Steven LaTourette

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. The gentleman is correct. If you have none, I am prepared to yield back and would yield back.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Madam Speaker, I thank the Dean of our delegation. And after that set of remarks, you know why this will be a hole in our delegation and for the country that we're not going to be able to replace. Our next retiring Member has been described in a lot of different ways already, but there isn't an energy and or a water project across the country that doesn't have Dave Hobson's imprint on it. Never his name, because that wasn't what he was about. He was about making sure that we had the best infrastructure in the country when it came to energy and water. And Congressman Regula again spoke of the fact that Newt Gingrich put Uncle Dave in charge of watching John Kasich, and I reflected on why that was. And I think it's because Congressman Hobson never gets upset; he's always placid. He's always calm. He never raises his voice. And what better influence could we have in dealing with Chairman Kasich. It's now my pleasure to yield to Congressman Hobson.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. The last retiring Member we have from Ohio is certainly not least, and we've talked about her service on the Financial Services Committee. Madam Speaker, when I joined the committee, I think we had six Ohioans on the committee, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Paul Gillmor, who's passed, Bob Ney, who is not with us anymore, Pat Tiberi, he's now been promoted, Mike Oxley was the chairman, and Congresswoman Pryce who of course is, I think, the third or fourth ranking Republican on the committee. And now, with all these retirements and passings, I'm the only one going into the next Congress if I'm lucky enough to be re- elected. And so I'm kind of sad that they all left me, but I will always cherish serving with them, and it is my pleasure to recognize the gentlelady, Ms. Pryce.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentleman very much. Do you want to say somebody else before we go to somebody else?

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentlewoman, reclaiming our time. And as I introduce the other Ohio Members and others from perhaps around the country to speak about our honorees, I am going to say a couple of things about each of them before I hand it off to our colleagues. First is the dean of our delegation, Ralph Regula from Navarre, Ohio. I know his wife, Mary, is with us this evening and watching on in earnest. And if you ever saw a partnership, there is a partnership, Ralph and Mary Regula. Of course, Mary is a star in her own right because of her work at the First Ladies' Library and all that she has done. Just two quick things about Congressman Regula. When I was trying to figure out whether I wanted to run for Congress in 1994, I came to visit Congressman Regula. And if you have been to his office, it is on the third floor of the Rayburn Office Building, and it looks like the Capitol is actually in his office when you look out his window. I think the Congressman saw me sort of admiring the view, and he said, ``Well, don't get too excited. It is going to take you about 30 years to get a view like this.'' The second thing that is often forgotten now that we are in the 110th Congress, when Congressman Regula was in charge of Interior, he was the cardinal on the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, there was a furious assault by very conservative Republicans elected in 1994 against the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Humanities and the Arts, and Congressman Regula was really put under the gun and told that, look, you have got to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. No more NPR, no more National Endowment for the Arts, no more National Endowment For the Humanities. Congressman Regula was true, Ralph was true to his Republican provisions, but I would dare say that there wouldn't be public funding for those entities today if Ralph Regula hadn't stood up as a stalwart in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998. So anybody listening this evening that enjoys Public Broadcasting and thinks that it has a place in our American experience, I think needs to thank Congressman Regula. I will talk more about Hobson and Pryce in a minute, but it is my pleasure to yield to my friend from Columbus, Mr. Tiberi.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentlelady, the new dean of our delegation or soon to be dean of our delegation from the Democratic side for those reflections and thoughts. Before I yield to our next Ohioan, Jean Schmidt, from southern Ohio, I want to talk a little bit about Dave Hobson. I think it's appropriate that Ms. Kaptur talked about she doesn't know what Representative Hobson is going to do. A lot of us have been getting phone calls from his wife, Caroline, saying please find something for him to do so that she doesn't have to spend so much time with him. Most of us in the delegation call him Uncle Dave. Again, going back to 1995, aside from all of the other things that Congressman Hobson had to do, Newt Gingrich was the Speaker at the time in the 104th Congress. He assigned Congressman Hobson to babysit John Kacich, who was the Budget Committee chairman at the time, just to make sure that Congressman Kacich, who has a tendency to be a little exuberant, controlled that exuberance. This Congress, this historic Congress that has the first woman as Speaker of the House, Ms. Pelosi of California, who sort of ribbed Congressman Hobson about the fact that every time the Speaker of the House goes on a trip, she needs a Republican, obviously, for it to be bipartisan. For some reason it is always Congressman Hobson. I think that it's appropriate that Ms. Kaptur talked about infrastructure. Because even though Dave is from Springfield, Ohio, and that's his district, down around the Dayton area and his loves are Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, so many things, he, like Ralph Regula when they were cardinals, took care of all of Ohio. If you had a problem, if you had a concern, if you had a need, he didn't say I am going to take care of me first. He said I am going to take care of Ohio and the country first and many of the things that are being built. Just in my district, the Ashtabula River and harbor, he helped to secure $53 million to help clean up contaminated sediments. That never would have happened without Congressman Hobson. It's now my pleasure to yield to my good friend and colleague from Ohio, Jean Schmidt. (Mrs. SCHMIDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentlelady very much. Our next speaker is another Ohioan, who is new to us. Before I introduce him, as promised, I want to say a couple of things about Deborah Pryce. As a couple of us have indicated in this Congress, I indicated it was historic because Ms. Pelosi is the first Speaker of the House. Deborah Pryce became another ceiling breaker when she became the chairman of the Republican conference. You may remember that it wasn't a good year, a couple of years, 2005, 2006, for the Republican party, but somebody who was always cheerful, who was always helping Members with whatever their difficulties were, whoever was crafting messages and making sure that as we left Washington to return to our districts we had the tools necessary to do our jobs and communicate what it is we are doing, Deborah Pryce, in fact, did that. I am particularly fond of her because her prior life, she served as a judge, and my prior life was as a prosecuting attorney. She always brought that skill. We serve on the Financial Services Committee together and, in the crisis that this country is now facing today, with the crisis of confidence on Wall Street, and the work that we have to do, Deborah Pryce as ranking member is a leader. She will continue to be a leader as she, in fact, exits the Congress. Jean Schmidt made the observations about the challenges of being a woman in the United States Congress. Aside from that, on a personal level, I think the time that Representative Pryce has served in the Congress have had incredibly high highs, and incredibly low lows. Through all of that, she has always performed her job as a professional, one, and, two, whenever possible, with a smile on her face. If you really want to see a smile on her face, the day that I remember her smile being the widest was the day she brought her daughter, Mia, to the Financial Services Committee. I think Mia actually voted a couple of times on some matters. My only complaint about Representative Pryce is a couple of years ago there was a fundraiser that she and Representative Tiberi had for me down in Columbus, for which we are all grateful for when our friends help us. Pat got up and gave this really long-winded introduction and made me sound better than I was. Deborah stood up and said, well, Steve LaTourette is here, he is a little different, he is a little weird, but please welcome him. Even though her observations were correct, it wasn't the warmest introduction that I can recall receiving. It's now my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to one of our new friends, Bob Latta from Ohio.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank you, Dave, very much. And before we recognize our last retiring Member, we've been joined by another new member of the Ohio delegation. And I want to express my appreciation and apologize to Congressman Manzullo and the Illinois delegation. We were supposed to split this hour 50/50, so anybody tuning in at home and wondering where the Illini delegation celebration is, we're going to talk, use our last few minutes; and then in the next hour stay tuned because Congressman Manzullo and the Illini bunch will come marching out on to the field. And just to Congressman Hobson, I don't know if Congresswoman Pryce wants the record to reflect that she played the entire Ohio State band. I think perhaps had played all the instruments in the Ohio State band would be a better way of turning it. It's now my pleasure to yield 1 minute to one of our new Members, Jim Jordan.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentleman very much. Now, Madam Speaker, we're going to hear from our three retiring Members in order of seniority. The first, as I indicated, is Ralph Regula, the dean of our delegation. I don't know what we're going to do without Ralph around here. As he comes to the microphone, I will just tell you that, when I, again, was elected in 1994 and I thought I'm a lawyer and that I was a prosecutor and that I'd like to be on the Judiciary Committee, Ralph put his arm around me and said, ``Son, you're going to the transportation committee.'' It was the smartest decision I ever made because I saw that the Judiciary Committee had the impeachment of President Clinton and all of this nonsense. The transportation committee is a bipartisan committee, as the Speaker knows, and to build America is not a bad thing. It is now my pleasure, as we begin the final 15 minutes allotted to us, to yield to the dean of our delegation, Ralph Regula.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Thank you, Deborah. General Leave Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Madam Speaker, tonight we are gathered to pay tribute to three of our Members from Ohio who are retiring, and we are going to speak about them in order. But, Madam Speaker, this has been a tough Congress for the Ohio delegation, the 110th Congress. Last year, our long time colleague and friend Paul Gillmor passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, and, of course, just a month and a half ago our good friend and long time colleague Stephanie Tubbs Jones passed away unexpectedly as well. The news gets worse for us as we now arise to talk about three of our friends who have made the decision to retire: The dean of our delegation, Ralph Regula; one of our great cardinals when we were in the majority, Dave Hobson, ``Uncle Dave''; and former judge and the highest ranking woman in the Republican leadership, Deborah Pryce. Before we extol more, I guess our new dean from the other side of the aisle, from Toledo, Marcy Kaptur, has asked to spend a couple of minutes with us, and I yield to the gentlewoman.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I think I have about 1 minute left, and I'm not going to insult Mr. Manzullo by giving him a minute to talk about his retiring. So he's come up with some parliamentary scheme to make it all work and honor Mr. LaHood and Mr. Weller, who are both classmates of mine, who are retiring. But I think, Madam Speaker, from this last hour, which we didn't know it would take an hour, but we should have expected it would have taken an hour for each of our retirees, we are richer for having served with Ralph Regula, David Hobson, and Deborah Pryce; and we in the institution will be poorer with their retirement, but we will always remember the gifts that they have given us; and it shall be our challenge, both Republicans and Democrats as Members of the United States Congress, to stand on their shoulders and follow in the example that they've set for us. I thank you, Madam Speaker.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 2638, Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act of 2009: Electronics Liquid Cooling for Advanced Military Ground and Aerospace Vehicle Projects. Account: Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force; Aerospace Propulsion. Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Parker Hannifin Corporation. Address of Requesting Entity: 9200 Tyler Boulevard, Mentor, OH, 44060 USA. Description of Request: Provide an earmark of $1,000,000 for developing cost-effective production methods and certified processes for implementing advanced liquid cooling technologies in military ground and air platform power electronics and related embedded computing applications. Approximately, $600,000 is for engineering; $250,000 is for hardware, and $150,000 is for testing and reports. Parker Hannifin is committed to providing $500,000 to this project. The project is expected to last beyond FY2009, for duration of 2-3 years. Environmentally Friendly Aircraft Decontamination Systems. Account: Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide; Chemical and Biological Defense Program. Legal Name of Requesting Entity: STERIS Corporation Address of Requesting. Entity: 5960 Heisley Road, Mentor, OH, 44060 USA. Description of Request: Provide an earmark of $1,600,000 for designing, developing and optimizing a decontamination system to meet the unique chemical and biological decontamination needs of Tri-Service tactical aircraft, including the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), F-16, as well as cargo aircraft, particularly those employed to transport military personnel exposed to CB warfare agents or infectious diseases. Approximately $46,800 is for performance specification development; $156,000 is for hardware design; $78,000 is for hardware ruggedization design; $202,800 is for software development; $187,200 is for mechanical components; $124,800 is for electrical components; $15,600 is for consumables; $124,800 is for system integration; $600,000 is for system testing; $156,000 is for environmental testing; $78,000 is for stimulant and surrogate testing; $234,000 is for live agent testing. STERIS is committed to providing $1,500,000 to this project. Catalytic Oxidation (CATOX) Integrated Demonstration. Account: Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide; Chemical and Biological Defense Program. Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Air Force Research Laboratory Address of Requesting. Entity: Wright Patterson AFB, OH 45433 USA. Description of Request: Provide an earmark of $2,400,000 for a demonstration program to develop, test, and integrate CATOX systems into Army vehicles. Approximately, $2,400,000 will be used for implementation of the CATOX Integrated Demonstration program. Catalytic Oxidation (CATOX) is an advanced technology that is capable of protecting warfighters, first responders, and civilians against the adverse effects of chemical and biological weapons by destroying a wide range of toxins in a manner similar to automotive catalytic converters. Additional funding is required for a demonstration program to develop, test, and integrate CATOX systems into Army vehicles. Enhanced Vapor Aeration Capabilities. Account: Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Army; Chemical, Smoke and Equipment Defeating Technology. Legal Name of Requesting Entity: STERIS Corporation Address of Requesting. Entity: 5960 Heisley Road, Mentor, OH, 44060 USA. Description of Request: Provide an earmark of $2,400,000 for developing and optimizing methods to shorten the overall cycle time of the VHP process. These improvements would significantly reduce the time and resources needed by warfighters for battlefield decontamination. Approximately, $212,175 is for hardware design; $239,850 is for hardware construction/assembly; $184,500 is for software development; $221,400 is for mechanical components; $175,275 is for electrical components; $101,475 is for consumables; $184,500 is for system integration; $313,650 is for system field testing; $193,725 is for environment testing; $239,850 is for stimulant and surrogate testing; and $332,100 is for live agent testing. STERIS is committed to providing $1,625,000 to this project.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Thank you for yielding the time. Congratulations to you, Mr. Goodlatte and Chairman Peterson, for this bill. I voted for it last time, and I will vote for it again today. But the difficulty is that we find ourselves with about 5 days left in this 110th Congress. There was a famous emperor of Rome, Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned. I just want to talk a little bit about what we've been doing for 2 years since gas prices went up and the Democratic majority took over in January. When they took over in January, gas was at $2.20 a gallon which was high, but people still said, ``Okay. I can still get by on that.'' But Congress, rather than dealing with what was going to begin to happen, on that day, January 29, we congratulated the University of California, Santa Barbara soccer team for doing swell stuff. I like soccer. I bet everybody that's on that team, their moms and dads, are proud of them. But when gas is going up, what are we doing that for? Next one, February 6, it's gone up 60 cents a gallon. February 6, 2008, we declare National Passport Month here on the House floor. That's the most important issue in America, apparently, to the majority. It passed $3 for the first time in my lifetime, and we're commending another soccer team, the Houston Dynamos. I bet they're a great soccer team, too, but gas is $3. The most important issue that we're debating on the floor of the House of Representatives is congratulating the Houston Dynamos. Then $3.77. That should have gotten our attention. So what did they debate? Did we debate this bill or an energy policy? No. We declared National Train Day on that particular day with gas at $3.77. Goes up on May 20, $3.84. On that particular day, I gotta tell you, we passed--and I don't even know what these are--Great Cats and Rare Canids Day. Maybe, Mr. Speaker, you know what a canid is. Somebody told me maybe it's a dog. But we're not debating energy. Our constituents are paying $3.84 a gallon for the first time in their lives, and we're recognizing great cats and canids. Well, surely at $4 a gallon we have America's attention, the mighty House of Representatives, the new majority is going to debate energy. Nope. We declare the International Year of Sanitation. I gotta tell you, Mr. Speaker, then it hits $4.14 on June 17, 2008. I bet we're going to debate energy now. I bet we're going to do this bill. No. We did the Monkey Safety Act. Folks, I love monkeys. They're cute, they're cuddly, they're everything else; but for crying out loud, when it costs $80 to fill up your gas tank, the most important issue in the United States of America is not the Monkey Safety Act. It's time for this majority to quit monkeying around with our gas prices. It's no coincidence, Mr. Speaker, that at the same time we're doing the Monkey Safety Act, unemployment in this country goes from a little over 4\1/2\ percent to where it is today, over 6 percent. Quit fooling around. Quit horsing around. Some people say, Well, this chart doesn't go far enough. We also did some other important things after we got back. We declared National Watermelon Month, and we also indicated that we were going to recognize Bo Diddley. He's a great guy. I'm all for honoring him. But it's time that we tell our friends on the other side, You haven't done diddley about oil and gas.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is a good resolution. This is a worthy honor. I urge all Members to support it. The only reason I wanted to take a little bit of time is, after Mr. Coble spoke I was reminded that at our last Coast Guard hearing Mr. Coble made the observation that he had served in the Coast Guard some period of time ago and he wondered what happened to the ship that he had actually served on. And as Mr. Coble left the room, I felt bad, and even though we're a bipartisan bunch here, one of the Members on the other side of the aisle said he thinks he saw the ship in a tall ships museum. And I think that that was an unfair slight to Mr. Coble and I'm sure that that's not true. I urge passage of the resolution. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it's my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble), a former Coast Guardsman himself.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 1241 recognizes Ensign DeCarol Davis for her extraordinary achievements as a cadet at the United States Coast Guard Academy. Ensign Davis graduated in May of this year as the valedictorian of her class of 2008, and is currently stationed with the Prevention Department at Coast Guard Sector New York. During her 4 years as a cadet, Ensign Davis was selected as the Academy's first Truman Scholar, honored as the 2007 Arthur Ashe, Jr. Female Sports Scholar of the Year, and served as the president of her Academy class. Ensign Davis also became very involved with student activities on campus and in the surrounding community of New London. Ensign Davis is a shining example of the quality of men and women who make up the leaders and ranks of our Coast Guard, and I hope that the House's action today will encourage our young people to learn more about the Coast Guard Academy and the Coast Guard. I support this resolution honoring Ensign Davis for her achievements. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to begin my remarks by thanking the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Oberstar, and I will have a little more to say about the body on the other side and how it contrasts with how Mr. Oberstar and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on this side operates. I also thank the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) for his dogged pursuit of this, and all of the other Members that Mr. Oberstar mentioned; and in addition one who he by oversight forgot, Candice Miller of Michigan, who was in the boat business before she came to Congress. And like most of us who live up on the Great Lakes, when she goes home, she hears about this. I actually saw a couple of boaters the weekend before last, and they said that with all that is going on with fuel prices, they paid $500 to fill up their tanks to go out and boat, and they certainly didn't need an incidental discharge permit authorized by the Environmental Protection Agency to go out walleye fishing. Relative to the way the two bodies work, when this matter was brought to the chairman's attention, he immediately said well, draft a piece of legislation, put it in, let's find out everybody that is interested. We will have hearings. We did in the subcommittee and the full committee. We had a markup, we prepared the bill, and then we waited and we waited and we waited. Then today, I know some people who may keep track of the schedule of the House of Representatives may have seen the schedule for today's suspension calendar printed, and it said we would be considering H.R. 5949, and I just would ask people to not adjust their television sets, it is not a mistake, we are in fact doing the Senate bill because the great slumbering dinosaur that is the august body on the other side of the Capitol awoke from that slumber earlier this morning and in fact passed Senate 2766, which I am happy to say is identical word for word with the House bill and so we are going to consider the Senate bill because unlike others, we have no pride of authorship, we are more interested in getting this bill to the President for his signature to help alleviate the pain that some 13 million, 14 million boaters would have. The original House bill was introduced to exempt recreational boaters from having to obtain an EPA permit for incidental discharges that are determined to be normal to the operation of the vehicle. The House passage today will prevent 16 million recreational boaters from being subject to Federal fines of up to $32,500. And let me repeat that, $32,500 a day for a guy who owns a 19-foot Starcraft that has an incidental discharge in Lake Erie. What is an incidental discharge? An incidental discharge is if it rains and water pours off the deck of your boat; if you are out fishing and you have a cooler and you want to dump the melted ice over the side of the boat, that is an incidental discharge. In my part of the Great Lakes basin, we are a little heartier and maybe a little cruder than others, and sometimes we will go out with a cooler filled with liquid refreshments while we walleye fish, and sometimes that leads to a call of nature. That is an incidental discharge from a recreational boat that would have been subject to this discharge permit because of this judge in California. And the Congress had to act because the judge indicated that these regulations go into effect in September. The EPA has already drafted model regulations so they were ready to go. And although the matter is on appeal, if we don't take action and get the President to sign it, it is going to be a big problem. So again, I am very, very thankful to Mr. Oberstar and the other members of our committee. I am very thankful for the prompt action of the House of Representatives and thankful for the action of the United States Senate earlier today. I urge everybody to support this piece of legislation. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield to a distinguished Member of the House from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) for such time as he may consume.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for the purpose of closing on our side. Mr. Speaker, again I want to thank Chairman Oberstar. This again is an example of how our committee works in a bipartisan way to deal with real issues affecting real Americans. Just a couple of statistics for the purpose of the Record. In just the State of Ohio, there are over 415,000 recreational boats registered with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. One in every five boats registered in Ohio are located within the seven counties that I represent in northeastern Ohio. The Clean Water Act amendments that the court was allegedly interpreting were designed to deal with ballast water and to prevent the additional scourge of invasive species coming into our waterways, which those of us in the Great Lakes and the coastal regions know, the zebra mussels, the round goby, the sea lamprey, the Asian carp, we are all familiar with how terrible it is when something foreign to our ecosystem is introduced. But the fallacy of the court's decision is that 99 percent of recreational boats don't have any ballast water so it would be tough for an invasive species to sneak into something that didn't exist. And, in fact, this court ruling would have even covered a kayak. If you, Mr. Speaker, wanted to go kayaking on the Cuyahoga River, you would have needed an EPA discharge permit for the purpose of your kayak. Clearly it made no sense. There is no body or plethora of science that indicates that invasive species have hitched into inland water on kayaks or pontoon boats. This is a ruling that didn't make sense. And, sadly, it is taking congressional action, and I am glad that in this instance congressional action has taken place in both bodies and the President hopefully will soon sign this legislation. Again, my thanks to all who were involved. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentleman from Florida, the ranking member of the full committee, for yielding. I rise today, Mr. Speaker, in support of H.R. 6493, the Aviation Safety Enhancement Act of 2008. Commercial aviation is enjoying the safest period in the history of flight. In fact, there hasn't been a wide-body aircraft passenger fatality since 2001. This excellent record is the result of the hard work of the FAA's Office of Aviation Safety, which has some 6,900 dedicated employees, including 3,800 FAA aviation safety inspectors, who oversee approximately 19,000 aircraft, including the 7,000 aircraft that make up the entire U.S. commercial airline fleet. Their charge is as important as it is large. Even with such an excellent record, however, the aviation community and the FAA must remain vigilant in protecting the traveling public. H.R. 6493 is an important bipartisan bill that will go a long way towards addressing the inadequacies in the FAA's oversight programs discovered during the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General audit earlier this year. In addition to efforts already undertaken by the FAA, this legislation creates an Aviation Safety Whistleblower Office; requires modification of Customer Service Initiative to eliminate references to airlines and certificate holders as customers; establishes post- employment restrictions for FAA flight standards inspectors, a 2 year ``cooling-off'' period; requires reassignment of FAA principal supervisory maintenance inspectors, rotates the SPMIs every 5 years; requires an FAA headquarters review of the Air Transportation Oversight System database with the establishment of a team to review the ATOS database every month, requires monthly reports of any regulatory trends, which a description of any should include corrective actions if appropriate. A quarterly report to Congress is also required. I want to applaud the FAA for the level of safety it's overseen in recent years, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation that will continue to build upon the already impressive safety record of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume. Again, I want to praise a number of our colleagues, first and foremost among them, the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Oberstar, who introduced just yesterday, I think, H.R. 6556, and, again, would indicate that anyone that followed the House schedule doesn't need to adjust their television set. We are, in fact, doing Senate 3298 and not House bill 6556. Again, it's thanks to the pressure, and I didn't know I was citing a biblical verse before, but give thanks to the pressure exerted by Chairman Oberstar indicating that we were prepared to proceed. Just a quick story about those 200 meters to the other side, there is a rather famous clock on the other side of the Capitol called the Ohio Clock. Every time I have been over there it doesn't seem to be working, but it's right twice a day, and I think once today at least and in passing these pieces of legislation, the United States Senate has sent us a good piece of legislation, which we can send on to the President. I rise in support of Senate 3298, and this has been the result of bipartisan, bicameral discussions by a number of Members on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. The House is taking action to approve this bill in conjunction with the recreational boating measure that we just passed, the court decision which would require this permitting business that we have talked about that was never contemplated by the Clean Water Act. The bill will exempt small commercial vessels and all fishing vessels from obtaining these permits for 2 years while the agency studies the nature of impacts and discharges that are normal to the operation of these vessels. Following the submission of the required report, Congress will have better tools to determine if these discharges should be regulated or exempted, as is the case with recreational vehicles. Enactment of this legislation and its companion will carry out an agreement made with Chairman Oberstar to address the entire scope of vessels that will be impacted by the pending EPA permit program. I, again, want to commend Chairman Oberstar, thank him for working with us, and on our side of the aisle someone who has been dogged, and, I think, concerned as Gene Taylor of Mississippi was on the Democratic side of the aisle, on our side of the aisle Mr. Young of Alaska and Mr. LoBiondo of New Jersey were afraid that because we have 14 million recreational boaters, perhaps we would deal with that issue and then leave this issue hanging in limbo. But, again, as a result of the reaching across the aisle and across the Capitol, can-do spirit of Chairman Oberstar, we were able to come to this moment in time. I guess the only thing that we can hope, is if the reference to the slumbering dinosaur is accurate, that 2 years is enough time for them to again awaken from their slumber and solve this problem when this moratorium expires. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of our time for the purpose of closing. Mr. Speaker, just a couple of observations. I am glad that, again, Mr. LoBiondo has singled out Gene Taylor of Mississippi, who is a tireless champion on a number of these issues, and was dead set, as was Mr. LoBiondo and Mr. Young, on making sure that this piece moved with the other piece. And in honor of Mr. Taylor today on the floor, I actually wore chinos and a blue blazer, which is the Taylor national uniform, to commemorate his participation in the House of Representatives. The other thing, before I came over to the floor I got the benefit of an e-mail that is being sent around by some environmental groups indicating that this somehow is a dangerous bill and is going to lead to pollution. And again, I will tell you, for those that are weak at heart and maybe nervous about that type of communication, first, again, over 99 percent of the recreational vehicles and vessels we are talking about don't have any ballast water. So the ballast water and invasive species issue that we are attempting to deal with is a nonstarter, literally, a red herring. The second piece, and that is that somehow we are authorizing the discharge of noxious chemicals and pollutants into the water stream is also not correct, in that that was taken care of in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. And what we are truly talking about here, Mr. Speaker, are incidental discharges, as I think I described during the discussion of the other bill. I am grateful that we were able to permanently take care of our recreational friends; that we now have a 2-year window with which to collect additional data to make sure we get it right on fishing vessels. I again commend Mr. Oberstar and our committee and our friends in the Senate for getting it to us; and hopefully President Bush will sign this soon, and this problem will be taken care of. I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time it's my pleasure to yield such time as he may consume to one of the aforementioned champions on this issue, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo).

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I want to add my congratulations to Mr. Oberstar and Mr. Mica as the leaders of our full committee and Ms. Brown and Mr. Shuster, the leaders of the subcommittee, for getting to this point. And I won't rehash all of the good things about this bill that have already been mentioned, but I want to highlight two things. One is thanks to some good work by Mr. Kummant who is now the head of Amtrak. We had a number of labor organizations who were operating without contracts for 8 years. And now those contracts have been tentatively settled, and Mr. Kummant is working hard, together with authorizations contained in this bill, money set aside, and perhaps appropriations for the Congress to implement those agreements, and clearly that's a good step forward, not only for the travelling public but for Amtrak and for people who work on the airlines. And the second thing I want to highlight is sort of the hidden treasure of this bill, and that is the $350 million a year each year for 5 years. Again, the brainstorm of the chairman, Mr. Oberstar, to implement high-speed intercity rail transportation in this country. And I thought that it's more than symbolic that the fellow who was Speaker pro tem for most of the session this morning, Mr. Jackson of Chicago, should be replaced by Mrs. Tubbs Jones of Cleveland. And wouldn't it be wonderful to have a high-speed corridor go from Chicago, Illinois, to Cleveland, Ohio, and give people who are choking on the high cost of gasoline who don't want to fly that short distance to have the opportunity to go 120, 130, 150 miles an hour between Chicago and Cleveland. And that's the vision that Mr. Mica has talked about, and that's the vision that Mr. Oberstar has implemented in this bill. It's a good piece of legislation, and it is really going to put the United States on the right track, as it were, and I'm grateful for all of your hard work.