John Olver

Mr. OLVER

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 want to thank my colleague from Florida for bringing this issue to light. Mr. Chairman, all of our public housing and section 8 residents deserve to live in a safe environment. We have done our best to ensure that PHAs have adequate resources to address the security issues. The gentleman from Florida is correct, that there were public housing Drug Elimination Grants, a separate item in the budgets up until the fiscal year 2001 budget. The last time we had that separate program for Drug Elimination Grants, the appropriation for that was around $300 million on a nationwide basis for securing, for employing security personnel and employing local police and other additional security services that were necessary. At that time, in the fiscal year 2001 budget, the Drug Elimination Grants were combined with the operating fund. Since that time, the housing authorities, the public housing authorities have had the authority to use monies that were in the operating fund for the purposes that had been previously done with the direct Drug Elimination Grants. So we, as my colleague from Florida has pointed out, we no longer have the direct Drug Elimination Grants, but all of the functions of those grants may be funded at the discretion of the individual public housing authorities under the operating funds or under the capital funds. I support the use of either of those funds for the important functions of safety and security for our public housing residents. I am happy to work with the gentleman in the future on this issue. I thank the gentleman for bringing the issue to the discussion today and thereby highlighting the problem, which is severe in some cases, but the resources, as we have indicated, as he has indicated, and we have already done, have been added. We have added $200 million this year above the President's request for the operating fund of the public housing authorities, and that should give them the necessary money to do, where it is needed, as they deem appropriate, as the public housing authorities deem appropriate, the drug elimination activities. I am very pleased that the gentleman has brought the issue to the discussion today. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OLVER. I have yielded.

Mr. OLVER. I am saying that they finally put the grant proposals out for award, but a year late essentially, and each time only after it is clear, for instance, the 2007 moneys will finally be sent out for grant announcements at the very end of this fiscal year when it is clear that we have not rescinded the 2007 moneys.

Mr. OLVER. Yes.

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

Mr. OLVER. It will not be spent probably until the very end of the 2008 fiscal year, is when finally the RFPs will go out for possible granting.

Mr. OLVER

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

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. OLVER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. OLVER. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Florida, though I don't think I have much time.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, this and the previous amendment go together. Together, if these two amendments pass, our air traffic control system will be set back years in the process from which they have been going forward in trying to modernize both the air traffic design and the TRACON facilities to be used. The FAA has spent more than $50 million on airspace redesign in the New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey, western Connecticut area already. They have posted hundreds of outreach meetings to understand the needs and concerns. In addition, the design has undergone independent analysis by the inspector general throughout the process, and the FAA has adopted each of the IG's recommendations. Now, what are the benefits, what are the purposes of the airspace redesign? Well, number one, we have got this huge expected increase in traffic that I have already spoken to twice. Secondly, the air traffic region that is being described here, and this amendment only affects that region, not the whole country, only that region, but that air traffic system, that airspace system, is the system where the greatest delays, the greatest delays, are happening as we speak. The redesign of the airspace would allow for a major reduction in delays, first of all. By so doing, there would be less noise. They would be able to fly at higher altitudes, and use a gradual glide pattern in rather than stepwise glide patterns in, and use the whole airspace so that the net reduction of people who are affected by noise, by the levels of noise, is very large. In addition to that, environmentally if you are not flying around for long periods of time in the airspace and under delay and in holding patterns and sitting on the tarmac with the engines going, then you are saving a lot of fuel. There will be much less fuel burned, therefore, much better air quality control in the process. All of these taken together, along with the fact that if you've got delays in that major area where so much traffic occurs, then there are backups with delays all over the country. So the air space design issue is a critical issue in totality for our modernization of our traffic control. So, I oppose the amendment, and I hope it will not be adopted. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota, the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to point out that the gentleman from Florida has made the point that the House passed last year legislation doing this. That was never acted upon and was not included in the CR, the final CR for the 2007 budget. That was adopted in the House version of the bill, but it was not carried through to the CR. So there is no precedent of merit there. Secondly, the crux of our problem is that we have a huge growth of air traffic that is expected within a 20-year period. From 1995 to the year 2015, we will have gone from half a billion passengers to a billion passengers, and that is in the commercial traffic, plus all of the increase in general aviation. We cannot sit with our head in the sand and not modernize all these facilities, the towers, the facilities, the equipment, the control systems that are necessary to deal with that increase in traffic, and that has to be done. It has already been done in some of our major parts of the country. The gentleman from Texas has concerns about Texas. The authorizing language which the T&I Committee has reported out includes a system to look at those cases to review and to set up a system for reviewing how those systems will be set up in additional places as the consolidation of TRACONs and the modernization of these facilities and the reequipment of these facilities must go forward. So I think that that part of it is a red herring, truly. In the case of Chicago and New York and Philadelphia and Washington and California, our heaviest traffic locations in the country, and Atlanta besides, we already have these consolidations in place. And in the case of California, 40-some-odd airports and their tower facilities have been included now in 2 TRACONs where there used to be 8 or more TRACONs in the State of California. So the number of TRACONs is going to come down. It must come down, and we must get on with this modernization of the facilities and equipment that otherwise would always be very costly. It must be done.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman from California that I very much respect the passion for which he is working on this along with the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and I look forward to working with you on this issue as we proceed.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, the major problem, other than lack of funds, related to aviation in this country for the next period of time is the great growth in traffic. We are expecting total traffic to pass 1 billion passengers within the next 10 years. Over the last 10 years it has risen from, gone well above 500 million passengers per year. Now, this amendment will make the cost of providing facilities and equipment in order to be able to meet that great growth in traffic much higher than it otherwise would be. The modern equipment that is necessary, most of the present towers need to be upgraded, the equipment needs to be upgraded, towers need to be built for the next generation of air traffic control to deal with all of that huge increase in expected traffic. The towers themselves are expensive. The electronic equipment, the facilities, what you call the STARS systems for control, all of these are expensive items, and the expense of the process burgeons if we do not make other kinds of efficiencies. Now, this amendment would halt all of the modernization of air traffic control facilities, both TRACONs and towers, and the equipment within those facilities. Consolidation has already gone on very successfully in some parts of the country. The gentleman from Florida has suggested that there are problems in safety, potential problems in safety. Look, in California they have consolidated to now two TRACONs covering the whole State for the 30- plus million people in California and the roughly 40 commercial air systems, airports that are there. So that kind of consolidation has gone on also in New York, also in Chicago, also in Atlanta, in all of those places, some of the most complicated air traffic systems in the country. The most complicated ones have already been undergoing consolidations, and this proposal would stop that process. It would cost us $85 million in savings from planned and designed and in construction consolidations that are already in process. It would cost another $110 million in funds which would expire, because funds for FAA facilities and equipment goes on a 3-year cycle. In addition, there would be $225 million in construction funds that will be placed on hold. It is an extremely costly endeavor, and it is generally wrongheaded, really. We have to have this consolidation because it's critical to the efficient dealing with our movement of air traffic in this country. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, to the gentleman who is offering the amendment and offering to withdraw it, I want to say that I am a supporter of Moving to Work; but the language here is clearly authorizing language, and we have not been accepting authorizing language at any point in this debate. So, I would be very happy to work with the gentleman on the Moving to Work program, and urge him to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella).

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

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman offering this amendment doesn't happen to be here at the moment; so let me try to point out what is involved here. Yes, the Belmont Complex does provide recreational opportunities and conference and meeting space. Yes, it is a facility that is used for Chamber of Commerce meetings, and banquets, and business, and seminars, and training and testing for displaced workers, and local union meetings and negotiations, emergency rescue training, voter registration drives, local business-to-business job fairs. In the county, Armstrong County in Pennsylvania, which is one of those in the northern part of Appalachia that is struggling hard, losing population, by the way, if I remember the map exactly correctly. I was from Pennsylvania in an earlier period of my lifetime. These are all purposes that are important to the process of keeping the economy going in that community and that county. But most important to this particular earmark is that a 2003 fire damaged much of the building, and these funds are needed to make continual interior and exterior renovations and to make the facility handicapped-accessible. Those are important specific things that go beyond the other bits and pieces that are pulled together in this complex. The main building within the complex has had fire damage and needs this money for repair. Now, I just want to point out that the great explosion, the truly irresponsible explosion, of congressional earmarking began shortly after the party which is in the minority gained control of the Congress in 1995. And so during that period of time, we have gone from zero earmarking in the Labor, Health, and Education budget to over $1 billion a year. We have tripled the number of earmarks in the defense bill. The number of earmarks in this legislation, while it has been reorganized a couple times, has gone up in similar kind of proportion. Yet this year, this year, we are reducing the number of earmarks and the number of dollars involved in those earmarks by 50 percent from what they were under the last time that a budget was put through completely with earmarks under the leadership of the gentleman's party. So we are trying to clean up a mess and get a good strong measure of the earmarking process. But this one, I think, is legitimate for its purposes, and I hope the amendment will be defeated. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. I would like to point out to the gentleman that the bill before us includes language that requires the Secretary of Transportation to review and ultimately approve or deny grant requests for each train route as part of the grant agreement. When grant requests are submitted to the Secretary, they include a detailed financial analysis and revenue projections, and the Secretary then determines whether to approve the grant request for the specific train route. I'd like to make another comment here. All too often we forget about rural areas. Rural communities deserve transportation choices. This line serves a number of rural areas in the South and Southwest. But I do again remind that the Secretary has the authority to review the financials in relation to a particular route and to approve or disapprove of grant requests. Amtrak has made some good moves over the recent past. They've reduced their debt by $500 million. They have exacted about $100 million of savings so far in their effort to reduce the costs of the long-distance routes. They've increased the amount of State investment that's involved in these routes, and they continue to show better revenue and ridership. But the route to deal with individual routes, the way to deal with individual routes is through the language that's already in the bill, and so I'm going to oppose the specific effort to eliminate one specific route when the route is already in place in the legislation for the Secretary to make that decision. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman who is the Chair of the subcommittee of the authorizing committee, Ms. Brown. (Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

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

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

Mr. OLVER. I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.