Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Full Business Meeting
Tuesday 7/21/09, 10:00am, Russell 253

Summary

This markup session was convened primarily to deal with transit funding reauthorization measures, and a number of other matters were dispensed with in the meantime. Almost all of the details at hand were worked out beforehand and behind the scenes, except for one single amendment in the FAA reauthorization bill. Everything was reported out favorably by voice vote immediately after opening statements, and Chairman Rockefeller even had to apologize to the audience for the stunning lack of transparency evident in the process.

The unresolved amendment, introduced by Cantwell and modified by Warner, was somewhat mundane, pertaining to an increase in the number of takeoff/landing slots at Reagan National Airport. Nevertheless, it did generate a considerable amount of engaged debate on the merits. Sen. Ensign had a competing amendment regarding the same matter, but pulled it in favor of further negotiation when the bill reaches the full Senate. Probably because of Sen. Ensign’s opposition to the Cantwell/Warner amendment, most Republicans voted no in the ultimate roll call vote and the amendment failed 12-13. There was some immediately ensuing procedural confusion as to what the Senators had just voted on, but that was quickly resolved.

Topics

1) S.1274 - the American Communities’ Right to Public Information Act
2) S.1451 – Federal Aviation Administration Air Transportation Modernization & Safety Improvement Act (aka FAA program funding reauthorization)
3) An Act to Extend the Programs of SAFETEA-LU for an 18-Month Period (aka surface transportation funding extension – a reauthorization postponement the House has strongly opposed, but the Administration supports with some caveats). There is no formal bill number for this measure as of yet.

1)      Polly Trottenberg, to be Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy of the United States Department of Transportation
2)      Deborah A.P. Hersman, to be Chairman and Member (Reappointment) of the National Transportation Safety Board
3)      Richard A. Lidinsky, Jr., to be Commissioner of the Federal Maritime Commission (PN 623)
4)      Meredith Attwell Baker, to be a Member of the Federal Communications Commission
5)      Mignon L. Clyburn, to be a Member of the Federal Communications Commission

Hearing Review

The major topic of this markup session was the FAA reauthorization package, which is a key responsibility of the Senate Commerce committee. While jurisdiction over surface transportation is shared with a number of committees, most notably Environment & Public Works, jurisdiction over air transportation seems to fall almost exclusively to this committee. This measure received most of the time and attention of the committee members in this meeting, and one amendment in particular generated a considerable amount of controversy.

This was one of the stranger committee business meetings I have seen. I also spoke with one veteran lobbyist who had never seen a markup conducted in the particular way this one was. Perhaps this is a normal style for Commerce under Rockefeller, but it was clear that the process confused many of the folks in the room, including a few Senators.

The hearing started normally. Chairman Rockefeller gave a 5-minute opening statement in which he outlined the day’s agenda, and made clear that the FAA authorization would be the main point of focus. He thanked the Senators who played a key role in crafting that bill – Hutchison, Dorgan, DeMint and himself. He stated there is an urgent need to modernize the air transport system – we are currently behind Mongolia. He also declared his support for the SAFETEA-LU extension, mainly on the grounds that Majority Leader Reid had asked for a “clean” bill out of all relevant committees.

Ranking Member Hutchison also supports the FAA reauthorization as a whole, but is concerned about a few provisions. Unfortunately I did not catch exactly what those provisions were. She is less supportive of an 18-month surface transportation extension, believing it is both too long to delay and that certain trucking and safety concerns should be addressed immediately. She did note the need to replenish the almost-insolvent highway trust fund, but openly wondered whether the HTF is still even necessary. As a donor state (albeit far less than many other states), Texas should not have to subsidize other states, and states should be able to take care of their own road maintenance needs.

Senator Dorgan, the chair of the Aviation Subcommittee, lauded the new reauthorization plan. It is a 2-year authorization to allow time for the new FAA administrators to implement basic and needed initial reforms. His favorite new initiative was a move to a new GPS tracking system called NextGen. However, many good provisions were left out because of the need to pass a bill with broad bipartisan support and little controversy.

Senator DeMint basically concurred with Dorgan’s sentiments and was happy they were able to craft a bill without much controversy or acrimony.

At this point, the hearing started to deviate from the norm. Hutchison moved to report ALL matters before the committee favorably, including the FAA bill as amended. The motion was approved by unanimous consent, and the proceeding voice vote then passed with no objections. So that was that, hearing over, right?

Well, not quite. The as amended part had not been dealt with yet. In other words, they passed the bills and nominees out of committee with the understanding that amendments would be considered immediately afterwards and included in the committee report. Only then did they tackle amendments to the FAA reauthorization bill.

At that point, Rockefeller gave a quick overview of the bill and announced the amendments to be considered, mostly en masse. He announced 13 member amendments that were to be voted on, and brought them all to a vote by unanimous consent. All 13 amendments were then approved with a single voice vote. Rockefeller then brought up 11 more amendments that had been modified by committee leadership/staff, and those were also approved in a single vote. Now that’s efficiency. Noting the somewhat confused audience of mostly lobbyists and entry-level Hill staffers, Chairman Rockefeller took a step back for a minute and acknowledged that they had worked everything out behind the scenes. He sort of apologized for conducting business in such a non-transparent manner.

The debate turned to the main issue of the day, Sen. Cantwell’s amendment to increase the number of takeoff/landing slots in Reagan National Airport. Cantwell gave an opening statement in which she basically claimed Western states were being punished by not having enough access to this very convenient airport. Sen. Ensign had a counterproposal that would allow for trading of slots among airlines in different metro-region airports. He liked his version because it allowed for a more market-oriented approach. Sen. Warner, whose state plays host to the airport in question, introduced a modification to Cantwell’s amendment that would make it more accommodating to Virginians in the path of the potentially expanded airport. Boxer chimed in to say she worked with Ensign on his amendment, but will support all amendments that come before the committee. Dorgan stated that he chose not to address the issue in the reauthorization language because it was controversial, but he would support the Cantwell/Warner amendment. Ensign announced he would oppose Cantwell/Warner in hopes of reaching a compromise before the full Senate, but would pull his own amendments from immediate consideration. Lautenberg chimed in on his own pet issue by saying they wouldn’t need more plane slots if there was a nationwide high speed rail network.

Finally, they went to a roll call on the Cantwell amendment, as modified by Warner. The bill went roughly down partisan lines, although a few Democrats (Kerry, Klobuchar and Pryor) and Republican Johanns defected. As it turned out, those two net Democratic defections were enough to defeat the amendment, 12-13. A couple votes switched at the last minute, which complicated matters; Kerry’s switch from yea to nay (by proxy) in particular was an intriguing one.

As the committee clerk announced the results of the vote, a murmur arose among the audience, which seemed to have expected passage. Rockefeller immediately proceeded to announce a roll call vote for the original underlying Cantwell amendment, at which point Ensign all but cut him off midsentence. He angrily expressed an impression that the Cantwell amendment had just been defeated, which meant there was no reason to have another vote on the same measure. This touched off a somewhat disjointed stretch in which various senators attempted to figure out exactly what they had just voted on. Since Rockefeller ultimately wields the authority to make such decisions, he maintained that Cantwell had the ability to request a vote on the underlying amendment without the Warner modification. He suggested they have a voice vote as a compromise, and everyone including Cantwell seemed to settle on that idea. They did so, and although the yeas and nays sounded quite similar in volume (probably reflective of another very close vote), Rockefeller immediately proclaimed that it sounded to him that the noes won, and that was that. Cantwell maintained that she would continue fighting for her measure on the Senate floor.

Warner did have an amendment to the surface transit bill related to data collection and performance evaluation, but he pulled it from consideration given the Chair’s desire for a “clean” extension. At that point, it was all over but the closing statements.

My general takeaway was one of puzzlement. It was unclear whether the intention of leadership was for the Cantwell amendment to fail or whether they had no general position. These sort of situations are hard to read because one never knows what sort of backroom dealing is at play to influence the vote decisions of individual members. Overall, this markup was a valuable reminder that Senate process is often very difficult to understand for outside observers, even those who are familiar with the issues at hand.

Attendees

Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Chair
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Ranking Member
Mark Begich (D-AK)
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Sam Brownback (R-KS)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Jim DeMint (R-SC), Aviation Subcommittee Ranking Member
Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Aviation Subcommittee Chair
John Ensign (R-NV)
Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Mike Johanns (R-NE)
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Mel Martinez (R-FL)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
Tom Udall (D-NM)
David Vitter (R-LA)
Mark Warner (D-VA)
Roger Wicker (R-MS)

National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee

June 24, 2009

Witnesses:

Lt. Gen. Wallace “Chip” Gregson (USMC, Retired), Assistant Secretary of Defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Ambassador

Richard Holbrooke, Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan

*All statements, unless otherwise noted, come from Holbrooke

Overall comments

Committee members emphasized that tax payer dollars must be well-spent. Holbrooke agreed. Gregson argued that the new strategy was the only possible course of action: we cannot rely on containment of Afghanistan and Pakistan issues because this is simply not possible in the age of globalization; we must focus more on activities related to nation-building.

Interagency efforts

Holbrooke explained that the Special State Department office which he heads has been created to integrate efforts of DoD, CIA, Treasury, FBI, Agriculture, USAID, DHS, DoJ, and UK Foreign Office. He mentioned Gates’ statement that this is a “genuine whole-of government effort.” Both witnesses argued that we cannot separate civilian and military efforts—civilians have a unique mission but are dependent on military for security; one recent integrated plan involved formulating cohesive approach to agriculture issues with USDA, USAID, and DoD. The government has developed metrics to evaluate performance in Afghanistan and Pakistan but these were created by other offices and are not yet publicly available; fundamental point with metrics is to distinguish between inputs and outputs (must focus on measuring outputs). In Afghanistan, US will insert civilian leaders to deal specifically with military, but only applies to US Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs); lead must still be taken by military. After personal appeals of senior leaders, e.g. Secretary Clinton, many people throughout government offered to fill civilian capacity positions; e.g. recruited Pakistani-American female doctors to work in Pakistan’s refugee camps. These efforts led to 800 volunteers for civilian surge from State, another 305 from DoD – ‘these are quality people’.

Oversight of Contracts

Holbrooke’s office is re-evaluating all current contracts in Afghanistan and has put on hold and re-negotiated hundreds of poorly designed and funded contracts with both for-profit and non-profit firms. Ex: Creation of office for women’s rights in DoS will replace $30 billion in contracts with non-profits. Both witnesses acknowledge the need for greater accountability and transparency in the interagency effort.

Pakistan

Pakistan is a clear strategic priority and a country with which the US must be involved, though the Pakistani government has rejected the idea of any US ground troops, so we must find different ways to support their efforts against the Taliban. Holbrooke noted that all elements of the Pakistani political spectrum (Zardari camp, Sharif camp, and military) now recognize and are committed to action against the threat that the Pakistani Taliban poses. Holbrooke would support expansion of aid monitoring in Pakistan; Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) not expansive enough (must apply to both Afghanistan and Pakistan) and must be totally independent from executive branch – this was Holbrooke’s personal opinion and not administration policy. H. noted that Obama was first leader involved in Pakistani refugee crisis; Secretary Clinton designated $110 M and more in supplemental, but US is funding 55% of effort (rest of world has not sufficiently responded, event after personal appeals by US senior government officials).

Afghanistan

H.  on narcotics: Efforts in Afghanistan aimed at stopping the drug trade are hugely important; US will cease crop eradication because of negative impact on subsistence farmers (potential for turning to Taliban) but increase interdiction efforts. Narcotics is the major source of funding for low-level Taliban in Afghanistan. Other beneficiaries include corrupt Afghan government officials and police. They are also funded by extortion and other illegal activities. Sufficient security is required to ensure that alternative crops are more profitable than drugs (improved transportation network, protection from extortion).  Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda are primarily funded by foreign support – mostly from individuals in the gulf – the US is currently working with international partners on this issue.

Strategic communications are essential; all propaganda from enemy is negative about US and US must have counter-propaganda but not with an “American accent” (must recruit locals).

Afghan presidential elections are in 55 days; US is emphasizing fairness but not endorsing any one candidate.

Gregson: All commanders and air crews recognize the need to avoid civilian casualties; in risking civilian casualties commanders must balance objective and risk of increased extremism. Gregson: US currently conducting another assessment of Afghan strategy after McChrystal appointment; must recognize need for whole-of-government and whole-of-nations approach.

*Both witnesses specifically shied away from questions on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and on drone strikes, citing confidentiality.  Holbrooke did note that it was his understanding (2^nd hand) that while the release of A.Q .Khan was of interest, he was no longer a threat because he has been disregarded by Gov. of Pakistan and is aging. U.S. should have been allowed to interrogate him.