Frank Wolf

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2169) making appropriations for the Department of Transportation and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1998, and for other purposes, with Senate amendments thereto, disagree to the Senate amendments, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I had the pleasure, on July 14, 1997, to attend a ceremony in Winchester, VA, where a statue of Adm. Richard Evelyn Byrd was dedicated to his memory. Born in Winchester, Admiral Byrd was a legendary naval officer, aviation pioneer, adventurer and explorer of both polar icecaps and winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Admiral Byrd was a lion of a man who captured the heart of America and the imagination of the world. In attendance were members of the Byrd family including the Admiral's daughter, Mrs. Bolling Byrd Clarke, former U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr., and Mr. Thomas T. Byrd, Representing the region were U.S. Senator Charles Robb, State senator H. Russel Potts, State delegate Beverly Sherwood, former delegate Alson H. Smith, county board of supervisors member Mr. Harrington Smith, county board of supervisors chairman Mr. James Longerbeam, Winchester city councilman Mr. Harry S. Smith and Shenandoah University president Dr. James Davis, along with many men, women, and children from the community. Principal addresses were given by Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton and Mrs. Bolling Byrd Clarke. Dr. Jay Morton, who sculpted the statue, was also in attendance and spoke briefly. The statue of Admiral Byrd was funded entirely by contributions, large and small, from members of the community, friends, neighbors, and admirers. I would like to share with my colleagues the remarks by Navy Secretary Dalton and Mrs. Bolling Byrd Clarke. What Would Admiral Byrd Explore Today? (By the Honorable John H. Dalton) Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen . . . what an honor and a pleasure it is for me to be here today, to unveil this proud monument to one of the most distinguished maritime explorers in our Nation's history. One of the great pleasures I have as Secretary of the Navy is to help honor the life and work of those who have come before us those brave men and women . . . Sailors, Marines and civilians who have made our Naval Service the best in the world. Let me say first of all, thank you, to those who had a part in making this memorial a reality. You honor our Nation by your commitment to the preservation of our past triumphs. Pioneer, explorer, fearless adventurer, and scientist . . . active pursuits that describe the life and personality of Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd. He was a man who loved a challenge. He was a man of firsts. The first to fly over the North Pole. The first to fly over the South Pole. The first to explore and map the vast continent of Antarctica. Amazing feats . . . and especially so, given our reliance today on the wonders of navigation now available to us, like the global positioning system. Admiral Byrd had no such tools available . . . he called upon his courage almost exclusively, to achieve the firsts that began out search for those marvelous tools we use today. His was a special breed of courage. He was a man who did not believe that the science establishment of his time held definitive answers to questions about our vast planet. He sought to discover for himself--and for his Nation--the answers that might be hidden at the very ends of the earth, under the forbidding ice and snow of the poles. As I prepared my remarks for today, I pondered Admiral Byrd's quest for knowledge, and his thirst for discovery. I wondered what facet of the unknown he would champion if he were with us today. Would he seek to continue exploration of the Poles? Would he investigate the ocean's depths? Or would he look further, and seek the stars? If I had to speculate, I believe that Richard Byrd would have been very excited by the images of Mars, transmitted by NASA's Pathfinder and its remote probing vehicle, Sojourner-- that we have all seen this past week. I think he would have been very excited by the computer microchip and its myriad of applications in today's world. And, I think that he would have been saddened by the recent death of the great undersea explorer, Jacques Cousteau. It is a far more knowledgeable world today, than it was back in 1926, when Richard Byrd rolled down a runway enroute to his historic mission of discovery over the North Pole. But, regardless of the advances and breakthroughs, Admiral Byrd, if he were with us today, would still seek the answers to questions beyond our current boundaries. He would push the envelope and challenge conventional wisdom. If he were alive today, I know that he would be proud of his Navy and Marine Corps. He would be proud of the technology of today's newest aircraft carriers, like the USS HARRY S. TRUMAN, and the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet strike fighters that will soon fill her decks. He would be proud of our SEAWOLF submarine, and the Tomahawk launch system aboard our Aegis cruisers and destroyers. But, most of all, he would be proud of our people--the Sailors and Marines who man the deckplates. Following Admiral Byrd's proud example, today's Sailors, Marines and civilians of the Navy Department continue to challenge the established technology available to them. They still strive to discover and explore. Just two weeks ago, I was at Rice University in Houston, Texas, to honor one of our finest shipmates, who is setting that example. Professor Richard Smalley, funded by the Office of Naval Research, is a Nobel Prize-winner who is pushing the bounds of Nanoscale science, to eventually produce wonders of carbon that will make our future weapons systems more powerful, lighter, stronger, and safer for the Sailors and Marines who use them. Admiral Richard Byrd may not be with us today, but his spirit of exploration and discovery is alive and well. It will be that spirit which will serve as his legacy. It was Albert Einstein who said, ``We don't know one- millionth of one percent about anything . . .'' Your great city of Winchester has not just erected a monument to the past . . . it has erected a challenge for our future. It has erected a symbol that represents Einstein's challenge, and Admiral Byrd's challenge--to all of us--to embrace our future, through continued courage to discover new frontiers. Thank you, Admiral Byrd, for your contributions to our proud naval heritage. Thank you for a remarkable life and legacy. Thank you, Mr. Jay Morton, for your artistic flair and sculpting talents. And thank you, Winchester, Virginia, for your undying devotion to a great native son. God bless you . . . God bless our Navy-Marine Corps team . . . and God bless America.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, Sunday morning, July 27, 1997, was a historic occasion in the Nation's Capital. The New National Airport was unveiled. The new terminal and facility boasts stunning architecture and artwork, sweeping panoramic views of Washington, DC, restaurants, and retail outlets for the 19 major airlines and shuttles which annually serve over 15 million passengers. The new airport can also be called more user-friendly, with some 5,000 parking spaces and with Metrorail almost to the new terminal's front door. It is truly a magnificent gateway to the Nation's Capital. National Airport has come a long way since its opening in June 1941, when the Federal Government was in charge of operating the airport. Over the years, National has had its share of growing pains, and as a ward of the Federal Government which had to compete for its share of a dwindling Federal pie, it became what one Transportation Secretary in 1979 called a dump. Today, though, National is being called a showplace. For that, we salute the yeoman efforts of Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole who 13 years ago set in motion a commission headed by former Virginia Governor Linwood Holton, on which I was honored to serve with other area Members of Congress and Governors, and the D.C. Major, to come up with a plan to get the Federal Government out of the airports business. After several years of fits and starts, the persuasive Mrs. Dole finally achieved her goal. Congress approved legislation to transfer Washington National and Washington Dulles International Airports from Federal ownership to a local authority. In 1987 the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority was created, putting the wheels in motion to improve both National and Dulles Airports. Soon after, with the ability to sell bonds to finance improvements, the airports authority began an almost $2 billion construction program for the two airports. We see today the result of the airports authority's vision at the new National Airport. Dulles is also progressing, with the new Midfield Concourse on schedule and set to open later this fall. We offer congratulations to the airports authority and the many, many people in northern Virginia and the entire Metropolitan Washington Area who have worked so hard over the past 10 years to launch National Airport into a new century of aviation.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill, H.R. 1596, and I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas] for yielding me time to speak on the personal bankruptcy crisis in America. In 1996 alone over one million cases for bankruptcy were filed, an increase of 27 percent over the 1995 filings, which equaled 926,000. In 1997 bankruptcy filings have exceeded 100,000 per month across the country. While the entire Nation needs additional bankruptcy judges to help manage the increased caseload, H.R. 1596 is targeting areas most in need for additional assistance, with temporary judgeships to be authorized for the Eastern District of California, the Southern District of Florida, the District of Maryland, the Eastern District of Michigan, the Southern District of Mississippi, the Eastern District of New York, the Northern District of New York, the Southern District of New York, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the Middle District of Pennsylvania, and the Eastern District of Virginia. Also, the legislation calls for an additional four permanent judges to be authorized for California, Maryland, New Jersey, and Tennessee. Why are we in a personal bankruptcy crisis in America? A recent study conducted by SMR Research Corp. in Hackettstown, NJ, looked at the bankruptcy crisis and found that while there is no single prime cause of bankruptcy, there is a connection between bankruptcy and gambling. That study states, and I quote, Mr. Speaker, It now appears that gambling may be the single fastest growing driver of bankruptcy. Once limited to Nevada and New Jersey, casino gambling has spread very rapidly through many States. Indian reservation casinos have been one new mode for this growth, and riverboat and coastal gambling boats have been added. This is a fascinating and enlightening study which I will submit for the Record for all our colleagues to read. When we look at the areas where H.R. 1596 targets the need for additional bankruptcy court assistance, we can see a link to the areas where gambling has proliferated in recent years. The SMR Research study states, and I quote, The bankruptcy rate was 18 percent higher in counties with one gambling facility and was 35 percent higher in counties with five or more gambling establishments. The study continues, and I quote again, Mr. Speaker, The effect of gambling on bankruptcy seems quite clear when you look at a map. Among all the counties in Nevada, for instance, we find that the closer you come to Las Vegas and Reno, the higher the bankruptcy rate. In California the two counties with the highest bankruptcy rates are Riverside and San Bernadino. They also happen to be the two counties closest to Las Vegas. The fourth highest bankruptcy rate in California is in Sacramento County, which is closest to Reno. If we look at H.R. 1596, we see the Central District of California will be authorized four additional permanent bankruptcy judges and the Eastern District of California will be getting an additional temporary judge to handle the swelling number of bankruptcy filings. Mr. Speaker, I will not belabor the point, but I urge our colleagues to read the SMR Research report. We see Congress must be educated on the effects of gambling in our society. We are acting today to increase bankruptcy judgeships, which I believe can be linked to the proliferation of gambling today, but we just cannot continue to add more and more judges to solve this crisis. Getting to the heart of the problem is a challenge not only facing this Congress but the newly established National Gambling Impact Study Commission. Mr. Speaker, the SMR information I referred to earlier follows: The Personal Bankruptcy Crisis, 1997 (Published by SMR Research Corporation) the purpose of this study In 1996, SMR Research issued a 56-page study on the causes of wildly rising personal bankruptcy filings. We knew the subject was timely, but little did we imagine the media coverage that would follow. The 1996 study was mentioned in major newspapers and magazines across the land, on television, and even became the subject of two stories in the Wall Street Journal. Fate is strange. Publicity is nice, but the 1996 study was not exactly a typical SMR production. The explosion in bankruptcies had caused a lot of demand for information from our lending industry clients, especially unsecured lenders. We put together the 56-page piece as a section of our 1996 annual credit card market study, and later offered the bankruptcy section by itself to non-credit card issuers. Although 56 pages might look big to some folks, it was the shortest research study we have done since 1985. We found ourselves making conclusions in the 1996 study with some statistical backing, but not always definitive proof. This study, by contrast, is indeed a standard SMR Research work. The scope is much greater, and allows us to cover the subject completely, with a meaty section on solving (or at least mitigating) the personal bankruptcy dilemma. Where the 1996 study focused solely on some of the core causes of bankruptcy, this study covers the full nature of the problem. We look at the common misperceptions about bankruptcy and provide the statistics that show why they are such vast over- statements. Unemployment is not the primary driver of bankruptcy, nor is the overall consumer debt load. Lender marketing and easy credit also are not the prime cause. In fact, there is no single prime cause of bankruptcy. In this study, you'll see coverage of many things that result in bankruptcy, with some quantification of which ones are in the worst. The additional space allows us to cover things we couldn't cover last year, like the connection between bankruptcy and gambling--perhaps the fastest-growing problem of all. In addition, this study, for the first time we know of, shows the demographics of bankruptcy, using our county-level statistical database that goes back to 1989. Regarding solutions to the problem, they are not easy. The bankruptcy spike is based at least in part on serious, intransigent, worsening, socio-economic problems. This underlying core puts upward pressure on filings, and the upward pressure really explodes when you throw lawyer advertising and bankruptcy's loss of social stigma into the mix. Still, we are quite confident that there are steps available to creditors to help control their own bankruptcy loss exposure. We think the best solution of all may be the most radical, which is for creditors to adopt some of the risk-control techniques of the insurance industry. This would mean using actual geographic loss statistics as a supplemental aid in credit scoring, pricing, and marketing. This material appears starting on Page 157. SMR has been following the bankruptcy subject, and has been building its database of filings, for eight years. After all that time, we finally have created a research study that we believe addresses all the central issues in the bankruptcy crisis. We appreciate your patronage and hope you get good value from the research. gambling and bankruptcy It now appears that gambling may be the single fastest- growing driver of bankruptcy. Once limited to Nevada and New Jersey, casino gambling has spread very rapidly through many states. Indian reservation casinos have been one new mode for this growth, and riverboat and coastal gambling boats have added more. If you have not been tracking the spread of gambling, you may be in for a shock about how pervasive gambling facilities have become. Note that in the state of Nevada, there are only 17 counties (most of them very large). But across the nation, there are now 298 counties that have at least one major legal gambling facility: a casino, a horse or dog racing track, or a jai alai game. That's the count in one recent guide to U.S. gambling facilities, and it does not include such things as places where state lotteries or bingo parlors are available. The lotteries and bingo parlors tend to involve small-ticket gambling, whereas the other facilities obviously involve the larger dollars per customer. The three addictions & changed mores When we published our shorter study on the causes of bankruptcy in 1996, we had suspicions about gambling. But we had not yet put together enough solid data and information to make conclusions, therefore we said little about the subject. Actually, since we were looking at events that can cause insolvency, we were suspicious in 1996 about all three of the serious addiction problems in America: alcoholism and drug and gambling addiction. We remain suspicious about all three of those problems. But of the three, it's quite clear that gambling is the fastest-growing phenomenon. For those who make and supply alcohol, drugs, and gambling, all are very large businesses. But you don't have to be a sociologist to see that societal mores are changing most rapidly on gambling. Over the last 20 years, state governments themselves have entered the gambling business with lotteries. We see no states as yet that have gone into the heroin trade or where the government itself advertises Jim Beam. So, the concept of gambling now has the tacit blessing of government. Meanwhile, private entrepreneurs have created dazzling and sophisticated facilities that have eliminated the ``sleazy'' from gambling and turned it into a recreation. Las Vegas is now a city-sized adult theme park with attractions for the kids, too. American Indians, operating on reservations beyond the authority of state laws, have seized on casinos as a new method to generate cash and improve their standard of living Cruise ships of all sorts have set up table games and slot machines. Hard-bitten gamblers of old played poker at tables in a friend's kitchen or sat in cold bleachers to watch the horses. Today's gamblers only enjoy the fines food, free drinks, the best entertainment, super-quality hotels, and the widest variety of gambling adventures that have ever been available. And, of course, all of this now happens at places much closer to most of the larger population centers. Gambling can indeed be fun these days--but some smallish percentage of gamblers do develop problems that translate into bankruptcy. statistics, gambling, and bankruptcy As in so many aspects of bankruptcy, perfect data related to the gambling problem don't exist. No one has asked all the bankruptcy filers if gambling contributed to their financial problems, and we strongly suspect that if filers were asked that question, many would be too embarrassed to answer honestly. But we can look at evidence in many other ways. Recently, for example, we input into our county-level records the number of gambling places that exist in each county, if any. We obtained the information, covering more than 800 casinos, race tracks, and jai alai ``frontons'' from the 1997 edition of The Gaming Guide: Where to Play in the US of A, published by Facts on Demand Press of Tempe, AZ. The directory provides street addresses and zip codes for the gaming establishments. We used the zips against SMR's Zip Code/County Matching database to put the right numbers of facilities in the right counties. Then, we aggregated the bankruptcy rates of those places and compared them to those of counties that have no gambling at all. The bankruptcy rate was 18% higher in counties with one gambling facility and it was 35% higher in counties with five or more gambling establishments. This exercise probably understates the seriousness of the problem, since many counties that have gambling facilities also have very small populations, and actually draw their customers from other places. So, when we look only at counties with more sizable resident populations and gambling facilities, we see even greater evidence of the problem. A look at the map The effect of gambling on bankruptcy seems quite clear when you look at a map. Among all the counties in Nevada, for instance, we find that the closer you come to Las Vegas and Reno, the higher the bankruptcy rate. In New Jersey, casinos are permitted only in Atlantic City--and that's also where the resident population has by far the highest bankruptcy rate. Generally speaking, the closer you come to Atlantic City, the higher the bankruptcy rate in New Jersey. One exception to this rule is Cape May County, just south of Atlantic City, where the bankruptcy rate is not so high. But Cape May also is a big retirement place with high average age in the population. As shown in our demographics section, high-age populations do not have high bankruptcy rats. In California, the two counties with the highest bankruptcy rates are Riverside and San Bernardino. They also happen to be the two counties closest to Las Vegas. The fourth-highest bankruptcy rate in California is in Sacramento County, which is closest to Reno. In Connecticut, the map hardly matters. Connecticut is so tiny that everyone has access to the gambling parlors in the middle of the state. This is a state that used to have a bankruptcy rate far below the national average. But Indian casino gambling is now huge and well-entrenched. The smaller of the Indian casinos, the Mohican Sun in Uncasville, boasts 3,000 slot machines. In Connecticut, the bankruptcy rate per capita has risen more than twice as fast as the national rate of increase since 1990. what the experts say: scope of the problem, and the credit card connection Aside from these observations, we set out this year to interview many of the leading U.S. experts on gambling, gambling addiction, and the financial impact of gambling. Their studies have suggested, fairly consistently, that more than 20% of compulsive gamblers have filed for bankruptcy as a result of their gambling losses. They also show that upwards of 90% of compulsive gamblers had used their credit card lines to obtain funds for gambling and then lost. The same studies show that problem gamblers have a lot of credit cards on which to draw. ``One of the things we know about problem gamblers is that they tend to have lots and lots of credit cards and those credit cards have been maxed out in terms of their credit limits,'' said Rachel Volberg, one of the leading researchers into problem gambling in the U.S. and internationally. Volberg is president of Gemini Research, a consulting firm in Roaring Spring, PA. She is a frequent ``expert witness'' on the problem in state legislative hearings and has done research under contract for various government units in Oregon, Colorado, New York, California, Michigan, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Iowa, Connecticut, and Canadian provinces. Volberg is not the only researcher to note the connection with credit cards. ``It's not unusual for problem gamblers to have eight to 10 credit cards,'' adds Henry Lesieur, professor of criminal justice at the University of Illinois, Normal, another leading authority on compulsive gambling. The amount gamblers owe is quite large. According to studies of Gamblers Anonymous members in Illinois conducted in 1993 and 1995 by Lesieur, the median average lifetime gambling debt of those surveyed was $45,000, and the median amount owed at the time they entered GA was $18,000. The median is the midpoint of a list of numbers, with 50% of the numbers being higher and the other 50% being lower. However, the mean average debts of problem gamblers were far higher than the median amounts. The mean average lifetime gambling debt of those surveyed was $215,406, with three people saying they owed $1 million or more. The mean debt upon entering GA was $113,640, including one person who said he owed $1 million and another admitting to owing an incredible $7.5 million. In another study dated April 1996 by the University of Minnesota Medical School, a survey of problem gamblers in Minnesota found the average lifetime gambling debt was $47,855, although individual amounts ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The median amount was $19,000. Recent debts--those accumulated in the past six months--averaged $10,008, while the median amount was $4,500. In late 1995, the Minneapolis Star Tribune examined 105 bankruptcy filings made in that city in which it was determined that gambling was a factor. The results of the study appeared in a five-part series that ran in the paper in December 1995. The newspaper found that of the $4.2 million of total debt declared by the 105 filers, $1.14 million--or 27%--was comprised of gambling losses. Almost half of the 105 filers-- 52, to be exact--claimed they had gambling losses. Their average debt was $40,066, which was more than the average annual income of $35,244. The average gambling loss was more than $22,000. Filers carried an average of eight credit cards, although many had 10 or 15 cards and one person had 25. And heavy debts were being carried on each card. Counties with gambling have higher bankruptcy rates Let's return to the county-level data. In the table that follows, we divided up the country among counties with gambling facilities and those without. The differences in bankruptcy rates between them are striking. It's quite clear that those counties with legal big-ticket gambling have higher bankruptcy rates than those counties that don't have gambling, and those counties with many gambling houses have higher bankruptcy rates than those places with just a few. We examined more than 3,100 counties. For the entire United States, the personal bankruptcy filing rate per 1,000 population in 1996 was 4.20. But the national rate for purposes of comparison to counties was 4.22 (using 1996 bankruptcies divided by 1995 populations; the 1996 county populations were not available when we did this analysis). For the 2,844 counties without gambling, the bankruptcy rate was lower, at 3.96. According to The Gaming Guide, there were 298 counties that had legalized gambling within their borders. In these counties, the bankruptcy filing rate in 1996 was 4.67, or 18% higher than for those counties with no gambling. When we subdivide the universe of counties with gambling between those with five or more locations and those with four or less, we learn more. The places with the most gambling facilities have a much higher bankruptcy rate. Of the 298 counties with gambling, 275 had only one to four facilities. Their combined 1996 bankruptcy filing rate was 4.53 per 1,000 residents, or 14% greater than the 3.96 rate among counties without gambling. However, in the 23 other counties with five or more gambling facilities, the combined bankruptcy rate was 5.33, a whopping 26% higher than the 4.22 national bankruptcy rate and 35% higher than at counties with no gambling at all. Many of these counties with 5+ gambling facilities are in Nevada, but most of them are not.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kucinich] is correct. The intent of the committee was to investigate energy saving possibilities, and solar technology is a promising route to saving energy. The Executive order the gentleman speaks of is relevant here. Therefore we agree that the Coast Guard and all agencies under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation should make every effort to uphold the letter and the spirit of Executive Order 12902 and investigate cost-saving utilization and solar technologies to the maximum extent possible.

Mr. WOLF. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, the point of order just sustained by the Chair eliminates all aviation trust fund support for FAA operations. I believe it is the intent of the authorizing committee to ensure only that the legislative cap on trust fund spending for FAA operations is upheld and not to totally eliminate the trust fund contribution.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I concede the point of order.

Mr. WOLF. No, Mr. Chairman. I concede the point of order.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, that is correct. There is language relating to the Belford Ferry project in the report.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pappas].

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Collins] so he and I may engage in a colloquy.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman yield?

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, there is nothing more to say, then, because it is a technical amendment and is supported, I think, by the majority and minority.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Filner] first.

Mr. WOLF. I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. WOLF. I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. WOLF. Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

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

Mr. WOLF. I do, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I concede the point of order. I understand why the gentleman from Pennsylvania is doing it. I appreciate the concern. I would urge the Congress to work and support the efforts of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster] to reform and change Amtrak, because as we are putting all of the money into Amtrak, if there is no reform and GAO and IG has looked at it, it has continued getting worse and it is, in essence, perhaps this is not an apt example, but putting money down a rathole. I think what the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster] is doing with regard to the restructuring is very, very important. I would have hoped that this language could have stayed in, but it is important that the Congress pass legislation, because I think we are going to see dwindling support if some restructuring is not done. I concede the point of order.

Mr. WOLF. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the bill through page 65, line 6, be considered as read, printed in the Record, and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. WOLF. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill (H.R. 2169) making appropriations for the Department of Transportation and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1998, and for other purposes, and that I may be permitted to include, tables, charts, and other extraneous matter.