The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“UNANIMOUS-CONSENT AGREEMENT” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Transportation was published in the Senate section on pages S8609-S8612 on June 19, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
UNANIMOUS-CONSENT AGREEMENT
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that during the Senate's consideration of S. 440, the highway bill, the following amendments be the only first-degree amendments in order, that they be subject to relevant second-degree amendments, and that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to a failed motion to table, unless the amendment is described only as relevant, in which case, second-degree amendments would be in order prior to a motion to table.
This agreement has been agreed to by the Democratic side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The list of amendments is as follows:
Baucus: CMAQ eligibility.
Baucus: Managers' amendment.
Baucus: Relevant.
Baucus: Strike Section 117.
Biden: State flexibility (w/Roth).
Biden: Amtrak.
Bond: Relevant.
Boxer: ISTEA project demonstration.
Bumpers: NHS connector route.
Byrd: Relevant.
Byrd: Relevant.
Campbell/Snowe: Helmets.
Chafee/Warner: Managers' amendment.
Cohen: Labor provisions of 13C.
Conrad: Relevant.
Daschle: Metric requirements.
Daschle: Relevant.
Dole: Relevant.
Dorgan: Open container/drunk driving.
Exon: High risk drivers.
Exon: Railroad crossings.
Exon: Truck lengths.
Faircloth: Relevant.
Feingold: Relevant.
Frist: CMAQ funding.
Graham: Relevant.
Graham: Relevant.
Graham: Relevant.
Grams: Private property.
Gregg: Relevant.
Gregg: Relevant.
Hatfield: Authorization of 15 in Oregon.
Inhofe: Single audits.
Inouye: Relevant.
Jeffords: Project review.
Kohl: Grandfathering size/weight trucks Wisconsin route.
Lautenberg: Restore speed limit requirements.
Leahy: Non-interstate NHS routes project review.
Leahy: Relevant.
Levin: Relevant.
Lott: NHS route designation.
Mack: NHS maps.
McCain: Highway demo projects $ out of state allocation.
McCain: Highway demo projects.
McConnell: Tolls.
Moseley-Braun: Motorcycle helmets (w/Snowe).
Murkowski: Designation of Dalton Highway.
Reid: Trucks/speed limit.
Roth: States flexibility to Amtrak funding.
Roth: States flexibility to Amtrak funding.
Roth: States flexibility to Amtrak funding.
Simon: Date of bridge.
Smith: Helmets/seatbelts.
Smith: Helmets/seatbelts.
Stevens: Dalton Highway designations.
Stevens: Right of way designations.
Thurmond: High priority corridors.
Thurmond: High priority corridors.
Thurmond: High priority corridors.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that no amendment dealing with affirmative action be in order during the pendency of S. 440.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Craig). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise today to offer my support for the national highway bill. I believe it is a good bill. But I believe there is one provision of the bill that, quite frankly, needs to be changed. So tomorrow, Senator Lautenberg and I will be offering an amendment to retain the current maximum national speed limit.
The bill as it is currently written totally repeals this law. I believe this action of repealing this law clearly flies in the face of reality, commonsense, logic, and history because I believe that on this issue the facts are in and they are conclusive.
Let us talk a little history. In 1973, 55,000 people died in car-
related fatalities in this country. In 1974, the next year, Congress established the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit.
That is very same year highway fatalities dropped by 16-percent--a 16 percent reduction the very next year after Congress imposed the 55-
mile-per-hour speed limit. Fatalities that year dropped from 55,000--in 1973--to 46,000 in 1974.
Mr. President, according to the National Academy of Sciences, the national speed limit law saves somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 lives every year. So there have been as many as 80,000 lives saved in this country because of this law since 1974.
Mr. President, another historical fact moving forward to 1987: When the mandatory speed limit was amended in 1987 to allow the 65-mile-per-
hour speed limit on some of the rural interstates in this country, the fatalities on those highways went up 30 percent more than had been expected. Increasing the speed limit to 65 miles per hour on rural interstates cost 500 lives per year. Those highways are among the safest roads in America. What happens when we totally repeal that law, totally repeal the 55 miles per hour, not just on the rural interstates but in the urban interstates as well? I think we will continue to see it go up, and it will go up at a much faster rate--the fatalities.
If we were to see just the same increase--30 percent--that we saw on the rural highways in the rest of the interstate system because of this particular law, the Department of Transportation estimates an additional 4,750 people would die every single year.
I think that is clearly not the direction we need to go in in the area of highway safety. I believe that we need to go in the opposite direction because there are obviously far too many Americans dying on the highways of this country every year.
In my home State of Ohio in 1993 a total of 1,482 people were killed in car accidents. Over 20 percent of those accidents were speed related. Nationwide, excessive speed is a factor in one-third of all fatal crashes.
Mr. President, I believe the old adage got it exactly right. Speed does kill. And even if interstate highways were designed for 70-mile-
per-hour travel, people are not. People are not designed to survive crashes at that speed. As speed increases, driver reaction time decreases. The distance the driver needs, if he is trying to stop, increases. When speed goes above 55 miles per hour, every 10-mile-per-
hour increase doubles--doubles--the force of the injury-causing impact. This means that at a 65-mile-per-hour speed, a crash is twice as severe as a crash at 55 miles per hour. A crash at 75 miles per hour is four times more severe.
A speed limit of over 55 is a known killer. Let us face that fact and do the right thing right here as part of this bill. That means I believe voting ``aye'' on the amendment which Senator Lautenberg and I will propose tomorrow. [[Page S 8610]]
I intend to come to the floor again tomorrow to talk at further length about this particular amendment. But I do believe that what we do in this body has consequences. I do not think anyone should be led to believe that passing the bill as it is currently written, passing a bill that flies in the face of 20 years of statistics, 20 years of history, 20 years of saving lives, makes any sense. I think each one of us, as we cast our vote tomorrow on this particular amendment, needs to think about it and needs to think of young people and old people whose lives have been saved over the past 20 years because of this law. To repeal it with no real compelling urgency, and no real need to do this, I think would be a very tragic mistake.
Mr. President, I will, along with my colleague, be offering this amendment tomorrow. I plan on debating this at length tomorrow.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. MOYNIHAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, if the distinguished Senator from Ohio would remain on the floor for just a moment, I would like to congratulate him for his remarks. I will be one of many Senators supporting him. This is very much a part of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991.
But just to add to the remark, the Senator speaks of the fatalities. And could I suggest also that since 1965, when we established the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and began the work on vehicular design and crashworthiness, there has been the whole idea of seat belts, and now, of course, air bags, and the redesigning of the automobiles' interiors and such like; is very important work. Dr. William Haddon, whom I had worked with in Albany in the 1950's, became the first Director of that Administration.
The idea that there are two collisions when a car hits a tree--
nothing gets hurt unless you have a thing about trees. It is when a person in the car--hits the inside of the car that you have a personal injury.
We have done a very great deal of work in this regard over what is now a generation such that collisions which would once have been routinely fatal would now simply be seriously injurious.
When we think of the number of lives that are at risk by raising the speed limit, which I think is the case, we could compound that by a factor, probably of tenfold, of injuries which need not be minor, which can be crippling, can be permanent, can be hugely costly, and can be avoided by maintaining the commonsense regulations we have in place, which we put in place by a long hard process of learning about what really was involved in managing this particularly implicitly dangerous system.
Mr. DeWINE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MOYNIHAN. I am happy to yield.
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I would like to congratulate the Senator from New York not only for his long interest in this area going back for several decades but for the work he has done.
I read an article by the Senator a few months ago talking about the fact that there are really two things we always have to deal with in trying to reduce auto fatalities. And one is driver behavior but the other is the design of the car, and things that are external to that driver.
As the Senator pointed out--I cannot recall whether it was an article or an op-ed piece--tragically it was something that we should not be surprised by. It is easier many times to alter the car, to alter the speed limit, and to do other things than to alter the behavior of the driver. Certainly, the Senator has been a real leader in the efforts to do that, in the efforts to develop the change in design of the car, the seat belts, and air bags, and the other things that every single day are saving lives in this country, not to say that we do not want to continue with the work on driver behavior. It is something that we all have to work on.
But the Senator from New York has been a real leader in this whole area. I want to congratulate him, and I appreciate his comments and am looking forward to working with him on the floor tomorrow.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. It is very generous of the Senator.
Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I join in the commendation of the Senator from Ohio with the effort he is going to undertake tomorrow with the Senator from New Jersey in restoring the speed limit, which the committee of jurisdiction eliminated.
As you know, Mr. President, the speed limit currently is 55 miles an hour on interstates except 65 miles an hour on rural interstates. I think this has worked well. Anybody who has given any thought to this matter has seen the tremendous destruction of lives and equipment and lost time and horrible injuries that have arisen from speeding and the accidents that result therefrom.
Just think of it. In our country, on the highways, 40,000 people a year are killed. That is an astonishing figure. I think the total deaths in Vietnam were something like 57,000, and that is a shocking figure. But that occurred over some 5 years. Every year, 40,000 people are killed. And those are the deaths. I think you can extrapolate something like four times that for the serious injuries; in other words, the people who live but are seriously injured.
And so I think this is no time, Mr. President, to change the speed limit. But it was the view of the Committee on Environment and Public Works that we should change it. I congratulate the Senator from Ohio. It is my understanding, am I not correct, that the Senator will be joining with the Senator from New Jersey to restore the speed limit?
Mr. DeWINE. That is correct.
The thing I point out to the Senate and my colleagues is it is really restoring the status quo. It is restoring it to something that has clearly worked. As the Senator from New York has also pointed out, this has worked. This has saved lives. Without any compelling reason, to turn back the clock and to ignore 20 years of history, over 20 years' demonstrated experience of saving lives, really makes absolutely no sense. I think the consequences of what we do tomorrow are very significant. A lot of times, we do things in this Chamber, and we act as if they are important, but they are really not. What we do tomorrow on this vote will make a difference and lives, I believe, will be affected. I am absolutely convinced the evidence shows that if we raise the speed limit from the national perspective, people will die. People will die who would not have died if we had kept the law the way it is.
That may sound brutally blunt, but I think at times we have to be blunt. And I think the facts clearly show that is what we are talking about. So I appreciate my colleagues' comments very much.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, if I could detain my friend from Ohio and the distinguished chairman just another moment, we say that there are 40,000 lives lost a year on highways. When we began working on the epidemiology of automobile crashes--not accidents; they are not accidents; they are predictable events in a complex system--we were already approaching 50,000 deaths a year. In the interval since we began changing design with passive restraints and such, we cannot have but doubled the number of automobiles and doubled the number of miles, but the number of deaths has actually dropped.
I make a point that this idea of passive restraints, where you build safety into the system, you will find in the Bible. And in the best tradition of this institution, I would like to cite--this was first found by William Hadden, Jr., the Dr. Hadden I mentioned. It is in Deuteronomy, chapter 22, verse 8:
When thou buildest a new house, thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.
It is a simple idea. Have a railing so in the dark you do not step off and land 40 feet below. It is elementally good sense, but it is amazing how much argument it can take, and we shall hear more such argument tomorrow. But I wish the Senator from Ohio great good fortune.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I am impressed by the quote from Deuteronomy, and I think that will help our cause greatly.
Now, Mr. President, I would like to say to the Senator from Ohio that not [[Page S 8611]] only do I commend him for his efforts in connection with the speed limit, but I also would draw his attention to another safety measure that will probably be attempted to be undermined here tomorrow, and that is the legislation we have which passed in 1991 in connection with the interstate transportation legislation fathered by the distinguished Senator from New York, and that legislation encourages States to pass mandatory seatbelt laws and mandatory motorcycle helmet laws.
Every single Senator on this floor, in connection with health, if asked: ``Are you for preventive medicine?'' would say, ``Yes. Sure, certainly I am for preventive medicine.'' But if there ever was preventive medicine of a very dramatic type, it is the mandatory seatbelt laws and the mandatory helmets for motorcyclists.
Let us just take the motorcycle helmets. The correlation between the decline of deaths for motorcyclists and the passage of laws dealing with mandatory helmets absolutely exists. That correlation is there.
Example: California. California, I suppose, has more motorcyclists per capita than any State in the Nation. And the California Legislature, the General Assembly in California three times had passed mandatory helmet laws, but the Governor, prior to Governor Wilson, a Republican, vetoed that legislation, and the veto was not overridden.
Governor Wilson, then a Senator here, sponsored or joined in sponsoring legislation mandating the use of helmets, mandatory helmet laws. He then was elected Governor of California, and as Governor of California, when that legislation mandating motorcycle helmets passed, Governor Wilson signed it, despite the fact that the motorcyclists, some 3,000 or 4,000 strong, circled the capitol in Sacramento protesting. So again Governor--former Senator--Wilson signed the legislation.
Now, what has been the result? The result has been a decline in deaths of motorcyclists of 36 percent, from 1 year to the next. It followed the years following that legislation.
That is extraordinary. There is no reason it can be ascribed to other than that law. Maryland is the same way. Maryland passed the law--a 20 percent decline. And nearly all the populace States have passed that law--Texas, and Florida. I regret that my State has not passed it. We are certainly not one of the more popular States.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Populace.
Mr. CHAFEE. Populace States. Oh, a very popular State, but not populace. And Ohio, likewise, has not passed it. But I have urged the passage of that legislation in my State. Certainly, I am going to vote to retain the requirement--it is not a requirement. What it is is a factor in the law, a provision in the law which says States that do not pass that legislation will have to devote a certain amount of their highway funds to education and training for safety purposes--safety
in helmets, safety in motorcycles, safety in automobiles.
I will be very candid, the States do not like that because it takes some of their highway funds that they would rather spend on highways than on education.
You might ask, ``What is the Federal Government doing in this anyway? Isn't this a States rights matter? Why doesn't the Federal Government stay out of this?''
The reason we are in it, and deeply into it, is because we pay Medicaid. There is not a State where we do not pay 50 percent of Medicaid and, in most instances, pay more than that. So if we are paying the piper, we have a right to call the tune.
These motorcyclists--I will say more on this tomorrow when the amendment comes up--but these motorcyclists who are laid up in hospitals, grievously injured, many in a coma because they have head injuries because they did not wear a helmet, they are being maintained in these hospitals by Medicaid. They do not have fancy insurance policies. They are being maintained by Medicaid, which you and I and you and you and you and the people in the galleries and elsewhere are paying. They are paying the bill.
I think if we are paying the bill, we have a right to require at least that these motorcyclists wear helmets and, to the extent it can be monitored, that the seat belts be used in the vehicles.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Will the distinguished chairman yield for a question?
Mr. CHAFEE. I sure will. I just want to say, I know the Senator from Ohio may be leaving. I am proselytizing him for his vote in connection with that particular measure.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Perhaps he will stay long enough to hear this question.
The distinguished chairman, sometime Secretary of the Navy, was a combat marine in the Second World War; is that not right?
Mr. CHAFEE. That is true.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. A combat marine.
Mr. CHAFEE. Although all marines would say they are a combat marine, since there is no such thing as a noncombat marine.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. When you were in combat with those marines, were there marines who thought it was somehow unmanly to wear helmets?
Mr. CHAFEE. I cannot remember any.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. ``I'm macho, I will take this helmet off.''
Mr. CHAFEE. No; not for long anyway.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank you for the answers to my questions.
Mr. CHAFEE. As a matter of fact, many a marine would be delighted if he could have crawled into his helmet. It somehow had a protective feeling, a helmet.
So, there we are, Mr. President. Unless anybody else has anything further to say, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from New York and I are here. We are ready to do business. There are 15-plus amendments that are on the agreement for tomorrow. I see no reason why we cannot dispose of some of them now. Some might be agreed to, some might be contested, at least they can be debated. We will not have any votes, but it is a good time to have a discussion. I think it is too bad we are whiling away the day here with no action.
As I say, the Senator from New York and I are here and the store is open and looking for customers. So, Mr. President, I hope the call will go out near and wide to come on over and offer your amendments.
Mr. MOYNIHAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I simply would like to restate the request, if I may put it in those terms, certainly the invitation, of our chairman, noting once again Senator Baucus is necessarily absent. We have a long list of amendments. There is work to be done. On the other hand, it could be that people feel the product of the committee is so finely crafted that it would really be superfluous, if not at some level diminishing, to change it now that it has come to the floor, in which event we can be out of here in this regard by noon tomorrow.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 1426
(Purpose: To ensure that High Priority Corridor 18 is included on the approved National Highway System after feasibility study is completed)
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Mr. Bumpers and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New York [Mr. Moynihan], for Mr. Bumpers, proposes an amendment numbered 1426.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
[[Page S 8612]]
SEC. . INCLUSION OF HIGH PRIORITY CORRIDORS.
Section 1105(d) of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (Pub. L. 102-240; 105 Stat 2033) is amended by adding at the end the following:
``The Secretary of Transportation shall include High Priority Corridor 18 as identified in section 1105(c) of this Act, as amended, on the approved National Highway System after completion of the feasibility study by the States as provided by such Act.''
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, this is a clarifying amendment. It establishes that high-priority corridor 18 is in fact included in the National Highway System. This had been a presumptive fact, but circumstances have arisen which make it prudent and in the interest of the State of Arkansas that this be so stated in statute.
I believe this amendment will be agreed to.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, the Members on this side are in agreement with this amendment and urge its adoption.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no further debate on the amendment, the question is an agreeing to the amendment.
The amendment (No. 1426) was agreed to.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. CHAFEE. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed for 5 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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