Bill Shuster

Mr. SHUSTER

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, although I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for offering this amendment. This amendment does clarify the responsibilities of the Corps with respect to their rural neighbors, which for me, coming from rural Pennsylvania, it is extremely important, and I appreciate the gentleman offering this amendment. I am prepared to accept it at this time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to the amendment, although I do not oppose it.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my colleague from Minnesota for his hard work and good work on this solid amendment. These changes are bipartisan, and as I said, I really appreciate his efforts on this. I am prepared to accept the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, although I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for offering this amendment, the program that assists communities in their efforts to recover and adapt to severe weather and natural disasters. It is a solid amendment. I support the amendment and accept it at this time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHUSTER

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SHUSTER

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of H.R. 8, the Clerk be authorized to correct section numbers, punctuation, amendatory instructions, and cross-references, and to make such other technical and conforming changes as may be necessary to accurately reflect the actions of the House.

Mr. SHUSTER

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, as co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus, I rise today to congratulate the Republic of Azerbaijan on its 100th year of independence as the country celebrated the centennial Republic Day on May 28 of this year. Since first declaring independence from the Russian Empire in 1918, Azerbaijan sought to be an example for new nations by adopting a National Charter granting all citizens within its borders full civil and political rights, regardless of ethnic origin, religion, or gender. The United States was quick to recognize and support Azerbaijan in 1918 and again in 1991, as Soviet dominance over the country ended. Since then, Azerbaijan has continued to be an ally and partner to the United States, notably being among the first to provide comprehensive and unconditional assistance following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Azerbaijan continued to support the Global War on Terror efforts in Afghanistan, providing airspace to NATO jets en route to Afghanistan, and ground transport for non-lethal supplies in the region. Notably, Azerbaijan is one of the few Muslim-majority countries that enjoys strong relations with Israel, and it is this commitment, not just to the United States, but also her allies, that shows Azerbaijan's continued dedication to remaining a trusted and close friend to democratic nations across the globe. Azerbaijan continues to be a leader in promoting global energy security. Once completed, the Southern Gas Corridor project will provide European markets access to natural gas in the Caspian Sea, allowing our European allies to diversify their energy sources, while bypassing Iran. This access is crucial to maintaining energy security in the region and promoting global trade opportunities for the United States and its allies. Mr. Speaker, I would again like to thank the people of Azerbaijan for their continued partnership and friendship, and ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Azerbaijan on this historic centennial Republic Day.

Mr. SHUSTER

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, today we say farewell to a colleague and good friend, Charlie Dent, a dedicated public servant who served in the Pennsylvania House for 8 years, the Pennsylvania Senate for 6, and 14 years in the United States Congress. Again, a dedicated public servant. He is smart. He is tough. He is hardworking. He has a great sense of humor. But, most importantly, he has been a voice of reason here in the House of Representatives. He has worked extremely hard to represent the people of the 15th District over those past 14 years and done it with great honor and integrity. As Charlie leaves the House today, I say to my good friend: Chuck, we are going to miss you. Godspeed.

Mr. SHUSTER

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, pursuant to House Resolution 839, I offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, I support considering these amendments en bloc, all of which have been approved by both the majority and minority. These Members put forward thoughtful amendments, and I am pleased to be able to support moving them en bloc. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's attempts and work to try to decrease the deficits and the debt in this country, but Essential Air Service is just that. He named a few communities, and they are close to--I guess I can't make a great argument about those, but there are places like Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, or Iowa. These folks are living miles and miles, hours and hours away-- several hours, in many cases--from the nearest airport. As Mr. DeFazio pointed out, this connects those communities for economic development. The other thing, he makes a point, as a conservative, when you pay user fees into a trust fund and it goes to that intended purpose--in this case, a small piece of that goes to Essential Air Service--that is what we should be doing in America: people that use something are contributing to that service or whatever that government agency is providing them. Again, under the bill, in 2012, we put reforms in to reform Essential Air Service; and, this bill, the underlying bill, directs the GAO to study and find out the effects of those reforms. So, again, while I support and applaud the gentleman's efforts to help get the debt under control, this is not the place to start. Mr. Chairman, I urge rejection of this amendment.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the gentleman's amendment. It does remove the confusion with the industry stakeholders, but the hysteria that the other side is proclaiming, that roadways are going to become a slaughterhouse because if this goes away or it is clarified, truckers are just going to be out there running into people left or right, I mean, it is ridiculous. It is not a good business model for any company to want to have an incentive, which the other side has, I think, said, to hire unsafe drivers. That is not a good business model. In fact, you will go out of business, most likely, if you go out there and hire drivers who are bad drivers, dangerous drivers. The facts don't bear that out. Of the auto accidents that include trucks in it, over 75 percent of them are not the trucker's fault, it is the person in the car's fault. Truckers are professionals, and to have impugned this whole class of people, this whole group of people that go out on these roadways and work hard every day and try to do it as safely as they can, is just plain wrong. Again, as I said, truckers are professionals. Seventy-five percent of those accidents that truckers are involved in, it is not their fault. We continue to hype up and to put these things out there for, again, another class of worker out there, and that is the trial lawyers. They make millions and millions of dollars going out there and suing these people that, again, do their best every day to try to be safe on the roadways. So, again, this is a sensible amendment, this clarifies it, and it helps to make our roadways safer, not more dangerous. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption, and I thank the gentleman again for yielding.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. SHUSTER

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, first, to the gentlewoman's motion: First of all, everybody should know that the President already has the authority to waive the cost-share, so this is unnecessary for us to pass it. I want to thank all the committee staff, all the staff, for their hard work on this bipartisan bill: full committee staff, my personal staff, aviation staff, economic development staff, and, of course, the legislative counsels. There is one particular former staffer I want to thank, Matt Sturges, who was with the committee for 5\1/2\ years, the staff director, just went down to be the Deputy Administrator at FRA. He worked tirelessly for the past couple of years on this FAA bill. Again, I thank the following staff. Our full committee staff, including Chris Vieson, Geoff Gosselin, Fred Miller, Clare Doherty, Kathy Loden, Collin McCune, Hannah Matesic, Brittany Smith, Tracy Mosebey, Justin Harclerode, Jeff Urbanchuk, Andrew Wargofchik, Eric Burgeson. Our Aviation Subcommittee staff: Holly Woodruff Lyons, Naveen Rao, Hunter Presti, Max Rosen, Cameron Humphrey. Our Economic Development Subcommittee staff: Johanna Hardy, Pam Williams, Hannah Noyes. Our Legislative Counsels: Tom Dillon, Rosemary Gallagher, Karen Anderson, Stephen Hagenbuch. Finally, I want to thank a few staff who have recently moved on, but were instrumental in this process: Matt Sturges, Simone Perez, Keith Hall, and Curt Haensel with Legislative Counsel. Mr. Speaker, in addition, I would like to finish by thanking the minority staff and the minority leader on the other side, again, working very closely with the minority staff to produce this bill. And finishing up with thanking the minority staff, I just want to say this is a good bipartisan bill that was introduced with seven Democratic cosponsors, including the ranking member and subcommittee ranking members as well as our subcommittee chairmen. Over the last 2 days, we worked in a very bipartisan manner. We had 116 amendments to this bill: 50 Democratic amendments and over 22 bipartisan amendments. The process has been nothing short of fair and equitable to both sides, I believe. This is a good bill that needs to get through the House so that we can achieve the first long-term reauthorization of FAA in years. We have had five short-term extensions since the last long-term bill in 2012, creating uncertainty for the FAA, air traffic controllers, our airports, and, most importantly, the American people. It is time we move forward on this. Mr. Speaker, I just want to also say that Frank LoBiondo has been a very, very able subcommittee chair on Aviation. I thank the gentleman for all his service to the Nation and to the committee, as well as this will be my last Aviation bill. Just in case anybody wants to give Frank a great send-off, I would encourage having a big bipartisan vote on this bill, because, again, Mr. LoBiondo and I both worked very, very hard to make sure this bill was crafted in a bipartisan fashion. So, again, we need to get this bill to the Senate and get the bipartisan bill to the President's desk. Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SHUSTER

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, pursuant to House Resolution 839, I offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. SHUSTER

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management.

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time each side has remaining?

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4.