Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 5025) making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation and Treasury, and independent agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other purposes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I am pleased to present to the House the appropriations bill H.R. 5025, making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation and Treasury, and independent agencies for fiscal year 2005.

Mr. Chairman, this is one of the most fiscally responsible bills that we have considered this year. It is a large bill. It is a diverse bill. It includes funding for the Department of Transportation, the Treasury Department, the General Services Administration, the Executive Office of the President, National Archives, Office of Management and Budget, Office of Personnel Management and many other agencies that are

critical to the functioning of our Federal Government.

This measure is also one that includes a number of government-wide general provisions that are there to facilitate efficiency and effectiveness in the day-to-day functions of large and small Federal agencies.

Mr. Chairman, we have a lot of budget constraints this year. In examining the budget picture for this particular bill, it is important to note that this bill is within the budget that has been produced by this House of Representatives and the allocation that has been provided to this subcommittee.

Of course, the Congress, working with the President and his administration, has rightfully put a priority on spending for the ongoing conflict in Iraq and the war on terror. At the same time, we have a serious Federal deficit. These have forced this body and our Committee on Appropriations and our subcommittee to make many difficult and challenging choices. This bill reflects the difficulty of those choices.

In fact, if you look at this bill, Mr. Chairman, and compare it with last year's parallel bill, you will find that this particular measure is $3 billion below the amount that we spent on the same accounts last year. There are reasons that it is not a pure apples-to-apples comparison, but, nevertheless, the bill is below what the similar funding was for last year. That reflects, again, the priority choices and the tough choices we have made.

So we will hear, during debate upon this measure, many people say, ``Oh, I wish we had more money for this program or that or some other.'' But the answer is that we do not. We are in deficit spending already, and this is about as fiscally responsible a bill as you will find before this body this year.

Overall, the bill provides a total of $89.9 billion for the Department of Transportation, for the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service, highways, transit, rail programs, seafaring programs, and the heart of the executive branch, including the White House itself.

Overall, for salary and expense accounts, the bill does provide increases, some 2.6 percent, but that is within the context of a bill that overall is $3 billion less than the bill last year, so many agencies will have to do some belt tightening. We have tried to give them the maximum flexibility to manage those resources.

I appreciate the fact that the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) did not have the funds he would have liked to have had to put into highways and other forms of transportation, but he gave us a fair allocation and I am grateful for it. Not only is it $3 billion below last year's spending on these accounts, it is below the amounts requested by the President in his budget.

There were some highly controversial provisions we did not include. Some Members said if you can put a provision in the bill to end a process known as dumping, which has to do with reparation payments to industry to offset unfair trade practices, then you can grab over a billion dollars to put back into the bill. That would not have been good because whatever Members' position on dumping is, it has not passed the House and we cannot assume we will have the money.

Despite the budget constraints we have, I am pleased we have been able to improve the most important part of our transportation network, and that is funding for highways. The $34 billion in this bill for highway funding is a billion dollars above the funding level for highways last year. So in the context of a bill that itself is $3 billion below last year, when we are still able to improve highway funding, that shows we have addressed priorities and tried to put the money where it is most important.

That money for highways is going to be good news for the economy because each billion dollar investment is estimated to create some 40,000 jobs.

There is also some confusion in the context of this bill, Mr. Chairman, because we have a two-stage process. We have still pending in the conference committee a surface transportation highways and transit reauthorization bill. I do not want to confuse this bill with that. The reauthorization bill establishes a framework for spending transportation dollars, but this bill actually provides the money. We do not have a new framework created, so we have had to assume the old framework remains in place, but we are going to have some controversy over that because we have not been able to achieve passage into law of a highway reauthorization bill. We have some technicalities, some rules of this House, and I know many Members are going to come forward and raise points of order. They are going to say you have to strike this part out of the bill because we have not authorized it.

Well, we have been waiting a year for an authorization bill which has not happened. We had to do our work anyway. Some Members may want to pick the bill apart and say you are putting money into something that is not authorized. Under the rules of the House they may be successful in doing that. But I want to reassure every Member of this body that we are going to repair those things when it gets to conference. We are going to have the same kind of responsible bill that the Committee on Appropriations has produced that comes out of conference regardless of how Members may want to pick at it with parliamentary tactics on the House floor today.

It is not the fault of the Committee on Appropriations that a reauthorization measure has not passed as the rules of the House dictate it should have been a year ago.

Looking at some other details of the bill, the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration, will receive a 3 percent increase for its operations, less than they requested, but more than the government-wide average for nondefense, nonhomeland security programs. That again is because we have put priority into aviation funding, just as we have in highway funding, and we have put cuts in place elsewhere in the bill to compensate for that.

The bill meets the aviation funding guarantees mandated by authorizing legislation which has passed this body. It provides the budget request for the capital investment programs of the FAA and grants-in-aid for airports all across America.

The essential air service program, which I am not personally fond of, but one which is important to many Members of this body, receives the same funding as it did in fiscal year 2004. And there is $20 million for the small community air service program.

Amtrak is always a point of controversy in this House. The bill proposes $900 million for Amtrak, the same amount suggested by the administration in their budget proposal, and I believe it is a responsible number for Amtrak because Amtrak still has not resolved its long-term problems, and we have not developed the kind of partnerships that we need with States and communities that want Amtrak service investing in Amtrak service. The administration believes and I agree that realistic Amtrak reform has to be enacted before we start putting more money into that passenger rail service.

The Secretary of Transportation and the President and his administration believe the amount in this bill is sufficient to keep that rail service operating in the next year, and I agree with them.

Funding for transit in the bill is essentially at the level of fiscal year 2004, also the same as the administration requested, but we have done some adjustment inside of the numbers. Within the overall total, we have put more of the transit funding into the formula grant program that goes into every community in every State in the country on a formula basis. That benefits everyone. We put more money through the formula and less in the so-called new starts program which is fixed guideway and light rail programs, and so forth, which only benefit a handful of communities. We have tried to put the transit funding more than ever before into a formula that benefits everyone, not just select areas of the country.

I want to make one more comment about the new starts program. We do not know how much money is going to be available over the next 5 years to fund these expensive rail systems that a lot of communities want and often do not do the necessary cost-benefit analysis. The Department of Transportation Inspector General told us this year there are far more systems being proposed than we will ever have money to pay for. The requests exceed the resources by billions of dollars, so this

bill takes a prudent step to slow down that program, put money instead into the formula grants instead of making some decisions that we might regret tomorrow on how we prioritize the new starts program. But the bill does fund all of the existing full funding grant agreements on new start programs that are between different communities and the Federal Transit Administration.

In the Treasury Department of this bill, which includes the Internal Revenue Service, we essentially have funded it at the same level of fiscal year 2004. Some of the proposals we believe need further refinement. New initiatives such as the IRS initiative to increase its hiring to improve collections are too financially ambitious for the budget climate we have.

One of the largest increases in the bill, 12.7 percent, goes to what is known as FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. It is part of the Department of Treasury and it is part of counterterrorism activities, trying to disrupt the financial basis of terrorists.

When we look at another part of the bill, the Executive Office, the President, the White House and the offices that work with the White House, it is actually a little below last year's because we have reduced contract programs. The bill includes funding for the majority of the construction program of the GSA, General Services Administration. That is the landlord for the Federal Government. But even though it includes the majority of the GSA construction program and GSA says it has something like a $7 billion backlog, we have shaved back those requests to meet our budget allocation.

All 12 border stations that are proposed in the budget request are fully funded because of the priority that we have given to homeland security. A more complete summary of all of the funding levels in the bill, as well as significant provision, is in the committee report at pages 3 and 4, and I direct Members to those pages.

Mr. Chairman, a final comment before I close my debate for now. My final comment is about the messiness that I know we are going to experience with the points of order and money in the bill being stricken. We are probably going to have to offer some amendments on what do we do with the money. I would just as soon have it go to pay the national debt, but in our protocol that is not how it works in this process. So if some money is stricken on points of order, I will offer the necessary amendments to park that money into some of the major accounts with the understanding that when we get to conference we will be overcoming the parliamentary problems of those points of order and restoring that money to the transportation programs which I think some people are going to try to take it from with their points of order.

I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver), our ranking member. The gentleman presents his personal views and the views of the minority tenaciously and effectively and is good to work with. I appreciate that and his no-nonsense approach to things.

I also appreciate our staff that has worked so well and will reiterate a thank you to them later on before we close this debate.

This is a good, solid bill. It is responsible. It merits and deserves the support of every Member of this body, and I ask that Members support it when we come to passage of the bill.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate the help of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver) in trying to expedite the time for the benefit of everyone.

Let me just make a couple of responses to things that a couple of speakers mentioned on the Help America Vote Act. We have provided federally something like a little bit over $3 billion in the last couple of years to improve voting systems around the country. A billion dollars of that remains unspent. The States are not prepared for us to add more money on this bill or any other bill because they have got $1 billion that has not been spent yet. They are waiting on some voting standards that are supposed to be coming from the Federal Commission, which has not produced those standards yet. So I do not think it would be responsible for us to take away from other urgent and pressing priorities to put more money into an account that already has much more money than it is able to spend. So I figured it was important to mention that.

Let me, in closing, Mr. Chairman, repeat something I said before, and I realize it is confusing to anyone that may be listening as well as to Members. We will be having in this bill a number of parliamentary tactics, points of order brought up. It is not because we on the Committee on Appropriations have not produced a responsible piece of legislation, trying to fund the most important priorities in transportation and in the Federal agencies that are a part of this bill. However, because the authorizing committee has not been able to complete its work, it is overdue by over a year now, we have some things that technically are unauthorized programs. It is unauthorized for this Congress to provide Federal highway transportation dollars.

Now, it is authorized to collect the gasoline tax that our citizens and our constituents pay at the pump. They are paying the fuel tax, but it is not authorized with that money to go back into the roads. That is not right, so we went ahead and we provided that transportation funding. We provided the highway funding and the transit funding and the aviation funding, even though the authorizers say, Well, it is not authorized.

So because of that, they are going to come to this floor, and people are going to say: Well, strike out this part of the bill. Strike out funding for highways. Strike out provisions, some of which spend money and some of which, frankly, save money. We are going to have a messy process.

But ultimately, when this committee produces the House-Senate conference report, we are going to take care of those things that are addressed in this. We will resolve the parliamentary problems because, frankly, the points of order, the parliamentary points of order do not lie against a conference report as they do against legislation in the House.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is certainly correct.

Reclaiming my time, this Committee on Appropriations is doing its work, whether the rest of Congress is able to for whatever reason fulfill their work or not. I regret that this is going to be a messy process. We are going to have some things stricken out of the bill. If the things that the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure want stricken out of the bill are all out, we would be above our budget allocation. We would be in violation of the rules of this House on the amount of money that we have to spend. That is pretty bad when we have a deficit already to make it worse.

We are not going to do that. We will make sure appropriate amendments are offered and that this bill ultimately is within the amount of money that has been allocated to our subcommittee. There may be some money that has been shifted about to what essentially will be a holding account, just to make sure that we reserve it, and we will resolve those things in committee.

I realize it is confusing, Mr. Chairman, but I appreciate the trust and patience of the Members of this body in resolving it.

I do, in final comment, want to make sure that I express my appreciation for the people that work behind the scenes so hard and so diligently to help us present this legislation: The chief clerk of our subcommittee, Rich Efford; the staff members of the subcommittee, Cheryle Tucker, Leigha Shaw, Dena Baron, Kristen Jones; and a member of my staff who works on these issues, Kurt Conrad, as well as my chief of staff, John Albaugh.

We are grateful because we, as Members of Congress, could not do our work without the good support of these people.

I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts and other Members for their comments. I ask every Member to support this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I was ready to yield back the balance of my time, but I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica).

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica).

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

Mr. Chairman, the point of order, if I understand it correctly, is made against a portion, rather than an entirety, of the paragraph. I believe the House rules require the point of order must lie against the entire paragraph and not just a portion thereof. I believe the point of order is incorrectly offered accordingly.

If the gentleman's point of order lies against the entire paragraph, I concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I insist that the point of order lie against the entire paragraph, that it be expanded against the entire paragraph.

Mr. Chairman, with it expanded to include the entire paragraph, I must concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, for the purposes of clarity, the Chair has ruled to strike the entire paragraph?

Mr. Chairman, I wish to be heard on the point of order.

First, I believe the point of order would properly lie against the entire paragraph. However, in this case, and I want to make sure this is agreeable with my counterpart, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), I intend to offer an amendment after the sustaining of the point of order to insert the language, ``of which $4.972 billion shall be derived from the airport and airway trust fund,'' effectively reinserting the stricken provision but changing the dollar figure from $6.2 billion to $4.972, which I believe satisfies the parliamentary requirements.

Mr. Chairman, with that in mind, I will not ask that the point of order be expanded.

I do.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this simply changes the figure that comes from the airport trust fund to satisfy the point of order that was raised without doing further damage to this section of the bill. I ask that it be adopted.

Mr. Chairman, I insist that the point of order be expanded to lie against the entire paragraph.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman from North Dakota for raising this important issue. I welcome the opportunity to set record straight.

As you know, the fiscal year 2005 House Transportation Appropriations bill provides the FAA with an additional $9 million for additional hiring and training of air traffic controllers. This $9 million is above the amount already budgeted by the FAA.

Our report does not specify how much has to go for salaries and how much for training, but we can safely assume the majority will go for salaries. Probably no more than $2 million to $4 million more of those funds would be for the actual training.

The base budget for the FAA includes $47.5 million for controller training. Our bill allows that money to be used at the discretion of the FAA at the CTI programs, at the FAA Academy or elsewhere. Contrary to inaccurate press report, this report language does not affect the role of CTI programs as a vital source of air traffic control candidates for the FAA. The language only directs that the portion of the extra $9 million that is used for training is to be used at the FAA Academy. But that leaves the overwhelming majority of training funds that are in the base budget, $47.5 million, at the discretion of the FAA, which can include the CTI programs at the same level as currently.

This report language does not affect the role that CTI programs play in the training process of the FAA. There is nothing in this bill that prevents CTI programs such as the one in the gentleman's district at the University of North Dakota from continuing in the same level and scope as they do currently.

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

I do want to speak against the amendment offered by the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson). This particular language has been carried in this bill, I understand, for several years. The airport is actually in the district of the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), who I understand is in the hospital currently, but he strongly desires the provision to remain in the bill and not be stricken.

I am also advised that the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter), another of the Louisiana Members whose district adjoins the airport, strongly supports keeping this provision in the bill.

Members should have the right, Mr. Chairman, to protect their district. The runway would not, as I understand it, be in the district of the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson), though I understand his concern for his State and for the overall community. I do ask, however, that the amendment be opposed, that it remain in the bill, and that we respect the wishes of the Members who are most closely involved and fully informed on this problem.

I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

I understand that. I appreciate the gentleman. I do not want to be incorrect on any of these things.

It is obviously a project that affects a multiplicity of districts, the way the boundaries are configured. I do ask that the language remain in the bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) and his concerns over this issue; and it is my understanding, and I am sure he will correct me if I am wrong, that after we spend

the time on the debate that the amendment is actually going to be withdrawn.

But it does not mean that the gentleman does not raise important issues.

The conflict between chartering and laws related to State banks and national banks is an ongoing one and, frankly, I have not studied it enough to know whether I would agree or disagree with the gentleman and his comments.

But I do know that this is not the proper forum to have this debate. This is something that probably should be brought up by the authorizing committee, because this goes so much to the heart of the very structure of the banking system in the United States. It should not be decided lightly. It should not be the subject of quick debate and superficial thought by this body. It demands long consideration. It requires hearings, and it requires very, very careful scrutiny.

The regulations which the gentleman mentions have already been in effect for a great number of months. Catastrophe has not happened. I do not believe that it is necessary for this House to adopt this amendment, and certainly, it is not proper for us to decide banking structure of the entire country in a few minutes of superficial debate on this crucial issue.

This is not the bill where we should decide this issue. This is not the time. This is not the place, and I oppose adoption of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to use this as an opportunity to notify Members who are listening: We are here on the floor. We have entered into time agreements for discussion on amendments, but the Members who are to present those amendments are not here on the floor. We need them to come to the floor to present their amendments so that we may move forward and resolve the consideration of this bill.

We know that we are not going to be able to complete bill consideration today because we have a short day so that Members can be home for Rosh Hashana observances later today, but I want to make sure that Members who have amendments are notified that they need to be coming to the floor. They need to be coming to the floor right now if they expect to present their amendments. Otherwise, they would lose the opportunity, of course, to do so.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am not aware of any amendments that are ready with Members here on the floor to present them.

So I have nothing further to add to my remarks at this time if the Chair wants us to wait a few minutes for Members to arrive. But I wanted to give that information.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise in opposition to the amendment.

With all due respect to my good friend from Colorado, I do rise in opposition to his amendment not because I oppose reducing spending. I wish the budget that we have adopted for this year was spending less money than we are overall. However, at some point, we make decisions, we develop a group consensus and we have to go ahead with that.

We made those decisions, Mr. Chairman, when we adopted the budget earlier this year. There were proposals for lower spending limits along the lines of what the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley) is talking about. I believe I supported those efforts, but we did reach a decision on what is the total amount of spending in this year's budget. We made the allocation to the individual subcommittees, and now we need to work within that particular framework.

If we adopted a revisiting of the amount today on one bill, then we do on other bills and so forth, that is fine; but we could do it at the next stage and next stage and so forth. We have to have a concept of finality. We have reached conclusions on the overall spending level for this year. Once we have done those, we need to work within those guidelines.

Secondly, when my colleagues want to reduce spending, as I do want to reduce Federal spending, it is much better to take a thoughtful approach and go through bills and say if we are not going to spend as much, this is where we cut because it is not as high a priority as some other things that we are doing in that piece of legislation.

The gentleman from Colorado's (Mr. Hefley) approach is not as good as that. It is an across-the-board approach. It reduces high-priority programs by the same amount that it reduces low-priority programs. That is not the best approach that we should be taking.

Again, we have made the decision on the overall spending for this year, and we should accept that decision and move forward with the appropriations process.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I have a lot of faith in this administration. However, when we are deciding

what is high priority and what is a lower priority and, therefore, where our reductions should be made, I want to make sure that this Congress is involved in exercising our judgment, not only the administration.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate Mrs. Capito's amendment and the seriousness of this issue. When we talk about private collection of debts, we should understand that the Federal Government is already using private debt collectors in other areas. One significant example is student loans. I have certainly visited facilities where private companies are handling the confidential information involved. They are handling it with responsibility. They are handling it in compliance with all legal standards, and they are doing a very good job for the Government, not only getting revenue that we would lose otherwise if we did not collect on the debts but collecting on debts that the Federal Government was having difficulty being able to collect upon.

Not only is this happening in the Federal Government, it is happening in State government. We have a number of States that already use private vendors to collect delinquent taxes on behalf of their State government. Again, they manage to handle these issues of confidentiality in a very responsible manner. There is no reason to believe that a private entity is unable to do this.

There is reason to believe, however, that we have to do some serious things about improving the collection process. There is some $16 billion that the IRS says is not only owed but is collectible. However, it is not always efficient for the IRS to be the entity that does so. We need to have a mix of the people that are working directly for the IRS and those that are working for a private entity to collect these debts.

And for those that are concerned about our shifting jobs away from a particular area where debt collectors may be located, remember those same people can be hired in that area just as easily, in fact, sometimes more easily than they can in another. It is not a job loss issue for local communities. We have seen so often, when we make a transition to try to involve private enterprise, that often they will be in the same area as the public enterprise was located to collect these.

This is an issue that is, frankly, premature, however, because even though there are good reasons to go to this, we do not have legislation that now permits it. Mrs. Capito's amendment says: Do not do this. Well, guess what? Under

the current law, we cannot do it anyway. So it is not necessary to adopt an amendment to say do not do something that the law currently does not permit you to do.

I would like us to move in that direction. I will certainly acknowledge that, but we are not there yet, and it is unnecessary to have an amendment that stops us from doing something we cannot do at the current time. For these reasons, I oppose the gentlewoman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains on either side?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I want to repeat my opposition to this amendment. I think Members recognize that private debt collectors sometimes behave in an abusive manner. I think we also realize that sometimes government debt collectors sometimes behave in an abusive manner. It is not a question of whether that person is employed by the government or in the private sector, it is the question of whether that person is a responsible individual that is well-trained and is handling themselves with integrity. That can be just as true in the private sector as in the public sector.

Many States already use private debt collection and have seen their rate of collections increase because of that. The Federal Government already employs private debt collectors to assist in collecting other Federal debts. For example, student loans that involve sensitive personal and financial information, that is done successfully as well.

The amendment is not only something that opposes something which I think is a promising opportunity, but it is also unnecessary because current law does not permit the IRS to hire private debt collectors. Therefore, the amendment really accomplishes no change from the current law and is unnecessary. I oppose the amendment.

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

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to be clear for the record and inquire of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), this means the gentleman is not offering the Flake amendment either at this time or at any later time?

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the pertinent portion of the existing unanimous consent agreement be amended accordingly to indicate the Flake amendment will not be considered.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).

(Mr. GUTKNECHT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

I fail to understand how anybody is threatened by opportunity. When people say I want to keep the type of health plan I already have, they still have that option. They are not hurt by saying they have the options they have already and they have a new option; if they do not want it, do not take it. If somebody else wants it, let them take it. Why do we want to shut it off?

That is what the Moran amendment is all about, shutting off opportunity, telling people that if they do not like any of their current options, too bad, they do not get any other choices. The Office of Personnel Management has acted in a responsible manner to expand choices for people. We should let it happen. We should not have a knee- jerk reaction from people who feel threatened, for what reason I do not know; but there is no reason to fear what is going on here. We should reject the Moran amendment accordingly.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson).

(Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This is a simple housekeeping amendment. As we noted yesterday, the various points of order that were raised would have the effect of increasing the amount of spending in the bill beyond our subcommittee's allocation. This amendment simply brings the bill back within our allocation pursuant to our 302(b) allocation and with what we told the House before.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I will be brief on this because I do not think this amendment does any damage, and I will not oppose its adoption to our bill.

However, I think it is a mistake to pretend that it accomplishes anything. I know of no serious effort to change the definition of manufacturing that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) wants to make sure that we do not. But I do think it is important to address some of the other things that he mentioned.

For example, if we look at the fast food sector, typically, most of us see the counter. And maybe we get a glimpse into the kitchen behind it. Maybe, sometimes, we are there when a large semi truck pulls up to deliver some of the product that is involved in there. But there is a lot more that we do not see.

For example, let me tell you about Lopez Foods, a minority-owned business in Oklahoma City. Lopez Foods is one of the principal suppliers to McDonald's. It is a part of the fast food industry, but we do not see it when we are in the restaurant. If one visits their facility, one will see that it is a large, modern, clean facility, and it is filled with high-tech. You would not believe the kind of computer systems and mechanical systems that are necessary for the quality control to make sure the ingredients are in the same universal proportion for the product that is going to be shipped to McDonald's all over the country.

We do not see that in the fast food sector. It is a very different image from that of the smiling, young person or perhaps senior citizen that may be waiting on you on the other side of the counter. We need to understand that every sector, fast food included, has a supply chain. It has a logistics chain that is a part of that industry the same as the person who waits on you is a part of it. We need to understand that and realize that there are a lot of contributions to the economy of the United States of America that come from the restaurants that are sometimes demeaned with the term fast food, but it should not be considered a term of lightness at all.

So we will not oppose the amendment, but I certainly do oppose some of the characterizations that we heard earlier on it.

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

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, as the gentleman is well aware and the gentlewoman is also, of course, the Department of Transportation, which is within the jurisdiction of our subcommittee, no longer has jurisdiction over transportation security issues. That is with the subcommittee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security.

I know that the gentleman from Kentucky (Chairman Rogers) is diligently reviewing this issue with the Transportation Security Administration and will be attentive to the comments that need to be referred, as the gentleman mentioned, to him.

The gentleman opines that perhaps we might be a part of the same package bill. I do not know that that will be the case, but I do know we will be in communication with the gentleman from Kentucky (Chairman Rogers).

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, sadly, the best that can be said of this fiscal year 2005 Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies Appropriations bill is that it represents a valiant effort to fund the important agencies it covers despite a grossly deficient budget allocation. The subcommittee's fiscal year 2005 budget allocation is $389 million less than the President's request and $2 billion than the level of budget authority provided in the fiscal year 2004 Omnibus Appropriations bill.

So, therefore, I want to be begin by thanking the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), subcommittee chairman, and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver), ranking member, for their hard work and diligence in bringing this bill forward under very difficult and trying circumstances. The gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), ranking member, also deserves credit for helping to craft a bipartisan bill that attempts to spread the pain of this pitifully inadequate budget allocation equally.

That being said, the fact remains that this appropriations bill does not meet the very real and growing needs of our Nation in a number of areas, particularly with respect to our deteriorating transportation infrastructure. And, Mr. Speaker, that simple fact is especially hard to reconcile with this administration's reckless fiscal policies of tax cuts for the wealthy.

This fiscal year 2005 Transportation, Treasury Appropriations bill provides $89.9 billion in total funding, an increase of $1 billion over the President's request and $495 million below the fiscal year 2004 level. Discretionary spending is capped at $25.4 billion, which is $2.9 billion below the fiscal year 2004 level.

Among the more glaring shortcomings of this appropriations bill is the continued, conscious and deliberate underfunding of Amtrak. This recurring game of brinksmanship with our national passenger rail system has simply got to stop. During their brief tenure, David Gunn and his management team have made significant improvements in the operational efficiency of Amtrak by cutting waste and reducing expenses while increasing ridership and raising revenues. However, despite these impressive gains, there still exists a massive $6 billion backlog of critical capital improvements, created in large part by years of deferred maintenance along the Northeast Corridor, which absolutely must be addressed.

No less than the Inspector General has stated that Amtrak needs $1.5 billion annually just for its capital needs. Mr. Speaker, this capital backlog is not imagined. It is very real and we need to provide sufficient funding to address it.

The $900 million provided for Amtrak in this appropriations bill is half of the $1.8 billion Amtrak says it needs next fiscal year to keep the system operating reliably and to begin to address its capital backlog. If this $900 million in funding is allowed to stand, Amtrak will likely cease operations in mid-2005. If my colleagues doubt that, perhaps they should update their resume and apply for Mr. Gunn's job. Otherwise, do not be surprised when the trains stop running in the spring of next year and no private rail carrier steps up and offers to operate passenger service without a public subsidy. My colleagues should consider themselves warned.

Mr. Speaker, the underfunding of Amtrak in this appropriations bill is compounded by a reduction in spending on new starts projects within the Federal Transit Administration's budget. At a time when our cities and towns are choking from congestion and the transportation reauthorization bill is mired in election year politics, we can scarcely afford to underfund projects which promote public transit. I have cities in my congressional district like Fall River in Massachusetts, which has 92,000 residents and is located only 50 miles south of Boston but has no access to commuter rail service. In these tough fiscal times, the FTA's new start program represents the only hope of expanding commuter rail to cities like Fall River. We should be increasing funding for new starts, not reducing it.

Equally as troubling to me is the dramatic decrease in funding for Federal Aviation Administration facilities and equipment. This fiscal year 2005 appropriations bill provides $392 million less for FAA facilities and equipment than the fiscal year 2004 enacted level. As the commercial airline industry continues to recover from the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and consumer confidence returns, we must not jeopardize the safety and the security of America's airways by short-changing the agency's staffing equipment or facilities.

In the Committee on Rules earlier today, Mr. Speaker, several amendments were offered to the rule, motions that would have provided protections for important amendments so that they could be debated and voted on right here on the House floor today. If the Committee on Rules had approved these motions, the House would have had the opportunity to debate and to vote on these amendments today. Unfortunately, as has become kind of regular order in the Committee on Rules, the Committee on Rules, on party-line votes, denied providing the necessary protections for these amendments, and they cannot be voted on today.

The first amendment brought to the Committee on Rules by the ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver), would have increased funding for Amtrak by $300 million. The cost of the amendment would be paid for by a small reduction in the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for any person making more than $1 million. This amendment would provide badly needed funds for Amtrak; and, as we all know, Amtrak desperately needs increased funds if it is to continue providing the services that all of our constituents rely on.

The second amendment would have protected from a point-of-order language already included in the bill that allows government jobs to be privatized only if such actions would save at least $10 million or 10 percent of the program's cost. The Office of Management and Budget has been working on a proposed rule that puts civilian employees at a competitive disadvantage to noncivilian employees. This language would ensure that the civilian employees have a level playing field when it comes to competition with noncivilian employees.

Additionally, it would provide that taxpayer funds are properly spent, which is simply not the case under the new OMB guidelines. In other words, by leaving this provision unprotected, this important language, originally adopted in the committee, can be struck from the bill, making it much easier to privatize important Federal jobs.

The third amendment offered in the Committee on Rules today would have protected a provision in the bill that provides a 3.5 percent COLA for Federal civilian employees. This is the same level the President proposed for members of the Armed Forces; and while all of us support our troops and we want to ensure that our troops and their families are paid what they deserve, we cannot and we must not forget about the jobs that civilian and Federal employees do each and every day. In fact, I strongly believe we should provide Federal employees with equal pay adjustments.

Beyond that, a fair pay adjustment is needed to keep pace with private sector salaries so the Federal Government can compete for quality employees in the future.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, on a special note, I want to publicly commend the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for raising the very important issue of foreign truck certification in the full committee markup of this appropriations bill. As a former member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the lead sponsor of the Safe Highways and Infrastructure Preservation Act, I am keenly aware of the danger bigger trucks, foreign or domestic, pose to the American driving public on our interstates and highways. I would strongly encourage Members to take this issue very, very seriously and to immediately insist on stringent safety and environmental standards for foreign trucks.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I just want to say I appreciate the gentleman's response, but I would just suggest that his priorities and the priorities of his leadership are wrong. What we are suggesting here is that we do have serious needs in this country, and the gentleman admitted it, in terms of transportation and infrastructure needs, and we need to address them. The gentleman and his party think that it is more important to give millionaires tax cuts rather than take those resources and invest it in our infrastructure so our communities can become more competitive, so that we can create more jobs. I mean, this mess we are in is wholly created by those of you who run this Congress, and it is an unfortunate situation that we find ourselves in right now.

There are communities all across this country, States all across this country, Governors all across this country, Republicans and Democrats, who are frustrated that the Republican leadership cannot get their act together and get a highway and transportation bill before both the House and the Senate that we could put on the President's desk. I think when they look at the underfunding of some very important public transportation needs, that frustration is going to continue.

So you are making choices, and I am suggesting that you are making the wrong choices.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would just simply respond to the gentleman that the Committee on Rules makes its own rules, as we have seen so clearly since the majority has taken over control of that committee. So one of the frustrations that Members of Congress have is that the only way for their issues to be heard, the only way to bring up these different points of view is to go before the Committee on Rules and to ask the Committee on Rules for protections or for waivers, which, to be honest with my colleagues, is something that has happened in the past. So I would simply say to the gentleman, that is all we want, is to be able to, in the people's House, have a good debate and to be able to bring up the issues that our constituents talk to us about.

With regard to this bill in particular, which many of us think is sadly underfunded because of some bad priorities of the people who are running this House, we would like to have the opportunity to correct that. When we go home, and I suspect when the gentleman goes home and he talks to his mayors and his town managers and to his Governor, they will tell him that there is a desperate need for additional transportation infrastructure funding. There are bridges that are collapsing in this country, there are road projects that are not being done; and the longer we put them on hold, the more expensive they are going to be. I would say also, it has a negative impact on economic development.

I would also suggest to the gentleman, since his party does not seem very interested in creating jobs, since they have a job-loss record that is on par with Herbert Hoover, that this is a way to create jobs. We might actually do something different and get up and actually pass a piece of legislation that will stimulate economic growth and create some jobs, and I think a lot more people would be happy in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would just respectfully disagree with the gentleman, that it is the job of the Committee on Rules to go through and to analyze each and every amendment and every proposal that every Member of this House, Republican and Democrat, brings before the committee. Everybody in this Chamber should have the right to be able to go to the Committee on Rules and have

their amendment considered, be given fair consideration. All of us were elected. We represent the same number of people; all of us have the same right to be able to do that.

I would also say to the gentleman when he mentioned about the budget, to the best of my knowledge, Congress has not approved a budget yet, notwithstanding the fact that the Republican Party controls both the House and the Senate. So we are kind of operating under kind of imaginary budget caps that the Republican Party has decided to put into place. I would again say that to the extent that there is a shortfall here, it is because the gentleman and his leadership and his party have chosen to devote these resources to something else, namely, tax cuts for very wealthy people in this country.

I think that is the wrong choice. I think it would be better to invest some of that money in a strong infrastructure. I think it would be better for our economy, and it would create more jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, let me clarify to the gentleman, the point I was trying to make is your priorities are all messed up. The bottom line is there is a real need out there, all across this country, even in your State, for more transportation funding, more public transportation funding, more support. It is essential for economic growth. It is essential for job creation and you are short-changing it, and those are your priorities, and I think they are messed up.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me conclude again by saying what I said at the beginning of this debate and that is that it is unfortunate that we are dealing with such an inadequate allocation. Our cities, our towns, our States deserve much better than this. This reflects poorly on the priorities of the leadership of this Congress. This has to change. Our communities cannot afford to be short-changed on important transportation dollars.

This undercuts their economic development. This undercuts job growth. We need to do much better.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 770 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

(Mr. REYNOLDS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 770 is an open rule that provides for consideration of H.R. 5025, the Departments of Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year ending September 30, 2005. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill.

The rule also provides for 1 hour of general debate to be equally divided between the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations. The rule provides that the bill shall be considered for amendment by paragraph. Further, the rule authorizes the Chair to accord priority in recognition to Members who have pre-printed their amendments in the Congressional Record. And, finally, the rule provides one motion to recommit with or without instructions.

Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Appropriations had an extremely difficult task this year in funding the many needs of our Nation. They answered the call by diligently working to produce a bill that deals with our needs in a whole host of areas, including the Department of Transportation, the Department of the Treasury, along with the Postal Service and the Executive Office of the President.

In total the bill provides $89.8 in total budgetary resources. This funding represents the commitment of this Congress to provide the necessary resources for programs and projects across the Nation. The bill provides close to $35 billion in highway spending, a boost of $1 billion over last year's guarantee. This amount fully funds the House- passed authorization level and will go a long ways towards constructing and improving highways and roads in our communities.

Transit spending of over $7 billion includes over $1 billion for new fixed guideway systems. Amtrak is provided with $900 million, which is equal to the President's request. Included in this funding is $500 million for capital improvements and $60 million to ensure that important commuter operations continue.

Mr. Speaker, the underlying bill also provides significant support for the Federal Aviation Administration with a total of $14 billion. This includes $3.5 billion for the Airport Improvement Program and $102 million for Essential Air Service. The total FAA funding also includes $9 million above the budget request in order to hire and train additional traffic controllers.

From highways and transit programs to airports and the FAA, the underlying bill ensures that we have a reliable and stable transportation infrastructure. Mr. Speaker, the underlying bill also gives support to the Treasury Department, bringing their appropriation to over $11 billion. Included under the General Services Administration is over $90 million in funding for new border stations. This will not only enhance protection of our borders but also improve commercial efficiency. The bill also includes an increase of $2.8 million for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which is tasked with implementing the Treasury Department's anti-money laundering regulations.

Also included in the bill is considerable funding for support of national anti-drug efforts. The Office of National Drug Control Policy is provided with just over $468 million. Within that funding is assistance to the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and full funding for the Drug-Free Communities program. This funding is essential to keep our children safe from drugs through education and community support.

Mr. Speaker, there are many more vital programs funded in the appropriations bill that I have not mentioned but that I know will be highlighted in detail during our debate later today.

I would like to commend the chairman and ranking member of both the full Committee on Appropriations and the subcommittee for their hard work on this extensive bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the bill and the underlying rule.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I looked over the transcript from last year and noticed how similar the debate is coming from my colleague, as the presentation was: we have to keep spending more money. There is not a district or a State or, quite frankly, a region of the country that does not feel that there is more need in transportation appropriations, whether it be this or from the trust fund; but the reality is, it becomes a time to look at working within a budget, working within the allocations.

I also want to remind my colleague that while the Committee on Rules is a traffic cop, deciding many things that comes before the Congress as it comes from committees to the floor, we have to be a little careful of just how much legislating we do on appropriations bills. I do not have to remind my colleague that there was a great deal of legislating on the appropriations bills via the amendments offered before the Committee on Rules today, thus making a decision not to make them in order, as they were not germane; and also there becomes the subject of looking at paying for some of this by raising taxes.

Now, I look at the fact that there is a tax cut on the books and it is the law of the land, and that is the rate and what people are going to pay. Every

time we want to add something by taking it from the tax cut, we are raising taxes. I think the Committee on Rules, at least on the Republican side of the aisle, did not want to get into raising taxes.

So, Mr. Speaker, this is not an easy budget. The entire 13 appropriations bills and the transportation bill is no easier than the others that we have moved before us or a few that we have to complete our work on. But the fact is, the Committee on Appropriations has worked hard. They have worked under the allocations that they had available, and we should always be on the lookout for an opportunity where we can provide assistance in transportation needs as money becomes available.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to my colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern). I know that he is an expert on rules and rules policy. That is, with an open rule, any Member can offer any germane amendment to change however they want this transportation and postal bill. So as we bring the rule, which is an open rule, to the body and the House makes its decisions of passing the rule, it allows us to get into the debate on the appropriations report. That certainly allows, under an open rule, any germane amendment to be offered that any Member chooses, and I know we will have many. This bill always has a tremendous amount of amendments to it.

So I look forward to the debate and the votes as they come, and I am sure there will be many where individual Members will offer amendments that they deem are important for consideration here; and if they are germane, they will be entertained by the House.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Again, the Committee on Rules has to sort it all out. I suppose each of us would like our own personal waiver of something that we would like to add into this appropriations bill, whether it is our favorite road, our favorite bridge, our favorite railroad station or track or some other aspect, or ports or harbors or whatever else we can stick in the bill.

The reality is that we have a budget. We have 302(b) allocations to 13 appropriations bills, and we have some tough work to do. Our appropriators on this subcommittee have done their job, and they have brought the bill here. It is now, as we consider it under an open rule on the appropriations bill, one that will come to the floor so that any Member can provide any amendment they so desire that is germane to this bill for consideration, and that becomes the process of a decision of whether 218 Members of this body decide in favor of that amendment or not.

It is not up to the Committee on Rules to sort through each and every personal agenda item that may come up through the rules hearings for deliberation. This is a fair and open rule that is before this House for decisions today and as long as it takes to complete this appropriations bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to make sure that there was no question in my comments earlier as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) brought forth some thought.

I believe it is for the Committee on Rules to listen to each and every Member on its amendments. What I said was that the Committee on Rules, that it was not responsible and necessary to give every member a waiver on everything they wanted as they came up there, which you well know.

A couple of things that become important also while I listen to both the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations as well as the minority member managing this rule, and that is that appropriations has a very unique aspect here. They can move privileged measures right to the floor without any rule. Now, I know the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations knows that because last year the Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies came through exactly that way, as a privileged measure that was regular order and never had a rule, and it came right to the floor as they have that opportunity here in the House of Representatives.

In fact, as we look at this bill, this bill started with the aspect that the Committee on Appropriations was going to move it to the floor as a privileged measure that would not require a rule at all. And it was also, as I understand, that the Committee on Appropriations did not want to accommodate waivers, they did not want waivers on this bill, so they elected that the Committee on Rules would come to play, make its decisions and bring the bill to the floor without those waivers under an open rule where every single Member of this body can introduce any germane amendment he or she so desires. And that is what will happen today if this rule is passed and we are able to move on to the appropriations matter.

When we look at the discussion, and there is a debate. I remember when we had a discussion saying I want to add back all this stuff and I want to raise taxes to do it, as the minority ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations brought a measure before this House. I respect his ability to bring that amendment. I also think we were fortunate that it was defeated so we did not raise taxes on the American people. But the fact is there was the opportunity to have that vote after the debate and the decision was not to raise taxes.

I accept those in the minority who want to raise taxes to spend. It is a fact of life over some of the policies that this body had when the other party was in power. But the fact is that we are holding the line on spending. We are making difficult choices. And today as we move this appropriations bill to the floor, it gives everyone ample opportunity to amend it with germane amendments how they see fit.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I must recall it has only been about a half hour when I listened to my colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), who

brought his viewpoint to the floor that said there is not enough money in this thing because there was a tax cut and, therefore, we have got to increase taxes in order to have more money to spend. And so while I did not necessarily hear that from the gentleman today, the ranking member led the debate on increasing taxes so we could put more stuff back into programs that you put forth in a line by line fashion that you wanted back from money.

That was not today but you certainly brought that forth and it was something that you very much wanted to bring forth and we have accommodated that opportunity. But today the Member managing this rule on the minority side did bring forth the fact that he did not see the goals of what he wanted to see in a transportation bill because the tax cut did not allow him to have that.

Again, I want to remind my colleagues that we have ample opportunity for every Member to offer whatever amendment they want that is germane to this bill; and I am sure we will see many of those in the forthcoming hours on this Committee on Appropriations item.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, there is no question when we look at our infrastructure and our roads and bridges and our transit systems and our ports and our airports, there is always an additional need for money. That is why we have invested so much as what we have done in our trust funds as well as annual appropriations. But there also comes a time where you cannot just keep taxing and spending on the aspect of wanting to provide a big government to the entire country on every single item, every single day.

It requires some of the tough looks of where we have to hold some line item spending. It comes to looking at a budget, and 302(b) allocations that set forth those tough decisions that both the appropriators and then this body have to do. Just as the difficulty that everyone knows we have in bringing forth the final solution for

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

I want to agree in most part with what the chairman said about this issue. It probably is not the appropriate time to have a big debate about pension policy, but I come to a completely different conclusion.

He said this amendment does not belong on this bill. It is a shame that we have to talk about this amendment on this bill, because it really is about pension policy, and it is about age discrimination, and it is about one company in particular. Now, I do disagree with the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders). I do not think all of these cash balance plans are inherently evil. And, frankly, there have been a number of companies that have converted their pension plans working with the collective bargaining units, working with their employees, giving employees their choice that have done things the right way. So these are not inherently evil things in terms of pension.

As we go forward as a society, as people change jobs more often, the idea of a cash balance plan may make some sense; but it does not make sense when you have a system that works the way it did in the IBM employees' case, and that is where they were given no choice, they were given no say. These were people with vested benefits.

Let me remind Members about what vested says about things. This is the quotation from Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. It says: ``Fully and unconditionally guaranteed as a legal right, benefit, or privilege.''

Now, these employees showed up for work one day, and they thought they had a pension benefit plan that was vested, that was theirs, that was fully and unconditionally guaranteed; and all of the sudden they found out that day that vested does not mean what they thought it meant. And they finally wound up getting this case before a Federal judge in a Federal court. And the Federal court, and I believe the Federal court in this case was absolutely right, said, wait a second. You cannot do this because the way pensions accrue value is you get most of the benefit.

There is sort of an ascending curve in pension benefits, and it is toward the end of your working career when you get the most benefit. So people who had worked for IBM for 20 years and were going to retire in 5 or 6 years, and I will say that IBM under enormous pressure did rescind the original package that they put in front of the employees, they made it a little better for older workers.

But it did not change the basic facts. First of all, the employees were given no choice even if they were vested. What it did and the reason why IBM and a lot of other employees wanted to convert to these cash balance plans is because they understood that it was a way to shave off those benefits for older workers in the last 5 or 6 years that they might be working for the company.

The bottom line is this: what they were really trying to do is get their hands in the pension funds, because they realized and their actuaries realized that most of these pension funds were overfunded, and they could literally move that money from the pension fund to their bottom line by making these conversions.

Companies are now coming and saying, gee whiz, this is going to cost us billions of dollars. Well, yes, it is going to cost billions of dollars because that was the employees' money. It did not belong to the employer. In fact, in some respects pension funds do not belong to the employee or employer. It is money being held in trust. And one company broke that trust, and the

Federal courts have come down on them very heavily.

I agree with the chairman, we should not have to be offering this amendment today because it is just outrageous for us to think that our own Federal Government would attempt to intervene in a case in which they are not a party to try and overturn a hard-won victory for the employees of IBM. This is an outrage. This is where we, whether Republicans or Democrats, ought to stand together and say it is wrong to steal from pension funds.

Support the Gutknecht-Sanders amendment.

I come to the floor as a cosponsor of this important amendment. IBM employs about 5000 people in my district and there are close to 5000 IBM retirees across the state of Minnesota. Their employees are also my constituents and I, therefore, have a vested interest in ensuring IBM employees are treated fairly.

Fifty years ago a salary was the most important thing to workers. Times have changed. today pensions and other benefits are the main reasons workers choose a particular company. It is important we encourage employers to keep their promises to their employees and not change their pension plans in midstream.

When an employee becomes vested in a pension plan he or she expects to receive those benefits. ``Vested'' according to my Webster's Collegiate Dictionary means ``fully and unconditionally guaranteed as a legal right, benefit, or privilege.'' These expected benefits should not be taken away.

Unfortunately, IBM did just that. Perhaps IBM received bad business advice, but the method by which IBM went about switching to a cash balance pension plan was far from exemplary. Let me remind you we're not talking about a company in dire fiscal straits. We're talking about a very healthy company.

Originally IBM offered only those employees within five years of retirement a choice between the old and new pensions plans. While I am pleased they expanded this choice to cover more employees after the employees rightly expressed their outrage, I believe the court case brought against IBM should proceed without intervention by the U.S. Treasury Department.

I wish IBM had adopted models used by other companies when they switched to alternatives to traditional defined benefit pension plans.

For example, Honeywell, another company with many employees in Minnesota, across America, and around the world, switched to a pension equity plan in 2000. Honeywell offered all their employees a choice between remaining in the old plan and switching to the new plan. This is the model of how I feel companies should proceed in this area.

The Director of Benefits for Eaton Corporation, Ellen Collier, testified in front of the House Education and Workforce Committee this year that her company has given employees the choice between two retirement plans. Motorola, Deloitte & Touche, Northern States Power, Eastman Kodak and many other companies have all given their employees choice between old and new plans.

I understand that cash balance plans are a reality of the modern world and we should not discourage companies from offering them. I, however, do feel there are right and wrong ways to go about converting from one plan to another.

IBM handled this inappropriately and I believe the court case should proceed without federal government involvement.

This amendment overwhelmingly passed the House last year by a vote of 258 to 160 with strong support from both sides of the aisle. It is supported by the AARP. I urge my colleagues to support the Sanders/ Gutknecht Amendment.

Hon. Gil Gutknecht,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Gutknecht: AARP supports the Gutknecht-

Sanders amendment to the Transportation, Treasury and

Independent Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year (FY)

2005 to ensure that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does

not use any funds in contravention of current law

prohibitions on age discrimination in pension plan funds and

to specifically prohibit the IRS from issuing regulations or

implementing any other measure that would conflict with the

July 31, 2003, federal court ruling in Kathi Cooper, et al.

v. IBM Personal Pension Plan, et. al.

AARP has long been concerned with the legal basis for the

hybrid cash balance formula and the significant age

discriminatory issues that arise when employees convert

defined benefit pension plans to a cash balance formula. We

believe that a careful review of the legal distinction

between defined benefit and defined contribution plans such

as was conducted by the federal court in Cooper makes clear

that the most common designs for hybrid cash balance plans do

not fit within the current legal framework of the Internal

Revenue Code (IRC), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act

(ADEA), and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act

(ERISA).

As the court concluded in Cooper, the cash balance plan

formula discriminates against older workers, and older

workers are particularly disadvantaged when an employer

converts from a defined benefit pension plan to a cash

balance plan. These longer-term employees have given up wages

and accepted a lower pension in the early years of their

employment in exchange for the larger future benefits from

their employer's traditional defined benefit pension plan.

Without adequate protection, older workers will now lose some

of the benefits they were promised. Older workers generally

have less time to accumulate benefits under a new cash

balance formula, have a harder time leaving their current job

if compensation and benefits are cut, will have fewer

prospects of finding a new job, and are less able to adjust

to the changes that may dramatically reduce their retirement

security (for example, they have less time to adjust by

increasing their savings for retirement).

In September 1999, the IRS imposed a moratorium on

corporate plans that convert traditional defined benefit

plans to a cash balance formula so the agency could review

the matter. The moratorium suspended consideration of

approximately 300 pending applications submitted by

corporations to convert an existing plan to a cash balance

formula. The Treasury initially proposed regulations in

December 2002 that would have lifted the moratorium and

permitted corporations to establish cash balance plans.

However, the IRS withdrew the proposed regulations in July of

this year.

In its FY 2005 budget, the Administration proposed

legislation that would have addressed some of the concerns

related to cash balance plan conversions. AARP was pleased

that the legislative proposal recognized the problem with so

called ``wear-away'' and recommended a ban on the wear-away

of any benefits at any time after a cash balance plan

conversion. In recognition of the transition problem faced by

workers, the Administration's proposal also included a five-

year ``hold harmless'' period after each cash balance plan

conversion.

While the proposal is a step in the right direction, it

does not go far enough. More can be done to ensure that older

workers are adequately protected from the impact of a

``pension pay cut'' in any conversion to a cash balance plan.

In fact, many of the recent pension conversions--recognizing

the harm to older workers--have provided older and longer-

service workers with more generous transition relief,

including a choice to remain in the old plan rather than move

to the new cash balance plan. This is further confirmation

that business can and should do the right thing for their

older, longer-service employees.

AARP believes that Treasury should not take any action that

would encourage companies to change their pension plans in a

manner that is contrary to the age discrimination laws and

the federal court ruling. Rather, Congress should act to

ensure that older workers are protected in any cash balance

conversion. We urge adoption of this amendment.

Thank you for your leadership and dedication to

strengthening the private pension system and protecting the

pension benefits of workers. Please let me know, or have your

staff call Frank Toohey (202-434-3760) of our Federal Affairs

office, if we can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Michael Naylor,

Director of Advocacy.