Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, could I ask the time remaining please.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Kansas (Mrs. Boyda), the author of the legislation, who's made an extraordinary commitment so early in her career.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson). (Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we have before us very important legislation. It is bad enough that NAFTA has caused the United States to hemorrhage more than 1 million jobs; but now the administration with the NAFTA trucks proposal would add insult to injury. Not only would it put in jeopardy more American jobs, those of American truck drivers, but it would also jeopardize the safety of the traveling public on America's highways. I want to congratulate Representative Boyda for bringing such an important issue to the Congress so early in her congressional career and Representative Hunter on the other side of the aisle for his contributions to this issue and to this legislation. We have here what is called a SAP. It is a statement of administration policy. They take us for saps if they believe we will believe the information they have conveyed to us in this letter. They say that the safety standards, including hours of service, driver medical standards, financial responsibility, and drug and alcohol testing, will all be remedied by their program. There is and are no hours of service regulations in Mexico. We have heard anecdotal evidence from Mexican truck drivers that they are often forced, as they are exploited down there working for relatively low wages compared to truck drivers in the U.S., to drive for 48 to 72 hours at a stretch. How do they do that? They laugh and they say ``dust.'' What is dust? Drugs, uppers. They are commonly used in Mexico. There are no meaningful hours of service regulation. There is no drug testing in Mexico, and illegal substances are frequently used for these extended trips. But the administration would have us believe that by signing a piece of paper and waving a magic wand and having in place paper provisions on drug and alcohol testing or hours of service, that these things will happen meaningfully. Suddenly, there will be a tremendous change in the culture of the American trucking industry. They go on to say there will be an in-depth safety inspection before they are allowed to operate in the United States. Well, that is interesting because in testimony before my committee recently, the administration admitted that when a new bus carrier, and we are having a problem with illegally run bus service, what is called ``curb service'' here in the Northeast, it takes them up to 18 months to get out and certify that company actually exists and look at the papers in a filing cabinet. They never go out and look at the buses. Never. We have the same thing going on with the American trucking industry. Only a tiny fraction of trucks are inspected on an annual basis. But somehow, magically, an agency that is totally overwhelmed by the volume of traffic is going to inspect each and every truck meaningfully in Mexico, inspect the credentials of the Mexican truck drivers in depth, certify the nonexistent drug testing programs, and certify tracking of the nonexistent hours of service in Mexico. And then they say that this will all be made available to the American public. Here is the form in which it is made available. It is right here in the Federal Register. They are saying we are requiring publication, and they say it would be redundant to have all of the safety audits in detail published in the Federal Register because they put up this page. It has a date. That is good. That is a good start. It is up for 7 days, by the way. And in order to access this page, you have to know the MX docket number. You have to know the particular docket number of that Mexican carrier. You have to know specifics to get nonspecific information that will only be posted for 7 days. And if you get through that maze and you happen to hit the 7-day window, because it goes down after 7 days, I guess they don't have enough memory capacity down there at DOT to leave it up longer for the public to review to, you get this, a form that has the applicant information, business address, and status. Quote: ``Provisional authority issued.'' That is the in-depth information that FMCSA is going to put up for the American public to review to understand that these audits are being conducted and these carriers are safe. We need this legislation so we can be assured that we are protecting the safety of the American public. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1773.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1773) to limit the authority of the Secretary of Transportation to grant authority to motor carriers domiciled in Mexico to operate beyond United States municipalities and commercial zones on the United States-Mexico border, as amended.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentlelady for the time. Mr. Speaker, the ranking Republican on the other side said there is no other reason for this than to make room for the fiscal year 2008 spending. No, this is the unfinished business of the 109th Congress, the Republican Congress led by the Republican President in the White House, who allowed county and school payments to lapse without lifting a finger. Nothing was done. 780 counties are on the brink of losing essential services, closing jails, laying off deputy sheriffs, no rural law enforcement, no public health, other essential services jeopardized, thousands of jobs. 4,400 rural schools, already underfunded, struggling to make ends meet for their kids, are going to lose money if these payments aren't renewed. And the President says that does not meet any reasonable definition of an emergency. Well, I guess if you live in the White House and you ride in motorcades protected by the Secret Service and you fly in a private 747, you're not too worried about cops in rural areas. You're not too worried about public health. You get free health care up at Walter Reed. You're not too worried about educating the Nation's kids and the kids in rural areas. But I am, and I represent that district. This is long overdue. This is an emergency. And then for them to denigrate the emergency assistance to the fishermen? We had to drag the administration kicking and screaming last year to finally declare an emergency when they closed down the season and people couldn't work and they are losing their boats. Now they say it is unwarranted funding for the fishermen. How distant from the reality of the American people can you get? Twice in one day we have tried to bring this President back to Earth, on a new course in Iraq and on the needs of the American people here at home.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. As I speak on the floor today, across America citizens are being gouged at the gas pump once again. Every year, as certain as Memorial Day is celebrated at the end of this month, the oil industry jacks up prices. On the west coast in Oregon, I paid $3.43 a gallon for regular in Springfield. My colleague, Greg Walden, paid $3.99 on the east side of the mountains. The local paper accounts for this by saying ``unexpected refinery maintenance.'' Hmm. Maybe they could schedule maintenance at a different time of year. No, that wouldn't be quite so profitable for the industry. In fact, the industry has been colluding for more than a decade to close down refinery capacity so they can have these wonderful price spikes and gouge American consumers. There was an industry memo back then saying how the refinery sector wasn't particularly profitable, but through mergers the industry has managed to do away with more than 100 refineries. Now we have a refinery shortage. And if they just close one down to sweep the floors, the price of gas goes up 20 cents a gallon and the industry execs cry all the way to the bank and to their bonuses. This has to stop. We have to get back in charge of this industry. We've got to break up these huge conglomerates. Start with a moratorium on further mergers. Break 'em up. Impose a windfall profits tax. Unless they invest in more refinery capacity, unless they invest in new fuels or energy efficiency, confiscate the money from them through a windfall profits tax which they have taken from the American consumers through price- gouging and reinvest it to bring down prices and make this country more energy-efficient in the future. We need both a short-term and a long- term strategy to deal with this industry. We have to take on the OPEC cartel. Now, this President is all about free trade. All about free trade. He wants more free trade agreements. Seven of the members of OPEC are in the World Trade Organization, highly touted by this President as a rules-based trade organization to promote free trade. They are conspiring and colluding among themselves and with Big Oil to jack up the price of oil. That's illegal under the WTO. Why won't President Bush file a complaint against OPEC? Perhaps because he's a little too tight with the Saudis, the royal family that runs that country and others. And they obviously, as well as industry execs, are profiting immensely from this situation. We need to, as I said earlier, ban further mergers. My bill would establish a commission to study market power and suggest remedies to that. To me the simplest remedy is antitrust and to break up some of these giant conglomerates and again begin to bring a little bit of competition back to this industry. The windfall profits tax I mentioned earlier, impose a windfall profits tax on these folks and take that money and reinvest it in energy efficiency and new fuels and research unless they will spend the money on energy efficiency, new fuels, and refinery capacity which is needed in this country. If we don't take action, it isn't going to happen. ExxonMobil is making $4.6 million per hour, $109 million per day, $3.2 billion a month and $40 billion last year. One corporation. Last quarter they set yet another record. And you can bet with the price-gouging going on today, they're going to set yet another record. Every quarter is a new record. But the President talks about free market forces. These aren't free market forces. These people are conspiring to gouge the American consumers and drive up prices at the pump. We need real price relief soon. This Congress must act and the President must stop stonewalling and protecting his friends both domestically and internationally who are involved in the oil cartel.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I paid $3.43 a gallon for gas in Springfield, Oregon. My colleague Greg Walden paid $3.99 on the east side of the Cascades. Something a little fishy here because, a year ago today, oil prices were $66.85 a barrel. Today, they are $63 a barrel. The price of crude oil is down, but the price of gasoline at the pump is up, way up. And what is the cause? They say, oh, well, we forgot, we had to clean and maintain the refineries, and gee, we've had to shut 'em down. Does this remind anybody else of Enron? Enron/Exxon, they're interchangeable. Enron would shut down plants to drive up the cost of electricity and make wild profits. Exxon and the other big oil companies are doing the same thing. They're using refinery repairs and maintenance as an excuse to price-gouge the American people. Congress needs to stop the price gouging now.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. The Republican minority would say take the advice of the professionals. Well, if this administration had taken the advice of the military professionals, remember General Shinseki, ``400,000 troops on the ground or you'll have an insurgency,'' they fired him because he talked about reality. From day one they've been dumb: firing Shinseki; delusional: ``we'll be greeted as liberators'' and the war will be short; and deliberately deceptive: Saddam Hussein had links to 9/11 and they had weapons of mass destruction. It's time for a change in course. They want status quo, stay the course. It's not working. Our troops are mired in the middle of a civil war. Someone needs to take the role of leadership here. It's not going to be Bush and Cheney. It can be the United States Congress reasserting itself as a third co-equal branch of government and the only branch which has the authority to declare war and set limits. Yes, set limits on a war, and bring it to an end.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have made much on the talk shows of the last 2 weeks saying the Congress--the Democrats--are trying change direction in Iraq and should listen to the military professionals. Now, if only this administration had taken its own advice. If they had listened to the military professionals and the intelligence professionals, we would never have gone to war in Iraq. The trail of this administration to the sad fourth anniversary of Mission Accomplished is littered with professional, military and intelligence advice that was either ignored, discarded or deliberately distorted. There were no links to 9/11 and al Qaeda. That was recently declassified in a report on April 6 of this year. There were no weapons of mass destruction, despite statements from the likes of Vice President Cheney. ``We believe Saddam has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons.'' 3/16/2003. The war has drug on for 4 long years since the President--dressed as a fake fighter jock--landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier and declared Mission Accomplished. Since that day, more than two U.S. soldiers have died every day for 1,460 days. Three thousand three hundred forty-two have died, 3,205 since George Bush proclaimed mission accomplished. Now, they have been so wrong all along with their inside advice, their made-up intelligence, their own neocon theories. They were wrong about, again, ``We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. I think it will go relatively quickly, weeks rather than months.'' Vice President Cheney. 3/16/2003. ``We're dealing with a country that can finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.'' 3/27/2003, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, who was promoted to the World Bank so he could get his girlfriend a job. He was kind of wrong, too. Now the scandals are unfolding about what little reconstruction has been done and how poorly it was done. But Halliburton has benefited tremendously--over $25 billion of no-bid contracts which has probably boosted Vice President Cheney's portfolio quite a bit. So there have been some successes in this effort. Our troops have done everything that was asked, many of them now on their second and third tour of duty. They are mired in the midst of a 1,400-year-old sectarian conflict--a civil war. The Iraqi government has delivered on no promises to take meaningful steps to end that civil war. There is not a singular military solution to this conflict. There must be a political solution in Iraq. There must be diplomacy in the region. And yes to the President and the Vice President--we need a new direction. And this Congress is listening to the professionals. Unfortunately, mostly we have to hear from the retired generals and the others because those who are still in uniform are being gagged by this administration from giving their true opinions about the changes that are necessary to extract our troops from the midst of that conflict. This is a sad fourth anniversary. But it is the first anniversary of attempts by this Congress to stand up for its constitutional obligations and begin to try and change course, to end the stay-the- course, open-ended commitment of George Bush and Dick Cheney who have been wrong every step of the way. Someone else needs to push for change in Iraq, because it will never come from this White House.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, Bush, Cheney and their Republican apologists here in Congress say ``hands off their war. Leave it to the professionals.'' Well, if they followed their own advice, we wouldn't be at war in Iraq. Remember Cheney and Scooter Libby, who is on his way to prison, phonying up intelligence, overruling the intelligence and military professionals, saying there was a threat, that there were weapons of mass destruction? They didn't exist. Then they fired General Shinseki because he had the temerity to suggest if we didn't put in 400,000 troops, there would be a massive insurgency and a civil war. They fired him. If they had not fired General Shinseki, if they followed his professional advice, our troops wouldn't be mired in the middle of a civil war; and Paul Bremer disbanding the Iraq Army, de-Baathification, against all professional military and intelligence advice. Now the Republican lapdogs have the temerity to say ``hands off Bush's war. Let the professionals run it.'' Well, it is time for some adults to step in here and really take advice from the professionals and get our troops out of the middle of this civil war.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. First, since the gentleman from Georgia wouldn't allow me to correct his mischaracterization of my position, I guess we are having a little issue over the meaning of the word ``fix.'' Now, if he means ``fixed'' as in ``setting,'' that is, setting the salary, he is totally wrong. I never said that, and that is not what this bill would do. It would just allow a referendum by the owners of the company on the package being paid to the corporate executive. Now, if he means ``fixed'' in terms of what he stated on his own, he said some are greater than warranted and then he talked about correction; if we are talking about that kind of ``fix,'' he is absolutely right, and that is what this bill would do. It would allow the stockholders a vote. He doesn't want to allow them to vote on that compensation. Then how are you going to fix it? That is extraordinary. Now, Mr. Putnam makes an interesting argument. This poor CEO, whoever he was who totally underperformed who would receive compensation under his amendment that would be exempt from a vote, saw his compensation, having screwed up the corporation and making the board of directors mad and underperforming, losing money for the stockholders. He didn't get that $6.75 million. He only got $3 million. Wow. He was penalized. Well, maybe the stockholders would rather he was fired and he got nothing. Three million bucks for screwing up. That is not exactly a corrective action. I don't know what world you folks live in over there, but for people in my district, that would be like winning the lottery big. Three million bucks. And this is for a guy who didn't do his job properly. And that is the kind of, and that would be exempt from the stockholders, because that is corrective action. He only got three million. Don't worry. He only got three million. And only three million came out of your assets to go to this guy who lowered the value of your investment and messed up the company, probably fired a bunch of workers and who knows what else he did that messed things up. So it is just extraordinary. So now you are getting in the weeds here. You are actually determining what sorts of compensation would be voted on and what wouldn't. You are getting into fixing something, regulating something. We are just saying we want to allow a referendum. It is kind of the democratic process that most of us understand around here. If people are part of a public corporation, they should get a vote on executive compensation. They should also be allowed to put other measures before the board in a meaningful way. But the Republicans apparently don't believe in corporate democracy.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. That was an extraordinary and revealing exchange. I was also going to point out that Mr. Price was supporting the recent mandatory rulings of the Republican-run SEC for disclosure, but then deprive the public, the stockholders, from being able to do anything meaningful once they find out about scandalous levels of executive compensation or board compensation. Everyone talks about the board as the remedy. The board is often a part of the problem, being paid huge amounts of money for showing up once or twice a year at meetings. So, now, I mean, at least this is a little more honest. They don't even want the stockholders to be able to find out how much the executive is being paid, out of fear that somehow they might be able to do something about it, I guess. I mean, this is absolutely extraordinary. I heard some other things. They say, if a corporation feels it is warranted, the gentleman from Georgia says, they can vote on executive salary. Oh, the board, who got a sweet deal, who are supporting the CEO who has got a sweet deal, if they feel it is warranted, they will allow those little peons, the stockholders, to vote on it. This is America. These are public corporations. Now, would the gentleman say if someone inherits some stock, or someone has been a lifelong investor in a company, and there is a coup by some corporate raiders, and they install a board, and they just start dumping an excessive, as the gentleman said, sometimes greater than warranted salary on a CEO, that they should not have the power to do something about it? He says, well, you know, they can elect other people to the board. Well, no, because the election to the board process is fixed too. You get either to vote for the nominees or withhold. But if they get a single vote, and their buddy sitting next to them is going to vote, they will get their own stock for themselves. They are elected to the board. Ninety-nine percent of the people may have withheld, 99.999 may have withheld. That one person votes for himself. He is still on the board. That is the way the rules work now. Apparently you think that is just fine. You admit that there is excessive salary being paid here, excessive compensation. No one can look at those numbers and say that they aren't, the gentleman even admitted, greater than warranted in some cases. Well, then, give the stockholders a meaningful remedy. That is all we are doing here. We are just saying, it is not even mandatory, just that you can have, once you get the mandatory disclosure put in place by the Republicans, we Democrats are saying the stockholders should be allowed to have a referendum on that and not have a runaround by the board or not have their capability to put a measure before the corporation denied by the board. I have a major stockholder of Bank of America stock in my district, and he has been constantly frustrated in attempting to move forward questions about board compensation, about executive compensation, about governance. And he is a major stockholder, as are the rest of his family. But he is thwarted. It is a little bit like the old Soviet Union: They are in charge, they don't have to listen to him. It is not democratic. But the gentleman from Georgia says, well, sell your stock. That is a great remedy. Let the corporate raiders take it over, sell your stock. Now, come on. Give people recourse. And, you know, the reason that some investors are going to Europe is because they have more regulation in Europe and they have less excessive compensation to boards and CEOs, and they know that their dollars and/or pounds or Euros are being better cared for within that investment. That is why we are losing people overseas, not because of disclosure of excessive compensation or the possibility stockholders might be able to vote on it.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, in response to the gentleman from Arizona, we have added the risk element which wasn't there previously. And he is right. We are still confronted with the Bush administration. But I feel that the new TSA administrator is the best we have ever had, and let's give him the tools he needs to do his job properly. Risk-based, competitive grants. If he doesn't find there is risk in the intercity bus service, then he shouldn't give out the grants. I think he will find plenty of meritorious, risk-based, competitive grants that will help better protect the traveling public in this vital mode of transportation.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. First, to correct the gentleman, it is not a new program. It is an ongoing program. However, we are going to add an element. No longer will it just be competitive. It will be risk-based. Now, he is true. On the Republican watch, when they controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House, there were scandalous and wasteful expenditures of funds by the early startup of the Department of Homeland Security, which actually I opposed creating that giant new bureaucracy. I thought we could have done it in a much more effective way. However, I serve on the committee now that has jurisdiction over that. We are cleaning up the mess you guys created. This is a risk- based program. It is competitive. Now, are we are telling the 800 million people a year who ride buses in the U.S. they are third or fourth class? The gentleman says it is a private undertaking; they shouldn't even be able to get risk-based competitive grants. Well, would you abandon aviation security, too? That is also a private industry. Rail? Well, most of that is private, with the exception of Amtrak. All of maritime is private, so I guess we will sort of abandon the ports. If you follow that principle to its illogical conclusion, we would not spend public taxpayer dollars to defend any mode of transportation in this country, with very narrow exceptions. That is not the criteria that we need to apply here: risk-based, competitive. Now, what happened after 9/11? How did people get around the country? We need alternate modes. An important Federal official was here on 9/11. He had to get back to Oregon. He took Amtrak. Other people took the bus system. So you have got to understand redundancy. You have got to understand risk. And, hopefully, we will provide the oversight that was lacking before to make sure that we don't have any more of those scandalous things that he talked about. Those are the past. That was on the all-Republican watch. We will do better.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, the simple answer to Mr. Flake is, this saves the taxpayers money. And I know that is a concern to the gentleman. We have here certified breeding stock that was donated to the Government of the United States of America by the Australian Customs Service that has a great line of dogs that are easily trained and have a low failure rate once they reach maturity. The gentleman obviously doesn't know much about dogs. And in fact, I would say there might even be a security risk. There are not a lot of breeders in the U.S. who are training for this specific purpose. In fact, many police agencies now have to buy their dogs from Germany. Remember the Hamburg cell? Do you want them infiltrating our dog program, maybe with secret German commands that we don't know? I mean, come on. This is a national security issue, to have a little fun with the gentleman. But the point is, these dogs are great stock. It is less expensive. They go to a foster home for a year. That isn't a year that you would have to pay for with a breeder, and then they get their final training. They have a very low failure rate. That again saves money for the program. We are saving money here. We are providing a vital service. The gentleman doesn't strike the previous section of the bill, 201, which requires a dramatic increase in dogs for the program, which is fully warranted because they are extraordinarily effective deterrents, and they are very good at detecting problems, explosives, drugs and other contraband. So I would say that the gentleman really should withdraw his amendment if he is interested in saving the taxpayers money. Privatization for private profits' sake is not the way to serve our taxpayers and our security well in this matter.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. George Bush and the Republicans have spent our country to the verge of bankruptcy. They have doubled our foreign debt. They have increased our national debt by 60 percent. George Bush has accumulated more debt than every President who preceded him in the United States of America and they have done it on the credit card. And guess who is going to get the bill in their world after they eliminate taxes for the wealthy? It's going to be the middle class, and they're going to get hit twice. They're going to get the bill, and their kids and grandkids are going to get the bill. And the programs that middle-income Americans need like tuition assistance for their kids to go to college, the Bushies cut those. That's their sense of fiscal responsibility. The other side over here, the gentleman from North Carolina is saying, oh, the largest tax increase in history. No. We're allowing the tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, people who earn over $250,000 a year, people who have estates worth more than $5 million, we're asking that once again they pay their fair share. There will not be a penny increase on middle-income families. They can make up anything they want, but it's not true. But, yes, the wealthy would pay a little bit more. That's why they're squealing so much, because the Republicans get their money from the wealthy to try and maintain control of our country.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) for his leadership as chairman of the full committee as we went through that process in the last Congress, and also the fact that he is willing to get out front at the beginning to begin to try to address what is actually an investment deficit so far as it goes to transportation in the United States, something that can be easily recognized if one travels to other countries and sees how committed they are, particularly to competitors like China and the investments they are making which are absolutely on a massive scale to make their economy more efficient to move their people more efficiently. We need to not only maintain what we have and live on the benefits of our past investment; we need to ensure more robust future investments. I assure the gentleman I have begun a series of hearings that are on two tracks in the subcommittee I chair to look both at the future investment needs and also potential ways to raise the funds we need to make those investments. I look forward to working with the gentleman and others as we go through that process. I do want to assure Members since there is a new sensitivity around here about PAYGO that H.R. 1195 complies fully with House budget rules; and although it only addresses changes to previously authorized projects, not new projects, it also fully adheres to the new House Member earmark disclosure requirements. This is legislation that I recommend wholly to my colleagues, and they can vote for it in good conscience. It will help build our future and realize the full dream of SAFETEA-LU as we move through its full term. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Absolutely. The gentleman from Alaska has had extensive conversation with the chairman of the committee. It is my understanding that he is fully committed to helping resolve this issue. There is a problem with retroactive reimbursement, but we are looking at other ways to deal with critical access to a vital health facility in Anchorage.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this legislation is truly a compendium of technical corrections. When you look at a bill the magnitude of SAFETEA-LU and its extraordinary importance in our economy, and I believe the signature accomplishment of the last Congress, there are bound to be some drafting errors and other minor concerns in the legislation. We recognized those quite early on and had hoped to pass this bill, this technical corrections bill, during the last Congress; but it was never considered by the Senate, as are so many things that we do around here. Hopefully, this time we will get this needed work done. There are some essential things to be accomplished in this legislation. There is an oversight in the bill that results in the Surface Transportation Research Development and Deployment account being oversubscribed. People say, who cares. Well, actually it means that critical programs for the Federal Highway Administration Legacy Research and research programs will not be funded, and that creates a major problem. For instance, this would mean that we would not get the biennial ``Conditions and Performance Report.'' If we are going to maintain and improve our Nation's transportation infrastructure, we need to understand its status, its condition, and its need for future investment as we move toward yet another transportation bill in the coming Congress. It provides appraisals of highways, bridges, and transit finance, their expenditures in those accounts, and compares it to the needs we have, operational performance and future investment requirements. It also would free up additional funding for the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, something that was created as part of SAFETEA-LU and has yet to get its work accomplished. We have charged them with both looking at and assessing the future needs, building on the requirements I just mentioned, the annual reports of the Department of Transportation, but even going beyond that to determine our infrastructure needs both to maintain the current infrastructure, to enhance it, and to mitigate congestion and to move toward a less congested and more fuel-efficient transportation future. They have also been charged with looking at how we pay for these vital investments and assessing the current revenue source, the gas tax, and some assorted excise taxes with future needs. This is again critical work to be done by that commission. This will better fund their work and give them some of the staff assistance they need, give them the capability of obtaining the data that they need, and extend the deadline for the report to Congress, which will be a crucial building block in the next transportation bill, by 6 months. We have now set a deadline of December 31, 2007. The bill also clarifies something regarding a sense of Congress regarding the buy America requirement. We feel that the Federal Highway Administration is not implementing the Buy America Act consistent with our, Congress's, statutory intent. They are beginning to break projects down into segments in a way that was not anticipated so that they can basically go around some of the buy America requirements. We want to reinforce here that the separate component test is not what we intended, and the amendment included in this bill is intended to clarify congressional intent and provide guidance to the Federal Highway Administration in the implementation of that section of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.