John Olver

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. OLVER. I would just comment it should be possible to get out this kind of regulation earlier than October 1, 2009. We will see what we can do about that.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman if he would withdraw his amendment, and I would be happy to work with him, as I am sure the ranking member would as well, though I would lead him to comment, to work with him in conference to address this issue. Otherwise, I rise in reluctant opposition to the gentleman's amendment. I believe the need, as he has indicated, for housing counseling is strong. But what his offset does in this instance is to take the funding for the Inspector General for HUD back to the level of the budget request for the year 2007, where we had increased in the supplemental budget the appropriation for the IG to $88.2 million, in the supplemental budget had been added to the IG to do its work, and have recommended in this bill a less than 2 percent increase. So that, compared with the 2007 appropriation for the IG, the amendment would represent a 5 or 6 percent decrease in the amount of funding available for the IG. We simply are not in a position to be able to increase this account because of the deep holes that the President handed to us in the HUD budget. We froze the account at the FY07 level, with the supplemental amount there, which is the best that we could do without harming other HUD programs. Now, taking the funding from the Inspector General to increase this account is counterproductive to the gentleman's amendment. Should we reduce the oversight in order to increase the housing counseling? They're both vital programs. We feel that we have struck the correct balance here for this pair of needs. I commend the gentleman's passion on the issue, and I would be happy to work with him in the future on the issue related to housing counseling. And I do recognize that we are likely to have some, in the secondary lending market, problems later this year, continuing problems, as we have been having, but I would urge the gentleman to withdraw the amendment at this time and we would try to work it out in conference.

Mr. OLVER. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, during further consideration of H.R. 3074 in the Committee of the Whole pursuant to House Resolution 558, notwithstanding clause 11 of rule XVIII, no further amendment to the bill may be offered except: Pro forma amendments offered at any point in the reading by the chairman or ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their designees for the purpose of debate; An amendment by Mr. Crowley regarding a study to determine staffing needs for air traffic controllers; An amendment by Mr. Al Green of Texas regarding funding for the Fair Housing Initiatives Program; An amendment by Ms. Slaughter, Ms. Velazquez, or Mr. Terry regarding funding for lead hazard reduction grants; An amendment by Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida regarding an annual study of FHA single-family housing mortgage insurance programs; An amendment by Mr. Gary Miller of California regarding the authorization for additional Moving to Work Demonstration agreements; An amendment by Mr. Blunt regarding Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards; An amendment by Mr. Conaway regarding use of reductions made through amendment for deficit reduction; An amendment by Mr. DeFazio, or Mr. Hunter, or Mrs. Boyda of Kansas prohibiting use of funds for certain cross-border motor carrier demonstration projects; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the National Mule and Packers Museum in Woodlake, California; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the Los Angeles Fashion District in Los Angeles, California; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the Bel Alton High School Alumni Association Community Development Corporation in Maryland; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the Hunting and Fishing Museum of Pennsylvania; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the Houston Zoo in Texas; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the Walter Clore Wine and Culinary Center in Washington; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the Belmont Complex in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the North Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission in Wausau, Wisconsin; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the Arlington Chamber of Commerce in Texas; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the Strand Theatre Performing Arts Center in Plattsburgh, New York; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the Huntsville Museum of Art in Alabama; An amendment by Mr. Flake limiting funds for the Friends of Cheat Rails to Trails program; An amendment by Mr. Frank of Massachusetts or Mr. Rangel regarding community service requirements; An amendment by Mr. Frelinghuysen limiting funds to implement a preferred alternative for the New York-New Jersey-Philadelphia airspace redesign; An amendment by Mr. Gingrey limiting funds for certain economic development activities which obtain property through eminent domain; An amendment by Mr. Hastings of Florida regarding TRACON consolidation; An amendment by Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas regarding noise mitigation studies; An amendment by Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas regarding technology for temporary disaster housing; An amendment by Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas prohibiting use of funds to undermine unions and other labor organizations representing workers on federally funded transportation projects; An amendment by Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas prohibiting use of funds to prohibit transportation workers from having necessary communication equipment; An amendment by Mr. Jordan of Ohio reducing funds in the bill by 6.3 percent, which shall be debatable for 40 minutes; An amendment by Mr. King of Iowa limiting funds to implement Davis- Bacon requirements; An amendment by Mr. King of Iowa limiting funds to employ workers described in section 274A of the Immigration and Nationality Act; An amendment by Mr. King of Iowa limiting funds for the Alpine Heritage Preservation in West Virginia; An amendment by Mr. Gary Miller of California, Ms. Waters, or Mr. Al Green of Texas prohibiting use of funds to take certain actions on standards for mortgagor's investment in mortgaged properties; An amendment by Mrs. Musgrave reducing funds in the bill by 0.5 percent, which shall be debatable for 40 minutes; An amendment by Mr. Pallone or Mr. Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania regarding waste processing and transferring facilities; An amendment by Mr. Price of Georgia reducing funds in the bill by 1 percent, which shall be debatable for 40 minutes; An amendment by Mr. Sessions limiting the use of funds for a certain AMTRAK route; An amendment by Mr. Shuler regarding use of funds designated for North Shore Road in Swain County, North Carolina; An amendment by Mr. Upton, Ms. Harman, Mr. Inglis of South Carolina or Mr. Lipinski regarding energy efficient light bulbs; An amendment by Mr. Price of Georgia limiting FHA funds for the creation of an affordable housing fund; An amendment by Mr. Hensarling limiting funds for parking facilities; An amendment by Mr. Hensarling limiting funds for the Edmunds Center for the Arts in Washington; An amendment by Mr. King of Iowa limiting funds for homeownership assistance for certain individuals; An amendment by Mr. King of Iowa limiting funds for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now; An amendment by Mr. Crowley limiting funds for the Blairstown Historic Preservation Commission in Blairstown, New Jersey; An amendment by Mr. Crowley limiting funds for the City of Marshall, Texas; An amendment by Mr. Crowley limiting funds for the City of Muncie, Indiana; An amendment by Mr. Crowley limiting funds for the I-25 North of HS 66 project in Colorado; An amendment by Mr. Crowley limiting funds for the State Route 374, from State Route 149 to 77, project in Montgomery County, Tennessee; An amendment by Mr. Walberg limiting funds to promulgate regulations based on race, ethnicity or sex; An amendment by Mr. Hensarling limiting funds for museums; An amendment by Mr. Peterson of Pennsylvania limiting funds for tolling on I-80 in Pennsylvania; An amendment by Mr. Hunter limiting funds for a U.S.-Mexico freeway; An amendment by Mr. Obey regarding earmarks; and An amendment or amendments by Mr. Olver regarding funding. Each such amendment may be offered only by the Member named in this request or a designee, shall be considered as read, shall not be subject to amendment except that the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations and the Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies each may offer one pro forma amendment for the purpose of debate; and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole. Except as otherwise specified, each amendment shall be debatable for 10 minutes, equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent. An amendment shall be considered to fit the description stated in this request if it addresses in whole or in part the object described.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the bill through page 94, line 9, be considered as read, printed in the Record and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. OLVER. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Costello).

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Vermont for yielding time and for his good work along with Chairwoman Slaughter, Ranking Member Dreier and Members on both sides of the aisle in granting this open rule for the debate governing the fiscal year 2008 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. We requested an open rule with some necessary waivers. The Rules Committee has granted that, and for that we are grateful. The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill is a bipartisan, nonpartisan bill, as it should be. I urge the adoption of the rule and passage of the bill. Let me briefly summarize the highlights of the bill. With regard to Transportation, the bill meets the highway and transit funding guarantees mandated by the authorizations, SAFETEA-LU. In meeting the guarantees, we were required to increase above the President's request the highway obligation limit by $631 million and funding for transit programs by $334 million. Airport development grants are funded at $3.6 billion, which represents an increase of $850 million over the budget request, but only $85.5 million over the last year. The Essential Air Service program is funded at $110 million, which will preserve all existing air service at small and rural communities. The President's request for Amtrak was woefully inadequate and would have resulted in the loss of intercity passenger rail service to many communities. Therefore, this bill includes $1.4 billion for Amtrak in order to preserve a national system and to assist the railroad in making capital investments to improve the railroad's overall service and reliability. For the first time, the bill includes $50 million for State matching grants for intercity passenger rail and $35 million for the Rail Line Relocation and Improvement Program. With regard to HUD, each year the President's HUD budget arrives at severe cuts to vital programs, such as the Community Development Block Grant Program, known as CDBG, housing for the elderly and disabled, and Hope VI. In the face of this, the committee has done its best to restore the cuts to the programs that serve our most vulnerable citizens. In some cases we have frozen funding at last year's funding levels. In other places we have targeted increases where the people served by HUD programs were particularly harmed. Funding is included to renew all current section 8 tenant-based vouchers so that no one who has a voucher will lose it. To that end the bill provides an increase of $330 million from the President's request for tenant-based rental assistance and nearly $667 million increase for project-based rental assistance. Included within this amount is $30 million for 4,000 incremental housing vouchers designated for nonelderly disabled individuals, but which will simultaneously serve 1,000 homeless veterans. We have funded CDBG at $4.18 billion, which is $400 million over last year, but still $400 million below the CDBG budget for fiscal year 2001. We have restored funding to last year's level of $735 million for section 202 elderly housing construction and to $237 million for section 811 housing construction for the disabled. We have also provided $120 million for the redevelopment of severely distressed public housing through the Hope VI program, a slight increase over the last year. Once again I would like to thank our colleagues on the Rules Committee for their assistance in moving this bill forward, and I urge the adoption of the rule.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. It has been my understanding that you were going to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OLVER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would also like to point out to the gentleman from Ohio that we have available about, under authorization, 2.1 million vouchers of which this bill only funds 1.9 million of them at the level that we have provided the money with the 4,000 additional vouchers. I would like to remind that the authorizing committee just brought out legislation and has added 20,000 in authorization for each of the next 5 years. Whether we will have the funding next year to actually provide that money, I do not know, but they're asking for us not only to move upward toward filling the vouchers that presently are authorized, but also adding some additional ones. And the reason for that is that we have 8 million families roughly, 8 million households in this country which are living at incomes below 30 percent of the median income in their areas, and we are only providing somewhere in the range of 2 million, a little bit less even in this funding, of money for rental assistance for those people. So we're not coming anywhere close to dealing with the poorest people who are eligible under the law as it is written for that rental assistance because their income lies below 30 percent of median income in the area involved.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the bill through page 60, line 16, be considered as read, printed in the Record, and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I think we got a little bit confused by the chairman of the authorizing committee's involvement here. But in any case, I very much sympathize with the gentleman from New Jersey's point of view. There is language in our report that deals specifically with businesses using railroad properties as waste transfer handling points and urges the Surface Transportation Board to ensure that these types of operations are subject to local, State, and Federal regulations as other solid waste facilities are. So, again, I sympathize with the gentleman from New Jersey and Members from other affected States. My subcommittee will work with the STB to close this legal loophole and prevent instances of illegal handling of solid waste on railroad facilities. But it is an authorizing issue, and we have not allowed authorizing issues in the legislation this year. My ranking member has been particularly insistent and I have been insistent about that as we have moved thus far. And so I would have insisted on my point of order, and I appreciate the gentleman's withdrawing the amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.