Randy Neugebauer

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, Betty Jean Verett Pepper was born on April 28, 1931, in Crosby County, Texas, to Charley and Maggie (Fenoglio) Verett. She was the youngest of the family's nine children who were raised working on the family farm. Betty Jean graduated from Ralls High School and went on to graduate from Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas, in 1952. At Texas Tech she met Herbert Leslie Pepper and they married in 1953. Leslie and Jean moved to the San Antonio area where their three sons were born and raised, also working on the family farm and in agriculture-related businesses. Now back in Lubbock and known as Mama Jean to her own family and the expanded Verett families, she not only remembers the birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions of this group, but personally calls each one on those special days. That is why we want to take this opportunity to remember her 80th birthday on April 28, 2011, and to wish her many more joyous celebrations with her sons, six grandchildren and three great- grandchildren.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I just would close by saying this is a very commonsense amendment. I think it uses the technology of today to bring air safety to our country, and I would encourage all Members to support this amendment.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I want to thank Chairman Mica, Chairman Hall, and Congressman Graves for their support of this amendment. I appreciate the work of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and of various stakeholder groups that have helped throughout this amendment process. Mr. Chairman, in recent years, our lives and our world have changed. We have a much more digital world today, and we have a lot more towers that provide us cell service and Internet service. We have the new industry of wind energy that is basically taking over a big part of my district. So, over the countryside, the landscape has changed. We have a lot of new towers, windmills, wind turbines, and all sorts of things that are beneficial to our economy but that also provide a certain amount of hazard for those people in the aviation industry. In recent years, we've had a number of fatalities due to low-flying aviators who didn't know the existence of one of these obstacles, so this amendment really does a commonsense thing: It would direct the FAA to conduct a study of how we can put together a database of where these new obstacles are, giving their GPS locations and allowing people who are going to be flying in that area or utilizing that area to access that information. For planning purposes, it would also provide an opportunity for new infrastructure in those areas. So we really think that this is a very commonsense amendment, provides for safety, and that this study hopefully will yield some very positive results that will be beneficial to the aviation industry. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica).

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. It is also my pleasure now to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold).

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the chairman of the House Small Business Committee, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Graves).

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I think one of the things that points out how terrible this program is----

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Well, as the ranking member knows, it has been billed as a loan program, but what we're saying is that it is, in fact, a grant program.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Does the gentleman think that the language in the legislation as it is written now represents it as a loan or as a grant?

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. First of all, I commend the gentleman from Texas for his good amendment. I think it is interesting that we keep talking about the country, and certainly that is important and the taxpayers are important. The other flaw in this program is that it encourages these people to get further in debt. And quite honestly, the level of debt they have is their primary problem. It is the same mentality that has kind of gotten our country in the jam it is in where we will have to have a vote here in a few weeks about raising the debt ceiling. It is the reason a lot of individuals and companies and governments around the world are overleveraged. So what we are saying is the way to fix someone's problem that has too much debt is for them to take on more debt. It is absurd to think that is good for these borrowers. I would like to yield to my good friend from Texas (Mr. Canseco).

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I have a question for the gentleman: Do you think this is a loan program or a grant program? Which do you think it is?

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. It's a question of----

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Will the gentleman again yield?

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Madam Chair, I offer an amendment as the designee of the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen).

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I offer this on behalf of my good friend from Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen). It is a good amendment. It would add military servicemembers and veterans who have service-related injuries, as well as survivors and dependents of such individuals, to be included in the study in this bill. These families often face new hardships. They will likely need modifications to their houses to help them get around, especially if the servicemembers are now disabled. There may be significant changes in their ability to move around and in the skills they are able to perform. This will ultimately have a significant impact on their livelihoods. It is my hope that we can gain a better understanding of how we can best provide for the families of those who have served our country and who have paid the ultimate price. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I think the bill says that it's a loan, so as soon as that individual takes an advance in this program, it becomes the liability of that individual. Now, there are certain ways in this bill, either from forfeiture or through some of the provisions, where that indebtedness is forgiven; but I will tell you that the proper accounting is that the day that the individual payment is made on his behalf it becomes the liability of that individual.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I want to read a portion of this amendment filed by the gentlewoman from California. It says, ``The Emergency Mortgage Relief Program, which would have provided unemployed homeowners with low interest rate loans to assist them in paying their mortgage, has been terminated. If you are unemployed and concerned about not being able to pay your mortgage, please contact your Member of Congress.'' You see, that's what is so confusing about the arguments by my colleagues on the other side. They can't decide if this is a loan or a grant--one time it's a loan, one time it's a grant--but, in fact, the program says it's a loan. In fact, HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the title of their rule is Emergency Homeowners Loan Program. The other reason I rise in opposition to this is that we're terminating a program that has had zero customers. So it seems ambiguous here to have the Federal Government go through a process here where we're going to notify homeowners of a program that never was instituted, never was used, that it does not exist anymore. That seems a little wasteful and I think in many ways could be misleading. Obviously, when you look at the way that the program is structured, it becomes a grant program. And so we're misrepresenting that in the sense that, well, it says it's a loan, but it's really not a loan. It's a grant. And so I think this is something that is one of the things that the American taxpayers are really kind of tired of is the government out there misrepresenting or creating confusion to homeowners that may be seeking assistance. So I would just say that at this particular time this is not necessary and that we should not put a confusing piece of information out there on the Web site.