or sustains approximately 35,000 jobs. That is 35,000 Americans who can pay their mortgages and stay in their homes, 35,000 Americans that can better afford to put their kids through college, 35,000 Americans that could help our economy to recover.

Instead, H.R. 658 cuts almost $2 billion from the Airport Improvement Program, which provides grants to airports for constructing and improving runways and terminals. This provision alone will cost us 70,000 jobs over the course of this 4-year authorization period.

H.R. 658's reduced funding levels will result in the layoffs of hundreds of safety inspectors, engineers and support personnel. These drastic cuts will also delay transitioning our outdated air traffic control system to the modern NextGen system. Without 21st century infrastructure and technology, the United States cannot keep up with our global competitors. It is just that simple.

Mr. Speaker, in the past, the FAA reauthorization bills have garnered a great deal of bipartisan support. Unfortunately, this time is very different because, in addition to the inadequate funding levels, this bill continues an emerging and disturbing Republican trend toward destroying the collective bargaining rights for American workers. From Wisconsin to Ohio to Maine, we have seen how Republican politicians are attempting to destroy a century of hard-fought labor protections. This bill represents more of the same.

This bill would reverse a National Mediation Board rule that allows a majority of those voting in aviation and rail union elections to decide the outcome. Instead, tea party extremists want to count workers who chose not to vote as automatic ``noes'' against the union.

I wonder if my friends on the other side of the aisle would be willing to use that same standard in congressional elections? I wonder if they would agree that every registered voter who didn't vote, for whatever reason, last November would automatically be counted as a ``no'' vote against them? I doubt it, because in the 2010 midterm elections, 40.9 percent of eligible voters cast ballots nationwide.

Under the standard in this bill, not a single current Member of Congress would have won election last year. Not one. Let me make this a little more clear. Neither I nor my colleague from the other side of the aisle, the new Member representing the Eighth District of Florida, would be standing here today if this undemocratic standard is enacted. In fact, my friend from Florida would have received only 23.1 percent of the vote, well below the 50 percent threshold included in this bill that he supports today.

I ask my friend from Florida, where in the Constitution does it say that any registered voter who doesn't cast a vote in an election has their vote counted as a ``no''? If this standard doesn't make sense for Members of Congress, if we are unwilling to use it on ourselves, then it isn't fair for working people trying to organize.

Mr. Speaker, this bill, unfortunately, abandons a long and proud tradition of bipartisanship on the Transportation Committee, which I am honored to say I once had the privilege of serving on, and I urge my colleagues to reject this rule.

By the way, we have yet to have a truly open rule in this Congress. Notwithstanding the promises that we would see nothing but open rules, we have yet to have a single truly open rule. So I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

First, I want to commend the gentleman from Ohio for his efforts on trying to promote fairness and would reiterate that the issue in question has no business being in this bill. This should not have been put into this bill. I consider it a poison pill. Again, I think it reflects this troubling pattern that we see all across the country where my friends on the other side of the aisle seem to be siding against working people.

I would also just say about the process that we were told that there would be open rules, open rules, open rules. We have not had one. Every member on the Republican side in the Rules Committee has been given an opportunity to vote for an open rule, and they have voted it down every single time.

This afternoon we're going to take up this bill, this deem and pass bill, or whatever people are calling it, which I think is not constitutionally sound but nonetheless we're bringing it up. We'll have another opportunity then to have a vote on an open rule. I wonder where my friends on the Republican side will be on opening up that process. My guess is it will come to the floor either under a closed rule or very restrictive process. So let's be clear: There's not been one truly open rule yet.

At this point I would like to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished ranking member on the Rules Committee, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter).

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let's talk about process. Notwithstanding the promises of open rules, we've been here for 13 weeks and not a single open rule. Not a single open rule. And I will tell you that there's something wrong with the process when after all this time we have yet to do anything to help create jobs or promote jobs in this country. Jobs are the most important issue.

A couple of weeks ago, we were dealing with National Public Radio. It was brought to the floor under an emergency rule. An emergency rule. What kind of process is that? You would think that we were going to talk about something important like the potential war in Libya or about how we put people back to work. Instead an emergency rule was utilized to bring a bill to defund National Public Radio. There's something wrong with this process when we're talking about that and not talking about jobs.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

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

Madam Speaker, I've listened with great interest. My friend from California (Mr. Dreier) kind of amended a little bit what the Republican majority promised. I think I heard him right, that open rules now are only limited to appropriations bills and nothing else.

Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield on that?

Mr. McGOVERN. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

Mr. DREIER. I never said that we're going to limit an open amendment process, open rules, to the appropriations process. What I said was and the commitment that we made was that, since we had the appropriations process completely shut down in the last two sessions of Congress, we wanted to now have this done in an open amendment process.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentleman for his clarification.

It seems like, to me, a little bit of revisionist history, but I guess later this afternoon we're going to rewrite the Constitution, so why not rewrite history? We were promised open rules. Under the definition of an ``open rule,'' we have not had one single open rule in this Congress. Again, this afternoon, we are going to be dealing in the Rules Committee with the demon and pass a bill.

We had on this floor, not too long ago, the reading of the Constitution. I guess my friends on the other side of the aisle weren't paying attention, because what they are trying to do this afternoon, in my opinion, or, I think, in anybody's opinion, doesn't fit with the Constitution. It will be interesting to see whether or not that comes to the floor under an open process. My guess is it will be a very restrictive process, which we've become accustomed to.

At this point, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Higgins).

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Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am amazed by the comments of the gentleman from Florida when it comes to rules because when we were in charge of the House, I don't recall a single time where the gentleman came before the Rules Committee and did not advocate for an open rule. This is not an open rule.

Members who have ideas that they want to bring to the floor in response to amendments that are being offered will be denied that opportunity, and there is a restriction on the ability of Members to be able to participate in the debate. Under a true open rule, every Member would have at least 5 minutes, if they chose, to be able to talk on a bill. So it's interesting this revisionist history by the Republicans who promised open rules but have not produced a single open rule yet. That's just a fact, and we can spin it any way you want to, but you promised open rules, and we haven't seen a single one yet.

Now, as far as the bill goes, H.R. 658, one of the reasons why we are concerned is because this is a job-destroying bill. We should be obsessed in this Congress about protecting jobs and creating jobs; yet, what we have seen is attention being given to everything else but jobs. A couple of weeks ago, we spent a whole week on National Public Radio, should we defund National Public Radio when people are out of work. And here you bring a bill, H.R. 658, to the floor that will destroy American jobs with $4 billion in cuts that will have dire consequences for our Nation's infrastructure, jobs and economy.

The aviation industry, I will remind my friend, accounts for nearly 11 million American jobs and $1.2 trillion in annual economic activity. This Republican bill would cut the airport improvement grants for runway maintenance and safety enhancements by almost $2 billion, costing us 70,000 jobs, especially hurting small airports. The Senate measure, passed with a bipartisan majority, adds tens of thousands of jobs.

Now, there are cuts in this bill that would also lead to a reduction in safety personnel and delay important air safety initiatives, a bad choice for the flying public as highlighted by the recent Reagan National incident.

In February, the FAA administrator under President George W. Bush, Marion Blakey, stated that ``the prospect is really devastating to our jobs and to our future, if

we really have to roll back to 2008 levels and stop NextGen in its tracks.''

This bill also eliminates essential air service for 110 rural communities needed to connect them with global commerce, support local jobs and spur economic growth. It's important to invest in our infrastructure in order to keep this economy strong.

And this bill, as has been said over and over again, extends the assault on American workers, collective bargaining, and the middle class to workers in the aviation and railroad sectors by overturning a rule for union elections which, as with other elections, calls for a majority of votes cast to win. This continues this pattern, this assault on American workers.

I ask my friends on the Republican side, when did the American worker become the bad guy? My friends on the other side go out of their way to protect Wall Street. Under their open process, when they brought up their H.R. 1, their bill that cuts all these essential programs, they wrote it in a way that it protected the taxpayer subsidies to big oil companies so we couldn't get at them. It protected all these special interest tax loopholes that are there for big business and big corporations. And after what happened to our economy, this mess that was created in large part by Wall Street, here we go again with this Republican majority attacking working families, workers.

Well, someone has got to stand up for working families and workers, and I'm glad that there are Members on my side of the aisle that are willing to do that. This controversial provision should not be in this bill. This is a throwaway to the extreme right wing, and it should not be in this bill.

Madam Speaker, let me close by saying we need to start talking about jobs and how we protect jobs and create jobs. This bill, because of the dramatic cuts in this bill, will destroy jobs. You want to find savings, go after taxpayer subsidies to the oil companies. You want to find savings, then if you're going to fight these wars, pay for it. You want to find savings, close some of these grotesque tax loopholes for the richest interests in this country. Instead, you go after things that help average American families, that go after American workers.

This is wrong. I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule, which is not open, and I urge my colleagues to vote against the underlying bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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