James Oberstar

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Again I point out to all the supporters of the Appalachian Regional Commission program and Economic Development Administration program, $1 of those moneys going to a highway project kills off-budget status for the highway trust fund.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, this is another one of the killer amendments devised by those who are not in accord with the purpose of taking trust funds off budget. In fact, even some who have originally signed on as sponsor of the bill obviously had second thoughts later on and said they do not want to support this concept, and now they find ways to undermine it, cut it and gut it. Mr. Chairman, this amendment provides that the trust funds would no longer be off budget if at any time a highway project was specifically mentioned in a bill or a committee report. What this means in plain English is that the Committee on Appropriations can kill off-budget status for the highway-aviation- waterway trust funds simply by earmarking a project in a bill or a law, in a committee report or in a bill that ultimately becomes law. This hands over to the Committee on Appropriations the total power over the trust funds and their status. What a crazy thing to do. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman refers to demonstration projects and says he wants to stop pork barreling, and our colleague, the gentleman from California, the gentleman who spoke previously, also talks about pork barrelling. I am not quite sure what they mean by ``pork barrel.'' It usually carries the implication of an individually designated project or fund without merit. That usually is an argument from the perspective of the Speaker. What is meritorious in one district may not be meritorious to a person in another district. If I may have the attention of the gentleman from California [Mr. Royce], is he familiar with the Hacienda Boulevard project? Does the gentleman recall writing to our committee about the merits of the Hacienda Boulevard project? We agreed with the gentleman that it had merit in the 103d Congress, on both sides of the aisle. We thought it was a very meritorious project. We were prepared to support it. The gentleman is supporting now a provision of law that would gut the ability to help the gentleman achieve a laudatory, necessary, and important purpose that he feels significant for his district, as for my colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota, who also has appealed to our committee in the past on the merits of need in his district. We are prepared to support those needs, and we have done in the past. Now they come along and say, oh, sorry, we were only kidding. We did not mean it. We are going to give authority to kill the ability of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to help Members respond to transportation needs that are not being met by their State. In effect, we hand over authority over Federal funds, over tax dollars that we vote for in this body, to States, and let State governments and State highway departments earmark the designate and specify and determine where those dollars are going to go. That is not pork barreling? That is not individual designating? That is fair? The reason we get bombarded, we Members of this Body get bombarded by our constituents, is that those very State governments are not responding to the needs of highway users in our respective districts. That is why we went through a very elaborate process of joining with State highway departments and the Federal Highway Administration to set up criteria, 17 criteria, by which we would judge whether a project is meritorious or not and ought to be included in a national piece of legislation.

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

Mr. OBERSTAR. The gentleman is quite right. Actually, the dollars that leave here that go to the State government, and they are sprinkled with holy water and they are absolved of all sin. That is sheer nonsense. If Members believe that, I have some swampland out in Minnesota I would like to sell them. Mr. Chairman, this is a killer amendment. It is foolish. It ought not to be adopted. We should roundly defeat it.

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

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has been a strong supporter of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge rehabilitation. The gentleman understands that under the language of the amendment of the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge] that any project or activity that is specifically designated in Federal law, that the Woodrow Wilson Bridge would specifically be stricken?

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

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank the gentleman for yielding. If ever there were a man of integrity in this body, it is the gentleman from South Carolina, and if ever there were a gentleman who could do heavy lifting for his district, it is this champion weight lifter who is at the microphone over there. I am glad to hear that the gentleman has such great confidence in his State government to distribute funds equitably and fairly. I say to the gentleman, I cannot get anywhere in my district in 2\1/2\ hours. It is too big. But there is nothing, in all seriousness, in this legislation that refers to earmarking or designating. That is an issue that will be taken up the next time we have an authorization bill. Furthermore, the language of the gentleman from Minnesota would invite earmarking by the Committee on Appropriations for the simple purpose of killing off- budget status of the highway trust fund.

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

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is simply not true.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman was not here in the previous Congress or the Congress previous to that, when we went through a very elaborate process in our committee on both sides of the aisle to determine the merits of projects.

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

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

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

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Missouri [Ms. McCarthy].

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, the answer to the question is that 75 percent of the overall budget of the FAA is funded out of the trust fund revenues. There is an additional amount that is paid out of general revenues from the DOD budget to account for air traffic control services to the military, and some people, some folks at OMB, account for the operating budget of FAA in a different way in saying that the operating budget, salaries and expenses are 50 percent. But that is an irrelevant argument. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant]. (Mr. TRAFICANT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Borski]. (Mr. BORSKI asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is recognized for a unanimous-consent request, not for the time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, we had during the time of general debate extensive discussion about the role of interest paid on revenues from the highway trust fund that are collected at the pump and then used by the Treasury Department to purchase Treasury notes, as happens with all trust funds in the Federal Government. As I said in my remarks, my closing remarks, would anyone reasonably expect the Federal Government not to honor its obligation to pay interest on Treasury bonds, on our World War I bonds, on World War II bonds, on other securities of the Treasury Department that are purchased by U.S. citizens, by foreign interests, by foreign governments, which buy in great numbers Treasury securities which underwrite the deficit? No, of course not, not expected. So with the trust funds. Mr. Chairman, those trust funds are used to purchase Treasury securities, and interest is required to be paid. Under current law, the interest earned by the highway trust fund is the average of all interest paid on the public debt. That average runs about 6.6 percent. The amendment I offer proposes to limit the interest earned on highway trust fund dollars in an amount equal to the rate on a 1-year Federal Treasury note. That number is about 5 percent, just a little above, 5.1 percent. The effect of the amendment would be to reduce the amount of interest earned by the transportation trust funds, thereby reducing the ever- increasing balance that has accumulated over a period of several years. Now, this is an amendment that I offer for myself, for the Chairman, with whom I have consulted in the preparation of this amendment. This is, again, a demonstration on our part of our good faith to limit in the future the growth of this trust fund and to gradually reduce that amount, not take that surplus all at once off budget, but gradually reduce it over a period of time. To help do that, we propose this limitation on the interest rate because over a period of time, the trust fund is being long-range dollars, have benefited from the longer term interest rate on Treasury securities. So in the spirit of fairness and comity I propose that we make this change.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio].

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. This amendment is like so many others that look benign but have a poison pill attached. Clearly, this amendment undercuts a vitally important purpose of this legislation, which is to enable the Congress to spend down in a phased and fiscally responsible manner the $30 billion in surplus built up in the highway trust funds and the aviation and the other trust funds. The $30 billion of surplus that we have been debating about all afternoon, the gentleman would say, oh, sorry, we are not going to spend the surplus, we can just spend what comes in on an annual basis. That is what this debate is all about, about withholding funds and building up these accumulated surpluses that then are sued to mask the deficit. These surpluses should be off budget with the trust fund. The surpluses have accumulated because of failure to spend the user taxes we agreed to be taxed for that we have agreeably paid for the purpose of building highways and bridges and airports and deepening our waterways and improving our navigation channels. As budgetary conditions permit, the surplus should be devoted to their intended purpose. The surpluses will not be spent down overnight, as we have repeatedly said in the course of this afternoon's debate. The bill does not exempt funds or the surpluses from the authorization or the appropriation process. We will have complete control over whether and when the surpluses are drawn down. In fact, over the past year the gentleman for Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster] has been working diligently with the Committee on Appropriations and Committee on the Budget leadership to try to work out a plan under which the spend down would occur. It can be done; we have done so in the past in the aviation bill of 1990, the AIP reauthorization bill. We worked out a very fine accommodation of reasonable accommodation with the Committee on Appropriations, the transportation appropriation subcommittee, the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Transportation, the Committee on Ways and Means, under which agreement over a period of time, the very complex adjustment, we would draw down the surplus built up in the aviation trust fund, those moneys to be invested in airport runways and taxiways and parking aprons that were needed to relieve congestion at the Nation's airports, and it worked. That money was not all drawn down overnight in one big fell swoop; gradually over a period of time. Unfortunately, now the surpluses have begun to build up again. So take the trust funds off budget, the surplus will be spent down in a reasonable and responsible fashion under accommodations between our committee and the Committee on Appropriations, working with the Committee on the Budget as well. We do not need this amendment. This really is a killer amendment. It ought to be defeated and ought to be unmasked for what it is: an attempt to gut the bill. Defeat the Smith amendment.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. I want to pay tribute, well deserved tribute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania for the leadership he has exhibited on this issue. He has worked tirelessly, brought together a coalition of people of different fiscal views on this issue, geographic views on this issue and brought them together to understand and to pass this very, very important, as the gentleman has stated, long-standing legislation. He has marshaled an extraordinary outpouring of support for a principle that will reestablish the trust of people in Government. The impact reaches far beyond this bill. For that, I salute our chairman.