Safe American Roads Act of 2007

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the committee for their indulgence here. I just wanted to make sure that Members who have earmarks that are being challenged here have the ability to come to the floor and are able to defend them.

This amendment, Mr. Chairman, would strike $300,000 from funding for the Belmont Complex in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania.

The Belmont Complex is a local recreational center. It offers an Olympic-size swimming pool with a 150-foot water slide and an indoor skating rink and arena. The center has an adult hockey team and also offers indoor soccer.

To generate money, the center sells advertising space on the ice. A dashboard ad costs about $800. The center also charges $5 a day for admission to the pool. Individual pool memberships for the summer season are also available, and they can run up to $77.

But, apparently, despite all the available revenue streams, the Federal taxpayers are being asked to pay $300,000 for this recreational center to rebuild or renovate the center.

The bad news is I don't think any of us are given a free pass. We aren't given a season pass. That is something that is just for the locals. I think the entire project should be for the locals.

Reading through this, it struck me that virtually every Member here in this body has probably a dozen or so of these recreational centers in their district that we could, with the same justification here, come to the Congress and say we need a Federal taxpayer subsidy for this. We are not charging enough for people to come in, where our local funds are low, so we are going to give the Federal taxpayer the chance to pay for it.

We simply can't do that, obviously. We can't fund all the recreational centers across the country. So why do we choose this one? Why do we pick winners and losers here? Is it just because there is a particularly powerful Member who is behind it who can say, hey, I am going to get funds for my district for this recreational center? What happens to all the other ones? What do you tell the recreational center down the street just across the district line? You're out of luck? You have to charge more for your season passes?

It just doesn't seem fair to me. This isn't the road we should go down. And if we have turned over a new leaf, and we are doing something different in terms of earmarks, then let's do something different instead of the same old same old.

We are told that we are going to have a process that vets these a little better. There are, I believe, about 1,500 earmarks in this bill. We just got word of what they were just a couple of days ago. And so it just doesn't seem that the process is changing all that much. It looks too much now like it did when Republicans were in charge.

So I think that we ought to change it, and that is why I am offering this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me just say if you can justify this earmark for a recreational center to help them basically defray cost of memberships or to rebuild or renovate, you could do that for any recreational center in the country. There is nothing that I can see, and I wish the sponsor of the amendment would have come to the floor to actually defend it or shed some light on what makes this special, why there is a Federal nexus here that doesn't exist with other recreational centers across the country. I wish we

could have had that debate or not. So we have to assume that this is no different than any recreational center anywhere in the country. So if you can justify this one, you can justify any of them. And we simply can't afford that, and we shouldn't continue just to say, well, we have cut the number of earmarks or dollar value in half. I mean, we are trying to get back to fiscal sobriety here after a binge that took place for years, and I admitted that that binge was my party. But if we are trying to get back to sobriety, it doesn't count to say, all right, we are only going to drink half as much this year as we did before. That's just not acceptable.

This process is out of control. It remains out of control. And this earmark is a great example of that. If we can approve earmarks for this kind of thing, anything goes. Katy bar the door.

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

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Chairman, let me just respond.

The truth is we went from about, as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee often points out, from zero earmarks in Labor- HHS to some 1,400 last week. Much of that was under my party.

I think Democrats are as much to blame probably as Republicans are. The difference is as Republicans, we pretend to stand for limited government. We should be saying this isn't what we should be doing. If the agencies are out of control, we need to rein them in through the oversight process rather than to try to compete with them in terms of wasteful spending.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Let me just say, in response to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, this isn't the best process. I appreciate having a couple of days and being able to come to the floor. The problem is, under what was proposed by the chairman, we would have had more time, yes, but we wouldn't have had the ability to challenge individual earmarks. So that was a trade-off that we were unwilling to make. And I still maintain that we made the best decision here. But I think it would be nice to have more than a couple of days to actually look at these, but I appreciate that the Appropriations Committee is doing so.

This amendment would prohibit $250,000 in Federal funds from going to the Walter Clore Wine and Culinary Center in Prosser, Washington, and reduce the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

I'm sure people like to be wined and dined, but I think this earmark goes a little too far. I think that this is another example of, if we can justify economic development here, then we can justify just about anything.

We often complain that the Federal Government, the agencies spend willy-nilly, they're wasting money here, they're wasting money there. They are, certainly. One amendment that I wanted to bring today but got it too late would be one to simply cut the account that provides economic development earmarks because I think the Federal agencies do waste money in this regard. But instead of reining that account in and saying you shouldn't be doing that, we're kind of competing with them and saying we're going to do our own economic development earmarks. I just fail to see a Federal nexus that exists here that wouldn't exist with other organizations.

You can justify anything in terms of economic development. The act of spending money by itself inherently means there is economic development. But where do we choose? Do we just choose this one or that one? It just doesn't seem to be a very good process, particularly without a real Federal nexus here.

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

Mr. Chairman, Washington wine industry revenues are estimated at about $3 billion a year. The industry employs, I believe, about 11,000 people. Over 2 million people visit Washington wineries every year. That's just the point I was making. This is an industry that does pretty well. And I just wonder why the Federal taxpayer has to be involved here.

Public/private partnerships, there is nothing bad about that on its face; but not every public/private partnership is justified, particularly when that partner is the Federal Government. I just still fail to see a nexus.

And, again, we should actually be providing more oversight of the Federal agencies that expend these economic development grants because a lot of it is wasted. I'm sure a lot of it is wasted in my own district. But we shouldn't be trying to compete with that account by earmarking our own funds.

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

Mr. Chairman, as mentioned, this amendment would strike $400,000 in the bill from the North Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

According to the certification letter submitted by the sponsor, the commission will receive Federal funding to establish the Technology Revolving Loan Fund.

According to the Web site, the commission is a public agency dedicated to providing professional services to local governments. These services include economic development, geographic information systems, intergovernmental cooperation, land use planning, and transportation. The commission's funding comes from Federal grants and State and local money.

This earmark brings up a lot of questions. First and foremost, why is this fund being created in one particular part of Wisconsin? I'm sure every Member of Congress would love to establish a revolving loan fund to help their local businesses. If it is deserving of Federal aid, why aren't others? Again, why do we pick and choose here?

Can the sponsor of this earmark assure us that once this is done, that once these monies are loaned out, that more monies won't be sought? Is this an earmark that will beget more earmarks? It seems that these are questions that should be answered. It's a dangerous slippery slope, I think, if we use Federal taxpayer dollars for parochial revolving loan funds.

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

Mr. Chairman, here is just another example, and maybe the sponsor of the earmark can enlighten us, but as to what makes this different, what makes this deserving of Federal funds? Why are we helping to set up a local revolving loan fund for local businesses? What is to stop every Member of Congress from wanting that in their own district? Isn't this a slippery slope if we just allow taxpayer money to be used in this fashion? If you can use it for economic development, if that is the criterion, any spending is justified.

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

I thank the Chair.

Let me first respond. I had yielded back my time when the gentleman from Wisconsin talked about Arizona, the Central Arizona Project as an earmark.

Perhaps in the debate at the time it was called an earmark, but it doesn't fit the contemporary definition of earmark. There was no project over the history of this body probably that wasn't debated through authorization, appropriation, followed up by oversight, than a project like that. I would have no complaint if some of the projects that we are challenging here today went through that process of authorization, appropriation and oversight, but that isn't what this is about.

The contemporary practice of earmarking that we have fallen into, under Republicans and Democrats, has been to circumvent the careful process of authorization, appropriation and oversight. So that is the complaint here. So bringing up the Central Arizona Project whenever an amendment is offered to take funding away from an economic development in a local community is a specious argument, I would add.

This amendment would prohibit $50,000 in Federal funds from being used by the National Forest Recreation Association for the National Mule and Packer Museum and would reduce the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

According to the earmark description and certification letter submitted to the Appropriations Committee, the funding would be used for the construction of a museum to memorialize and help to preserve the role of mule teams and mule packers in opening and developing the West.

The funding, however, will go to the National Forest Recreation Association. Obviously, you cannot build much for $50,000. I assume there is a partnership with local entities.

There is much that we don't know about this. Does the location exist? Will it be owned by the National Forest Recreation Association? Are there corporate sponsors? How much is the total cost of the museum? Will the Federal taxpayer be asked to pay more later on?

It seems there is a 20-mule team museum in Boren, California. This is at least the second mule and packer museum we know of. Does that one receive Federal funding?

I would simply say it is time for the American taxpayer to say ``whoa'' and

stand up for fiscal sanity and actually stop the practice of earmarking like we are doing.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am glad the gentleman brought up Ronald Reagan. I think it was Reagan, when he was presented with the highway bill back in 1987, that had, I believe, around 150 earmarks as opposed to the highway bill we did later, in 2005, with 6,300. He said at that time, ``I haven't seen this much lard since I gave away ribbons at the county fair.'' So Ronald Reagan certainly recognized that Congress, at least at that stage, before we even got into the contemporary practice of earmarking, was out of control.

I would also like to make the point, and I am glad that the gentleman mentioned, there is no such thing as Federal money. It is money given by the taxpayer to the Federal Government. Some of it funds the core functions of government. Some of it is spent on things that I don't think are the core function of government, and I don't think most taxpayers around the country do either, when you say this money is being returned, but it is not. As long as we are running a deficit, which is now 2, $300 billion, then the money is borrowed to pay for projects like this.

I simply don't think that we are giving the taxpayer a fair shake. I think we should stubbornly refuse to fund this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, the amendment would prevent $200,000 from being used to fund the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama, and would reduce the cost of the bill by a corresponding amount.

Mr. Chairman, there are, I think, 480 earmarks funded in the Economic Development Initiative account, at least 11 proposed to fund museums. There stands about a million dollars total for museums. This doesn't take into account projects described as cultural centers and other various exhibits.

The spending initiatives do not illustrate any sort of restraint on our part on the Federal level. In the past, we have funded Faulkner museums, teapot museums. This year we are funding museums about mules and hunting and fishing museums. The Huntsville Museum of Art was named as one of the State of Alabama's top destinations by the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel. They bring as many as 23,000 visitors for a single exhibit.

Mr. Chairman, all of us have museums in our districts. All of those museums, I'm sure, if given the opportunity, would take Federal money to defray some of their costs. We simply can't fund all of them.

I don't know why we have the account in the agency. Like I said, we should go after that one, but here we have to show some restraint. And every once in a while, I think the taxpayer would appreciate if we actually stopped funding for some of these earmarks.

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

Mr. Chairman, I just will close on this one, saying again this is one of many museums that we are funding here. We simply can't fund them all. At some point it would be nice to give the taxpayers a gift and actually say we're not going to fund a particular earmark. We did it a couple of weeks ago.

This is not an idle process. We've had one occasion already where I've come to offer an earmark, and the sponsor of the earmark beat me to the floor and offered an amendment to revoke his own earmark. So obviously there needed to be more vetting of that earmark. I would assume that there are others like it.

So this is a process we should go through. I would urge support of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I have no clue.

If the gentleman would further yield for a minute, perhaps the gentleman wasn't on the floor last week. I actually challenged an earmark that was going largely to my own district.

Arizona is just like other States in this regard. I don't object to projects that go through the process. I assume that the Central Arizona Project had a hearing or two. It was authorized and went through the process. What I object to is the contemporary practice of earmarks.

Mr. Chairman, just once I would love to hear the other side say, we have no objection to that amendment and will accept it, but I suppose I won't be so lucky today.

This amendment would prevent $100,000 in funding for the Hunting and Fishing Museum in Pennsylvania and reduce the cost of the bill by a corresponding amount.

Mr. Chairman, my staff and I have never had a hard time fishing for earmarks that seem to be fiscally irresponsible, but this one seemed to be a particularly easy catch. It seems that there is no museum that we will not fund. We have funded teapot museums. We've funded mule museums. We have funded rock and roll halls of fame. Now, we're being asked to fund a museum honoring the time-honored hobbies of hunting and fishing.

According to the earmark description, the earmark would fund the development and creation of interactive, educational and historical exhibits. According to the Web site for the Hunting and Fishing Museum, the museum came as a result of its location in a forest area of Pennsylvania where hunting and fishing are already big industries.

I enjoy fishing and hunting as much as the next person, but I'm not convinced that the Federal Government has a role here. I'd like to have explained what the Federal nexus is.

According to the National Association for Sporting Goods, the hunting industry did $2.8 billion in business sales in 2004. For fiscal year 2003, the fishing industry's retail sales totaled over $40 billion. With these kind of profits, why are these industries relying on the Federal Government to fund a museum honoring their pastimes? Are we not picking winners and losers when we select only a handful of museums to fund? Is this a fair and equitable process?

More than that, more than being equitable, some say if everybody is given the chance and there's an account to do this, that it's okay, that it's justified, everybody's getting theirs, let me get mine. But I think, particularly for us on this side of the aisle who say that we believe in limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility, it seems a particularly hard sell.

I'm not making fun of the hobbies of hunting and fishing. As I mentioned, I do a fair amount of both myself. But here I just fail to see a Federal nexus and a Federal role.

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

Mr. Chairman, nobody is suggesting that it is a crime to support this kind of earmark, nor would it be a crime to actually deny funding for it. That's what the process is about.

My complaint, and nobody has suggested either, that there's this pure process at the Federal agency level. It's dysfunctional. We haven't provided the type of oversight that we need to.

The fact that there is an account over there to actually fund economic development projects suggests to me that it's out of control, that that's what we are about, what we should be about. We control the Federal purse strings. It should be in our interest actually to rein in spending over there rather than trying to compete with it and say if they do effect spending on this project or that, whomever has the district, that we shouldn't compete with that here and say, well, we can do one, one-up them with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If they had funded another hall of fame, we should say, is it the Federal Government's role to fund these? That's what I am questioning here.

If we can fund teapot museums and mule museums and hunting and fishing museums, what is off limits? What would come here that we could say we are not going to fund that? We could fund a mule museum. How about a donkey museum. Is that out of line? Where do we say enough is enough, and where do we say let's give the taxpayer a break?

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would take $300,000 from the Friends of the Cheat Rails-to-Trails program. The Cheat Trail is one small part of the 13,600 miles of trails built by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. The program's mission is to create a nationwide network of trails for former rail lines.

The program is a nationwide effort, yet this earmark is aimed directly at one trail in West Virginia. This is not the first time Friends of Cheat have bypassed the Rails-to-Trails program for funding. The House approved a $300,000 earmark for the Cheat trail just last year. If the trail is in such need of funding, isn't it coming from the funding and the many grants allocated in the Rails-to-Trails program?

This is another problem I have with the contemporary practice of earmarking. If we set up processes at the Federal agency level, and we set up accounts, often when people apply to that account, and apply for a grant and don't get it, then we in Congress will go and give them that project anyway through an earmark.

So if we are telling the Federal agencies, here is a process that you should go through that is merit based, that is competition based, and then fund those who don't get a contract, what are we saying? If we have a problem with a Federal agency's process or program, then we should amend them.

We should change them. We should call the agency heads before us and say explain why are you doing this, why are you giving money to this organization and not that one, but not to circumvent the process and basically add to it.

The Rails-to-Trails program has over 100,000 members, receives Federal, State and private funding. It was created over 20 years ago. I think that if this organization was to apply to the program, they are quite capable of finding funding. There is funding there.

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

Might I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. Chairman, let me just close. Let me say, again, I fail to see the relevance of the number of defense contractors that Arizona has or the amount of Federal money that goes there by contract, by competitive bid or otherwise. How is that relevant to this process?

The truth is, there is something wrong with the process when we have thousands and thousands and thousands of earmarks, when we have 1,500 and just a couple of days to review them before we come here to the floor. There is something wrong with that process.

As I have said before, we can try all we want to conjure up some justification for the contemporary practice of earmarking. But if we think the taxpayers across the country are buying it, we are drinking our own bath water.

We are believing our own press releases if we think that's the case, because they're not. They're not believing it, and they shouldn't. There is no noble pedigree to this kind of earmarking. There really isn't.

So to appropriate money in this fashion is simply not becoming of this Congress. We are better than that. We should have more respect for the institution than that.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have one final earmark at the desk.

I thank the Chairman.

This amendment would prohibit $300,000 in Federal funds from being used by the Houston Zoo in Houston, Texas, for an educational broadcast program and would reduce the cost of the bill by a consistent amount.

According to the earmark description in this certification letter, this funding would be used to develop an educational broadcast program to provide interactive distance learning, first to the neighboring institutions at the Texas Medical Center, and ultimately expanding the program to regional school districts.

According to the sponsor's letter, this program would enable children and students to ask questions of and converse with zoo experts in real time, replicating an in-classroom dynamic, but in an exciting and unique manner.

I should say the Houston Zoo is the permanent home of 4,500 animals; the zoo attracts more than 1.5 million visitors a year; general admission is $10 for an adult, $5 for a child. In fact, according to the City Navigator, annual revenue for the Houston Zoo in 2006 totaled $39 billion. In 2006 alone, the Houston Zoo had over $43 million in net assets and nearly $20 million in excess revenue. It has a membership base of over 28,000 households. Corporate sponsors include Continental Airlines, Shell Oil, JPMorgan, BMC Software, Conoco-Phillips, FedEx. The list goes on and on.

Again, here, if we are going to start to fund programs at zoos like this, where does it end? Virtually every Member has a zoo or some type of wildlife preserve in their district. Where do we say enough is enough?

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

Here again, let me simply say there are a lot of zoos around the country, a lot of zoos that every one of which would like to receive Federal funding. Where do we say enough is enough? Where do we say this zoo is worthy, they have two tigers; this one only has one lion? The tigers get it? I mean, where do we have some kind of equitable process rather than Members just being able to designate funding of this type? We simply cannot continue to go on in this fashion.

Again, somebody will probably point out Arizona has a lot of defense contractors and gets a lot of Federal money. Again, I fail to see the relevance of that argument here. Let's throw the taxpayers a bone here, if you will, and let's finally say we are going to stop funding for one of these earmarks and actually return to fiscal sanity. We are running between a $200 billion and $300 billion deficit this year. Remember, money comes into Washington, we don't have enough to fund the programs, and so we are borrowing money to actually pay for programs like this. We can't continue to do that. I urge support for the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I want to point something out. Last night the committee, while most Members were able to leave for dinner, the committee had to stay here and work until 10 p.m.. Lots of Members didn't show up then to offer

their amendments, and so now we have a surplus of amendments that we still have to go through today.

Now, today, the committee is grinding through these amendments, and we've just hit a patch in the road where no Members were here to offer their amendments.

Under the House rules, the committee could have chosen to rise and we could have moved to final passage without considering any of the other amendments that are still pending. The committee chose not to do that, out of fairness.

But I want to point out that if Members want to tie up the committee's time ad nauseam on repetitive amendments, the same amendments on the same bills ad nauseam, then the least they can do is to be on the floor when those amendments are supposed to be offered. The next time there is such a gap, I will move to rise and move to final passage.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Flake

Mr. Chairman, I had not intended to speak on this issue either, but I feel required to respond to one thing that the gentleman from Arizona said.

He indicated that it was too bad that he had only had 2 or 3 days during which time he could review the earmarks in this bill. I simply want to say if he feels badly about that and wants to know why that is the case, all he has to do is look in the mirror along with a number of his other colleagues.

Why do I say that? Because I tried about a month ago to make clear to the House that I thought the Appropriations Committee staff had had insufficient time to take a look at and screen a number of these earmarks, especially those that came early in the process. So I offered up another option, and what I proposed is that the committee simply be given more time to screen those earmarks, and that before the Congress adjourned in August, we would then publish all of them, and any persons who had doubts about them would have more than 30 days over the August recess, and our staffs could have reviewed each and every one of them for a much longer period of time.

The gentleman and others on that side of the aisle chose to belittle that proposal, suggesting that we were trying to, quote, ``hide earmarks until conference.'' Not so. All we were trying to do was to give the staff and any Members who were interested additional time in which to review those earmarks. Our friends on the other side decided that they would rather criticize than agree to that, and so we acquiesced in their desires to have earmarks in each bill as they came to the floor.

We felt that there would be ample protection for Members because we also included a reform that would have required persons in the conference to be present and voting on every single item rather than having to endure what has happened in the past when large amounts of legislation were slipped into conference reports without a vote of the conference after the conference is over. But our judgment was not followed, and so as a result, we have this very limited time for Members to review projects as they come through in regular order. I'm sorry about that. But I would say to the gentleman, no one in this House can have it both ways. We've tried to accommodate the wishes of the House. Either way, we're doing the best we can. And if the gentleman doesn't like it, I think, as I say, all he has to do is look in the mirror because it was comments from people like him that required us to follow this procedure in this manner.

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

Mr. Chairman, I seek to control the time in opposition, and I reserve my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman has indicated, this provides funds for a revolving loan fund for North Central Regional Planning Commission. The purpose is to provide small low-interest loans for small business start-ups or expansions. It is targeted to enterprises which have little access to capital and need to change the technology which they use in production.

The planning commission is established by county governments under State statutory authority. It provides zoning and economic development assistance to counties. The planning commission covers a 10-county area and three congressional districts, mine, the gentleman from the eighth, Mr. Kagen, formerly Mr. Green, and also Mr. Petri's district.

Why are we providing funds for this area? Very simple: this is an economically challenged area. And I make no apology whatsoever in trying to provide some modest assistance to the area. We have a similar fund in two other parts of my congressional direct. In Chippewa County, for instance, 3 years ago we established a similar fund.

That fund has saved 58 jobs in the area. They have provided grants, very small grants, to businesses in question, and they have already received $200,000 in repayments. All of the repayments are current.

But I want to ask a series of questions about the gentleman's district. I make no apology for trying to provide small loans to domestic small business entrepreneurs. In the 10 years that I chaired the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, I learned very quickly the value of small loans rather than large, megadevelopment projects. I see no reason why we shouldn't provide those same lessons here at home.

I find it ironic that someone from Arizona would challenge economic development funds in Wisconsin. Arizona ranks 24th in the Nation in per capita Federal dollars spent in Arizona; Wisconsin ranks 48th. So the gentleman is exactly twice as well off in terms of State ranking than my own State. Arizona receives $41 billion in Federal funds out of the budget; my State receives $31 billion. Arizona receives $7,300 per person; Wisconsin receives $5,675 per person. That is a $1,600 per capita difference.

Eighty-five percent of the difference in what our two States get is due to differences in Federal salaries and in procurement. Arizona gets $7 billion more out of the Federal Government because of money spent for procurement than does the State of Wisconsin. In fact, Arizona gets a lot more money than all of the States in the upper Midwest. Arizona, as I said, ranks 24th. Wisconsin ranks 48th in per capita expenditure, Michigan ranks 47th, Minnesota 49th, Illinois 46th, Indiana 45th.

On a per capita basis, Arizona gets 28 percent more out of the Federal budget than does Wisconsin. It gets 22 percent more per capita than does Michigan, 29 percent more than does Minnesota, 21 percent more than does Illinois, and 20 percent more than does Indiana.

Let me also point out that I doubt very much that the Arizona delegation doesn't work very hard to see to it that giant defense contractors like Raytheon, Boeing, Honeywell and General Dynamics together receive almost $4 billion in funding from the Federal Government. I doubt very much that the delegations from those States don't work to get that money in their States. So I make no apology for this tiny pittance that we are trying to provide for my own State.

Mr. Chairman, I also want to say, however, I think it comes with considerable ill grace for someone from Arizona to question the expenditure of $400,000 in Wisconsin, when Arizona has been the principal recipient of the second largest Federal earmark in the history of earmarking in this country, the Central Arizona Project. For Arizona, we have already spent $4.3 billion. The total cost of that project is expected to be $5.6 billion. The President's request is at $27 million this year.

Mr. Chairman, that seems to me to be the pot calling the kettle black. I would urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I want to continue my observations about what the gentleman receives from the Federal budget. The Republican Study Committee said that the $1.5 billion that was provided to the D.C. subway was the largest earmark in history. In fact, the Arizona project is almost four times as large as the D.C. subway. Yet the gentleman is complaining about a tiny $400,000 economic assistance grant for my State.

I would also simply note that the median household income in the gentleman's district is $48,000. The median household income in my own district is $39,000, a $9,000 difference. A good portion of that higher median income lies in the fact that Arizona has a very large number of Federal installations in the gentleman's State. Fort Huachuca and several other Air Force bases inject enough funds to provide employment for 9,000 additional people, yet the gentleman is objecting to a small revolving loan fund which provides help in keeping about 50 jobs in Wisconsin.

I make no apology in trying to get the median family income in my district just a mite closer to the much higher income found in the gentleman's district.

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

Mr. Chairman, I don't want to get into the debate on this specific project, but I again want to simply note that I find it interesting that the gentleman from Arizona is questioning small economic development programs in other States when, in fact, as I said earlier, the second largest earmark in the history of the Congress is the Central Arizona Project, upon which we have already spent not $4.3 million, but $4.3 billion, total cost estimated to be $5.6 billion.

And I also have in my hand, as a certain Senator from my own State used to say, 61 pages of military contracts that are let to firms in Arizona. We don't have in our State something like Fort Huachuca or Luke or Davis Air Force Base, and I'm sure that if we did, we would be experiencing the benefit to our economy that the gentleman's State is experiencing.

But I wonder if the gentleman has any idea what the $44,000 was spent on in a contract with Two Pals and a Gal?

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

I don't either. It would be interesting to find out. That's another expenditure in Arizona.

Taking back my time, I was here when we went through all of that with the Central Arizona Project, and I assure you that the project was not approved because of the merits. It was approved because of the persistence of the Arizona delegation, and if anyone thinks that a little politics didn't go into determining that $4.5 billion project, I'd like to sell them a couple of bridges.

So, all I can say is it is fine for someone who comes from a district as prosperous as yours to belittle or question these modest economic development efforts that are being provided around the country in districts that have a per family income of $8,000, $9,000, $10,000 less than yours. This is, after all, one country.

And just as I believe that the most fortunate human beings in this country ought to be willing to extend a helping hand for those who are least fortunate, I also think that those communities that are well off ought to be able to extend a helping hand to the communities that are less well off, and that certainly is the case with the number of the economic development projects that this committee is trying to fund, recognizing that we are, after all, all one country.

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

Mr. Chairman, again, I do not want to comment on the particular project under question, but, again, I just want to make a point to my friend from Arizona. And I love the State of Arizona. It is a beautiful State. I go there every year to visit some friends. I think it is absolutely wonderful.

But when I came to this Congress, I believe there were four congressional districts in Arizona, four Representatives of Arizona in this House, and there were 10 Representatives from the State of Wisconsin. Now, almost 40 years later, Wisconsin has eight congressional districts, eight Representatives, and Arizona, I believe, has a similar number. That means that Arizona has grown at an incredibly rapid rate, and an awful lot of money from a lot of other States has helped finance that economic growth.

And I return to the Central Arizona Project. I am not expressing a judgment about that project one way or the other, but I do know that it is one of the two or three most expensive earmarks in history. And I would simply suggest that I find it ironic that the gentleman has chosen to go after several projects today in States whose economies are far less prosperous than the gentleman's own State.

I also would question whether or not there is any greater purity in a highway, for instance, being built on the basis of a determination by two or three persons from a given State that knows the area, I don't know why that is any less pure than to have some partisan bureaucrat in the agency decide.

Moment of Silence Observed in Memory of Officer Jacob J. Chestnut and

Detective John M. Gibson

As I was saying, I don't know why one should assume that a decision to build a highway or any other project, if made by partisan bureaucrats or politically appointed bureaucrats in an agency, I don't know why that is any more pure than a decision being made out in the open by Members of Congress, who I think know their districts as well as any bureaucrat.

So all I would suggest is that while I am certainly not fond of the earmarking process, I am also not fond of the idea that somehow those of us from States not quite as prosperous as the gentleman's need to be embarrassed by the fact that we are asking for a little better deal in terms of Federal money spent in our districts, especially when the gentleman's State is above the national average in terms of the amount of Federal dollars spent in his own State.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the bill through page 94, line 9, be considered as read, printed in the Record and open to amendment at any point.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I understand that the gentleman is going to withdraw this amendment. Is that the gentleman's intention?

If the gentleman will continue to yield, I thank the gentleman for that willingness to withdraw his amendment and for highlighting the issue that we have before us.

We simply could not increase this amount this year because of the budget constraints. The budget proposal here is the same as the 2007 enacted budget and slightly above the budget request by the administration. And the offset, the offset is in a place where there really isn't money to take from the offset to do this.

I appreciate the gentleman's willingness to withdraw the amendment and will be happy to work with him to try to find money in conference.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the bill through page 120, line 5, be considered as read, printed in the Record, and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment.

If the gentleman will yield, I do intend to insist upon the point of order.

I will be happy to engage in a colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, to the gentleman who is offering the amendment and offering to withdraw it, I want to say that I am a supporter of Moving to Work; but the language here is clearly authorizing language, and we have not been accepting authorizing language at any point in this debate.

So, I would be very happy to work with the gentleman on the Moving to Work program, and urge him to withdraw the amendment.

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

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman from California that I very much respect the passion

for which he is working on this along with the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and I look forward to working with you on this issue as we proceed.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the bill through page 127, line 3, be considered as read, printed in the Record, and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I would like to point out to the gentleman that the bill before us includes language that requires the Secretary of Transportation to review and ultimately approve or deny grant requests for each train route as part of the grant agreement. When grant requests are submitted to the Secretary, they include a detailed financial analysis and revenue projections, and the Secretary then determines whether to approve the grant request for the specific train route.

I'd like to make another comment here. All too often we forget about rural areas. Rural communities deserve transportation choices. This line serves a number of rural areas in the South and Southwest. But I do again remind that the Secretary has the authority to review the financials in relation to a particular route and to approve or disapprove of grant requests.

Amtrak has made some good moves over the recent past. They've reduced their debt by $500 million. They have exacted about $100 million of savings so far in their effort to reduce the costs of the long-distance routes. They've increased the amount of State investment that's involved in these routes, and they continue to show better revenue and ridership.

But the route to deal with individual routes, the way to deal with individual routes is through the language that's already in the bill, and so I'm going to oppose the specific effort to eliminate one specific route when the route is already in place in the legislation for the Secretary to make that decision.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman who is the Chair of the subcommittee of the authorizing committee, Ms. Brown.

(Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

Mr. Chairman, would it be possible to have the Clerk read the amendment in these instances where there are very specific amendments applying to a specific project within the legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman offering this amendment doesn't happen to be here at the moment; so let me try to point out what is involved here.

Yes, the Belmont Complex does provide recreational opportunities and conference and meeting space. Yes, it is a facility that is used for Chamber of Commerce meetings, and banquets, and business, and seminars, and training and testing for displaced workers, and local union meetings and negotiations, emergency rescue training, voter registration drives, local business-to-business job fairs.

In the county, Armstrong County in Pennsylvania, which is one of those in the northern part of Appalachia that is struggling hard, losing population, by the way, if I remember the map exactly correctly. I was from Pennsylvania in an earlier period of my lifetime. These are all purposes that are important to the process of keeping the economy going in that community and that county.

But most important to this particular earmark is that a 2003 fire damaged much of the building, and these funds are needed to make continual interior and exterior renovations and to make the facility handicapped-accessible. Those are important specific things that go beyond the other bits and pieces that are pulled together in this complex. The main building within the complex has had fire damage and needs this money for repair.

Now, I just want to point out that the great explosion, the truly irresponsible explosion, of congressional earmarking began shortly after the party which is in the minority gained control of the Congress in 1995. And so during that period of time, we have gone from zero earmarking in the Labor, Health, and Education budget to over $1 billion a year. We have tripled the number of earmarks in the defense bill. The number of earmarks in this legislation, while it has been reorganized a couple times, has gone up in similar kind of proportion. Yet this year, this year, we are reducing the number of earmarks and the number of dollars involved in those earmarks by 50 percent from what they were under the last time that a budget was put through completely with earmarks under the leadership of the gentleman's party. So we are trying to clean up a mess and get a good strong measure of the earmarking process.

But this one, I think, is legitimate for its purposes, and I hope the amendment will be defeated.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield for a colloquy to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy).

To continue the colloquy, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hall).

Mr. Chairman, to respond to this, last night, as the gentleman from New Jersey has already pointed out, we had an amendment being offered which was subject to a point of order. I had agreed that I would be happy to work with him, and I obviously will be very happy to work with the three Members who are part of this colloquy from New Jersey, from Pennsylvania and from New York, on this issue, which is an important issue and would require authorization legislation to do, and that is why the point of order lay last night.

Mr. Chairman, I repeat, I will be happy to work with the three gentleman who have spoken on this issue as we go on toward conference.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Flake

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I'm prepared to accept this amendment on the part of Mr. Frank and Mr. Rangel.

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the major problem, other than lack of funds, related to aviation in this country for the next period of time is the great growth in traffic. We are expecting total traffic to pass 1 billion passengers within the next 10 years. Over the last 10 years it has risen from, gone well above 500 million passengers per year.

Now, this amendment will make the cost of providing facilities and equipment in order to be able to meet that great growth in traffic much higher than it otherwise would be. The modern equipment that is necessary, most of the present towers need to be upgraded, the equipment needs to be upgraded, towers need to be built for the next generation of air traffic control to deal with all of that huge increase in expected traffic. The towers themselves are expensive. The electronic equipment, the facilities, what you call the STARS systems for control, all of these are expensive items, and the expense of the process burgeons if we do not make other kinds of efficiencies.

Now, this amendment would halt all of the modernization of air traffic control facilities, both TRACONs and towers, and the equipment within those facilities. Consolidation has already gone on very successfully in some parts of the country.

The gentleman from Florida has suggested that there are problems in safety, potential problems in safety. Look, in California they have consolidated to now two TRACONs covering the whole State for the 30- plus million people in California and the roughly 40 commercial air systems, airports that are there. So that kind of consolidation has gone on also in New York, also in Chicago, also in Atlanta, in all of those places, some of the most complicated air traffic systems in the country. The most complicated ones have already been undergoing consolidations, and this proposal would stop that process.

It would cost us $85 million in savings from planned and designed and in construction consolidations that are already in process. It would cost another $110 million in funds which would expire, because funds for FAA facilities and equipment goes on a 3-year cycle.

In addition, there would be $225 million in construction funds that will be placed on hold. It is an extremely costly endeavor, and it is generally wrongheaded, really. We have to have this consolidation because it's critical to the efficient dealing with our movement of air traffic in this country.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Costello).

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to point out that the gentleman from Florida has made the point that the House passed last year legislation doing this. That was never acted upon and was not included in the CR, the final CR for the 2007 budget. That was adopted in the House version of the bill, but it was not carried through to the CR. So there is no precedent of merit there.

Secondly, the crux of our problem is that we have a huge growth of air traffic that is expected within a 20-year period. From 1995 to the year 2015, we will have gone from half a billion passengers to a billion passengers, and that is in the commercial traffic, plus all of the increase in general aviation. We cannot sit with our head in the sand and not modernize all these facilities, the towers, the facilities, the equipment, the control systems that are necessary to deal with that increase in traffic, and that has to be done. It has already been done in some of our major parts of the country.

The gentleman from Texas has concerns about Texas. The authorizing language which the T&I Committee has reported out includes a system to look at those cases to review and to set up a system for reviewing how those systems will be set up in additional places as the consolidation of TRACONs and the modernization of these facilities and the reequipment of these facilities must go forward.

So I think that that part of it is a red herring, truly. In the case of Chicago and New York and Philadelphia and Washington and California, our heaviest traffic locations in the country, and Atlanta besides, we already have these consolidations in place. And in the case of California, 40-some-odd airports and their tower facilities have been included now in 2 TRACONs where there used to be 8 or more TRACONs in the State of California.

So the number of TRACONs is going to come down. It must come down, and we must get on with this modernization of the facilities and equipment that otherwise would always be very costly. It must be done.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Florida, though I don't think I have much time.

They will be much less burdened if they have new facilities and new equipment, equipment that is modern and that can manage to handle that traffic in a much more efficient manner.

I hope that the amendment will not be adopted.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to rise in opposition to this amendment. As Mr. Hastings said earlier, there is in current law the Office of Economic Development, which has the responsibility of working with public and private sectors, as well as not-for-profit organizations, to provide financial and technical assistance to local communities to develop and implement their own economic development in their community. That's current law.

If we want to change that, I agree with much of what the gentleman has to say, I just think this is not the right time and place to be covering it in this manner. But it gives me a little bit of a chance to talk about my district, and all 435 of us, I think, love to have the opportunity to talk about our districts.

I have a map here which shows my district. It is the second largest district in California, a little over 21,000 square miles. I live down here. This is Nevada. This is central to northern California. It is about 450 miles this way, a couple hundred miles this way. A little perspective: eight States would fit within this county, one of the largest counties.

In this county, the town of Bishop, some of the community people have every year for the last 40 years celebrated what they call Mule Days, and about 50,000 people come to this community of 3,500 people. In this whole county that I said eight States would fit in, about 17,000 people live, and about 3,500 people live in the town of Bishop. They are great people.

Here are the eastern Sierras, Death Valley. We have the lowest spot in the 48 States and the highest spot. Death Valley is 280 feet below sea level, and we have Mount Whitney that is about 15,000 feet above sea level. It is a great district, just as each of your districts are.

Several years ago, and actually they have been working on this for a few years, Bob Tanner and some of the people in Bishop thought that they should have a museum to celebrate the mules. Ninety-five percent of this county is owned by Federal and local governments. They don't have any room. There are only a few acres in this town that could even be developed. They don't have the land to develop for economic development. They rely totally on tourism, restaurants, motels, packers that take people up into the mountains. Mules have been an important part of this, and they want to establish a museum. They are asking for $50,000. L.A. City is going to donate $2 million worth of land, 8 acres. The county and the city are putting up a little over a million and a half dollars, and the people that live there are going to raise another hundred, $250,000.

One thing that I think we forget is that the people in Bishop pay taxes. They pay Federal taxes, and I guarantee you that during the time that Jerry represented them and the time I have had the opportunity to represent them, they have gotten very little back from the Federal Government for the taxes that they have sent here to Washington.

I would be happy to yield.

I thank the gentleman.

Let me tell you a little bit about mules because this is one of the things that they are going to honor in this museum. George Washington introduced mules into our country. He received a jack donkey in 1786 from the King of Spain, and he started breeding and using mules. Within a few years, he had 58 mules working on his plantation a few miles south in Mount Vernon.

Since then, mules have been used to develop the West. All across the Nation, they helped the pioneers move. They could go 30 miles a day where wagon trains could only go about 5. They were an integral part of the development of this country. Even today, we have 600 mules on special assignment serving in Afghanistan helping the Army do the things that they helped the Army do 100 years ago.

I think $50,000, you know, is a good contribution to give to these people, the money that they have sent back here.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to thank the gentleman from Arizona for the opportunity to come to the floor to discuss the American Mule and Packer Museum and the economic development impact it will have on my district.

Let me first start by saying that this $50,000 is not included in this bill to laud the humble and noble mule. These funds will be used to boost tourism dollars in the small city of Bishop, CA by helping to build a local heritage museum.

The city of Bishop is located in Inyo County--which is geographically one of the largest counties in the country and is 95 percent owned by the federal government. Bishop is a classic western frontier city and has been squeezed out of all other industries by the encroachment of federal land, which literally surrounds it and limits the community to survival on tourism dollars. Those vitally important dollars come from visitors eager to see the great Wild West, ride out like our forefathers into the Eastern Sierra, enjoy the natural beauty on a hike, or hire a mule packer to explore the federal forests in the area.

The $50,000 dollar grant contained in this bill for the American Mule Museum is a modest federal investment in a worthy economic development project and a good example of how federal seed money is leveraged to develop local projects.

Every year, at the fairgrounds on Main Street, the small city of Bishop hosts a famous and popular heritage festival known as ``Mule Days.'' Some communities have an Apple Harvest festival, some have Frontier Days. In Bishop, we celebrate ``Mule Days.'' My friend from Arizona may not be familiar with the essential role Packers and their trusted mules had to the settlement of the west, but California's home state President did. Next to me is a picture of then-Governor Ronald Reagan acting as the Grand Marshall to the Bishop Mule Days parade in 1974.

Mule Days is the single largest draw to that community, bringing fifty thousand Californians and tourists interested in frontier life into downtown Bishop, where they shop, dine and stay during the festival. In addition to honoring their history, this museum would help expand that tourism by drawing folks in year-round, rather than just during the long Memorial Day weekend Mule Days celebration. The City of Los Angeles, a longtime landholder in our northern county, is going to donate an estimated 8 acres, valued at $2,000,000 for the project. Inyo County will spend an additional $1.5 million with the hook-ups, parking lots and access roads. Finally, this federal grant, directed to National Forest and Recreation Association, in Woodlake, CA (the non- profit overseeing the project) and private fundraising will be used towards the excavation and reconstruction of the famed Livermore Packing Station, and the surrounding corrals in Bishop.

There is a federal interest in preserving the history of how the West was settled. There are many residents in the city and surrounding areas who are direct descendants of those pioneers who headed west. A museum dedicated to local heritage and mule packers that were so important to the founding of the area will be a proper place to preserve their artifacts and documents into the future.

The residents of the City of Bishop, my constituents and federal tax payers are dependent on tourism dollars for their city funds. There are 480 separate EDI projects listed in the THUD bill ranging from $50,000 up to $500,000 with the majority of projects falling in the $100 K to $200 K range. The projects, with a few exceptions, are for the planning, land purchase, construction or renovation of facilities deemed to be important to economic development in both rural and urban areas. The construction of a museum celebrating local history is a common theme throughout many of the projects. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and help preserve a piece of American history in a place that is deserving of federal assistance.

I thank the gentleman very much. As you can see, when I start talking about my district, I get pretty excited. I have a lot of good things to say about it.

Bishop is a classic western frontier city. It has been squeezed out of all other big industries by all of the other public lands that are owned around them, and they have to survive on tourism. So if they can add this museum, it will help their tourism and it will help bring people there year-round, which will benefit their economy.

In closing, let me say that this is a partnership. It is not just Federal dollars, even though there is no such thing as ``Federal dollars.'' It all comes out of our pockets, and the people in Bishop pay those Federal dollars back here.

But as I mentioned earlier, the City of Los Angeles is going to participate by donating the land which is worth $2 million. Inyo County will spend an additional $1.5 million to work on the project, and local people will raise the difference.

The final thing I wanted to say is that there are 480 separate economic development projects in this bill. According to current law, that is what the law required. The chairman and the ranking member have gone through, their staffs, they have evaluated all of the projects requested. Bob Tanner and his friends in Bishop that requested this project wrote up their project. They sent it to me and Senator Feinstein. We included it in the request. They were one of the ones chosen, one of the 480. These projects range from $50,000, this is the smallest, to $500,000, with the majority falling between $100,000 and $200,000.

The projects, with few exceptions, are for planning, land purchase, construction or renovation of facilities deemed to be important to economic development in both rural and urban areas. This is a very rural area. The construction of a museum celebrating local history is a common theme throughout many of these projects. We followed the law. We did the things that are asked of us. I think this is a worthy project.

I thank the chairman and ranking member for including it in this bill. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

If the gentleman would continue to yield, one final thing.

Ronald Reagan led the Mule Days parade in 1974, riding a mule in the Mule Days parade.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1773) to limit the authority of the Secretary of Transportation to grant authority to motor carriers domiciled in Mexico to operate beyond United States municipalities and commercial zones on the United States-Mexico border, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1773.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have before us very important legislation. It is bad enough that NAFTA has caused the United States to hemorrhage more than 1 million jobs; but now the administration with the NAFTA trucks proposal would add insult to injury. Not only would it put in jeopardy more American jobs, those of American truck drivers, but it would also jeopardize the safety of the traveling public on America's highways.

I want to congratulate Representative Boyda for bringing such an important issue to the Congress so early in her congressional career and Representative Hunter on the other side of the aisle for his contributions to this issue and to this legislation.

We have here what is called a SAP. It is a statement of administration policy. They take us for saps if they believe we will believe the information they have conveyed to us in this letter.

They say that the safety standards, including hours of service, driver medical standards, financial responsibility, and drug and alcohol testing, will all be remedied by their program. There is and are no hours of service regulations in Mexico. We have heard anecdotal evidence from Mexican truck drivers that they are often forced, as they are exploited down there working for relatively low wages compared to truck drivers in the U.S., to drive for 48 to 72 hours at a stretch. How do they do that? They laugh and they say ``dust.'' What is dust? Drugs, uppers. They are commonly used in Mexico. There are no meaningful hours of service regulation. There is no drug testing in Mexico, and illegal substances are frequently used for these extended trips.

But the administration would have us believe that by signing a piece of paper and waving a magic wand and having in place paper provisions on drug and alcohol testing or hours of service, that these things will happen meaningfully. Suddenly, there will be a tremendous change in the culture of the American trucking industry.

They go on to say there will be an in-depth safety inspection before they are allowed to operate in the United States. Well, that is interesting because in testimony before my committee recently, the administration admitted that when a new bus carrier, and we are having a problem with illegally run bus service, what is called ``curb service'' here in the Northeast, it takes them up to 18 months to get out and certify that company actually exists and look at the papers in a filing cabinet. They never go out and look at the buses. Never.

We have the same thing going on with the American trucking industry. Only a tiny fraction of trucks are inspected on an annual basis. But somehow, magically, an agency that is totally overwhelmed by the volume of traffic is going to inspect each and every truck meaningfully in Mexico, inspect the credentials of the Mexican truck drivers in depth, certify the nonexistent drug testing programs, and certify tracking of the nonexistent hours of service in Mexico. And then they say that this will all be made available to the American public.

Here is the form in which it is made available. It is right here in the Federal Register. They are saying we are requiring publication, and they say it would be redundant to have all of the safety audits in detail published in the Federal Register because they put up this page. It has a date. That is good. That is a good start. It is up for 7 days, by the way.

And in order to access this page, you have to know the MX docket number. You have to know the particular docket number of that Mexican carrier. You have to know specifics to get nonspecific information that will only be posted for 7 days. And if you get through that maze and you happen to hit the 7-day window, because it goes down after 7 days, I guess they don't have enough memory capacity down there at DOT to leave it up longer for the public to review to, you get this, a form that has the applicant information, business address, and status. Quote: ``Provisional authority issued.''

That is the in-depth information that FMCSA is going to put up for the American public to review to understand that these audits are being conducted and these carriers are safe.

We need this legislation so we can be assured that we are protecting the safety of the American public.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

(Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Kansas (Mrs. Boyda), the author of the legislation, who's made an extraordinary commitment so early in her career.

Mr. Speaker, could I ask the time remaining please.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the chairman of the Transportation Committee, Mr. Oberstar, for 5\1/2\ minutes.

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

My good friend from Florida, the ranking Republican member of the committee, made a point that NAFTA was promoted by and passed during the Clinton administration. That's true, and I have continually castigated that administration and that President for that act.

However, he does need to remember that the agreement was negotiated by the first Bush administration, adopted by the Clinton administration, unfortunately, and to the discredit of the Clinton administration, and passed the House of Representatives with a large majority of Republican votes. Yes, it was a Democratic House, but a very substantial majority of the Democrats opposed the legislation.

So this is truly a bipartisan problem. But if he wants to attribute blame, the Republican Members of the House would bear that, and not the Democratic Members, although we were in the majority. He also talked about unfair portions of the agreement.

Well, the President has the authority to give 6 months' notice at any time that we are going to withdraw in order to require renegotiation of provisions of the agreement. So if this President felt any of the provisions were unfair, or they felt they were under duress to allow the Mexican trucks into this country, they have the tools to renegotiate that agreement. I wish they would use those tools. But they won't because this administration is all about killing off American jobs and American labor. That's what this is ultimately intended to do.

You can get a Mexican truck driver to work for a heck of a lot less than a Teamster in the United States. You can get a Mexican dock worker to work for a heck of a lot less than a longshoreman in the United States.

That's what this ultimately is designed to do. The dream of the NAFTA proponents is that the goods, all the goods, the things we don't make in America anymore, will be imported from China to a port in Mexico, avoiding the U.S. ports, the U.S. longshoremen, and loaded on Mexican trucks, avoiding U.S. trucking companies and U.S. drivers and brought up into America's heartland.

This bill is about protecting the safety of the American traveling public. That's what's before us today. I would love to renegotiate and revisit NAFTA any day of the week, but today we are all about the safety of the American public. That's what we are ensuring with this legislation.

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

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