the senate in a quorum call the senators working still working on the amtrak and passenger rail service bill they returned from their party lunches about fifteen minutes ago the bill authorizes more than eleven billion dollars for amtrak over six years and it includes grants to improve local railways as well final passage is possible tomorrow also this week a revised children's health insurance bill that expands the s chip program by thirty five billion dollars over five years members of the leadership in the house and senate trying to craft a bill that the president will not veto he vetoed the first attempt this is the second go round for s chip in the house and senate over on the other side of the capitol the house today passed the internet internet tax moratorium bill that was four hundred two days to no no votes four hundred two to nothing also the small business contracting bill passed in the house and house members have now moved on to a number of bills being considered under suspension of the rules today you can watch live house coverage on c span and over on c span three a hearing is under way on iraq reconstruction with the special inspector general for iraq reconstruction stuart bowen live coverage on c span three our live coverage of the senate continues here on c span to amendment specifically i'd like to talk a little bit about rail passenger service in america and amtrak specifically i think one of the the best infrastructure visions we could have as a country today is to create a high speed passenger rail service that moves people economically and efficiently around the country and the irony is as long as we continue to pour our federal resources into the amtrak model we will never get to that vision of an efficient passenger service in this country it's clear from years of working with amtrak in the model of  using freight rails and government subsidies to support an amtrak system that we will never have a world class passenger rail service through the amtrak model so i hope we as a congress as a senate particularly can come to terms on the fact that if we continue to throw money at amtrak we will never have a and efficient passenger rail service certainly there are a couple of lines of rail service of amtrak particularly in the northeast that work well for a number of people but the fact is many many americans are contributing to the few passengers who are using amtrak today taxpayers all over the country are putting their money into these few lines that work even though very few americans actually ever use these rail services as we discuss this final bill it's important that we remember that in the last year the federal government gave amtrak one point three billion in subsidies even though they carry less than one percent of the nation's inner city passengers and amtrak is one of the most heavily subsidize or the most heavily subsidized modes of transportation in the country in fact the ticket every ticket that people purchase for amtrak has an average subsidy of over two hundred and ten dollars per passenger per thousand miles traveled we even have some lines where the subsidy reaches as high as five hundred dollars my mehmet doesn't change this but it just tells america the truth about the subsidies for each of these tickets that people buy my mammoth requires amtrak to put on every ticket for the line that they're using the amount of subsidy that taxpayers are putting into the cost of each of these tickets by doing this we will force amtrak to do what all of it all of businesses have to do is to track the real cost of every product they sell right now it's very difficult to determine actually how much amtrak spends on each of its lines of service but by requiring that they put the cost of the subsidy on every ticket they will have to calculate the cost which is the revenue in the losses for each line in this country every business should have to do it amtrak sho as well it's the only way we can get a handle on actually how much we're spending for each line and hopefully determine after a while which lines make sense to continue and which lines should be lemonade so i would encourage all of my colleagues here to vote for this amendment it does not do anything to reduce funding for amtrak or put any additional restrictions on them but does require them to show america what the real subsidy is for every take it that they sell so mr chairman i would of reserve the balance of my time and look forward to your comments that hopefully we will have your support on this amendment the majority leader and this president i've had a number of conversations over the last twenty four hours with the speaker speaker pelosi with  the democratic leader standing hoyer senator hatch senator grassley and others who've indicated that on the chip matter they need more time that they've had conversations with republican house members who voted not to override the presence the do they have having their having conversations with people within the administration trying to come up with something on children they need more time on is present my first inclination after having heard this is well and we waited long enough but after having spoken to these senators senator hatch especially has been really working hard they've already had meetings with republican house member senator baucus i've spoken to him at great length and he's also having meetings with some of the republicans in the house to see if there's something that can be worked out now i don't know if there can be what we've done with the matter that will be shortly before the senate we have found childless adults who are on the program now under the original bill we passed or phased out in two years and the bill that's now before this body or shortly will be there phased out over one year so we cut that in half  ninety two percent of the people drawing benefits and people are little people children drawing benefits from this program ninety two percent are two hundred percent above poverty and that's about forty thousand dollars a year that family four m we have only one state above three hundred percent and there are maybe five or six states are from two hundred to three hundred percent and so we have said there will be no waivers above three hundred percent  you had to be in the country for at least five years with proper papers and then you could after having many or five years so we tightened everything down and we we've changed that hopefully to pick up some more votes at this stage senator hatch and others have said to me we need a little more time we like because senator hatch and senator grassley were in on the changes we made and they were not done by democrats every meeting held they were in on on the meetings but they said give us some more time maybe we can come up with something else that's present i'm willing to do that we're willing to do that and i would hope that the republicans are mean are really mean that they do need more time so what i would be willing to do and when i say i am not you know is not me what we would be willing to do is to put the vote off on just until we finish farm bill i'm going to go to that next week i'm not going to go to it this week and we would go ahead and finish amtrak move to something else what it is i don't know i'm trying to come up with something that would be without a lot of pain to anyone but there are many things we have to do there bipartisan in nature that i think we could go to i originally considered offering a consent request move off chip and we'll go to it when we finish the transportation bill in exchange for that give me permission to go to something else i worked on that i want to i don't want any excuses i don't want anyone saying look we would have done that he was demanding what we go to next and i'm not going to do that so i'm going to resign and the record i consent request which will say basically we'll move on chip giving senator hatch and others time to negotiate to see if they can come up with something that's agreeable to the body and  that's facts and we can change that if we passed our bill the one who's got sixty nine votes here in this body instead of having five and a half million we'd have ten million children that would be covered  i can't change a reason why we would object to that we ought to continue to try to find a solution unfortunately you know there's been no real consultation with the leadership on this side of the aisle  those that have been having all these meetings and we still haven't you know head bob the administration in trying to get a solution that we believe good we could all get a broad agreement on and avoid the going back and forth on bills and vetoes but you know would it take more time you know we still hope that you'll come up with something that would be supported broadly and signed by the president but the the idea that we hard for me to comprehend the logic of the objection we're not asking consent from anybody do what we're going to go to next if the if the minority wants to object my going it would seem to me that if the republicans are sincere and wanting to do a chip bill unless i'm missing something what better opportunity would they have i've said let's get off this bill as we all know finish the farm bill could take a little bit of time i would hope we could finish in a week but as we know i mean that we could to be a nurse burst with appropriation conference report we've got to do the see ourselves i can't imagine our getting to them finishing the farm bill very quickly but i was told a nationally on this ship matter that they needed two days to try to work something out they're going to have will more than two days to work this out and this president and it's not as if the republicans have been in the dark on this remember the two advocates for this we would not have had a chip bill but for senator grassley and senator hatch they were part of everything took place in this bill when the bill was not overridden by the bill as far as the administration out it would seem to me if they have a couple weeks and that's what this all basically give them ten days to a week or ten days to two weeks it seems that gives them lots of time to work said close you ask him in the morning i ask him after he said i'm not to meet with you so ms brunt we've tried and we want to be reasonable this is an important bill deals with children  bipartisan this is not a democrat bill it's a democratic and republican bill so i've heard the objection i can understand english i would hope though that this afternoon miracles never cease and they the republicans i'm sorry to say have have been pulled in as puppets in the past the during the almost seven years as man has been president and maybe they can do it again i would hope not on an issue this important we i repeat mr president simply want to have the republicans get what they want can't they take yes for an answer we've said you want more it's ok with me so i don't know how we could be more reasonable and what happens if we don't do this we're going to go ahead and vote on the most proceed invoke cloture on the bill if that's what they want that's all you can do but i am i don't know how when somebody says will you do this for me and we say yes they say no concern first of all we don't know when that might come it could come two weeks from now right up against a date when we're supposed to be going out for the thanksgiving period and we don't want to we don't want to try to short circuit it but if we could you know what you could work out something where our rights would be protected with regard to the chip bill instead of just going automatically to it after the farm bill looks to me like something could be worked out on that got  we've got in the middle but that's pending in the meantime i'll i'll check with the sort of godall and say what do you think and i would say to my friend in fairness i have talks and mcconnell prior to lunch but it wasn't in any detail i told him generally what i was going to do so i think it's appropriate to take a lot more time this all come out later and i'll try this again but i just want the record to be spread if anyone can come up with a more fair proposal and i've offered and they should come here to the floor because i and i have basically given those people who wanted more time and those of the republicans everything they've asked for i also want to say not only do i appreciate your comments about moving for the amtrak bill but this this is a bipartisan piece of legislation and i i was trying maybe being a little flippant but i was very serious i think it's wonderful we had a bipartisan cloture titian file we need to do more of those if possible that cleared by both managers and leaders that upon this position that these amendments to the bill as amended the red for a third time and at four o'clock p m the senate proceed to vote in relation to the demand amendment and upon disposition of the dementor amendment post cloture time be considered yielded back in the senate proceed to vote on the passage of the bill further that the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to h r three seven six three that occur prior to six thirty p m wednesday october thirty first or at a time determined by the two leaders sorry correct h r three nine six three  occur prior to six thirty p m wednesday october thirty first or at any time determined by the two leaders on wednesday serves action without objection sword coming back momentarily to offer those in the meantime i'd like to make some comments to respond to some of the things that the leader was noting wanted to do it when he was on the floor but what is important to try to work through these unanimous consent agreements so mr president let me just say that all the effort to this she ate culture on the most recede to the child children's health insurance program republican leader senator mcconnell and members on both sides of the how have to recognize that our leaders are our leaders and that our leaders have to be consulted in parliamentary procedures and they have to be consulted also on timing so when one senator senator hatch says give me two more days but there's no contact or consultation with our leadership on this side of the how that that is a problem  d also we just want to make sure that we don't give up our normal rights regular order i am concerned about going to some of the issue after the amtrak bill and then go on to the farm bill next week then been on a farm bill we don't know how and then to the last minute we might call up on agreement that may be bipartisan but is not going to resolve the disagreements on the children's health insurance program which is we should focus first  illegal children to go on the program there are a multitude of problems with it and i've taken the time to actually take a look at it but the biggest problem is we're still talking about over thirty five billion dollars and instead of trying to come to a compromise on the money it's necessary to cover poor children first it still is not going to get solved program in an observation it's been when you let adults get on the program at the end of the childer what happens is you crowd children out so there are huge problems with the current process we've got to require reforms we've got to give them incentives to do better one of the things i think is going to really help that some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle have referred to is we are going to have more inner city service as a result of this bill because we have a program specifically to help states to set up in our service train station improve transportation between not just new york and albany but in sites all over the country where states can do more where there's a a way to get an opportunity to do more inner city service which is an important part of the overall package we also have a language in there that's going to start toward a situation where right lines can actually bid to provide the  service lines we do it with a pilot program we don't just say old anybody can come in you know when we say one the first year to the second year but we're going to we're going to work towards seeing if others can offer this service and offer it more efficiently more effectively include the leadership from our side there the staff people standing out in the hall they've been meeting all week and i have a novel idea i think that when we have negotiations senators ought to be involved senators men and women of good faith an intellect and understand these problems we don't have to have our staff do this for us and the same is true with amtrak senator lautenberg and i've been working on this book for years at least three years really problem five years  this is the third amtrak reform that i've been involved in the other two not doing everything we wanted to do but we made some progress it didn't do as well as it should have now we're trying to get it let me just say to the leadership and the president i don't want to go to great lengths i don't like having to object when the leader makes the request but to lock in the agreement that basically we'll finish amtrak this afternoon and then we're going to do something else after we don't know what i mean after that  thursday and friday and then we'll come to the farm bill the next week and then after that would go automatically to chip which we don't know what it's going to be and give up a regular order i don't think that was a good arrangement but  emphasis on the poor children first quit this budget creep it always get into more and more children how we got adults and and other loopholes in this program and i think can we do it of dispatch indicate to me that this is a bill that is wanted by a significant majority of the senate the sli representing we believe a significant majority of public opinion about whether or not amtrak ought to be brought up today out of the part of the transportation system that can help relieve other parts of the ingestion pollution etc that we face constantly in our country right now so but i but i do want to say that i think the amendment that's been offered by senator de mint is not one of those taxpayers can you imagine the complication that is involved here you don't know when the passenger how many passengers are going to be on that leg and the subsidy therefore has to be divided among the number of passes how far as each of the passengers who's getting on that that particular train how far they're going to travel that also would indicate a part of the subsidy and you just can't take a mathematical formula and apply it and say this percentage  applies in this particular passenger's ride so we all know what's afoot here and i generally agree that transparency is good when it comes to already publishes subsidy information per route on its website every month as part of its financial reports that's the general information related to those routes not in the individual's subsidy per particular and amtrak also provides details on every dollar and dime of its finances to the department of transportation and the congress on a continuous of the dement amendment would provide travelers with redundant information and frankly waste federal funds and as i indicated in my earlier comments that it would also be logistically almost impossible to do it this amendment calls for to determine the subsidy for each rider and it and the number changes once to not to be repetitive but to be emphatic the numbers change depending on how far a passenger rides the train and even if they did not and track would have to redesign it on line reservations and ticketing system for customers to get this information one doesn't have to have been in the computer business is i was in order to know that this would take and incredible amount of time and energy to get the software up to date and to get the information and on time for it to be of value and be able to be printed with any degree of accuracy on the t so it's kind of the added cost and red tape that taxpayers are disdainful of we don't require the same printing burdens on their lives that we provide some twenty million twenty billion dollars for that industry in the last six years and this present americans already understand that our nation's passenger rail system requires subsidies just like rail systems in every other country what american travelers really care about is receiving high quality and convenient rail service as a result of that subsidy and this amendment is not going to do anything to help us in those areas and and  to say that senator lott has indicated he and i have worked on transportation issues for many years and finally the public is so immersed in congestion and lost time in delayed and missed appointments and with the price of gasoline going up as it is i saw a prediction from someone  engaged in the oil industry in the far east that oil was gonna be up to two hundred dollars a barrel in a not too distant time well do we want to continue to subject the american public to these outrageous costs for these fuels for this bill or do we want to try to get a balance in our transportation system that says use the train it's much more economical it reduces congestion it reduces pollution and abandon food and beverage service on the on the rail line we took a vote here and it was soundly defeated and as i listened to the i wondered whether we could charge separately for the lubricant set or use in the wheels of the train and maybe we could separate out further expenses maybe paper use the henhouse but things of that nature and reduce the number of those we can deal with those things mr president if we want to really get on the helping doing something that helps the country function more efficiently  and once again reiterate the fact that this bill has truly got bipartisan spirit attached to it we see it not only in the leadership that our friend the senator from mississippi applies so skillfully but the fact is that if you look at the number of votes there were a number of colleagues on the republican side who joined in to get this bill as far as it is we have almost miraculously come to a consensus that says after yields years of labor we are gone  as our other means of transportation highway billions of dollars of subsidy aviation and aviation unlike amtrak is a for profit business and we're still giving subsidies to the airlines each and every year and as i mentioned over twenty billion dollars since nine eleven and so when we look at the possibilities of rail service and see that in your for instance brussels belgium paris france two hundred miles about the same distance that we are here from new york city to do it in an hour and twenty or hour and twenty five thus late arrival here if we could get and track to improve its service so that we can reduce the amount of time it takes i had the good fortune this this morning to take the seven o'clock train out of new york city i live in new jersey but it was convenient to get to the terminal in new york city and i arrived two and a half hours later city to city new york city to washington d c we didn't shake rattle and roll all the time it was nice if you want to have a coffee or something like that or write or write or read  the vote on the next amendment which has been ordered and final passage on the amtrak bill and i thank my friend shoes from aviation and highways to highway safety and certainly the rail area and and most particularly with regard to amtrak national rail passenger system mr president to make it clear that i had  made an effort earlier today to put an article in the record it was going to be in parade magazine i thought already been in there but it's projected to be in there this coming week so i brawl that article being included from the record applicable americans spent about three point seven billion hours stuck in traffic last year burning gasoline prices soared by sixty percent and probably go well why should we try to do more of that and by the way it's not just about the eastern seaboard i want to emphasize that we want to national rail pass one of the key is i mentioned earlier is the inner city connections and so we're talking about not just going north we're talking about an inner city connection between washington and north carolina we're talking about portland and seattle we're talking chicago and detroit we're talking miami in jacksonville and we provide additional assistance in this bill through the cap capital grants it's called the state capital grant program for inner city pastor rail projects a program makes grants to states or groups of states to pay for the capital costs necessary to provide new and better job of running an amtrak and i think some progress has been made i still say that the former chairman of amtrak gun was a good man and did a lot of things and would have done more if he'd have been able to stay  and i wish you well where he is and by the way you're talking about well what about how much money are you subsidizing amtrak well let's see last year the funding was one point three billion the same capital improvements we're going to have to modernize we can say the people we want you to consider the alternative rail passenger if it's not on time it's the food as been pulled off of it and the to do something responsible here to make make a difference for the american people and deal with our transportation needs in this country i do want more transparency i do want them to  cut out the waste and the food cost has been driven by two percent labor costs change that cost to do whatever is necessary but i'm tired of people complaining about it been told in a way i have some sort of good congenital defect and that is a desire to get things done that that's what my moniker the monochromatic tombstone will say dad trying to get something offended that some people are sitting over here saying well what is this guy's a mississippi what does he care care because it's right for our whole country not just watch state you know i don't have a best interest thank goodness yeah we'll have a  europe and japan other countries have done this now i don't like to emulate those countries a lot of instances but if they can do it you tell me we came to it it's just a matter of what we will make up our minds that we're going to do this and i hope that  simply party allegiance there is no doubt that long before we were public as your democratic we were americans and if we keep that focus in mind i think we can help our country achieve some of the goals that we need to reexamine here and when you look at the conditions that have overtaken use the word  america and look back at the population in one nine hundred seventy seventy one when air track was taken over as a quasar i public corporation the country had two hundred million people and now they're the thirty five years later three hundred million and this country of ours imagine a hundred million people and we're still depending on a rail system that was largely developed far earlier than the one nine hundred seventy s and i think the senator lott was absolutely right when he talks about our need to bring the aviation system up to date as well you know we now narrowed the separations between airplanes and that's not designed to scare anybody at all because it does the f a a can handle it but it does say that we are squeezing whatever spare air we've got when we look at now the lighter jets coming into service it's expected that there will be five thousand new airplanes in the sky in the next ten years this model airplanes and we see that planes are filled constantly and ways have to be figured out to make their  air service more reliable i repeat again something that was has been said many taiwan out of four flights is late today and one of the airports that has that suffers from these delays is my favorite airport that is a newark liberty airport in new jersey we're just we've got to learn different ways to do things because as has been said the air time to fly from here to newark la guardia i live midway between because i live in that part new jersey which is near the washington bridge so i live midway between and i can take it to either airport for her service but what's happened is that i've been on airplane many times going from here to our region and here the pilots say enjoy our trip up there and i hope that we'll be able to close the door so and get on our way well in this particular flight that i think the pilot close the door we were pushed out of the it was a the truck to get into place the pilot says oh we just learned that air traffic in the new york area is fairly heavy and our takeoff time is an hour from an hour from now thirty six thirty six minute flight thirty eight minute flight and then and i watched my with looked at my watch many times and couldn't wait for the hour to pass and the pilot that's on the air and he said we've just been advised that we've got twenty three minutes longer than expected well by the time that ride that thirty eight minute flying time got through it was three hours of time passed and i just told the story about taking an airplane down this morning from new york penn station and it was two hours thirty five minutes well and i was in the city i didn't have to travel i have for three quarters of an hour to get to an airport and then to be there a half hour forty five minutes earlier so the time  being forecasting exactly what's going to have we know what's happening right now and we have to get on with take take care of it because we know that of the chair and i senator from vermont are dealing actively with global warming because of emissions that come from cars from buildings from all kinds of sources that are creating global warming global warming threatens our families directly it's said by the most auspicious scientific advisory groups the national association it you've got a ten year window during which time you can do something about arresting the growth of global warming that will make life quite different than america knows  sign when we understand that if the ice melts and the occupant of the president's chair and i and other centers were in greenland not too long ago and watch ice melt not in little revealing but almost like waterfalls and the forecast that if that ice melt continues at the pace it is within fifty years the seas could be twenty feet higher than they are now to get on with it and so this is an opportunity an opportunity to make a contribution to the the reduction of greenhouse gases and the arrest in the momentum of global warming so this this rail bill that we've got here is an essential factor in that area and how about the experience that this country has had in these in these last years when two nuclear energy plants were built one new hampshire one in lyla new york that had to be virtually abandoned because there was no sensible evacuation route rail makes the difference if rail had been used at in louisiana at the time of katrina a lot more people could have a scaped some of the fear the anxiety and the deaths and illnesses that struck people as a result of that terrible start to get on with it let's get on with it and so we have  a commitment under the regular order of business here to vote at four o'clock and on an amendment that talks about to make certain that we identify how much subsidy we're spending we're not saying the same thing has to be done on an airline ticket aviation is critical aviation is what is the service that really built this country were able to get from coast to coast long distances in relatively short time we subsidize these for profit companies subsidize so they their business is amtrak is a not for profit company and so we're going to have to subsidize it and i think that what we're saying is that we're stepping up to the plate and getting on with it and so mr president i hope that our colleague from south carolina will be able to join us because the time now will be charged to the time allotted for debate and i'm going to note the absence of a quorum while we wa we have a vote on demand amendment number thirty four sixty seven i'd just like to summarize again the purpose of this amendment and and what it entails we've talked about the importance of disclosure and letting the american people know how government operates and actually what it really costs them and when it comes to amtrak and we're all very aware that they are very heavy subsidies  amtrak and this works out to an average of over two dollars and ten cents a ticket in some parts of the country the amtrak system is working very well in other parts of the country the federal government is subsidizing up to five hundred dollars a ticket to keep this going make the parliamentary a four year we have about six minutes left and i would suggest that we request full disclosure of the cost of subsidies for each ticket this would allow passengers and all americans to know that when they buy a ticket how much tax dollars goes in addition to what they pay to subsidize the price of this ticket this will do a number of things i think that are important it will not only let the american people know how much they're spending to keep amtrak going it will force amtrak to actually calculate the real cost of operating their lines throughout the country in order for us as a congress to make good decisions about amtrak and allow them to make good decisions about which lines should be  discontinued which ones should be continued it's important for them to calculate the cost right now the way they calculate cost is not allow them to determine the real cost for their lives so i want to make clear mr president that we're not trying to cut any funding in this amendment from amtrak we're not asking them to do anything but what a normal business would do in that is to calculate the real cost of operating each of their lives it's like asking a business to determine the cost of all of their product lines so that they can determine which are profitable which are not in this case we will determine not only which ones that are not profitable and how much subsidies are they are but what the real cost are for each line so i would encourage my colleagues to support this as a measure of disclosure for amtrak not not a way in any way to harm and try amtrak or their operations i think it's a way to help them be more efficient in the future and with  r from mississippi again to the senator who just left of the chamber from south carolina appreciate the way he's approached this the didn't just come in and condemn it he's looked at it he's had some ideas and several of  them been accepted i think we wound up getting at least four of his amendments that have or five that have been accepted in so he's been a constructive force and i found that a lot of members who were just trying to provide money to amtrak without any reforms when i look at it i think they're surprised that the number of requirements and and plans and reforms that we do include in this legislation but i would be opposed to this amendment you know you'd have to print on each individual taken a specific amount of the government subsidy per passenger for that round i just think about that i mean on its face you know that takes a lot of effort it's changing it would cost her you know probably as much as three million i don't of about for that but there would be some caution but it's already available you can get this information through the public website that's available about what the cost of subsidy is these tickets and so it would require something that really already available that would be you have to pay for it and we have a number of other reporting and disclosure things including this bill i think is really redundant what we have in the bill  and we are focused on trying to reduce subsidies in point shouldn't be how much is it now per take at the point should be as much as it aggregate and what are we going to do about it and we've got we've got specific markers in this legislation the metrics and standards that will be required to get us to a reduced amount of stuff but again as i've said earlier it is it's a chicken and egg thing you can do it in a responsible reason way to get a result or you can just force things that cost money and don't achieve anything  and also we're not going to reduce the subsidies until we prove the service improve the capital stock and do a better job and that's that's what i believe this legislation would do so that the amendment  defeated and i think again the senator from south carolina for willing to work with us on a number of amendments that he had to actually did add improvements to the bill with that must yield a floor i don't know if there's any a manager's amendment to be an order that manages a man is at the desk and i ask unanimous consent that the three amendments be considered that three amendments be considered enbloc and modified applicable that the amendments be agreed to as modified if modified and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table and block is there objection without objection so water is there a sufficient second there appears to be right mr lug mr martinez mr menendez mr pryor mr sanders mr schumer mr sessions mr shelby mr smith mr white house mr wyde mr brown mr brown  mr cochran  to martinez mr martinez no scaly mr tester mr tester no mr smith mr smith no mr  coleman mr coleman no mr roberts mr roberts this is dole mrs  in the chamber who have not voted or who wish to change our vote if not this amendment thirty four sixty seven the a's or twenty seven the nays are sixty five the amendment is not agreed to under the previous order all time post cloture is ild it back in the clerk will read the bill for the third time as to ninety four a bill to reauthorize amtrak and for other purposes the question occurs on this is boxer  seventy the nays are twenty two the bill as amended is passed and reconsider that the vote by which the bills passed and laid on the table without objection tell you how involved personally i've been in this for many many years in my own relatively early days in the united states senate going back decades been interested in what we could do to make amtrak the nets for the part of the transportation system make travel easier and more reliable for the american people they ask us  to do this and to give them early but before getting in the full text i want to say to senator lott how much i appreciated working with him not only now but we have for a number of years and the satisfaction of seeing this bill pass on its way we hope to becoming law and seventy votes it's a clear message mr president about what the representatives of the american people are saying here so i thank senator lott it's been a pleasure working with him on this we look forward i look forward and i'm sure he agrees that we want more opportunities to do things of bipartisan nature to help the american people they ask us for relief and we're giving them early relief from traffic congestion relief from allies at the airports really from planes lined up on the tarmac today the senate has said to american travelers you will have another accepted the bill's going to speed passenger rail service in the united states into the twenty first century and there are lots of people that i thank in addition to my friend and colleague from mississippi senate minority leader center for his hard work and long standing commitment to passenger rail service i also want to thank senator in a way chairman of the commerce committee for giving me the privilege of managing this legislation is confidence has always been appreciated by me senate majority support for amtrak and all of our coast botches for their dedication and commitment to improving travel in america alex too much the c e o of amtrak and his government affairs staff to help that including  carolyn decker and my staff which i'm very proud of mr president and they're always there the better what the hours are no matter the intensity of the work they're there with their support and their knowledge out senator yield just briefly do have another commitment off the floor momentarily but i just want to acknowledge these kind of margins a pleasure working with them on this legislation it's been a long time coming and i appreciate the act  pretty big block of time for transportation bill he did have to do that and i think he deserves credit for it and but you did also want to thank my staff for that great work and return are here with me and chris bertram has been working with me for years on transportation issues our staff work weather together great and i'm pleased with the boat majority the republicans and i think probably all of the democrats voted for it now the we are going to move over to the house i hope they will act on it expeditiously this could be a big big step in the right direction and i think my colleagues on both sides for their cooperation and i hope we can find a way to do that more this sort of thing in the future thank you for letting me interrupt your remarks  minorities getting legislation passed by this body takes a lot of work and these folks are to be commended mr president everyone knows that our highways are jen we don't have to tell and tell them that from here all they have to think about is what time they get out of work and what time they get home what time they have to start a morning in order to get to the work on time the average new jerseyan by way of example and we are the most densely populated state in the union spend three hundred hours commuting by car every year three hundred hours and fifteen percent that time is wasted sitting in traffic creating pollution create anxiety creating anger frustration and bigger bills as gas prices go up at the same time more than two hundred twenty million vehicles on the road and the population purged projected to pass the four hundred million mark before twenty fifty congestion will remain a major challenge of cars and trucks remain the dominant mode of travel and once again population of the country was two hundred million now barely twenty five years law along or twenty six years longer later is three hundred million one hundred million people  a population growth in this bear twenty six year period so we know our skies are being becoming jammed as more plains states of the year last year was the worst year for flight les since two thousand and one and four planes were late for travelers who fly for instance between washington and new york it's a thirty six minute flight often becomes two hours or more because of delays getting off the ground and once getting on the ground i once went up to la guardia airport the same thing have said never waited an hour to get to the gate from the time we landed so the airlines have admitted this and changed their schedules to say that now that thirty six men apply will only take two hours thirty six minutes for their rested time admiring the landscape which is pretty dismal when you see all those planes line lined up like a lot of those between lines of cars on the highways long lines at the airport america's travers need and deserve another choice and the answer is a world or rail system right in the train save people money the national average cost per gallon a gallon of gasoline is over two dollars and eighty cents a gallon and i've heard estimates that we will see oil at two hundred dollars a barrel before too long riding the trains saves time money and congestion rail service often delivers passengers directly where they need to go as train stations are more frequently located in city centers and i can tell you from personal experience since i rode the train as recently as this morning that riding the train was a pleasurable experience gave me a chance to read to communicate and even not all for a couple of minutes was really a nice way to travel passengers work on laptops talk on the phone walk around on the train be pr riding the train to help secure our country's future by improving the environment and track trains are on average seventeen percent more fuel efficient than passenger airlines and twenty one percent more fuel than airplanes of the as we have a chart that shows and the trains also save lives if there was ever a moment that demonstrated how much america needed a passion to rail system it was in the wake of nine eleven hurricane katrina and nine eleven when our airports were shut down and check was able to get travelers back to their families this chart really  illustrates graphically what the difference is when traveling by train rather than aircraft and autos and it's something to be admired even though it obscures nine eleven airports were shut down and track was able to get travelers back to their families during hurricane katrina range could have helped evacuate persons from those affected cities if our government was better prepared to influence train set idly by waiting for passengers to come aboard to be taken away from the center of the hurricane but they couldn't get to the train wasn't there to really lend a hand mr president there's great enthusiasm for passionate rail service in america and track record ridership of twenty six million passengers last year can attest to that the potential of new rail cars in our country is enormous efficient rail service between chicago and other midwest cities like st louis detroit cleveland would revolutionize the way that people travel in the entire vital region of our country likewise a proposed rail card to service atlanta charlotte richmond washington and points in between would allow people options besides braving interstate ninety five traffic so mr president if we build the passion to rail services viable reliable and comfortable then he will choose rail as an alternative and tracks records ridership has proven that president thank close this is a victory for anyone who's tired of sitting in traffic or waiting in an airport and today when people work so hard to make a living and often live far away from their home work far away from their homes and i remember a conversation i had with a man who worked in new york city who bought a house fifty miles away from the city he's distraught because the cost for gasoline the cost the time lost and travel away outweighs the advantages that he thought he would have and that's not an uncommon situation i look forward to hearing from our colleague senator carper of delaware who worked so hard and has for many years and he's your frequent user as they say and personal staff when i was first elected to the senate he's been succeeded by beth osborne we still have a great working relationship with him he's a great talent someone who's worked a lot for and not just here and in washington in the senate but sometimes worked a lot for railroads in the past including for amtrak and is a given his experience he was  on another matter but let me just say this i've come from a median that the other end of the capital that may still be going on it was started around two o'clock i stayed for almost an hour and a half and meeting involved  members of organized labor representative organized labor several of the leaders in the house of representatives who have jurisdiction democrat republican over infrastructure over passenger rail and the meeting was driven in part because of the threat of  most for many of the pay raise in about seven or eight years and said not a good situation in fact i think a grossly unfair situation and very much of a sad situation for them and and for for their families my hope part of my encouragement and support for this legislation i think it provides a roadmap going forward for passenger rail service in the in this country in the twenty first century we need a road map as said a lot of others have spoken is why we need to do things differently congestion our highways congestion some support and leadership the defender level at the same time entering into partnerships with state local governments the beauty behind this legislation is the federal government says we're going to take charge and go ahead and and upgrade the northeast corridor bring interstate a good repair  doing that i think we help on least the full potential northeast corridor including these premium hikes the more expensive the trains call they say express which we have created when i was a member of the amtrak board as governor of delaware express to the extent that we could actually let him run it just one hundred miles an hour one hundred ten one hundred twenty it may be something close to one hundred fifty miles an hour there on time performance is now up to about ninety percent we'd like to make it higher to the extent that we can fill up every one of those seats on the cell express trains and we're getting pretty close to that they can be almost a to be spent for for that purpose for capital improvements and track for years has been starved for capital and that is along with providing some pay raises for the workers for the employees first and foremost what we need to do a second major change in this legislation is  for areas outside of the court where there is tennessee whether it's colorado and places where you have some densely populated corridors where the state and local governments would actually like to have high speed rail or higher speed rail trains maybe just for two hundred miles or three hundred miles and provide better service like you doing out of chicago like to doing out on the west coast where ridership is up ten twenty thirty even forty percent states are involved in that partnership with the federal government this legislation says if a governor of a particular state and federal xander and i were both governors were governor funding on the same level as airports and the state is the same level as roads highways bridges and it's the i think that makes a whole lot of sense in the states feel that you know they'd rather spend twenty percent on airports or roads or highways or bridges they can do that but if they think that actually makes some sense as part of the solution they can do that as well with the same kind of incentive i think that's good there's a bunch of a bunch of long distance trains in this country they don't make money they lose money some of them lose quite a bit of money and we have a about fifteen long distance trains in this country what we do is redirect the federal railroad administration in this legislation to take them five at a time five of those long distance train routes next year five the year after that five year after that squabble look at the hard to find out what to do and what you're doing badly what we need to change in order to reduce the amount of money that we're spending to provide passenger rail service in some of those places i don't want to run trains where people don't want to ride them that's now we've got to be of that i think the real the real secret doing well in passenger rail in this country and the other countries find those densely populated corridors there's a bunch of them here a lot of more along the coast over half of people our country live within fifty miles of one of our coasts we have these corridors up and down the east coast from maine down to florida we have in the gulf coast we have up and down the west coast from san diego up to reflected in greater appropriations bills in the house and in the senate so that we can i am tracking not only make the kinds of investments in infrastructure for amtrak rail overhead wires signaling system rolling stock but also to a to say to all these folks that haven't had a pay raise in the last seven years or so we're going to address that inequity too and my hope is we can do all of those in the legislation the passage of this legislation will help us in that direction plus reduce a little bit our dependence on foreign oil plus reduce emissions bad stuff into our air plus reduce the congestion in our airports and our skies and on our highways that would do all that would declare victory the thing i love most about what happened here this week and last week on this bill is  independents in this country and we realize we're not going to agree on everything people realize that we can find things to agree on they want to do that they want to use some common sense they want to find opportunities to work across the aisle and to to make sure that company common sense is reflected whether it's passenger rail service for three or four years in some cases maybe longer than we'd like to remember the issue of internet tax moratorium but it's been a great partner and i especially want to thank him for letting me be his partner and say to the center enzi of wyoming  mr president i thank the senator from delaware he has provided extraordinary leadership as a former chairman of the national governors association on the legislation that was passed let me be specific about what has been done and last thursday the senate worked out a compromise and passed legislation to extend for seven more years the moratorium on the taxation of access to the internet that was called the soon carper amendment the senator from new hampshire the senator from delaware it it was an amendment to the four year extension that the house of representatives passed on over sixteenth by a vote of four hundred five to two i was glad to be a co sponsor of the sununu carper amendment hopefully the house will vote on that legislation today if it has not already so the president can sign it into law before the moratorium expires on november first which is this thursday at the invitation of the senator from delaware let me try to put this accomplishment into a and how do we make this country one for many well not by race or not by descent but because we agree on a few principles we have a common language and we have a common history and that's about it and a very wise professor samuel huntington it at harvard who was a former president of the american political science association said much of our politics is about conflicts between principles with which almost all of us agree for example if we were debating immigration we might say equal opportunity on the one hand rule of law on the other we all agree with both principles but they conflicts so we have an argument and that is what happened here with the question of of whether the federal government should pass a law or extend a moratorium that says that states cities and counties cannot tax access to the internet on the one hand if you've been a governor as senator carper and i have been nothing makes you matter then for members of congress to stand up with a big idea and say let's put this into law let's take credit for it and send the bil the governors to the states in the cities and the counties because usually we find that senator or congressman back home in our states making a big speech about local control at the next lincoln day or jackson or jefferson day dinner so that's the principle of federalis  on the one side no more unfunded federal mandates is what we republicans like to say in fact a whole bunch of republicans including newt gingrich stood up on the united states capitol steps in one thousand nine hundred eighty four and said no more unfunded mandates that we break our promise throw us out the new republican congress passed a law in one thousand nine hundred five s one it was called no more unfunded mandates that's the law of the land if congress wants to order states and local governments to do it congress should pay for it so that was the principle of federalism but on the other hand we had the principle of let's say laissez faire for lack of a better word if you've been in business or helped to start a business is out also have you want as little taxation as possible in as much certainty as possible and as the internet grows and develops from the very beginning it was thought that it ought to be as free as possible from multiple regulations and taxes from a state local government so that produced the kind of debate that often comes to the floor of the senate those saying on the one hand wait a minute let's let's leave the internet alone let's let it grow let's keep the state local governments from taxing it at least from taxing access to it and on the other hand the states the governors and the mayors and the city council one and many of us have been in those positions before saying what miss not the job of the congress to say to colorado or delaware tennessee you must have this service or you can't tax food or you can't tax income or you can't put a sales tax on internet access and in one thousand in two thousand and three in two thousand and four and two we had a huge debate here about the last extension of of the internet access tax moratorium and came to a conclusion and at that time senator carper and i ask the industry of the companies to sit down with the governors the national governors association the national conference of mayors the the national association of counties and take these principles federalism on the one side laissez fair on the other and suggest to us some ways that we could craft legislation that recognize we all agree with both principles but that doesn't get us to a result we need to find a way to put the principles together well that's what this compromise did now let the senator from delaware explain a little more about the details of it but if he doesn't mind i'll go ahead just a few more minutes and and give a couple of examples of why why the compromise is a good idea fundamentally it's a good idea because it cheats these objectives number one three objectives it updates the definition of what we mean by access to the her net updates that definition to it of boys most unfunded federal mandates and other words states that are now collecting in effect a sales tax on access to the internet or in some states a gross receipts tax in general may continue to do that during the next seven years to limited number of states but it's still important to those states and third it provides a after a reasonable period of time we'll come back and take a look at the whole issue we finally decide on seven years here in the senate the house said for so that we can make sure that the definition of internet access hasn't changed so much that the law doesn't apply correctly if anything is likely to change it probably is the internet at the time the telecommunications act was last written in the middle of the one nine hundred ninety s i doubt all respect of most members of the united states senate even knew what the internet did much less used it in one nine hundred ninety eight when the first moratorium on the definition of internet access tax was written all we knew about was a telephone dial up internet yet and by two thousand and four we had to refashion a definition of access to the internet to take into account that suddenly telephone calls were being made over the internet and states and local governments collected billions of dollars in local taxes from telephone services and of the federal government band that then states was either have to raise tuition or raise some other taxes or cut services so we decided in two thousand and four that we didn't really mean to keep states from making the decisions about services and taxation that they'd already made except for the connection of access to the internet and that didn't just favor states and local governments for us to figure that out and be accurate in our definition it also was of great benefit to the industry because for example some states were taxing what's called the backbone of the internet which was not really intended to be left out of the moratorium so this compromise which senator carper senator sununu and many others have worked out i think in the spirit of our country takes two very important principles laissez faire and federalism and notices that they conflict in this question but comes to a reasonable compromise and result and so what we have is an updating of the definition of what we mean by access to the internet what we have is a void for the most part unfunded federal mandates and what we have is a reasonable period of time in which we can come back and revisit the issue to make sure that what was happening in two thousand and seven is still what we mean by the internet in two thousand and fourteen so i'm glad to have been a part of this discussion it went much better this year than it did in two thousand and four when we couldn't come to an agreement for about a year and the reason was because those affected by the entrepreneurs of america and the  and the governors and the county officials helped us a lot by getting together resolving their differences understanding that each side has legitimate points so i'm glad to be a part of it and i'm glad to engage in this colloquy with senator and i salute him for his consistent leadership and for once again demonstrating his ability to to work well with people from many different walks of life and from being willing to work across the aisle when that was necessary to six years ago that we'd ever be able to telephone calls over the internet and in my state in other states as well those state mobile coverage depend on revenues that they raise from telephone services to help pay for schools and help pay for police paramedics manner revenues over the years from the cable services and the taxing cable services that they collect my dad used to say a lot of different you probably everybody here probably remember things your mom and dad said to you over your lifetime one of things one of the many things i remember my dad always saying to my sister and me was that there are two things there are certain life one of them is debt the other is taxes one of the other things that certain life is change particular change with respect to technology and change with respect to how we use the internet one of the beauties of the a compromise it that we've hammered out here with a lot of hard work and support from from the center alexander his staff and we sitting right beside him lindsay from our art side and i specially want to thank bill gent and and chris change this technology is going to be our ability to use the technology in what we do with the network change it'll be different seven years from now than it is right now and it's important for us to have the ability to come back and i would just certainly in order to convince the congress to pass the law that president clinton signed in ninety five no one funded mandates and we worked hard in one thousand nine hundred eighty to make sure that as the federal government came in and kind of stepped on that ninety five collecting you can continue to collect it but watch yourself there and he said the other forty one states if you're not collecting others jurisdictions you are you can't you can't start but the thing that i like about the legislation we respectfully grandfathers one states they can continue to collect taxes as they have in the last really eight or nine years but they can do something new or different and by the same token if they are collecting tax revenues on traditional stuff like  educate our children in my state and other states every other state we have paramedics service in our state statewide permit we have firemen and police and the it's important to me that that the city wellington which i live in they have the revenues that they need to make sure that we're safe in our communities that we pick up the phone for nine eleven and somebody's going to come if we need them we have a fire in my house or a neighbor it's somebody's going to come and put it out and i want to make sure that the that  stunt you must've done a lot because he used to say just use some common sense he must've said that a thousand times school during the time i was a little boy to the time i left and went off to college just used some common sense and i think what we have here my colleague said last week this is a a good not day's work but many months of work but i'm delighted with the outcome and and i thank my colleagues in our colleagues who work with this in our staff for getting us to this point and with the with that i would just say that the senate the house of representatives voted this afternoon they took up on their suspension of the rules the legislation we passed last week they passed a seven year extension of the moratorium on the net access unanimously over four hundred some votes to the not so that that we could feel good about that when from colorado has the legislation that i've co sponsored and number of others sail on an honorable conclusion to the war in iraq and pass that on the american people might notice that with public transportation with the internet and with the war were waiting for us senator to come to the florida speak earlier today senators pass the amtrak and passenger rail bill the vote seventy to twenty two eleven billion dollars for amtrak over seven years including money for local passenger r travel next week senators expected to take up the farm bill reading from congress now a senate conservatives have begun the tedious process of scouring the chamber's two hundred eighty billion dollar farm bill for provisions they can use to lampoon the earmarking process and hopefully pull from the bill earmarks are spending measure measures that are offered by individual members of congress expecting the farm bill on the senate floor next week