James Oberstar

Mr. OBERSTAR

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

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank the gentleman for yielding and congratulate him on the dignified manner in which he has conducted the debate from his position as chairman. The Orton amendment strikes at two of the Federal programs that have been the most successful, the most universally accepted and which are deficit free and do not contribute to deficit and by their very constitution and establishment cannot run a deficit and never have and never will. Contract authority, which is the underlying principle of the aviation trust fund, and the highway trust fund were invented in 1956, with the establishment of the highway user tax because the founders of the interstate highway program realized that we needed a dedicated revenue stream, one that States could count upon year after year to build these projects that took years to design and engineer and years more to construct and to complete. We cannot complete a bridge or a highway from one day to the next, from one fiscal year to the next. It takes several, years and that is why they established the principle of contract authority to make sure that there would be this dedicated revenue stream to complete these projects after their initiation. And then the same concept was adopted in the 1970's with establishment of the aviation trust fund and the airline ticket tax which finances our airport improvement program. We specifically, in the airport improvement program, the gentleman from Pennsylvania and I worked together on this for years, kept individually designated projects out. But that did not stop States from designating one project having more significance than another. And the same with the highway program. States made choices as to where those dedicated revenues are going to go. They make choices of one project over another. State legislatures make those decisions. Governors make those decisions. We, too, are the people's elected representatives. And we have a responsibility to the people that elect us and who pay their taxes into the highway trust fund and who expect that dedicated revenue stream to operate. Now, under this amendment, the president would have the authority to abolish the contract authority itself. The money then could not be spent on any other purpose. It would not be spent on highways or airports. It would just sit there and build up surplus to offset the deficit and make the President's program, whichever President that happened to be, look better. I do not think we want that. I do not think our people sent us here to just be a rubber stamp for a President. We are not a rubber stamp Congress. We have the responsibility to represent, and that is to represent the people who sent us here, to stand for something, and that something is a highway trust fund that has built the finest system of highways that is the envy of other countries in the world and the finest network of airports that is the envy of other countries in the world. And we should not undermine it by adopting this provision, I hate to dignify it with that term, that would undermine the very purpose of building infrastructure, serving the economy of this country, serving the needs of transportation and movement of people and goods throughout America. Defeat the Orton amendment.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a noble man and a distinguished teacher, Mr. Phil Abalan of Duluth, MN, who died of a heart attack shortly before his classes were to begin on Friday, December 9. Mr. Abalan, 51, taught social studies for 27 years at Hopkins High School in Minnetonka, MN. His constant encouragement to his students to excel in their studies and their lives made Mr. Abalan a favorite among pupils and colleagues alike. He was instrumental in initiating the advanced-placement program in American and European history at the school, and pushed his students to their limits, often staying long after school was over to provide assistance and guidance. The results were tangible: his students consistently scored higher on their advanced-placement tests than did students in any other program in the country. An avid baseball fan, Mr. Abalan was an active umpire for both high school and amateur baseball and softball; he also served as president of the Northwest Umpires Association. One of his happiest moments came when the Minnesota Twins won the World Series in 1987. Family and friends, students and teachers, will miss Phil Abalan dearly. His commitment to educating the youth of his community was unending, his enjoyment of life complete. It is my sincere hope that some of his students will follow his sterling example, giving to the next generation what Phil Abalan gave so abundantly and enthusiastically to them.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, on January 4 the House of Representatives welcomed its new majority. The event marked a political sea-change in the leadership of the House. I would like to submit to you an editorial that ran in my hometown newspaper, the Chisholm, MN, Free Press, circulation 3,100. Its publisher, Veda Ponikvar, holds the distinction of being the first woman newspaper publisher in the State of Minnesota. I have known Veda all my life, and have always respected her insight, her wisdom and her articulate advocacy of the values we share as Minnesotans, and Americans. I commend to you, my colleagues, a view of Washington from Minnesota's Iron Range. [From the Free Press, Jan. 10, 1995] Character Is Moral Order The great hope of any society is individual character. One must look into people as well as at them for Character is the diamond that scratches every other stone. Character is moral order seen through the medium of an individual nature. In Character there is also unselfish leadership with the stamp on our souls of the free choice of good or evil we have made through life. Therefore, Character, like porcelain ware, must be printed before it is glazed. There can be no change after it is burned in. a shining, spotless example The noblest contribution which any man or woman can make for the benefit of posterity is that of a good character. The richest bequest of posterity is that of a good character. The richest bequest which any man or woman can leave to the youth of their native land is that of a shining, spotless example. We have in the Congress of the United States a man in the personality of Newt Gingrich, who for over a decade has lived off of the American taxpayer. For the services rendered, he also has enjoyed a host of perks, including a very lucrative and all-inclusive health plan. He did little to institute some sort of national health bill that would lessen the burdens and worries of the electorate. He now is the Speaker of the House, a position that most men earn by integrity, selfless dedication, and humility. What a sick, ugly example he has set for the Youth of this nation with his despicable assessment of The First Lady, Hillary Clinton. In public as well as in private, those elected to office and entrusted with the responsibilities of governing our nation, need to watch their language; be gentlemen and gentle ladies at all times; and give to the nation a luster of excellence and propriety. That Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Gingrich are poles apart politically has nothing to do with proper manners and the decency to respect the highest office in the land. Mrs. Clinton is no neophyte in the area of governance. She is an accomplished attorney; has a brilliant mind, and above all, a desire to make life a little easier for the poor, the sick, the aged, and the impoverished. The nation didn't see one Newt Gingrich serving the homeless during the Thanksgiving Holiday. But Mrs. Clinton was there, serving those less fortunate. She deserves an A for effort on many fronts. We cannot say the same for Mr. Gingrich. around as if it were the saving formula for the people of the United States. Take a walk, Sir, across this beautiful land of ours and see for your self how people work, live and exist. They do with what they have, which in many instances is very meager. You now propose to look into the Social Security and Medicare areas to soup up funds for your proposals that you feel must be enacted under The Contract. You won't find the very rich and the affluent working in the mines, the taconite plants, the forests, the farmlands, the fisheries, or the highways of this country. It will be an education, but strangely enough, those issues are not in The Contract. The Lady of Character and compassion is inviting you to the White House for dinner. You need to apologize to her, to the President, and to the citizens of this nation, and above all, to the young people, who have hopes and visions of, someday serving this nation. As you continue your mission, Mr. Gingrich, don't take from the poor to make the rich richer. Take heed, that Character is the product of daily, hourly actions and utterances; words and thoughts; daily forgivenesses, unselfishness, kindnesses, sympathies, charities, sacrifices for the good of others, struggles against temptation, submissiveness under trial; and Humility, for your good fortune to be Speaker of the House in the greatest nation on earth. It is all these, like the blending colors in a painting, or the blending notes of music which constitute The Man.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration promotes America as a destination for foreign travelers. Its annual budget is minuscule by Federal standards, but the return on this investment is immense. In 1993, some 46 million foreign visitors came to the United States. They spent $74.2 billion here, producing a $22.2 billion positive balance of trade in travel and tourism. Incoming international travel generates 909,000 jobs and a payroll of $14.5 billion--not including jobs generated by the $16.6 billion that foreign visitors spend to travel on U.S. airlines. This October the first-ever White House Conference on Travel and Tourism will be held under the management of USTTA. Preliminary conferences will be held in all States to develop the national agenda; several State conferences have already been held. The very existence or USTTA is the Federal Government's recognition that travel and tourism is indeed an important sector of our economy. agency would reduce the Federal deficit by a factor of one ten- thousandth--one one-hundredth of 1 percent--point-zero-zero-zero-one. It would not make a dent on the deficit. In fact, it would make hardly a blemish. The benefits of this agency's work vastly outweight its costs. Mr. Speaker, USTTA has proven its value to America. It should be allowed to continue its good work.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, colleagues, there are two areas of unfunded mandates issues that are of great concern to me in the field of aviation. One is security; the other is safety. Security measures should not be subject to a mere point of order, that they could be stricken by a single point of order made against a measure that would improve security for American air travelers at home and abroad, at our airports and abroad, our airlines and foreign airlines. Certainly an issue of that matter ought to be subject to a majority vote, but not by a simple point of order. A motion to strike is always in order. But a point of order against a matter so important as security, this legislation would undermine, would gut, the ability of Congress and Federal agencies to impose needed security and safety measures on airport operators and on United States and foreign airlines. All major airports are now run by agencies of State or local government. When we consider laws that we have enacted in the past, that would have been jeopardized by a provision such as this had it been in effect at the time we enacted or brought on to the floor such legislation. On December 21, 1988, terrorists succeeded in blowing PanAm 103 out of the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland; 270 of our fellow citizens died in that tragedy. As a result of the breach of security and the devastating results, President Bush asked for, and the Congress enacted, legislation creating a commission on security and terrorism, on which I served and of which our former colleague, John Paul Hammerschmidt on the Republican side, served, and produced a report with 64 recommendations which we then drafted in a legislative form, introduced in the House and the Senate, and got enacted into law, and the President signed all of those provisions into law. Now I look back on the work that we did in that legislation, and I shudder to think what would have happened had we brought that bill to the floor, and any one of those provisions could have been subject to a mere point of order. Now there is no way that we could fully fund with Federal funds all the requirements that were necessary to go into effect to protect security, protect the security of American travelers on U.S. airlines at U.S. airports and protect the security of American travelers overseas, at foreign airports, aboard foreign airlines. They, too, have a responsibility to security. They, too, have a responsibility to the people that travel aboard domestic and foreign airlines, and to say that, no, that that responsibility can be knocked out on a point of order does not make sense without even subjecting it to a matter of debate on the House floor. When millions of flights take off, nearly 40 million a year in this country, when they take off and land safely, when there is no loss of life because of terrorist action, which there has not been in the domestic United States since 1969, we do not see headlines about it, but we legislation that we have enacted. But this Congress has had the responsibility to come forward and deal with, and that we have accepted that responsibility, and we have acted, and I say, ``But if you have one hijacking aboard a domestic airliner, or one airport invaded by terrorists because of a breach of security, and you go back and find, well, it happened because we didn't have sufficient laws in place, because we didn't have sufficient security measures in place, and then if you were to go back further and say, `Yes, we tried, but it was stricken on a point of order on the House floor,' sure doesn't make sense to me.'' It certainly seems to me that the provisions in this unfunded mandate legislation undermine the responsibility we have to our fellow citizens to ensure that aviation be maintained safe and secure. The same argumentation applies to the safety side of aviation.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, we have enacted legislation to provide for safety aboard American airlines and at American airports, and there is already a very heavy burden of responsibility on the FAA to undertake in conjunction with each safety rule making a benefit-to-cost study as they proceed in the rulemaking process. That has enormously bogged down the FAA. One of the most important considerations now in light of tragedies that happened last year in the commuter airline sector is to have a single standard of safety between part 121, the major airlines, and part 135, the commuter and regional airline operators. It has taken months, it will soon be over a year, for the FAA to issue regulations in this area, where the commuters are agreed and that majors are agreed that those safety regulations ought to go into effect. Now, they have been bogged down because of this need to conduct the cost-benefit analyses for 15 different signoffs within the FAA and DOT and the Office of Management and Budget. If you add to that someone can stand up on the floor and make a point of order, and say no, you can't do that, what are you doing to safety? I just think it is an egregious affront to safety to provide this kind of procedure, where on a simple point of order, in initiatives such as emergency escape path markings, seat cushions that will not catch fire readily, protective breathing equipment for use by flight attendants in emergency, improved cabin interior materials that burn less readily and do not put out toxic fumes aboard new aircraft. When FAA went to move on those safety improvements, they had to run a gauntlet of procedural hoops and second guessers in the Department and the Office of Management and Budget. Please do not add another hoop and another gadget and another hostility here on the House floor to safety and security in aviation. You travel also, each one of us travels aboard aircraft, and we want it safe for ourselves and our constituents.