Martin Sabo

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, to all my colleagues on the Democratic side who were planning to be at baseball practice at 7:00 in the morning, our first practice will be at 7 a.m. on Thursday morning, not 7 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, this is another one of those gimmicky amendments that pretends we can deal with some fundamental fiscal problems with a little tinkering with the process. It is based on a very fundamental myth, and that is that somehow over the years, there has not been discipline in discretionary spending. In fact, the history of the Budget Act is that the one part of the budget that has been subject to discipline has been discretionary spending. The budget process, if it works, sets limits on discretionary spending. The Congress then works within those limits through House, through Senate, through conference committee, through negotiations with the President. That process works when those initial limits are realistic and have some relationship to reality. To somehow pretend that this is not an ongoing dynamic process with changes as we go through the process from subcommittee to committee, to the House, to the Senate, just flies in the face of reality. It is an ongoing, dynamic process where in the end, our product is what we pass. It should be governed by realistic limits on discretionary spending. The reason the process has broken down last year, this year, and the year before is that we start with unrealistic discretionary limits so they totally break down, we end up with a catchall at the end, which frankly, in my judgment, results in us spending more than if we had started at realistic discretionary spending limits. Vote no on this gimmick. It does damage; it does no good.

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New York, if he wishes to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota. (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, in a sense I rise to oppose the amendment, but I will not. I do not like these kind of amendments coming on the floor where we really do not have background on what they are all about. However, we faced the same amendment a year ago, I opposed it, the House voted to adopt it by a significant margin as I recall, so it is not totally new and was in the bill this last year. While I do not think it is a good idea, I also understand that it is going to happen.

Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

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

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Pastor), a distinguished member of our subcommittee.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick), who is serving her first term on this subcommittee and doing a great job.

Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I support the fiscal year 2001 Transportation appropriations bill. Mr. Chairman, the transportation bill historically has been developed in a bipartisan manner, and this year is no different. This year is the last year that the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Wolf, will manage the Transportation appropriations bill. I want to congratulate him on a job well done on this bill, and previous 5 transportation bills. He has devoted considerable attention to transportation safety issues and asked the hard questions. I want to thank him for the job he has done and the fair manner in which he has managed the work for the Transportation Subcommittee. I also want to thank the subcommittee staff for the tremendous job that they have done--John Blazey, Rich Efford, Stephanie Gupta, Linda Muir, Chris Porter, and Geoff Gleason for helping to produce a bill that both sides of the aisle can support. The bill provides $14.9 billion in new budget authority and $55.2 billion in total resources, including obligation limitations, for fiscal year 2001. This provides a respective 10 percent increase over last year. Mr. Chairman, this body should know that much of the new spending in the bill is for Transportation infrastructure programs and is spending mandated under TEA21 and AIR21. Funding for airport construction is up 64 percent or $1.3 billion over last year. Funding for highways and transit is up $2.6 billion or 8 percent over last year. Nearly three- fourths of the outlays in this bill are now guaranteed. As a result, the Appropriations Committee had no choice but to provide these funds. These TEA21 and AIR21 mandates have made it more difficult to allocate resources in a balanced fashion among competing aviation, Coast Guard, highway, rail and transit needs. This year, as a result of the AIR21 and TEA21 guarantees, the Transportation Subcommittee needed a generous 302(b) allocation in order to avoid squeezing the Coast Guard and to protect vital air traffic control and safety operations. We were able to address these operating needs, but only at the expense of other subcommittees whose 302(b) allocations were not as generous. This bill also provides Amtrak with its full capital appropriation of $521 million--an amount that is $70 million below last year, but essential if Amtrak is to remain on a path toward operational self sufficiency by 2003. The bill does not include a number of legislative authorizations that were requested by the administration that proposed to divert excess gas tax revenue--or revenue aligned budget authority--to a variety of other purposes. Thus, the bill does not include the $468 million requested for new infrastructure investments in high speed rail corridors across the county. As many Members are aware, there is tremendous interest among the Governors in expanding Amtrak high speed rail service--Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and others have formed the Midwest Regional Rail Coalition, and there are other high speed rail corridors in California, New York, in the southeast, and in other parts of the county. To try to address the great interest in this area, the bill includes provisions to provide greater flexibility for governors, at their option, to use CMAQ and Surface Transportation Program funding to help finance these rail projects. We believed this would be a small, but important step forward. This year, the committee received a tremendous number of requests from Members to help with grade crossing removal projects. To help address this need, the bill includes provisions eliminating the State and local matching requirements so that States can more quickly use the $142 million in outstanding Federal funds available, but unspent for this purpose. I would urge your support for these provisions. Finally, I want to mention my concerns about one aspect of the bill dealing with funding for the large transit projects we call ``new starts.'' This year, the committee received more than $2.7 billion in funding requests for discretionary section 5309 New Starts projects. Even though the program is funded at an historical high of $1.058 billion, the amount available to fund new starts projects is a fraction of the current demand, and this problem will only grow worse in coming years. The new starts pipeline is huge and growing. The Federal Transit Administration has already committed the federal government to multiyear section 5309 funding of $2.9 billion over the remaining life of TEA21 for 16 transit systems, and the costs for another 47 projects in the pipeline will reach a staggering $25 billion. Still more projects are in the planning stage. The allowable Federal share of these projects under TEA-21 is 80 percent--clearly more than we can afford in the near future. In fact, the President's proposals for this fiscal year, if the committee had adopted them, would have completely exhausted all available discretionary Federal support for new transit systems through 2003. That is why I have advocated that we should move toward requiring communities to foot at least 50 percent of the bill for these projects, rather than the minimum 20 percent local share required under TEA21. I acknowledge that this is not a popular point of view, but I believe that it will become necessary to fairly provide Federal assistance to new start projects across the country. If we don't move in this direction, many communities with worthy transit projects simply will be left out in the cold. This bill does not include a 50 percent cost share requirement. But, far from serving as a disincentive to build transit as some have suggested, I believe that sending a clear message that more robust local and State financial participation is expected will help to address the new starts funding logjam--and more fairly distribute new starts assistance to communities in need. In closing, Mr. Chairman, I support this bill and I urge its adoption.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I would just say I find this amendment inappropriate. I do not know how Louisiana governs. I do not know how the city governs. In our area we call them counties. I guess the gentleman calls them parishes. Twenty-five, thirty years ago we went through the same type of situation in our State; center cities owning an airport, eventually a regional structure to govern, but that was created by the State legislature, not by local units of government. As a matter of history, at the point of time that it required local property taxes to start the airport, those were only levied in the center city. By the time we made it regional, all local property taxes had disappeared. Now I suspect the gentleman's situation is different. We are not the legislature of Louisiana, and so I think it is just totally inappropriate for us to start interjecting ourselves into this governing structure of the airport in New Orleans. I am sure it is a controversial issue. It, however, has to be worked out in whatever local fashion they are worked out in Louisiana, whether it is negotiation between the affected communities or by action in the State legislature, but we cannot be second-guessing that.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SABO. To offer her amendment, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SABO. In that case, Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that we revert for a potential amendment back to section 331.

Mr. SABO. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure where we are in the bill right now. We moved ahead by unanimous consent. I thought we were moving forward simply for points of order.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. SABO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, this is a good bill and it should be passed. Let me commend the Chair, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) on his 6 years of chairing this subcommittee. He has done an outstanding job in that role, and I have enjoyed working with him these last 4 years as ranking member. He has been fair. On the other hand, he has been thoughtful and tough when he needs to be, he asks appropriate tough questions, and it has been a privilege to work with the gentleman these last 4 years as ranking member, and as a member of the subcommittee for the 6 years he has chaired as subcommittee chair. This is the last bill he brings to the House floor, and it is another good, fair bill, and we should pass it. Let me join my friend the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) in thanking all the staff that has worked on this bill. It is a complicated bill, many decisions to be made, and both majority and minority staff do an outstanding job. I thank them for it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky). (Mr. VISCLOSKY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)