John Olver

Mr. OLVER

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, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), also a member of this subcommittee. (Mr. BOYD of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I would like to make a comment on the gentleman's amendment since the gentleman has indicated that he is willing to withdraw the amendment. I appreciate that. The gentleman and I have worked for several years now together on biking and rail-trail issues, so I can remember just a few years ago that we actually were closely involved in saving the transportation enhancement program on this very bill. We both recognize the environmental and public health benefits of bicycling. Even though I have stopped bicycling, I watch the Tour de France rather than bicycling myself these days. So I applaud the gentleman's concern and support for the Conserve by Bike program. As we move toward conference, I will do my very best to try to accommodate this, and just remind the gentleman that we have language in the bill to make certain that enhancements are not disproportionately cut in the case of rescissions, which is a balancing act in any case. The gentleman may wish to take part in that discussion, which may occur later this evening.

Mr. OLVER. I withdraw my reservation.

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. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OLVER. That is correct. The gentleman is correct, the flexibility was there. But what we find out in that process is that the States very disproportionately focused that rescission upon enhancements and took enhancements in some places completely out of the budget, which, under the highway fund, we are supposed to be giving 10 percent of the highway formula moneys to enhancements. So this language was, in fact, exactly or very similar to language which was passed out of the T&I Committee of which the gentleman is the ranking member a couple of days after we had marked up in committee. So the T&I Committee already has agreed to the idea that enhancements should not be disproportionately targeted for rescissions when they occur when they are required by the legislation. In fact, we were asked by the T&I Committee to do something very similar to this, if not exactly this, which we have done, in making certain that there would not be disproportionate cuts to enhancements in the process of applying rescissions. And those data do not really affect what has happened to the 2007 or 2006 bills because we don't have the final numbers on those, but the data that I am describing is all through the rescission process in every year that there has been rescissions, that those have in sum total gone heavily against the enhancement parts of the formula funds. So we have striven to correct that in the language that we have put in at this point, and I would ask the membership to oppose this amendment. 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 yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski).

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, this is an effort to bring Amtrak to a stop, simply. Over the last couple of years, we have had the President recommend no funding for Amtrak. We have refused that and funded them so they could continue service at the level that they were. We have added reform programs to them to require substantial savings out of the first-class service and the meals service and things of that sort, which have been quite substantial, and they have saved each year $80 million to $100 million a year on that program. So we are moving to make the system more efficient, though there is not any passenger rail system anywhere in this world that operates without some operating subsidy. Where we have public transportation systems, any subway system, the fares never get to as high as 50 percent of the cost of the service, and the remaining service is then part of a subsidy for the operation of that service. In fact, most of our transit programs function at considerably less than a 50-percent fare box amount. So Amtrak is not any different from any other rail program which provides great energy efficiency in the movement of large numbers of people, and it is very important in our very densely populated corridors. We as a Congress have then added the idea of having a national rail system that covers long-distance rail. And those even require a greater subsidy, but it has been our decision to do that over the years. We have to have a rail program in this country. We have somehow to get over making Amtrak ultimately, somehow, to morph Amtrak into a system that will provide high-speed passenger rail in corridors of relatively short distance. But in the meantime, we also have to keep Amtrak running, and this amendment would take the operating monies completely away from a system which cannot operate without that operating subsidy. The rest of the money, the gentleman believes most of the remainder was in there for capital improvements. Well, there isn't any point in having the capital improvements if you are not going to have an operating subsidy unless you can move the monies around, and then you have to cut seriously the total amount of service that is being provided by Amtrak with the amendment that the gentleman has offered. So it is really a killing amendment for Amtrak. Amtrak cannot function with the amendment that the gentleman from Arizona has offered in this instance. We have gone through this fight time and time again, and each time the end result is that Amtrak is supported because Amtrak service is provided in over 40 of the States. In some cases, it is the only rail passenger service that is available to people in some of those States on some of the very long-distance rail lines that people complain are the ones that carry the highest subsidy. And those are supported the strongest because they are the only rail service, passenger service that is available in a good number of those States. So I think that this amendment should be defeated, I think it will be defeated, and I hope it will be defeated. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Minnesota. First of all, I think that the subcommittee and the full committee, this legislation was passed out of full committee unanimously without dissent, by voice vote but without dissent, and we've tried to strike an appropriate balance in funding the transportation and housing problems in the bill. As in previous bills in previous years, I've opposed amendments that take funding from housing to increase the funding for transportation programs, and similarly, I've opposed amendments which take funding from transportation and transfer those funds to housing programs. I think that's entirely appropriate. We have this bill where we cannot have one portion. Each has its important features, and we cannot have one portion of this bill taking sizeable funds from another portion, which has equally important priorities within the bill. I would point out to my colleagues that in the bill before us, the appropriation for the homeless is $1.56 billion. That's $119 million already above the 2007 enacted sum for the Homeless Grant Program. That's 8 percent already above the level of the 2007 enacted program from just last February. The amendment that the gentlewoman has proposed would move another $106 million into that, which would then put it far over the President's request, that program. I don't think that that's really necessary here. What we do have is a situation where year after year the Amtrak program has gone through reform, substantial reform, to try to reduce their cost and to provide greater service, as has been requested by this Congress over the last several years. To take that money away from them at a time when the other body, the Senate, has passed authorization legislation or has reported out of committee authorization legislation, and our own T&I Committee is working on authorizing legislation for Amtrak, which is considerably higher than even the level of the funding that we have in this bill. For both of those reasons, the balance of the legislation not moving money from housing into transportation or vice versa, which I will oppose at every point that it comes up, because I think we are trying to keep a reasonable balance of the priorities in each of those very important areas, and because the homeless program is already funded at almost $120 million above the 2007 funded amount, that this is not a necessary amendment, not an appropriate amendment. I hope that we will not pass this amendment. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

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

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

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

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

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

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the gentleman's amendment to cut the $330 million from the Tenant-based Rental Assistance account will not hold the program steady at the fiscal 2007 level. It will actually cut somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000 families that are currently in the program. That means that somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000 families, that is a large margin but that is families, that is real people, that currently have a section 8 voucher will find themselves without a home in fiscal year 2008. Now, we know that rents increase each year. This is a market-based program, and market-based programs do escalate, are subject to inflation. And that's what this $330 million amount was. It was a deficiency in the President's budget, where the President's budget was presented to the Congress before the actions in this continuing resolution in February of this year were acted upon, were taken by the Congress, and the President signed, ultimately, that legislation in the continuing resolution. So, his original amount of money was for an entirely different set of circumstances because there was a restructuring of the section 8, the tenant-based section 8 program in the continuing resolution. And keeping the people with the number of vouchers, the vouchers that have been out there, we had to come up with the additional money in this bill which only allows the same number of people to have vouchers. There is one $30 million amount in here for the first incremental vouchers added to the system in about 6 years; $30 million to be used for new vouchers for nonelderly disabled people and homeless veterans. As my ranking member pointed out, while we were affording 4,000 new vouchers, 3,000 of them go to nonelder disabled people, and 1,000 of them go to nonelder disabled people who also happen to be homeless veterans. That's how the 4,000 is structured. It's a very good, one of only a handful of initiatives in this bill for new vouchers for that particular program. I can't really fathom why anybody would want to deny thousands of people with disabilities and homeless veterans a chance to live in a safe, affordable home. I strongly oppose this amendment and urge a ``no'' vote. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I again oppose this amendment. This is just a continuation of the effort to strangle Amtrak. In this instance I think that what I'd like to do is to just try to review with the, whoever is still listening at this hour of the night what the President's budgets have looked like over the last several years. I may be slightly wrong, because I maybe have 1 year misplaced as to what happened, but I have been the ranking member for 2 years, the last 2 years, in the 2006 and 2007 budgets. My recollection is that the 2006 budget that the President provided no money, and we had to fill the hole completely to keep whatever was functional functioning in the case of Amtrak. And then in the 2007 budget, that year we ended up providing between, by the time the conference process was complete, $1.3 billion for a mixture of operating subsidies and capital programs. In the 2007 budget, the administration came up with a number which was much lower than what had been appropriated the previous year, and again we had to, it was around 8- or $900 million in total, and we, again we had to come up with a higher sum of money, back to the $1.3 billion, in order to complete, to keep the level of service where it was, which includes the whole of the Northeast corridor, which carries half of all the passengers and is trackage that is owned by Amtrak, and all the services that go out of Chicago and the other metropolitan areas, and the long-distance services on the west coast and across the country. So what we have this year is that the President came up with an amount of $500 million for capital, and $300 million for efficiency incentive grants, which is sort of an oxymoron because in the previous year, we had provided some sort of incentive grants which Amtrak, after they had provided the savings and made serious savings in the accounts, they then found that they got exactly nothing in the way of incentive grants that were released to them. So what's the point, really, of trying to save money? But we've included that language, included the mandate essentially, that they are to continue to look for savings in the system. In the meantime we provided, again, the $1.3-, now up to $1.4- because of inflation, a total of $1.4 billion of which now the amount was put up to $925 million for capital, which the gentleman wishes to reduce to $500 million for capital, which was never adequate in the first place. On the Northeast corridor, we have done so little upkeep, we are nowhere close to a state of good repair, which is dangerous. It is causing safety problems in the Northeast corridor, where more than half of our total passengers are being handled, so that the gentleman's amendment takes away capital monies now. This is the second hit at it, the capital monies that would be necessary to make progress on dealing with the backlog of capital deficiencies that have been built up over a period of years. There are tunnels and bridges and trackage and the cantanary lines, the electric lines and so forth that go with it, all of which are in need desperately of capital repair and a steady infusion of money to bring that up to date. These are expensive propositions when nothing has been done or so little has been done over a period of time. So first the gentleman has made an effort to reduce the operating subsidy, which no rail system anywhere in the world can function without it, and now he's reducing the capital grant program down to a level which leaves us with an ever-worsening state of safety and repair on the part of the system that is actually owned by the Federal Government. So this should not be done. This is a bad amendment. This is another killer amendment for Amtrak, and I hope that the amendment will be defeated.

Mr OLVER

Mr OLVER. Madam Speaker, I rise today in remembrance of one of the greatest tragedies of our lifetime. Today marks the 12th anniversary of the massacre in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war. On July 11, 1995 more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims were systematically murdered by Serbian military and paramilitary forces in the largest massacre of civilians in Europe since World War II. Beginning in April 1992, aggression and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces, while taking control of the surrounding territory, resulted in a massive influx of Bosnians seeking protection in Srebrenica and its environs, which the United Nations Security Council designated a ``safe area'' in Resolution 819 on April 16, 1993. Despite the visage of international protection, thousands of Muslim men and boys were slaughtered before the eyes of the world as part of a deliberate campaign of ethnic terror and genocide. As we look back and remember the massacre in Srebrenica, it is not enough simply to mark its anniversary on the calendar. While we mourn the victims of these shocking events, we must also look to the present and to the future. When confronted with the horrors of the Holocaust the world proclaimed, ``Never Again.'' Since that time we have witnessed the genocide in Rwanda, Cambodia, and, as we are reminded on this date, Bosnia. Today we are faced with an ongoing genocide in Darfur. Once again, thousands of innocent people are being attacked, raped, and murdered. And once again, it is not enough to stand by and express regret as these events unfold before our eyes. On this somber anniversary, let us affirm our commitment, not merely with words but with deeds, to the pledge ``Never Again.''

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. I thank the gentleman from the subcommittee for yielding me the time. I'm interested by the amendment. Now, as the gentleman from Georgia has explained it, I, of course, had thought that without instruction the amendment would end up being an across-the-board amendment. But what in fact has happened here is that the gentleman's amendment, without instruction, allows the executive to decide exactly where those $276 million would be cut. Now, I would consider that a total abrogation of our responsibility for budgeting in article I of the Constitution, where we have taken an oath of office to the Constitution, and where our responsibility is to define where the budgeting for the country will go. So I think that's, in fact, a far worse thing than it would be if it were a strictly across-the-board kind of budget, senseless as though that would be. I often find it necessary to be a little bit repetitious. I just want to go back to something that I had pointed out, and that is, that at the end of the Carter administration, when President Carter left office in January of 1981, the debt of this country was $1 trillion. Twelve years later, after 8 years of President Reagan and four of President Bush, father, the debt of the country was $4.3 trillion, more than four times as large in 12 years, but $3.3 trillion increase. In 8 years of President Clinton, the debt was increased by an additional $1.2 trillion to $5.5 trillion. After now 6 years of Bush, the son, as President, the debt, at present, is at $8.8 trillion, an additional $3\1/2\ trillion in just 6 years Now, I don't know, the gentlemen and women on the other side of the aisle were in the majority through all of those 6 years in this House of Representatives which starts all the budgets. They can't claim that they were out to lunch at all because, in fact, they were here voting for those budgets that increased the debt by $3\1/2\ trillion over the last 6 years. So if there is fiscal responsibility, it certainly cannot be claimed either then or now for what is now the minority in this House of Representatives.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. The gentleman from Ohio has offered an amendment which is a 4.3 percent across-the-board cut, across all of the agencies here in this bill. And that is about the final desperate or thoughtless way of balancing a budget or of approaching the process of budgeting. After all, the amendments that we have been debating for the last day have been defeated, to throw up your hands, but I suppose that is really progress. At least it is better than trying to reduce the budget down to the level of the President's request in the first place, which was hundreds of millions of dollars even below what the last year's budget was. But I think you need to look at the core programs. The core programs here are the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service. Those are the major programs in this budget. The budget for 2007 was a very small increase but not as much as an increase up to the inflationary amount from the previous year's budget, the 2006 budget. So we would have had at least 3 years of budgeting below the inflationary level. The gentleman's amendment would force all those agencies that cover Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service, which are the places where our Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service serve most of the public, the millions of people of this country who use those facilities, and it would force them to eat the inflation of that, as of now, over a 2-year period, 2006, 2007, and 2008. What really is happening is that we are having to try to cover for the enormous reductions in the budget from fiscal 2004 to 2005 and from fiscal 2005 to 2006. That is where the major budget cuts have occurred over the last several years. And this budget only partially, partially, replaces for that enormous cut that occurred in those 2 years, way below inflation, serious, real cuts in dollars way below inflation. Now, I just want to look at a couple of other things not just 3 or 4 years back but a little bit farther. When President Carter left office, the debt of this country was $1 trillion. Twelve years later, after the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the debt of the country was $4.3 trillion, $3.3 trillion more. When President Clinton left office 8 years later, it was $1.2 trillion above that. Now, in only 6 years, with you folks on the other side having been in the majority throughout those 6 years, the debt is now up to $8.8 trillion, another $3.5 trillion. Think of it. Under 8 years of President Clinton, the total debt increase was $1.2 trillion, about one-third of the debt increase in just 6 years under the present President and all of that coming under your leadership. The debt increased to that time is all under your majority's leadership. So I just want to say in the final analysis when you take into account inflation, with this bill, the Department of Interior would still be 11 percent below what the budget was in 2001, when President Bush took office. For the EPA, it would be 16 percent, still below the 2001 budget. And for the Forest Service, it would still be 19 percent below. Those key core programs would still be 19 percent below the budget in 2001. I oppose this amendment and hope it will not be adopted.