John Olver

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to point out that since these colloquies, at least when they start over on the other side, remain on the other side, I would just like to point out that this is an issue that I have already indicated my very strong interest in. So I would be very happy to work with my chairman in trying to find the funding to be able to do what the gentleman wants, because it has been a matter of very high priority for me and for our side of the aisle as well. Amendment Offered by Ms. DeLauro

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the ranking member of the committee, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick), who is a member of the subcommittee.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman), also a member of the subcommittee.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to point out that this is the second year in a row that we have had this discussion, and it is predicated on the idea that somewhere there is a sense that the EPA has a program for brownfields that does the same thing that this HUD program for brownfields does. Now, to the very best of my knowledge, and very recently rechecked, the EPA does assessments of hazardous materials on old industrial sites but does nothing to redevelop those sites so that this program is, to the best of my knowledge, the only place that we have done redevelopment of otherwise old hazardous material sites, industrial sites that can be put back into use. Now, last year, even though it had been zeroed out, we ended up with a final budget of $9.9 million by amendment adopted on the floor. The offset here is an unpalatable offset. But, again, my belief is that the Brownfields Program is at least as important as the IRS Business Systems Program. If this amendment is defeated, I will assure the gentlewoman from Texas that I will do my best to see that something better comes out of the final process and the conference process on this legislation. In the meantime, I will join her in support of the legislation.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez) to engage in a colloquy.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out that this is one of those cutting-the-baby-in-two kinds of situations that has been forced upon the TTHUD committee by the allocation and the relationship, the juxtaposition of guarantees under the transportation accounts and no such guarantees under some of the others. The $261 million that the gentlewoman asked to be provided by an offset which would have placed the bill under point of order and is under point of order if she had not withdrawn the amendment. That $261 million would have protected a very important infrastructure investment that we have. We have $100 billion worth of housing under the public housing capital fund, and it is that capital fund which does the renovations, the rehabilitations, the replacements of those facilities, and it is a very important piece which I have spoken about at each stage of this process, every one of the stages, even before, Mr. Chairman, your committee just last night about the need for additional funding in the public housing capital fund. I am very much hopeful that we will be able to find before this process runs its course to the final conference report, that we will be able to find some additional money for the public housing capital fund so we can, in fact, do something about the huge backlog which has been listed by the gentlewoman as close to $20 billion of backlog in needs for capital repair and improvements in our $100 billion of housing stock. So that is one of the dilemmas that the subcommittee, the chairman and the staff and the committee as a whole has been laboring under, and I hope to find a way to provide some relief for the problem.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, I think that this amendment shows quite clearly how difficult the job was for the chairman in the first place, and that it is very difficult to find offsets for the kind of money that was necessary to put together this amendment. But all of the offsets come out of the jurisdiction of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the full Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. And I think that it makes it clear that if the offsets are used in this way to fund Amtrak, which is needed, that then we will go to the later stages in the process and try to make corrections in the later stages of the process. Mr. Chairman, it will be no more difficult to re-fund the items that have been taken out of their own jurisdiction, out of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's jurisdiction, it will be no more difficult to fund them later than it is to fund Amtrak now. Clearly with this amendment, we will still be $180 million below the enacted number for 2006, and the Amtrak board has asked this year for $1.598 billion. That is the most recently appointed board of members from the President. So we are still very far short of what they believe is necessary to run the national rail passenger system. So I am, with some trepidation, supporting the amendment that has been put forward. I certainly intend to vote for the amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I am going to support this amendment. It seems to me that if we are to move toward energy independence, and particularly, if we are ever going to get away from our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, with all the uncertainty and all of the problems that go along with that, which we have seen much of, then our largest and fastest gains that can possibly be made are in increasing the efficiency of the use of our motor vehicles. At least a third of all of the oil that we use in this country goes into our transportation sector and to the use of our motor vehicles, and we desperately need to increase the efficiency of those. That is the fastest thing that we can put into place, much faster than the work on a hydrogen economy or an ethanol economy or fuel cells or any one of those. The efficiency of the present fleet and vehicles to be sold in the near future becomes important. So I think it is very important that when the Energy and Commerce Committee bill, H.R. 5359, which provides the authority for the Secretary of Transportation to set economy standards for passenger cars, when that which is pending on the House calendar, it has been reported out of the Energy and Commerce Committee and it is pending on the House calendar, that when that is passed that there be the resources available at NHTSA to be able to evaluate the technologies and capability of the automobile industry to improve fuel economy as fast as it can reasonably be done. When NHTSA was first created 30 years ago, and I guess it was when they were first given the job at looking at CAFE standards, they were given $10 million at the first instance 30 years ago to set fuel economy standards, and now $10 million today would probably be something like $40 million. All the gentlewoman from Illinois is asking for here is an increase from $1.3 million to which the NHTSA account for fuel economy has been reduced to bring that up to $8 million, and the offsets in this instance are $2.7 million, which still leaves the account for the Office of the Secretary at 7 percent, almost $6 million above what it was in fiscal year 2006, even after that $2.7 million is taken out. The other part of the offset is $4 million taken from the transportation planning research and development which with $9 million left in the account still has more than the President requested in his budget submission by almost $100,000. So I think this is a worthwhile place to put some money and make certain that NHTSA can deal with that as quickly as possible.

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

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

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. This amendment that is offered by my good friend from New York, this amendment does exactly what I had spoken about in my opening remarks in relation to this bill and which the chairman of the subcommittee has pointed out as well, that this amendment starts by adding money, assuring money to already what is one of the guaranteed items under the TEA-LU guarantees, which those guarantees had to be provided in order to bring the bill to the floor at all. This is not a rearrangement of moneys as the previous case was where I had supported the Amtrak amendment because, in that instance, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was moving money around totally within its jurisdiction, and I thought that was something that was worth supporting. In this instance, what we are doing is taking money from one of the places in the bill which has no guarantees for minima along the way, namely the Treasury, a totally different unit of the bill, a totally different title of the bill, and simply grabs those and moves them over to an area which is already under the guarantees of the TEA-LU bill. Under those circumstances, I must, regretfully for the gentleman from New York, oppose the amendment; and I hope that it will not be adopted.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. If I had been allowed to move to strike the last word, I would have been happy to yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman after I made a comment which relates to the amendment she offered.

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

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

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would just like to point out to the gentleman from Oregon that in fact the guarantee, and it is a guarantee under the TEA-LU bill, is included in what is called the Capital Investments Fund. So there is money available there. But I need also to point out that we have been told at the subcommittee level that the Department of Transportation, the FTA, will not have rules and regulations until at least a year from now, maybe 15 months from now, which is the very end of the next fiscal year.

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

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, at the outset I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan and his staff for the constructive relationship we continue to build. As Chairman Knollenberg put this bill together, he and his staff considered concerns raised by the majority and the minority coming from subcommittee members, full committee members, and the general membership of the House. Where he could help, he resolved many of those concerns, and I thank him for that. I also want to thank the excellent staff on both sides of the aisle for their hard work on this legislation. On the majority side, Dena Baron, the majority clerk, Cheryle Tucker, Jason Woolwine, Tom McLemore, Tammy Hughes, David Napolielo, Alice Hogans and Peter Lee. And on the minority side, Kate Hallahan and Bob Bonner, and from my staff Matt Washington and David Pugach. This is only the second time this complex bill has come to the House floor, and I appreciate the work and the long hours that each and every one of those staff members have put in. I am grateful for the increase in the subcommittee's outlay allocation adopted in the full Appropriations Committee, but I said in the subcommittee markup and full committee markup as well that the allocation to this subcommittee is inadequate to meet the needs, and that is still true. The allocation, even as revised, forced Chairman Knollenberg and staff into a struggle to plug as many holes as they could as creatively as they could. In that process, several serious omissions and cuts proposed in the President's budget have been restored, notably CDBG funding, essential air services, additionally safety inspectors under FAA, and for construction of elderly and disabled housing, and for funding the important Navy Yard Metro Station in our capital city. That was no small feat. I particularly want to commend Chairman Knollenberg for his thoughtful approach to our capital city's budget which is part of this bill. While the District of Columbia makes up only a small portion of our combined bill, the value of the initiatives funded through this bill cannot be understated, and I thank Chairman Knollenberg for his commitment to ensuring no new policy riders were placed on the District of Columbia. I sincerely hope that we can continue to work on striking a balance between the congressional responsibilities for the District of Columbia with the desire of Washingtonians to have a direct say with how the District is governed. Mr. Chairman, I will support this bill on final passage, but if this were a conference report I would have to oppose its passage, and I want to take a few minutes to examine what I believe drives this bill this year and in the future. Mr. Chairman, I am very concerned about the impact that meeting SAFETEA-LU guarantees is having on other agencies and accounts in the bill. I believe that the transportation guarantees placed on this subcommittee by the authorizers ties the hands of this committee from properly funding other domestic programs included in this bill that are just as important. As this bill was drafted, authorized guarantees had to be met or this bill is subject to a point of order. For example, in FHWA the President's budget met all of the SAFETEA-LU guarantees. However, in FAA and FTA, the President's budget was well below the authorized level. The President's request was $607 million below the authorized level in the facilities and equipment account and $950 million below in airport improvement. In FTA, the Capital Investment Grants Program was $100 million below the authorized level. These shortfalls come to a total of over $1.6 billion. The monies being added to the subcommittee's allocation allowed the chairman to bring these items to the guaranteed level. I believe that the transportation guarantees are strangling other agencies in our bill. Without honoring the SAFETEA guarantees, the gentleman from Michigan could have increased funding for several key programs in this bill. For example, in HUD we could have used these funds for brownfields, HOPE VI and rural housing, which were all zeroed out. The additional funds could have been used to shore up the underfunded public housing operating fund and the public housing capital fund, or to add to section 8 tenant and project-based voucher programs which were cut below the President's request. The items that I have listed are only the tip of the iceberg, and the process I have described can only get worse as the years go by. Most of these shortfalls that I believe must be improved are within HUD, but also includes the lone transportation item that does not have the protection of an authorization; namely, Amtrak. I had planned to offer an amendment to increase funding for these programs; but, unfortunately, the majority of this House has once again shown that tax cuts for the wealthiest few in our society are more important than housing programs for our most needy citizens. Mr. Chairman, I am troubled by the cuts that we have been forced to bring forward. I hope that we will be able to continue to improve the bill as it moves forward in the process. We are early in the process. There is much work to be accomplished on this bill between now and a final conference report. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) for a colloquy with the chairman.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar) for a colloquy.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I agree with that point. I think that if people from the authorizing committee will make that point strongly to the Department of Transportation, that would be very helpful because I agree with virtually everything the gentleman has said. This is a process that ought to get moving, but the money is there. We can deal with this later on in this process. We are at an early stage in the process. They need to get the rules and regulations out faster than 15 months from now.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to say I would be happy, especially after that trip through his district, to work with the gentleman from Texas on the issue that he has raised. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. OLVER. And I can assure the gentleman that I too will work to try to correct this inequity.

Mr. OLVER. I appreciate the gentlewoman for bringing forward this issue. Public housing authorities and the families they serve are struggling. And I thank the chairman for his willingness to continue to engage in these discussions as we have already had part of that discussion at an earlier stage in the process.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I yield to my colleague from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) who may have two things to speak about at this point.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, once again, I am going to dwell upon what my Member from the Rules Committee has already spoken about. The majority of the House shows its true priorities. The rule that we have before us today does not make in order my amendment that reflects some very important national priorities. My amendment would have added a badly needed $1.7 billion to the bill. Specifically it would have provided increases for the following programs: First, $400 million for Amtrak, which would bring total funding to $1.3 billion, just barely above last year's $1.294 billion, and allow Amtrak to continue to provide national intercity passenger rail service. Remember that the Transportation, Treasury, HUD bill proposes a $900 million amount for Amtrak, which is below, $394 million below the 2006 enacted, which would at least require substantial cuts in service provided, and probably in routes, the termination of routes in order to manage to get through the year. And without that money, they would have no chance of dealing with the huge backlog of infrastructure improvements that affect reliability and safety of the system. Second, the amendment would have provided a $636 million increase for public housing operating fund. That is the level of funding of $3.56 billion that is already there, but that account funds the operating costs that exceed the rents that the public housing authorities may legally collect, and provides for major operating costs, including building maintenance, utilities and services for residents. Remember that public housing authorities operate in every single congressional district in the country and serve the lowest income elderly people, for the most part, in that process. And the President's request, according to HUD's figures, only provide 85 percent of the authorities' operating requirement. Third, the amendment would have provided a $261 million increase for the public housing capital fund, which is funded in the bill at 10 percent below fiscal year 2006. Funding for this has declined steadily since 2001 when $3 billion was provided, and there is a $20 billion backlog in public housing capital repair needs, which really goes to the backlog of modernization, rehabilitation and replacement of housing units. Fourth, $144 million was provided in my amendment for tenant-based voucher programs, which just would restore funding levels to the President's request in the President's budget for this year. Fifth, $100 million was provided in my amendment for the HOPE VI program for revitalization of public housing. The bill before us provides no funding for HOPE VI. This is the fourth year in a row that the administration has proposed eliminating the program, and it is zeroed out in the committee bill before us as the program for revitalizing severely distressed public housing. Sixth, there was a total of $89 million provided for increases in construction for housing for the elderly and housing for the disabled, which with what is provided in the bill would bring the total for that pair of accounts to less than 1 percent above the enacted level of 3 years ago, and this at a time when all of the demographic studies show that the average age of our population is rising steadily, and our over-80 elder population represents the fastest growing cohort. Seventh, $30 million increase for the CDFI program, which has been enormously successful in leveraging, by at least 20-1, additional private investment in underserved communities. $40 million is appropriated for the CDFI fund, and while the subcommittee bill is an improvement over the President's request, it is still a 25 percent cut from the 2006 enacted number. Eighth, there was a $30 million amount for the rural housing and economic development program that is zeroed out in the bill before us. My amendment was fully offset by a 4.11 percent reduction to the tax cuts for individuals making over $1 million annually. That represents a $4,700 on average cut from the $114,000-plus tax cut for those millionaire individuals. The chairman of the subcommittee had faced difficult choices in this bill. The President's budget was inadequate in many respects, and left holes that had to be filled. The chairman did his best to provide a fair allocation of money within the amount assigned to the subcommittee, and in spite of the chairman's creativity, many problems still remain because of the majority party's decision to make tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent their number one priority. The majority party would rather help those that do not need help than those that do. My amendment would have corrected some of this imbalance. I urge all of my colleagues to put our national priorities first and oppose this rule.