Like someone said above, it passed the House by a large margin. I watched some of the Senate hearings on it on CSPAN a few days ago. Everyone I saw was in favor of it and most were saying they wanted these reforms put in place immediately. Some senators were pushing the FAA administrator to move quicker and enact some of this stuff by himself before the bill is even signed into law.

So, my guess is it could be as soon as 2010, or as late as 2013. As the bill is written by the House I think you get 3 years grace period to get the ATP. But, I also think the FAA could move quicker on it's own if it so desired.

In any case, I would be shocked if you didn't need a 1500 hour ATP to get hired to fly part-121 by 2013.