James Oberstar

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. No. We want them to live up to their contract. That is the point. Furthermore, the reason that the tower was not approved to be built with FAA funds is that it did not meet FAA benefit cost requirements.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's comments and his advocacy for Anoka County Airport. Anoka County used to be in the Eighth Congressional District some 20 years ago. Even after it was taken out of my district, I worked closely with the county and the airport authority to secure the funds to operate the air traffic control tower, and made it clear that at the time they did not qualify for funds. They were willing to build a tower anyway. They knew, they knew that they wanted this tower for a variety of reasons. But it is not right to come back and say, well, now you can be reimbursed. I was deeply involved in that whole situation.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4466, the reauthorization of the National Transportation Safety Board. The gentleman from Florida (Chairman Mica) has articulated already in very detailed and, I think, very thoughtful fashion much of the splendid work that the NTSB accomplishes year in and year out. But we are here today in support of legislation to advance the cause of the Nation's premier transportation investigative agency; not only the Nation's premier investigative agency in the arena of transportation, but for the entire world, for the NTSB has served as a model for other countries to develop similar independent transportation investigative agencies, and particularly investigative agencies in the field of aviation. The NTSB Board and their professional staff, career staff, have traveled throughout the world to help other countries establish, organize, write the legislative, charter and launch similar independent safety board investigative entities. It behooves us to always do our utmost through the legislative process and through the appropriations to keep the NTSB in the forefront of transportation safety. Since we last authorized the board in the year 2000, it has investigated 6,240 aviation accidents, 112 highway accidents, 62 railroad accidents, 28 pipeline and hazardous material accidents, 17 marine accidents, and issued a total of 652 safety recommendations. It has played a major role in helping other nations do their investigations, such as recently with the China Air tragedy. To maintain that role, we have to assure that NTSB will continually have the personnel and the funding it needs to undertake increasingly complex accident investigations. It seems that as our technology progresses in both aviation and surface transportation, as well as maritime transportation, the accidents that result become more complex, more challenging to investigate and more difficult to understand. For that purpose, the NTSB has realized that it too has needed to stay ahead of the state of the art, and recently broke ground for a new training academy to house the teaching of state-of-the-art investigative techniques for transportation accidents. The funding that we provide in this legislation will help the NTSB to provide the personnel and the resources for those personnel at headquarters, as well as at the academy, with the $247.7 million authorization over the next three years. The bill also authorizes an increase in the size of the emergency fund for NTSB from $2 million to $6 million to cover the ever- increasing costs of these increasingly complex accident investigations that the board must undertake. One of the core functions is to assist families of passengers who have been victims of an aviation accident. In previous legislation, when the presiding officer who has just left the Chair, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood), was on our Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, he led the way to extend the authority of the NTSB to help the families of accident victims. We have extended that authority in this legislation to families of rail accident victims. Title II of the bill incorporates the provisions of the Rail Passenger Disaster Family Assistance Act, requiring that interstate passenger railroads submit to the Secretary of Transportation and to the Chair of the NTSB a plan to address the needs of the families of passengers involving any railroad accident involving major loss of life. The plan must address publication of a toll-free number to handle calls from family members, procedures for developing passenger lists, the process for notifying family members, and other provisions we need not detail at this time. One element of the legislation that I think is particularly important is a prohibition against unsolicited communication by attorneys until at least 45 days following an accident. This is a matter that had unanimous support within our committee. In times of tragedy, the families of victims are particularly vulnerable to unscrupulous persons who inevitably want to prey upon family loss. The bill will make that kind of shameless behavior illegal. It will give rail passengers the same protections as those we provided for airline passengers. We provided this same protection a few years ago in NTSB reauthorization. Another provision for protection of families is that in accidents caused by intentional criminal acts, in the year 2000 the Congress authorized the transfer of investigative priorities for such cases from the NTSB to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to avoid the confusion that results in a case where there are overlapping factors, as occurred in TWA 800. It was not clear at the outset whether this was a classic aviation accident or whether it was an incident caused by a terrorist act. The FBI at first treated it as a criminal act, and there was confusion as to who had authority. We attempted to clarify that authority and transferred the investigative priority from NTSB to the FBI for cases in which there is an intentional criminal act, but there was no mechanism to transfer the responsibility for family affairs from the NTSB to the FBI. Following the events of September 11, the NTSB concluded that when the FBI gets investigative responsibility for an aircraft accident, family affairs responsibilities should transfer as well. So this legislation makes that transfer of authority in both aviation and rail accidents. It addresses another matter of significant importance, and that is the notoriously slow response by other modal entities in the Department of Transportation to the NTSB safety recommendations. It was a matter of great concern when I chaired the Subcommittee on Aviation, and the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Mica) has articulated that concern just previously in his statement. There should be no delay. The Department of Transportation and other modal agencies should respond promptly. This bill requires DOT to report annually on the regulatory status of significant safety recommendations made by the NTSB, regardless of the year in which the recommendation was made. That will enable us in the Congress, on behalf of the public, to keep better tabs on the progress the sister agencies in DOT are making in response to these very important safety recommendations. This is a critically important piece of legislation. The NTSB does not get public attention until a board member or an investigator is standing in front of a camera crew at the site of a tragedy, responding methodically, thoughtfully, and objectively to endless reporter questions about this tragedy and how it occurred and what will be the future of safety in surface or air transportation. We must give the board all the resources it needs to continue to do its job impassively, objectively, and effectively. I express my great appreciation to the chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), for the work he has done; to our ranking member, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski); and to my good friend, the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young); and also to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Quinn), chairman of the Subcommittee on Railroads; and to our colleague, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Clement). Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time. Enactment of this Maritime Transportation Security Act, otherwise known as the Port Security bill, will close another hole in the security network of the United States, and a critical one. We have already dealt effectively with aviation security, and implementation of provisions of that legislation is well underway; but we have 95,000 miles of coastline in the United States. Ninety-five percent of the volume of U.S. international trade, both inbound and outbound, comes by the water. We have to protect that coastline and our ports. Our ports are major cities. Most of our cities were ports before they were cities. America has grown up around the water; 75 percent of the population of this Nation lives along the water, either the inland waterways or the coastal regions of the United States, including the Great Lakes; but we have not adequately protected our ports and our major cities against terrorist acts. This legislation will move us in the right direction. It will create the processes by which the Coast Guard is the preeminent entity in protecting America's coastline, will take the steps, the inspections, set up the processes by which we will protect America's waterways, our ports, our coastal regions. But as in aviation security, there must be a continuum of security protection that will start with the shipper, with the product that is being shipped to the United States. It must be inspected. We must know what it is before it goes into the container and before that container goes on board a ship; and after it arrives in the United States, it must be again inspected to be sure that what was put on board the ship is actually what comes off that ship. We have learned in aviation safety that there must be redundancy and overlapping systems that protect aviation safety, that make flying as safe as we know it; and so in security there must be an interlocking web of protective measures that begin from the origin of the shipment to its destination. That is what we must provide in this legislation here and in the conference to come, as the chairman said. When we get this bill through conference, we want to make sure that it is the strongest protective measure that we can provide for our fellow citizens, not just those in the coastal regions but those in the inland cities to which cargo is destined. I compliment the chairman of the full committee for working together with us on the minority side, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo), the chairman of the subcommittee, and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown), our ranking member on the subcommittee. Members have worked hard. Staff have worked hard. We have worked cooperatively in the best national interest to produce the best bill that we can foresee. I urge its enactment. I urge its passage. Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 3983, the ``Maritime Transportation Antiterrorism Act of 2002''. Last fall, Congress enacted critical legislation to help protect the aviation industry from terrorist attacks. Today, we move forward on legislation to help secure U.S. ports, vessels, and our intermodal transportation system from terrorist attack. There are more than 95,000 miles of coastline in the United States. Over 6 million shipping containers arrive in the United States each year from foreign ports carrying goods that are vital for consumers and manufacturers. Virtually all of the oil imported into the United States arrives by ship. We are a nation dependent upon international shipping. Yet this transportation system can also be used as a means of delivering a weapon of mass destruction to the heartland of America. It would be far easier for a country to put a nuclear bomb in a container and ship it to the United States and have it detonated by a Global Positioning System receiver, than it would be to build a missile system to deliver a nuclear warhead. The task of securing America's seaports and the cargo we import against terrorist attack is a daunting task. One only has to look at the volume of illegal drugs imported each year by sea to see just how porous our borders are. However, it is a challenge we must address. H.R. 3983 is modeled on the successfully implemented Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA). OPA established a strong command and control system for emergencies. It clarified that there is ultimately one person to make the decision on how to clean up an oil spill, the Coast Guard on- scene coordinator. H.R. 3983 establishes a similar system to develop and implement plans to deter terrorist attacks on our ports, and on vessels operating in and out of our ports. However, protecting the United States must begin overseas. By the time that a weapon of mass destruction in a container is delivered to a U.S. port on a ship it is too late. We must begin profiling and screening containers overseas--before cargo is loaded on a ship. H.R. 3983 requires shippers, carriers, and freight forwarders to provide the Transportation Security Administration with information on container contents, the inland truck and rail carriers, the consignee, and other information needed to analyze whether the container may pose a risk to the United States. This information must be provided at least 24 hours before the container is loaded on a ship bound for the United States. That will give our agencies sufficient time to profile the container and work with the foreign government to screen its contents, if that is necessary. H.R. 3983 also helps protect our marine terminals by establishing a transportation security card system for those individuals that have ``unescorted access'' to marine facilities. The Department of Transportation currently envisions four levels of security access that can be granted by the card. Level 1 Access simply identifies a person as someone who can have unescorted access to the unsecured areas of a terminal. A Level 4 Access means a person has had a security background check to ensure that he or she is not a ``terrorist security threat'' and, therefore, that person may have access to areas in a terminal that could cause a catastrophic emergency. On vessels such as a passenger vessel, the bridge and engine room areas may also be designated as a secure area, to ensure that passengers do not try to take control of the vessel. H.R. 3983 also contains the text of H.R. 3507, the Coast Guard Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002, which was passed by the House on December 20, 2001, under Suspension of the Rules. I am hopeful that this will allow the House and Senate to reach an agreement on a current authorization bill for the Coast Guard. I would like to commend Chairman Young, Subcommittee Chairman LoBiondo, and Subcommittee Ranking Member Brown for the cooperative effort that they have put forth to develop bipartisan port security legislation. Together, we will succeed in having meaningful legislation enacted this session to improve the security of the marine transportation system from terrorist acts. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. And, Mr. Chairman, I do so to applaud the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) for raising appropriately the issue of USAirways. I think it is, to put it mildly, bad faith on the part of Congress to terminate the loan guarantee program, and it is an act at the worst possible time for this carrier, and for other carriers along with it, who have indicated their likely need to apply for the loan guarantee program. Virtually everybody in this House voted for both the compensation program and the loan guarantee program last fall when it was crucially necessary to save America's airlines from financial liquidation. That legislation passed overwhelmingly to the great credit of the administration. They came forward and said, yes, we need to do this, when we in the House were already talking about the need to save America's airlines, who were bleeding at the rate of $360 million a day because they could not operate. And the reason we enacted that legislation was that it was an act of government that shut down the Nation's airlines in the national interest, out of security concerns. It was an appropriate action. But we caused the airlines, we, the government, caused the airlines to lose billions of dollars in the national interest. We recognized that it was a necessity for the government then to come back and not make the airlines whole, but at least put them in the position they were in at the moment of the order for all airline operations to cease on September 11. Mr. Chairman, 2,460 commercial airliners were brought on the ground within 2\1/2\ hours and did not operate for 3 days. And then, for a month after other airports were opened, National Airport remained closed. This is the hub, the base of USAirways' operations. The order of government not to operate out of National Airport hit this carrier disproportionately greater than any other carrier in the United States. I find it short-sighted, bad faith, poor judgment, poor calculation to say, oh, we have taken back what we offered you last fall. It is just simply not right. It is not fair. And I do not want to get into all these other discussions about what else is in this supplemental appropriations bill. This particular provision is really harmful and hurtful and goes back on our word that we gave in this body to the airlines of the United States: we will make you whole to the point that you were at when you could not fly, and we will provide loan assistance, payback with all sorts of guarantees that I participated in crafting into the loan guarantee program in the Speaker's office, the night of the President's address to the Nation. And now the program is there; and all of a sudden you are pulling the rug out from under this carrier that has suffered a disproportionate burden compared to other carriers in the country because of the shutdown of National Airport for over a month. Now, I heard the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) say that we will fix this somehow over the course of the next few days. ``Somehow'' is no help to the financial institutions. It does not give them a whole lot of confidence at all. It gives them zero confidence, in fact. This needs to be fixed now, before this bill leaves the House, whether it is a statement by the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations or a statement by the Office of Management and Budget. I think our ranking member on the Committee on the Budget has already spelled out how little, how ephemeral, how chimerical the savings will be. Surely we can do something in the course of this evening, which apparently is going to be a very long evening; and I appeal to the chairman. I do not fly USAirways. They do not serve Minnesota.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I said that just a moment ago.

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

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I have an interest only because of my many, many years of action in the aviation sector as the former Chair of the Subcommittee on Aviation and a desire to do the right thing.

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

Mr. OBERSTAR. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, America West filed before the regulation process had been fully implemented. They were in much more desperate shape than USAirways, no question about it. The full set of regulations was not in place at that time.

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

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out to the chairman that the regulations for the loan guarantee program were not available until early this year, along about January-February. And the person administering the program was not put in place until just about that time. It has been very difficult for the carriers to understand how this program would be administered. Further, they wanted to wait and see whether they could be whole on their own. So I do not exonerate the airlines, but there were mitigating factors. And this carrier is particularly vulnerable. If we lose USAirways, then on the east coast the cascading effect will be that there will be a diminution of competition in the airline sector.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to introduce the Air Traffic Retirement Reform Act of 2002. This legislation will grant air traffic controllers, and more specifically air traffic controller supervisors, the same treatment that federal firefighters and law enforcement officers (LEOs) receive under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and the Federal Employment Retirement System (FERS). Both the CSRS and the FERS provide early retirement benefits and require mandatory separation for safety-related occupations, including federal firefighters, LEOs and air traffic controllers. Under both CSRS and FERS, firefighters/LEOs and controllers are eligible for retirement after 25 years of service or after becoming 50 years old and completing 20 years of service. Additionally, the annuities for firefighters, LEOs and controllers are higher than ordinary federal employees under CSRS and FERS. However, the current definition of an air traffic controller in both CSRS and FERS is limited to people who are actively engaged in directing air traffic or their immediate supervisors. As a result, air traffic controllers who are promoted to staff specialists or second level managers before they are eligible to retire lose all benefits currently guaranteed controllers under CSRS and FERS. Yet, firefighters and LEOs that are promoted to management positions do not need to make a similar sacrifice. The Air Traffic Retirement Reform Act of 2002 amends the CSRS and FERS to provide a more expansive two-tier definition of air traffic controllers. The new definition will include both employees covered under the current definition of air traffic controllers and second level supervisors. Second level supervisors would be eligible for the same retirement benefits available to line-controllers. The Air Traffic Retirement Reform Act of 2002 provides fairness and parity, between air traffic controllers and other federal safety professionals.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say I concur with my distinguished chairman. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, in anticipation of yielding to the next gentleman, I will yield to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), but I just wanted to point out that the gentleman was the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit in the last Congress when we authorized TEA 21. I want to acknowledge the superb role the gentleman played in the crafting of that legislation and the many hours of personal endeavor he gave to the crafting of what became known as TEA 21, and his solid grasp of the issues that we fought over in this body and in the conference. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall).

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 minutes. The role of a chairman, Mr. Speaker, is to lead and our chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on this legislation and on many others has led. As soon as we got word of the budget language and the prospective cut, without waiting to see the actual document, the chairman sprang into action. We joined forces, as we do on this committee and as we are known almost legendarily in the House, on a bipartisan basis, to rectify the wrong. The chairman was quite right in pointing out that, I choose to say, with all the Presidents with whom we have served, not under. We are a coequal branch. This is not new. Cutting highway funds started with President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 on the recommendation of the same gang that did one, the then Bureau of the Budget, that said we need to cut funds in order to dampen inflation, build up a bit of a surplus to offset the burgeoning surplus at the beginning of the Vietnam War, and as the chairman observed, it is an old dictum that the President proposes but the Congress disposes. As astute and an early observer as Edmund Burke, the noted British historian, political science writer, a century ago observed that a presidential budget in the hands of a strong Speaker is worth little more than the paper on which the words are written. Well, we intend to do what Burke observed, to assure that those are just simply numbers on paper and that the intent of TEA-21 is carried out. It will restore $4.4 billion of the President's 27 percent cut in the Federal aid highway program. Important for a number of reasons, as other speakers have noted, this cut itself will, or this restoration will affect 180,000 jobs, but the original budget cut proposed would affect 360,000 jobs over the next 5 years. Worse, it will result in a budget surplus in the Highway Trust Fund of $34 billion and extend it out over a decade. It will reach a nearly $80 billion surplus in the Highway Trust Fund. By way of comparison when we started with TEA-21 in January of 1998, there was a $29 billion surplus in the Highway Trust Fund. We would be going backward. In fact, if we do not make this restoration the last year of funding for TEA-21 will be less than the first year of TEA-21. That is not the direction in which the American people want this country to move or expect this committee to move in. We do not establish a ceiling for the highway program. The bill says highway funding should be at least $27.7 billion. That is the minimum, and as the process goes forward, I hope we will be able to restore even more than that as we get into the final process of the budget and the supplemental appropriations bill with the other body. The Highway Trust Fund now can support $30 billion in outlays. By the end of this process, I hope we will have achieved an outcome that expends every last penny of that Highway Trust Fund. We did not just do this as an accident when we crafted TEA-21. That was a hard fought bill here on this floor till 2:30 in the morning on the budget process in 1997, and then all the way through the committee and into 1998, and we had an overwhelming vote, and then we went to conference and we had a 2-month conference with the United States Senate. Every piece of that legislation was fought through. The other body did not want to have a guaranteed account. The other body did not want to have the levels of authorization that we set forth in what became TEA-21, and this committee, standing for this body, fought for the guaranteed account and for the revenue adjusted budget authority, and we got it in there. We cannot let a presidential or OMB dictum take it away from us and from the people of this country. The extraordinary history of TEA-21 has been that in the 42 years of the interstate highway program we invested $114 billion of Federal funds to build the 44,000-mile interstate highway system. In 4\1/2\ years of TEA-21, we invested $114 billion. We did in 4\1/2\ years what it took 42 years of the interstate highway program, and in the process we created 1\1/2\ million new jobs, the good jobs, the jobs that buy the homes and buy the cars and buy the household appliances and put the kids through school, jobs that have sustained the economic expansion of the last 7 years, until it hit the body with that recession that we are trying to creep out of. The Highway Trust Fund is a dedicated account. It cannot be used for any other purpose. It can only be used for highway and transit funding. It can support more funding, and when we crafted TEA-21, we knew that the year-by-year levels that we authorized would be less than what could be spent. So we provided an additional $15 billion of authorizations over and above the amount specified year by year. There is enough in the Highway Trust Fund now. There is a surplus of roughly $20 billion, and let us acknowledge that maybe 6 or $7 billion of that is already spoken for by forward funding of the States, but there is enough in there to support the level of funding that we authorized for this coming fiscal year for TEA-21, and we ought to do it. We ought to do it because if we for no other reason, the cost of congestion, the congestion tax in just 68 major metropolitan areas of the United States is $78 billion last year as verified by the Texas Transportation Institute in its report on congestion. This is a bargain, $8.6 billion restored or $4.4 billion that we are trying to do in this bill. That is a bargain to help buy down the cost of congestion. A key element of this bill is a sense of Congress that we will work together in a reauthorization to ensure that the revenue alignment mechanism of RABA is fine-tuned to more accurately align highway fund spending with highway revenues so as to have greater predictability and stability in highway funding. I understand also that our chairman, gentleman from Alaska, has reached an agreement with the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations to attach the language of this bill to the supplemental appropriations bill instead of language that would have declared that the RABA mechanism shall have no force or effect. Now that is very serious language that would have had a very, very bad effect, and I think striking that language and supplanting our bill is a good agreement. That agreement also has a dark side, and the dark side is that we also have to agree to authorize projects that were earmarked in the Transportation Appropriations Act this fiscal year that are ineligible for funding. I do not want to debate the merits of those particular projects, but I just want to focus on process. This is an example of legislative process that is spinning out of control. In the last several years we have moved away from deliberative consideration of legislation, including transportation appropriations bills.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) for his generosity. Two-thirds of the Members of this body did not serve in this body in prior years when there were different rules that now are routinely waived. We had transportation appropriations conference reports submitted to us at 7 a.m. on the day the bill is to be considered 2 hours later, no time for the staff of the majority or the minority to evaluate what is in those bills. Members were lucky if they saw a copy, let alone have an idea of what was in it. Similarly, the other body no longer passes appropriation bills with numbered amendments, so that when they come over here from conference there is no opportunity to stand up and challenge a particular numbered amendment in an appropriation bill. In 1993, Chairman Natcher of the Committee on Appropriations brought the transportation appropriation conference report with 63 amendments in disagreement. We could challenge each one of those. We no longer can do that. We no longer even have the time to consider in appropriate fashion what has been sent from the other body, whether in a conference report or otherwise. Now we ought to know before we vote what we are voting on. We should know that bills that earmark interstate highway funds for projects that are not on the interstate are pending before us; we ought to know that the bill before us commits public lands funds for projects that do not involve Federal lands; that scenic byway funds are for a project that is not on a scenic byway; that bridge replacement funds are dedicated to a project that does not replace a bridge. We are in the position in this committee of voting without having an opportunity to know what we are voting on and, therefore, to object to what we are voting on. We need to restore the deliberative process to this body's consideration of appropriation bills. I know that I speak for myself, I know I speak for the Members on the Democratic side, and I know that I express the frustration that the chairman and members of our committee on the majority side have as well. Let us restore a deliberative process so that we can do the public's business in a fair and effective way. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman for yielding this time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Borski), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. (Mr. BORSKI asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in opposition to the Yucca Mountain Repository Site Approval Act. Our Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure just recently had a hearing on this issue. It was clear from the hearing there are too many uncertainties, too many unresolved issues, and the risks are too high for us to support this resolution. This is not the first time, this is the second time around on this issue of transporting nuclear waste. And our committee addressed this issue in 1982 during the consideration of the surface transportation bill when there was an amendment to prohibit the transportation of nuclear waste through major urban areas. What about the folks in the rural areas? They should be exposed because people in the urban areas should not be? We defeated the measure. In 1987, the same group that is telling us that Yucca Mountain is a great place came to us in northern Minnesota saying it was a great place to locate nuclear waste at the headwaters of the Great Lakes. One-fifth of all the fresh water on the face of the Earth, and they wanted to deposit this most toxic substance known to mankind right there so we could poison one-fifth of the water. It was the worst possible place then, and Yucca Mountain is the second worst possible place. The General Accounting Office submitted to our committee a report showing that there are 293 scientific issues and technical questions not yet resolved that have to be answered before the DOE could even apply for a license. This is not the time. We have plenty of time. It will not be until 2006 before they are even ready to submit an application. Let us defeat this now and give it more substantive consideration. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.J. Res. 84, the Yucca Mountain Repository Site Approval Act, which authorizes the development of a nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. As was made clear during a joint hearing of the Subcommittees on Railroads and Highways and Transit of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, there are too many uncertainties, too many unresolved issues--and the risks are simply too high--for me to support this resolution. At the hearing, we heard a great deal of evidence about the failures of the Yucca Mountain proposal. We learned that the Department of Energy (``DOE''), which was supposed to study the environmental effects of transporting nuclear waste from 131 sites around the country, included only 77 sites in its final environmental impact statement for Yucca Mountain. In other words, DOE omitted any evaluation of 54 nuclear waste sites--or 41 percent of the nuclear waste sites it was supposed to study--from its analysis. In addition, the General Accounting Office issued a report just this past December that noted 293 outstanding scientific and technical questions that must be resolved before DOE can even apply for a license for the Yucca Mountain site. Bechtel, DOE's own contractor, has stated that DOE would not be in a position to submit a license application for Yucca Mountain until 2006. Some of the most troubling aspects of the Yucca Mountain project are the uncertainties surrounding the transportation of nuclear waste across the country. The method and routes for transporting all this spent fuel from 131 sites around the country have not yet been determined. There are proposals; there are ideas about how to best ship the spent nuclear fuel, but there is no definitive plan for its transportation. What we do know is that this highly toxic material will be shipped over our Nation's highways, railways, and waterways, and will most likely travel through more than 40 states and the District of Columbia. And we know that, regardless of the specific routes ultimately chosen, this nuclear waste will be shipped through our communities in close proximity to millions of people. Yet, we are told simply to accept the fact that by the time this fuel is ready to be shipped, the Administration will have figured out an acceptable plan for shipping it. Mr. Speaker, I submit that such important issues should be explored and decided before we chose a nuclear waste depository--before we agree to ship nuclear waste through out cities and towns and across our lakes and rivers. Proponents of the Yucca Mountain site point to the safety record in transporting nuclear waste over the past 35 years. But what they don't say is that there have been, on average, just over 90 such shipments each year, mostly by truck. If we were to transport the 46,000 tons of materials now being stored around the Nation, as well as some of the additional nuclear waste that will be generated before the Yucca Mountain site reaches capacity, it would require approximately 2,800 cross-country truck movements each year for 38 years. The Administration envisions that most of the shipments will be by rail. But there is currently no railroad to the Yucca Mountain site. Further, many of the nuclear sites where waste is currently stored are not directly connected to a railroad. In addition, there are no federal regulations that govern the routing of these shipments by rail. Tellingly, the railroads disagree with DOE over the safest way to ship this spent nuclear fuel. The railroads believe that dedicated trains are the safest way to move this material. First, dedicated trains do not require any switching of the railcars. Switching increases the handling of railcars and thereby increases the risk of an accident. Second, the disparity between the weight in the railcars carrying the nuclear waste and the railcars carrying other freight in a mixed freight train may cause instabilities that could lead to a derailment. Third, dedicated trains are necessary for the train to be equipped with electronically controlled pneumatic brakes. These brakes provide greater safety through advanced braking capabilities and an advanced communications system that alerts the crew of the condition of the train's wheels. DOE's regulations, however, call for spent fuel casks to be shipped in mixed general freight trains. Unfortunately, DOE's regulations appear to be ``market driven'' in that mixed freight trains are cheaper than dedicated trains. I would submit that the safe transportation of these highly toxic materials should take precedence over making a buck. At the subcommittee hearing, many of my colleagues on the Transportation Committee voiced a great deal of concern over the possibility of a train accident similar to the one in the Baltimore rail tunnel last July that burned for three days with temperatures rising above 1,500 degrees F. That is higher than the temperature that the spent fuel casks are designed to withstand. If a single rail cask with spent nuclear fuel had been on-board that train, it could have released enough radiation to contaminate a 32 square mile area. It would have cost nearly $14 billion to clean up such a catastrophic accident if it had involved nuclear waste. What is shocking is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (``NRC'') has not done any tests on the stability of the casks in a similar scenario. The tests they have done assumed a fire burning at 1,475 degrees F for 30 minutes. We now know first-hand that fires from such a train accident can extend far beyond the NRC's assumptions. Terrorism also poses a significant threat to any safe transportation of spent nuclear fuel. Whether transported by truck, rail, or barge, these shipments will be slow moving and could potentially be the target of a terrorist attack. We simply cannot afford to short-change the real and pressing security concerns inherent with the transportation of this fuel. While the casks are designed to withstand a great deal of damage, some of the sophisticated weapons available today could penetrate them. The subcommittee hearing brought to light a whole host of issues surrounding the transportation of nuclear waste material that should be addressed before we accept any plan to ship spent nuclear fuel across the country. Unfortunately, the Administration has elected to force the issue before all these concerns can be sufficiently addressed. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act states that the President's recommendation starts a process that leads ultimately to the Congress having to accept or override a veto by the Governor of the State of Nevada. I believe we should sustain Governor Guinn's veto. It may be hard to accept the consequences of sustaining the veto, but not as hard as making the wrong decision on this critical national security and transportation safety issue. I urge my colleagues to oppose H.J. Res. 84.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2911. H.R. 2911 honors Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, known as the ``Father of the Food and Drug Administration (``FDA'')'', by designating the new state-of- the-art Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in College Park, Maryland as the ``Harvey W. Wiley Federal Building''. Dr. Wiley was a pioneer who advocated on behalf of the American people for a safe food and drug supply. He fought for federal protections from fraudulent drugs and unsafe foods. From 1883 until 1912, he served as Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (``USDA''). As a result of his strong beliefs and unwavering efforts, the first comprehensive bill ensuring a safe food and drug supply, the Pure Food and Drug Act, was passed in 1906. This Act has served as a cornerstone for the modern Food and Drug Acts. Harvey Washington Wiley was born near Kent, IN, in 1844. He was an honor student at Hanover College and received his medical degree from Indiana Medical College in 1871. He also earned a B.S. degree from Harvard University after only a few months of intense effort. In 1874, Dr. Wiley accepted a faculty position in chemistry at Purdue University. In 1882, he was named Chief Chemist at the USDA, a position he held for nearly 30 years. Under his leadership and perseverance, the Bureau of Chemistry grew in both size and stature. The Bureau's staff expanded from 110 to 146 employers, and their appropriations expanded from $155,00 to nearly $1 million in 1906. In 1912, Dr. Wiley resigned from the Bureau and began a career at the Good Housekeeping labs where he established the ``Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval''. He died in 1930 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. This bill is a fitting tribute to Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, the Father of the FDA. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2911.