James Oberstar

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I am sure the chairman would not want to mislead people either into thinking that labor was at the table, as he said, because in the list of witnesses on the one hearing we had, there was no representation from labor. There was no testimony from labor. So they were not part of the deal. Those maritime interests that are concerned about this issue were not part of any deal.

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

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley], for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I do support this rule. I appreciate very much your comments about the amendment that I will offer in accordance with the rule. It is an open rule. It does provide us with 1 hour of general debate, makes in order my amendment. That is fair. The rule inadvertently made a mistake on debate on my amendment. That has been corrected, and I appreciate that gesture on the part of the floor manager for the Republican side. I have come to this floor many times in support of deregulation of aviation, of trucking, of bus, of railroad industries, and I stand here in support of deregulation of ocean shipping with some adjustments. The goals in most of the provisions of H.R. 2149, the bill we will be considering this afternoon, are basically good goals and good provisions. They eliminate the Federal Maritime Commission, prohibit ocean carrier conferences from restricting the rights of individual carriers to make contracts with shippers, eliminate the requirement that tariffs have to be filed with a government agency. But it does not go far enough, or perhaps it goes too far. My first concern is that the bill allows carriers and conferences, 85 percent of whom fly a foreign flag, to enter into secret contracts with shippers. Under existing law, the essential terms of those contracts must be disclosed. That is what we do in the airline industry today. Nothing wrong with that. Allowing secret contracts would lead to contracts that would discriminate against small shippers and disadvantage smaller carriers and smaller ports. They have raised concerns about this legislation. That is why I have an amendment to require these be open contracts, as current law requires. Secret agreements would also permit foreign carriers to set the market price for U.S. exports, while U.S. carriers would have no ability to learn the essential terms of the secret contracts and offer competitive rates. My other concern focuses on the agency that will take over the residual functions of the Federal Maritime Commission. The bill would vest that authority to the Secretary of Transportation. Well, I may trust this Secretary. I do not necessarily want to have confidence in every Secretary. I do not believe that major authority should be placed in a department that is subject to the ever-changing political winds or whims of any particular Secretary. My amendment would address those concerns by requiring public disclosure of the essential terms of carrier conference contracts. Second, it will vest the remaining enforcement responsibilities of the Federal Maritime Commission in the Surface Transportation Board, an independent transportation agency that already oversees water carriers transporting goods to certain destinations. My amendment leaves in place the objectives, major objectives of this legislation. The Federal Maritime Commission is eliminated. Restrictions on the contents of contracts between shippers and carriers would be eliminated. Laws related to unfair trade practices of foreign carriers and foreign governments would be strengthened. But I must say, my colleagues, and I am sorry that I do not see the gentleman on the floor right now, the chairman of the subcommittee, who said certain people were subjected to political intimidation. I am sure that those words were directed to our side of the aisle and possibly to this Member, and I just wanted to ask the gentleman, since when do citizens of this country not have the right, provided in our Constitution, to petition their government for redress of grievances? Since when do we say to people who will be adversely affected by legislation, you have no voice, you have no way to express yourself, you have no opportunity to come before the body of this country that makes policy and express your dismay and ask for redress of grievances? That is not political intimidation. That is the right of every citizen of this country to walk into our offices and to say, ``I do not like the way things are happening, I do not like this law, I do not like this bill. Please correct it for me.'' We do that time and again, and that is right and that is fair, and my amendment is not being subjected to any kind of secret process. It is being debated right here openly on that floor, and I resent that kind of language. It is inappropriate. We did have hearings on the concept of deregulation. There was a bill drafted by the committee at the conclusion, and a markup was held. There were no hearings on that bill, and I am not faulting that process. I am just saying that people have come since then and said 8 months later, after this bill was considered in committee, ``We find fault with the bill. We do not think that it is appropriate to proceed in this manner. We want redress of our grievances.'' Small ports, small shippers, maritime labor, who have concerns. Those concerns are going to be addressed in my amendment in an open, fair debate, no political intimidation. That is sheer nonsense and inappropriate and I resent it.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. I am sorry my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich], the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, left the floor so precipitously. All he said, we are in agreement with. There is nothing that my amendment does that will affect in any way anything that he said. We are all in agreement about this deregulation, about all the good things he talked about. We just want to correct one defective aspect of this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lipinski].

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Borski]. (Mr. BORSKI asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his responses. Those are reassuring and very helpful. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant], the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Economic Development of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stockman]. I would simply observe that if it was known in February, in our committee we work on a very bipartisan, cooperative basis. Had our side known about this, and had the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Gilchrest] been fully informed about it at the time, we could have long ago resolved this matter in an appropriate, proper fashion. I say this out of deep respect for the gentleman from Maryland, who is scholarly and thoughtful, professorial, deliberative in all his works, and for our full committee chair, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster] who has endeavored mightily to be open and fair and inclusive in the spirit of our committee over all of its years. It is painful to see something like this happen, in derogation of the committee process. Again, to repeat, committees are supposed to be the filtering mechanism in this body, to provide information through us to the public, so people know and openly have an understanding of what we are about to do and what legislation we are about to enact, what access we are about to provide for this very precious Capitol Grounds. I am glad that we have had this discussion. It would have been better to have had it in committee. We could have brought the bill to the floor, I think, knowing what we know now, under that unanimous consent procedure that was proposed, but I appreciate the gentleman from Maryland's willingness to make the effort in the future. I think the leadership of the House needs to operate in the same way. In closing, I wish the sponsors of the rally a prayerful success. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Will fundraising for the organizations involved be permitted?

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank the gentleman, Mr. Speaker. Will the rally be permitted to claim that in any way Congress endorses the sponsoring organization or endorses the rally or its purposes?

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I support the concept underlying this resolution, the principle that any group, including religious organizations, should have the same rights to use the Capitol grounds to express their views as other organizations. I do not have a problem with the basic purpose of the resolution under consideration. But I do have very serious concerns about process, about lack of process, and that is the reason that I objected, or said I would object, to the proposal to bring up this resolution under unanimous consent procedures. We are facing today what we faced when the proposal was made for unanimous consent procedure as another example of the leadership in this body steamrolling hastily drafted legislation through the House without an opportunity for the legislation to be reviewed either by the committee of jurisdiction or by the House itself. This has been the rule, not the exception. I went back and checked. Of the 16 bills considered under rules this year, 11, or 72 percent, have been brought to the floor without any committee reporting them; 72 percent of bills brought under a rule were brought to the floor without a committee having considered them, and that includes the crime bill, two continuing resolutions, and the constitutional amendment on taxation. Mr. Speaker, the same pattern of bypassing the normal legislative process is evident in unanimous consent requests. According to the House Information Resources, which I asked to review this matter, of the 25 measures brought to the House under unanimous consent during this Congress, 21, 84 percent, were not reported by the committee of jurisdiction. In fact, 16 of the 21 had no committee action at all. Now, this is not, and I am not talking about a matter of committee jurisdiction, I am not talking about a matter of turf. I am talking about a matter that goes to the very essence of a deliberative body. There ought to be free, fair, and open discussion of the matters that come before the House. The committee is the filtering process, the filtering organization where issues of state are aired and discussed and given opportunity for people to ask questions, to find out who is behind the legislation, what its purpose is, who are its sponsors. We had no advance notice in this committee, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which has jurisdiction over this matter, about this issue. None of the sponsors of the organization came before our committee, nor to me individually, nor do I know whether they came, nor does it matter whether they came, to see the leadership on the committee. The point is we have had before our committee matters in which other organizations have wanted to use the Capitol grounds for their purposes, had the Soap Box Derby, we had the Olympic Torch organization. Mr. Speaker, we have had the stock car people that wanted to have a display on the Capitol grounds. Those were all aired, they were discussed, they were reviewed. We had questions, we raised those questions. Members' concerns were satisfied. That is the way the committee process should work, an opportunity for all of us; not just us but through us, the public, who will be affected by the legislation, to understand what this legislation is, who is behind it and what is behind it. When we do not have that process, all of us suffer as a result. I have been very much a stickler for process, as members of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure know, for 20 years. This is not something new. However, this example of bypassing the committee process is unwarranted, unreasonable, and it is unnecessary. Frankly, I think it is an abuse visited upon the chairman of the subcommittee, a very fair, decent, scholarly, and thoughtful person. He did not have an opportunity to discuss this matter in committee, to exercise his jurisdiction. Now we find out, Mr. Speaker, just in the last couple of days, that it was known way back in February that this prayer rally would need a resolution of Congress to waive limitations imposed by Capitol Police regulations on use of the Capitol grounds. Why was the resolution not introduced at that time? I am not asking the gentleman, I am just raising the question. Why was the resolution not introduced then? If it had been, the leadership knew this was a problem. We could have followed the proper process of review, consideration, discussion, air the matter. Mr. Speaker, who is behind this? Who are the groups? Who are the religious organizations? Who are they that want to use these grounds, and for what purpose? We should have been informed right from the beginning, when there would have been time to ask questions and inform our Members, inform the public. Instead, nothing was done until a week before the event, and then late last week, a proposal to bring this resolution up by unanimous consent, and we had no knowledge of who is behind it and what it is all about. Mr. Speaker, I respect every person's right to pray in the way that they wish to pray, and I respect wanting to use a public event for that purpose. It is not my way, it is some other people's way, but that is fine, and I respect it. However, Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the chairman of the subcommittee: Will the rally be allowed to construct different structures than are permitted by the regulations?

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman: Will the rally or its members or its participants be permitted to sell goods on the Capitol grounds?

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from the Virgin Islands [Mr. Frazer]. (Mr. FRAZER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Mascara]. (Mr. MASCARA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise].

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri [Ms. Danner].

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. We have heard some interesting theater and dramatics, but the fact is that taking trust funds off-budget will not cause one dime of cuts in other discretionary programs. It only means that in the future, additional cuts in trust fund programs do not count toward spending targets such as discretionary caps or 602(b) allocations. Let us get down to reality and fact and talk reasonably. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lipinski]. (Mr. LIPINSKI asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, the initial purpose of the highway trust fund when it was crafted in 1956 was to finance the national system of interstate and defense highways, the world's largest infrastructure project and one of the marvels of engineering of the world, and was based upon the idea that we needed a dedicated revenue stream to finance projects that would take a long time to design, engineer, acquire right-of-way for the roadway to be built upon, and then to construct that roadway. So the framers of the Interstate Highway System Program conceived a dedicated revenue stream to be financed by a tax upon the users of the system, all those people who drive cars and trucks, and a tax upon fuel was agreed upon. It was also agreed in that initial legislation that this fund should be held in trust for the purpose for which it was intended, and that it should be deficit-proof, as the chairman of the committee has already expressed. It has been an enormously successful program. We have spent $120 billion on the Interstate Highway Program. It represents 1 percent of the Nation's highway mileage. It carries 26 percent of the Nation's highway traffic. That represented last year 990 billion miles traveled on just the Interstate Highway System alone. But over time, the idea of retaining some of the moneys from that trust fund and not spending them became very popular with the executive branch. Every dollar of tax revenue from the highway users tax is invested in U.S. Treasury notes. Those Treasury notes, like the World War II bonds, bear interest. The buyer of those bonds gets the principal plus the interest. That was the idea that we applied in the highway trust fund, that revenues from the highway user tax on fuel would be invested in Treasury notes, which would bear interest, and which interest would go into the highway trust fund. In contrast to what our previous speaker said, the fact is this is not just free money, this is money owed to the highway fund. It is money owed to the users of the system by all taxpayers, by the Federal Government for the use of those dollars. So over time, Mr. Chairman, what has happened is that the executive branch has withheld not only interest, but the principal that has been paid in by highway users into the highway trust fund, and conveniently kept it in the unified budget account to make the deficit look less than it really is. Mr. Chairman, what we want to do is to free all of the transportation trust funds from the artificial and unnecessary constraints of the budget process and allow those funds to be used and invested to reverse the deterioration of our Nation's infrastructure. This is not adding to the deficit, it is a deficit-neutral step that we take here. We urge everybody to support our legislation. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, we have heard now in the course of this rather lengthy debate from all the bogeymen with their scare arguments about unrestrained spending on transportation projects. The face is that there is restraint. It is written into the highway trust fund language, has been since the beginning in 1956, that this fund is antideficit, that it cannot run a deficit. It has not, and it will not. But in addition to that, there is additional restraint or further restraint from the Office of Management and Budget, which must review and put its stamp of approval on highway funding requests from the Department of Transportation. There is review by the White House. There is review by the Committee on the Budget. There is review by the Committee on Appropriations. And there will continue to be, under this legislation. The second argument about interest, you just heard a discourse a moment ago from our good friend from Michigan about interest. Would any of the members of the Committee on Appropriations, would any Member of this body argue that the Federal Government should not pay interest to purchasers of U.S. Treasury securities? Should we not have paid interest on war bonds for World War II or World War I? Should we not pay interest to those domestic and foreign interests that buy U.S. Treasury notes, that in fact underwrite our deficit? Should we welch to those who buy U.S. Treasury notes, not pay interest to them? No, of course not. Nor should we welch on those highway users and aviation users and waterway users whose tax dollars are used to purchase U.S. Treasury securities and on which interest is owed. That is what we are talking about here, fairness. Then, finally, from various Members, that old pork-barrel nostrum, tired old argument, dragged out every time they run out of steam on the merits of the issues. The fact is, this is a fairness issue. People agreed to be taxed to build highways and bridges, to build runways at airports, to deepen our waterways and our ports. It was Abraham Lincoln who first said if you do not have a tax to build a waterway, you will never get the revenue out of that waterway to build this Nation, in 1848 as a Member of this body. This is a basic fairness issue. You agree to be taxed for a benefit to be derived, and that is what this legislation is all about. general importance of taking transportation trust funds off-budget Trust fund: Dedicated revenue stream--freeing the Transportation Trust Funds from the artificial and unnecessary constraints of the budget process will allow those desperately needed funds to reverse the deterioration of the Nation's infrastructure; and Improved infrastructure will create jobs and increase the productivity and efficiency of our industries, thereby enhancing the United States position in this fiercely competitive global economy. decline in infrastructure investment Infrastructure investment as a percentage of the gross domestic product [GDP] fell from 1.2 percent in 1980 to 0.8 percent in 1995; Infrastructure spending as a percentage of Federal spending declined over the past 30 years from a high of 6.3 percent in 1965 to 2.8 percent in 1994; Infrastructure spending from 1981 to 1992 fell by $12 billion from $43.9 billion in 1980 to $31.9 billion by 1992, in constant dollars; At the same time, our economic competitors have been devoting substantial resources to their long-term investments: Japan is spending $3 trillion over 10 years to improve its infrastructure; Germany is investing nearly $2 trillion in infrastructure to fully integrate its eastern states into Europe's most powerful economy; and even Taiwan is proposing to spend more than $100 billion over 5 years to improve and expand its infrastructure; Overall, the U.S. ranks 55th in the world in infrastructure spending, based on 1993 statistics; and Our lack of investment is affecting our Nation's ability to compete-- from 1979 to 1989, the United States productivity growth rate was only 35 percent of the average of other industrialized countries. real life consequences of decline in infrastructure investment Our failure to develop our transportation infrastructure has had serious, real-life consequences; Commuters waste 2 billion hours annually sitting in traffic because of freeway delays--costing our economy $45 billion per year in wasted fuel and lost productivity in our Nation's 50 largest cities alone; Fifteen locks on the inland waterway system average more than 3 hours of delay per barge ton because of antiquated and outdated locks and dams; Projected growth will also occur under the budget proposals of the Republican Congress. In fact, that was the case with the budget resolution the Budget Committee brought to the House floor last year; Taking the Transportation Trust Funds off budget would not add to the deficit; and In scoring H.R. 842, CBO said, ``By itself, taking programs off- budget does not change total spending or revenue estimates for Congressional score keeping purposes.'' Uniqueness of Transportation Trust Funds They are wholly self-financed by the user; They have dedicated revenue sources; They are self-supporting, operating on a pay-as-you-go basis; They are deficit-proof, with expenditures limited to receipts They invest in infrastructure capital programs; and They finance long-range construction programs, which benefit from certainty in funding. Taking the Trust Funds Off-Budget does not mean we would lose control of spending Taking the Transportation Trust Funds off-budget also does not alter the current authorization and appropriations process; According to CBO, ``The likelihood and amount of potential increase-- in transportation investments--are very uncertain because they depend upon the future actions of both the authorizing and appropriations committees;'' Under H.R. 842, the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of the Treasury would review Aviation, Inland Waterways and Harbor Maintenance Fund spending annually and reduce proportionately for any trust fund in which projected revenues would exceed authorizations; That review is similar to the so-called Byrd amendment in the highway program which insures that the Highway Trust Fund can never operate in a deficit; All Transportation Trust Fund expenditures would be limited to receipts and subject to authorizations legislated by both Houses and signed into law; and The Appropriations Committee could still continue to include an annual obligation ceiling on transportation programs to control spending further.

Mr. OBERSTAR

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

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. It is still in the trust fund.

Mr. OBERSTAR. It would still be stricken by this language.

Mr. OBERSTAR. It would still be stricken.