James Oberstar

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, today we celebrate the anniversary of the signing of TEA 21, the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century. Our commemoration of this event is a fitting recognition of the importance of this legislation to the American people and to the nation's economy. This afternoon, I was joined in our main committee room by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leadership, Chairman Shuster, Chairman Petri, Congressman Rahall, Senators Chafee and Voinovich, Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater, and Federal Highway Administrator Ken Wykle in recounting some of the important achievements of that landmark bill. I would like to take this opportunity to share some of my thoughts with my colleagues. First and foremost, Mr. Speaker, TEA 21 is important because it secured the future health of our transportation infrastructure system with guaranteed federal funding. The budget rules in the Act ensure that all federal gas taxes will be spent on needed surface transportation improvements. And we now have an opportunity to apply the same principles to our nation's irreplaceable economic jewel: our nation's aviation system. TEA 21 reversed a dangerous 30-year trend in which transportation spending as a percentage of public spending dropped by one-half. It authorized $218 billion for six years--the highest funding levels ever for surface transportation--including $177 billion for highway and highway safety programs and $41 billion for transit programs, 43 percent more than its predecessor legislation, ISTEA, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. Of the amounts provided, at least $198 billion is guaranteed for obligation under the new budget rules in the Act. TEA 21 is important because transportation capital investments have profound effects on national economic growth and productivity. Investment in the transportation system reduces the cost of producing goods, resulting in lower prices and increased sales, in virtually all sectors of American industry. These productivity effects allow businesses to change the way they organize their production and distribution systems for the benefit of all Americans. The Act has significant employment impacts in the transportation construction sector. According to the Federal Highway Administration, each billion dollars of construction investment supports a total of 44,709 full-time jobs at the national economy level. These include 8,390 ``direct'' on-site construction jobs, 20,924 ``indirect'' jobs in industries providing construction materials and equipment for transportation projects, and 15,395 jobs produced in other sectors of the economy as a result of these ``direct'' and ``indirect'' employment effects. And we're talking about good jobs in the construction sector that compensate the average construction worker $17 per hour or higher. TEA 21 and ISTEA made important policy shifts and took new directions to solving our transportation problems. TEA 21 continues the legacy of ISTEA by enhancing the intermodal balance of our transportation network. TEA 21 provides more than $3.6 billion for enhancement projects, compared to just $41 million spent on bicycle and pedestrian facilities in the 18 years before ISTEA. In addition, TEA 21 designates a full 20 percent of the legislation's total funding for rebuilding and expanding existing transit systems and constructing new ones. It also supports maglev and high speed rail development and provides loans and loan guarantees for freight railroad rehabilitation and improvement. Second, TEA 21 further integrates transportation, stewardship of our natural resources, and protection of the environment. It maintains and expands the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program providing $8 billion to help communities address environmental concerns related to transportation and enable them to develop innovative transportation solutions, such as rail transit, to address problems traditionally tackled by pouring more concrete. TEA 21 also created a new $120 million pilot program to coordinate land use and transportation planning. TEA 21 shows that increased transportation spending need not be harmful to the environment. Third, TEA 21 includes strong provisions to reduce transportation risks and promote safe driving. TEA 21 establishes a new $500 million incentive program for states that enact and enforce a .08 blood alcohol standard for drunk driving and that severely punishes repeat drunk drivers and prohibits open alcohol containers in motor vehicles. TEA 21 also increases funding for highway safety data collection for the National Driver Register to track dangerous drivers across state lines. Finally, TEA 21 preserves national size and weight limits on big trucks. While we should be proud of the giant steps forward that we have taken in ISTEA and TEA 21, we must also recognize that we have to build upon its framework if we are to solve the enormous transportation problems that we face today. We must begin thinking now about the successor to TEA 21 and the future of our surface transportation system. Our best hope for dealing with the difficult, complex transportation problems that increasing travel demand creates is to channel our creativity toward continuing to develop innovative approaches to relieve congestion and protect the environment, leverage our federal investment, and improve safety. As Albert Einstein once said, ``We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.'' One way to relieve our congestion is to develop alternative modes of transportation. To relieve our congested highways, we do not need to develop new technology from scratch--we can begin by merely looking across the oceans. To the West, we see the Japanese high speed rail system, the Shinkansen. Traveling to and from Tokyo and Osaka at speeds of up to 170 miles per hour, 250 million passengers a year sense the innovation, comfort and productivity of the ``bullet'' train. To our East, we see the French Train a Grand Vitesse (TGV), the German ICE, the Spanish Thalys, and the international Eurostar--all high-speed trains connecting the great cities of Europe. Today, we can ride high-speed trains from Paris to London but not from Chicago to Minneapolis. We can ride on a maglev prototype in Bremen, Germany, or Yamanashi, Japan, but not in Washington, D.C. or New York. TEA 21 provides the opportunity for states and localities to establish high-speed ground transportation in the United States: it reauthorizes the Swift Act; continues a modest program for development of high-speed corridors; and specifically authorizes $1 billion for magnetic levitation over five years. The innovative finance programs of TEA 21 are also a source of funding for these high-speed projects. Let me close by emphasizing the importance of safety as an overriding objective of our surface transportation system of the 21st Century. In 1997 alone, 42,000 people were killed and an additional 3.3 million people were injured in motor vehicle accidents on our nation's highways. I believe that as our technical capabilities improve early in the next century, these appalling statistics will become simply unacceptable. Americans will demand a safer system. Last year, not a single person died as a result of a U.S. scheduled airline accident. As we look to the future, we should establish the same goal for surface transportation. Although the legacy of the surface transportation system of the 21st Century is far off, we have begun the journey of writing that legacy here and now. ISTEA and TEA 21 have set the framework for the beginning of the new century. Nevertheless, we must continue to develop innovative solutions if we are to overcome our nation's many transportation problems. One hundreds years ago, it was difficult to envision the Interstate system. Yet don't forget there were a few cartographers in the Office of Road Inquiry who had developed a national map of roads, laying the foundation for development of the Interstate system. Let us hope that there are a few mapmakers among us and that we begin to lay the foundation of the surface transportation system of the coming century.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, safety is our highest responsibility in aviation. The American travelling public has the right to expect the highest standards of safety when flying on a U.S. carrier or on a U.S. carrier's code share partner. Last September, the aviation community received a wake up call when SwissAir flight 111 crashed off the shores of Nova Scotia. On board this fatal flight were 53 U.S. passengers who had purchased tickets from Delta Airlines for Delta flight 1111, but who flew on SwissAir, through an arrangement called code-sharing. This accident brought home the realization that, in a world of close alliances between domestic and foreign airlines, the lines separating domestic safety regulation and international safety regulation have been blurred. It is clearly time to reassess our safety activities to make certain the American travelling public flies safely, whether on a U.S. or a foreign carrier. As relationships between domestic and foreign carriers continue to grow through code sharing, we need to take a hard look at whether safety has kept pace. Since 1994, the number of code-sharing alliances has more than doubled--from 61 to 163. A passenger who buys a ticket from a U.S. airline for a code-sharing flight (ticketed as a flight by a U.S. airline) has a right to expect that the entire flight will be operated under similar safety standards. Yet, put simply, there is not a process within the Department of Transportation (DOT) for assuring that a foreign code-share partner operates under safety standards similar to those governing U.S. airlines. A look at the world's aviation safety record establishes the need for prompt action. There is a wide disparity in the accident rates for different regions, with Africa and South and Central America, for example, having an overall accident rate considerably higher than the world average. This suggests strongly that some carriers are not offering a similar level of safety as U.S. carriers. Unfortunately, DOT does not have a comprehensive mechanism in place to determine whether particular foreign carriers have safety deficiencies before code- sharing arrangements are approved. Accordingly, I am introducing legislation today with my colleagues, ranking Aviation Subcommittee member Mr. Lipinski and Ms. Johnson of Texas, that will dramatically improve DOT's organizational capability to assess whether a proposed foreign code share meets safety standards similar to those required of our U.S. carries. The legislation would require a U.S. carrier seeking to code share with a foreign air carrier to conduct a comprehensive safety audit, including on-site inspections, of the foreign carrier's operations. Prior to receiving DOT approval of a foreign code share, the U.S. air carrier must certify to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that the foreign air carrier meets the standards set forth in its FAA- approved safety audit program. In turn, the FAA would be required to conduct a comprehensive annual review of each domestic carrier's approved audit program, thus assuring that the FAA remains vigilant in its oversight of the carrier's implementation of that program. The domestic carrier would also conduct a periodic review of the foreign carrier's operations to ensure continued compliance with the safety standards. In addition, the FAA would be directed to work with the International Civil Aviation Organization to ensure that code- sharing oversight becomes a part of any foreign authority's air safety regulatory framework. The importance of this requirement cannot be overstated. Currently, the FAA, which is responsible for safety oversight of our domestic carriers, conducts only limited review of foreign airlines participating in code-share agreements with our airlines. For foreign airlines, the FAA looks only at whether the flag country has a good institutional structure for regulating aviation safety. The FAA does not evaluate the safety of the foreign airline itself. Delta's recent suspension of its code-share with Korean Air underscores this point. The FAA had no safety concerns with the arrangement because South Korea has a system for regulating safety that, on paper, appeared adequate. However, in this case--and possibly in far too many other cases--there appears to be little correlation between FAA's assessment of the foreign regulatory system and the actual safety performance of a carrier. That observation is not meant to fault FAA for its efforts to assess the aviation regulatory systems of foreign governments. The FAA's assessment does provide valuable information about the structure and capabilities of a particular country's civil aviation authority; it does not provide specifics about a particular foreign code-share partner, when the changing nature of international aviation demands such an assessment. This legislation will respond to the challenge of increasing the safety margin for the American traveling public by establishing a process for making meaningful safety judgments about foreign airlines. I urge my colleagues to join me in co-sponsoring this legislation.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of a very special member of the staff of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Joan Hertzenson Botuck, and to express on behalf of the Committee, our gratitude to Joan for her hard work, great friendship and dedication to preserving an exact historical record of the Committee's activities. Joan's attention to detail has been a God-send to the Committee for many years. A Michigan native, Joan earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Speech and English from Wayne University in Detroit, her Masters in Education from the University of Virginia, and a Masters in Library Science from Catholic University. Before joining the Committee staff in 1979, she worked for a time teaching at Central High School in Detroit, and counseling at the Psychological Testing Center in Virginia and at the office of Washington Opportunities for Women in D.C. And of utmost importance during these years, Joan and her husband, Henry, raised three lovely daughters: Ruth, Debra and Linda, and are now proud grandparents six times over. Joan has served on the committee--and its predecessor, the Committee on Public Works and Transportation--for more than 20 years. When the Committee consolidated and computerized our editing and legislative calendar operations, Joan was appointed to oversee that office and did an excellent job. As the committee's editor, she published a daily summary of the Congressional Record, periodic legislative status reports, and an annual publication of the Committee Legislative Calendar. She is also very skilled in retrieving computerized legislative information which was an outstanding research aid to me and the committee staff in carrying our own legislative responsibilities. Joan has always been a respected professional working in a completely bipartisan manner--having served under for both Democratic and Republican chairmen with unwavering commitment and dedication. The entire experience of being a Member of Congress and a part of ``the Hill'' community, has been enhanced for me in large part due to the quality of staff such as Joan Botuck. Many of you in the Rayburn Building may recognize Joan as an exercise enthusiast. Each lunch hour she dons her sweats and tennis shoes and walks the Rayburn corridors--at a very fast pace, I have observed--and weather permitting, occasionally ventures onto the Mall: the committee's own power walker, ``Flash Botuck''. To Joan, our heartfelt congratulations on a job well done and a career truly superbly undertaken! I join with her many friends in extending our thanks for the energy, diligence, and good humor you brought to your work. We will miss you greatly.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, the crisis in steel is not over. The International Trade Commission of the U.S. Department of Commerce has ruled that foreign steel imports are coming into this country at below- cost production in many cases, below cost of U.S. products, and are being, in the technical terms, dumped in the U.S. marketplace. The Department of Commerce is now proceeding in the second phase of this unfair trade practice determining injury. The Clinton administration, through the Secretary of Commerce, Secretary Daley, and Secretary Rubin at Treasury, have moved smartly to impose counterveiling duties and put companies on notice in this country to post bond or cash to cover the cost between the unfair price and the U.S. market price. We are now in the injury phase of this proceeding, an excruciating fair, time-consuming process, the most fair process of any country in the world trade community for determining unfair trade. In fact, it is so fair that I am afraid that American steel mills and in Minnesota taconite plants will be out of business before they come to the conclusion, the Department of Commerce, that there is injury, that these counterveiling duties should be imposed, and the level trading field reestablished in steel. We ought to act decisively now. The Senate ought to pass the bipartisan Steel Recovery Act, because imports from Japan in March were up 36 percent, Brazil up 54 percent, Korea up 11 percent, and Indonesia tripled its exports in March to the United States. Korea has increased their exports to the U.S. so much that they are up 77 percent over a year ago. The crisis in steel is not over. More countries are finding that the most open, fair market in the world is the United States, and are dumping their unemployment on our marketplace. It is not fair.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to strike the last word.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I take this time to express my appreciation to the gentleman from Pennsylvania for the splendid cooperation that we have always enjoyed on this committee in working out matters. But for a little half billion dollar bump in the road over this California project, this bill would have been disposed of 2 years ago. I appreciate the continuing good will on the part of the gentleman from Pennsylvania and understanding of these problems as well as the chairman of the subcommittee. I also want to express my great appreciation for his patience to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Borski). I do want to cite for extraordinary commendable service Ken Kopocis, our chief staff member on the Subcommittee on Waters Resources and Environment who has done yeoman's service. The chairman was kind enough to mention him, but I want to reinforce my appreciation for Ken's devoted endeavors, and that of Ward McCarragher and Dave Heymsfeld and Art Chan on our committee who all have given such enormous time and effort to the unfolding of this legislation and bringing us to this point today. We can pass this bill relatively uncontroversial.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The amendment continues the tradition of addressing the urgent concerns of Members by including several high priority, time-sensitive projects and provisions that could not be considered in their ordinary and customary time. I do want to thank the chairman of the committee for being so fully cooperative and responsive and participating in the time-honored tradition of our committee in a bipartisan manner. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, reserving the right to object, I do so for the purpose of yielding to the gentleman for an explanation.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I look forward to that happy outcome.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), ranking member of the Committee on Agriculture.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Madam Speaker, many of our colleagues on our side of the aisle in committee and other Members have expressed surprise that we bring a water resources bill to the floor, any bill from our committee, to the floor under what amounts to a modified closed rule and to a very unusual self-executing provision in the rule that deals with the substantive provision of the bill. My response is that not in my 36 years' experience on the committee have we done such a maneuver on a water resources bill. Generally this is a matter that is brought to the floor under an open rule, as we have nothing to fear. But in this case there were some extenuating circumstances. This water resources bill has been held up for two Congresses over one project, and, even though that one issue of flood control protection for the city of Sacramento and water distribution for potential upstream users has not yet been satisfactorily resolved, it has at least been deferred to another time. That is the purpose of the self-executing provision in the rule. The bill deals with all the rest of what is needed in the rest of this country. Indeed, as the previous speaker said, a good deal of this bill benefits the rest of the State of California outside of Sacramento. So, reluctant as I would be to support this type of procedure for our committee, in this case, this exceptional case, it is a means to get through the problem that has held up all the rest of the country and deal substantively with the needs of other Members, and put off to another time the appropriate protection for the city of Sacramento. So, Madam Speaker, I support the rule, with those caveats.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui), and to also commend him for his diligent work on behalf of his community and people who desperately need the flood control protection. He has been a vigilant advocate for the people he represents.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher), who has made a very valuable contribution to our committee in her service and has been a leader on these California water projects for the committee.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the State of Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, before yielding, I would like to take this opportunity to commend the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Borski) for his splendid work over several years of trying to shape this bill and bring it to this point. He has been most diligent and deserves credit for the work product that we bring to the House today with great pride. And now, Madam Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Borski), the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Water Resources.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the delegate from Guam (Mr. Underwood).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining on our side?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the organization frequently mentioned in debate here but almost never discussed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It celebrates its 224th birthday this year. It is the Nation's oldest, largest, and most experienced government organization in the area of water and related land engineering matters. It has provided extraordinary, competent, lifesaving, economic development enhancing service to this country for two and a quarter centuries. Little is it known that the Corps of Engineers, among its many responsibilities, had jurisdiction over Yellowstone Park. The Corps managed Yellowstone for 30 years. And Lieutenant Dan Kingman of the Corps, later to become chief of engineers, wrote: The plan of development which I have submitted is given upon the supposition and in the earnest hope that it will be preserved as nearly as may be as the hand of nature left it, a source of pleasure to all who visit and a source of wealth to no one. A fewer years later, John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, said: The best service in forest protection, almost the only efficient service, is that rendered by the military. For many years, they have guarded the great Yellowstone Park, and now they are guarding Yosemite. They found it a desert as far as underbrush, grass and flowers are concerned. But, in 2 years, the skin of the mountains is healthy again, blessings on Uncle Sam's soldiers, as they have done the job well, and every pine tree is waving its arms for joy. Another great American said: ``The military engineers are taking upon their shoulders the job of making the Mississippi River over again, a job transcended in size only by the original job of creating it.'' That was Mark Twain. Those two statements together pay tribute to what the Corps of Engineers has done so admirably and the great legacy they have left for all Americans protected in floods, enhanced with river navigation programs, and protecting the great resource of the Great Lakes, one fifth of all the fresh water on the face of the Earth. And that is the spirit in which we normally present the Water Resources Development Act, projects throughout our Nation to promote control of floods, to enhance river navigation, to protect our shores, to protect and restore the environment, to enhance navigation. And that is mostly what this bill before us does today, with one flaw. It fails to give the capital of the world's sixth largest economy, the City of Sacramento, the flood protection it needs and deserves. This deficiency comes from a dispute between two parts of the State of California that has resulted in flood control at Sacramento being held hostage for almost a decade. The amendment made in order by the self-executing rule, and which is now adopted because the rule has been adopted, gives the City of Sacramento only 117 years of flood protection, and that is the estimate of the Corps of Engineers in their 1997 analysis. That is significantly less than the protection given cities of comparable size, the nearly 200 to 500 years protection for Santa Ana, Tacoma, New Orleans, St. Louis, Dallas, Kansas City, Omaha. Surely Sacramento deserves as much flood protection as those cities. Today some 400,000 residents in Sacramento face an unacceptable risk of flood; 160,000 residential structures are in the flood plain in the capital city, 5,000 businesses, 1,200 government facilities, with an estimated value of $37 billion. The 55,000-acre flood plain includes seven of the nine major hospitals in the region and 130 schools. Potential losses from flood in the City of Sacramento range from $7 billion to $16 billion depending on the size of the flood. Even at the lower end of the scale, flood losses in Sacramento would be comparable to the losses experienced in the Northridge earthquake a few years ago, to date the single largest disaster in U.S. history. Now, I do not say these words and make those comments in the abstract. I have traveled several times to Sacramento. I have bicycled along the flood protection walls of the American River. I have traveled to Folsom Dam and further up river to the site once planned and once development begun on the Auburn Dam proposal by the Bureau of Reclamation. I understand what is at stake here. Linking flood protection for Sacramento and reallocation of water through a new dam at Auburn has been in the works for many, many years. But the Bureau of Reclamation already stubbed its toe to the tune of $250 million developing the base for a dam right on the fault line of a major earthquake region in the upper reaches of the American River. The Auburn Dam has already been rejected by the House in 1992 in a vote of 273-140. And it was rejected in 1996 in our Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in a vote of 28 ayes, 35 nays. There is no reason to believe the vote would be any different today. So why could we not have just simply accommodated whatever water resource needs there may be for the upper reaches of the American River, and at the same time provide Sacramento its requested 200-year flood protection, and have done it in this bill? I had an amendment in committee to do that. I offered the amendment in committee to make the adjustments to Folsom, to widen the outlets so the gates can discharge more water, raise the level of the dam to allow more water to be discharged in advance of midwinter melt from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where they get as much as 30 feet of snow and often have midwinter rains that cause not only runoff but melt, to accommodate that runoff, accommodate in a larger basin and protect Sacramento and its residents and facilities, and also improve the levees at Sacramento to accommodate that increased runoff. The amendment was defeated on a straight party-line vote. And now we come to the floor with this legislation that does not do what Sacramento truly deserves and, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui) said, does not really provide the water resources needs of the upper reaches of the American River Valley area. There were several arguments made about the amendment that I offered. One was that the levee strengthening proposed for Sacramento in my amendment would create unacceptable risks to areas downstream. But that objection fails on closer scrutiny. The Army Corps of Engineers analyzed that argument and rejected it. The Corps specifically stated this: ``Additional protection can be provided without adversely affecting the reaches below the mouth of the American River without project conditions.'' The Corps' plan includes several different structural and operational modifications to ensure that no flood threat is transferred to downstream interests. In addition, I talked with the City of Sacramento. They have committed to spend $100 million to mitigate any possible further adverse effects downstream. Finally, my amendment specifically required that measures to increase the capacity of the levees be undertaken only after downstream mitigation features will have been constructed. So absent any objective, substantive reason for opposition to the Sacramento amendment, I am left only to surmise that the real basis for opposition was the desire by upstream interests to withhold flood protection from Sacramento in hope that the Auburn Dam at some future time could be revived or that some alternative, far more expensive yet unstudied water distribution plan be enacted. That is not the way to conduct the water resources business of the country. And while I am not prepared to accept this legislation as it is to go forward with the bill on the floor, the bill before us, I will not relent in my purpose of providing for Sacramento the protection that it rightly deserves and to address in a rational and responsible manner the water resources requirements upstream of Sacramento in an appropriate time frame. We should not hold Sacramento hostage. We will have to come back at another time to address this issue. And I am confident that at that future time we will treat the lives and the property of the residents of Sacramento in an appropriate and responsible manner, as this committee has always done, absent these extraneous considerations.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chairman, I want to say to the gentlewoman from Ohio, I have not heard such kind words in 6 months. It is good to have those comments. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez).

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. I, too, rise in support of H.R. 1034. Mr. Speaker, I had concerns originally about this legislation as introduced, but those concerns have been addressed by an amendment offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) during committee consideration of the bill. My primary concern was that the purpose of the introduced bill was to exempt vessels that would be operating on this stretch of the canal from all Coast Guard safety laws. Now these vessels would be transporting up to 35 passengers up and down the canal for admittedly a very limited distance, but those passengers would include small children, elderly persons, people in wheelchairs. I was concerned also that the bill would exempt vessels from all other maritime laws of the United States, including the Jones Act and marine pollution laws, from my standpoint, a very unwelcomed precedent. In ordinary conduct of business the public has a right to expect that vessels they board will be safe, that is laws of the United States under which vessels operate will protect them. Mr. Speaker, the primary purpose of these vessels is to serve the cause of tourism, and I am a very strong supporter of tourism. I chaired the Congressional Travel and Tourism Caucus for several years and advocated tourism. I want to see developments of this kind take place. This is a very ambitious, a very attractive waterfront development in the City of Richmond, which indeed started under the aegis of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) when he was mayor there. So I met with the gentleman from Virginia, and I expressed to him my concerns about the rather overly broad sweep of the language and was satisfied that the consequences of that language were not intended by any means by the gentleman from Virginia, nor the other gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) who was the principle co-author of this legislation, and after rather extensive discussion, we came to a very clear meeting of the minds, that adjustments should be made. The gentleman went back to his City of Richmond, talked with the mayor and city council and came back with a narrowing of the scope of the bill so that the designation as nonnavigable applies to a very much smaller and narrower set of Coast Guard laws. Second, the language provides for the Coast Guard to revoke the designation and make the vessels operating on the canal subject to safety regulations if the vessels are not built, maintained and operated in a manner consistent with public safety, the City of Richmond will be primarily responsible for ensuring that the vessels are operated safely, and third, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) also worked out with the City of Richmond an agreement to consult with the Coast Guard before allowing any material change in the operation of the vessels on the canal. So the city is the primary line of defense and responsibility for public safety and common wield. The Mayor of Richmond, in fourth place, has agreed to introduce a city ordinance restricting the carrying capacity of these vessels to 40 people, the maximum allowed under Coast Guard guidelines and recommendations. Mr. Speaker, I think these four changes make this a very acceptable bill. I know it took a good deal of effort on the part of both the principle author and the co-author of the legislation to make these adjustments, but they are in the best public interest, and I appreciate their cooperation. I think the public will appreciate their concern and action on behalf of safety, and certainly we should all rest assured that the traveling public will have a very safe medium in which to enjoy the pleasures and the extraordinary history of this beautiful City of Richmond.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I want to compliment my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Borski), for the long hours he has spent on this bill and his personal dedication and commitment in bringing it to this point of achievement; and to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), chairman of the subcommittee, who has a long and distinguished record in the protection of the environment, and for his concern that we fashion a bill that will be useful and meaningful and effective and for bringing it to the floor on this Earth Day; and of course to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster), the chairman of the full committee, who already spoke quite pointedly of his support for this legislation. But I rise today, not only in support of this legislation, but to recall for our colleagues my very dear friend and classmate, the class of the 1974 election, 94th Congress, Congressman Bill Hughes, who made this issue his cause during the time that he served in the House. It is the culmination of years of effort, but culmination of a very deep-seated, genuine, ardent, vocal effort by Congressman Bill Hughes during his service in the Congress. Together we served on the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. I recall both in committee and in one-on-one conversations with Bill Hughes his deep, genuine concern about the deterioration of the quality of water in the ocean that bordered on his State of New Jersey, his accounts of hypodermic needles washing up on the beaches, bringing some of the debris with him to our committee meetings and to one-on-one member meetings, the numerous health warnings that disturbed us so greatly, the beach closings, and the health effects on users of the New Jersey coastline; and that brought him to other coastlines in other parts of the country, and he really made this a great concern. I will recall his statement on introducing essentially this bill, his version, which was a predecessor to today's legislation, ``This bill is a great improvement to the policies that currently exist in beach testing and monitoring. It provides a public health stamp of approval for States proudly to show people who live and vacation along the shore that the coastal waters are safe for swimming and other related activities.'' Following Bill Hughes' retirement from Congress, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), a successor, not particularly from that district, and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo), directly from that district, championed the cause along with the later arrival in the House of the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray), who has been persistent and vigorous and single-minded in his purpose of getting this legislation through the committee and to the House floor. Great advocates. The torch really has been passed from Bill Hughes to a new generation of advocates for quality of life along our freshwater and saltwater beaches. This bill attempts to assure American families that the only concern they will have when going to the beach is how much sunblock they have on, not what rashes or illnesses they may have developed after an outing to the beach. When we consider, as our colleague from California (Mrs. Capps) a moment ago cited, 199 days of beach closings in areas of her district, there were 22,746 beach closings in the decade from 1988 to 1998, that is not acceptable. We have to do a better job of monitoring, of stewardship for these great resources of the Nation's freshwater and saltwater beaches. The idea of a monitoring bill is good. This bill has two public health goals, to have uniform monitoring of coastal recreational waters and uniform means of notification to the public of unhealthy water conditions. The partnerships between the Federal Government and the coastal States and the local communities that this bill brings about are good. They are good steps in the right direction, $30 million for grants to States and communities to establish monitoring programs. But I just want to make it clear that, and no one should misunderstand the purpose of this bill, this is for monitoring and for notification. It does not go to cleanup. It does not address the upland issues of nonpoint source runoff, of discharges by cities and other entities into those rivers and estuaries that discharge on and lay their debris upon the beaches. It will be argued that there are other programs, other means, other ways of doing this. But because I have heard from people who say, oh, we are going to do something about cleaning up the beaches, no, we are going to do something about notifying people about unsafe conditions. We are going to do something about monitoring those conditions with this legislation. I also note repeated references to giving the States their responsible authority to undertake this role, and that is true. This is a Federal-State partnership. But I do want to remind my colleagues that the thin line of sand or pebbles that are the beach is the dividing point between the ocean and the land. It is the ocean that is the common heritage of all mankind. It does not belong to a State or a Nation. As a Nation, we have a greater responsibility than any individual State does for the quality of that ocean and the littoral, the linkage between the land and the water. This is a good step in the right direction. It will be a step, I hope, that heightens our awareness of the individual responsibility each of us has, that the responsibility to each State has and that this Nation has toward that greater body of water, the ocean, the common heritage of all mankind and, in the case of the Great Lakes, one-fifth of all the freshwater on the face of the Earth. So I urge our colleagues to support this legislation and that we move it along to signature by the President as quickly as possible.