SAFETEA-LU Technical Corrections Act of 2007

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 1195) to amend the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users to make technical corrections, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill pending before us.

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

Mr. Speaker and colleagues, here we are once again for at least the fifth time in 3 years to consider technical corrections to the SAFETEA- LU legislation.

In the 109th Congress, the gentleman from Alaska, then Chair of the full committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and I worked to bring this technical corrections bill to the House floor, passed it successfully. We dealt with hundreds and hundreds of minor adjustments, changes that normally happen in the course of passing a major bill of this nature. If I recall rightly, in ISTEA in 1991, there were 600 or 700 such technical corrections in the TEA-21 bill. In 1998 there were something like 1,200 technical corrections that had to be made. And we had a somewhat smaller number for SAFETEA-LU. We passed it three times in that Congress, and three times we could not get the other body, as we affectionately call them, to come to agreement and move the bill. We tried, in fact, after election in November, 2006, in a conference call, I recall, with Chairman Young and me, with the other

body leadership, but they could not come to a resolution on the matter. So we took it up again in this Congress, and we passed it. It's been a year since we moved the bill.

This is bipartisan. Finally, it's a bicameral agreement among all the issues under jurisdiction of our committee on the bill that we passed. Finally, the Senate passed the bill by an overwhelming margin of 88-2. In our body it passed 422-1 in August of 2007.

So we now have a number of changes here. A good many of the adjustments were requested by the DOT Modal Administrators, and we have accommodated those in this legislation.

Particularly, there were errors made in drafting the final language in the research program. Funding calculations resulted in lower than intended funding levels for several research programs. These technical fixes now will finally recapture critical research funds for the Future Strategic Highway Research program aimed at dealing with highway safety, reliability, capacity, renewal; and the University Transportation Center program that provides funding for the many disciplines in the Academic Center that generate useful and productive ideas for the practitioners of highway and bridge construction and transit operation. We also have an important clarification to the repeat intoxicated driver law to allow for use of ignition interlock devices, strongly supported by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. This legislation gives States more flexibility to either continue with the 1-year license suspension or permit a 45-day license suspension with limited driving privileges.

We also have clarifying language to help the Federal Transit Administration to interpret section 3011 of SAFETEA-LU on new start and small start projects. I say ``help.'' It will put them on the right course to do the right thing that we intended in House-Senate conference on the transit title of the bill. As then Chairman Young will recall, we had a very vigorous debate with the conferees from the other body on this matter, and we came out with this language, and now it's been misrepresented over there by the Federal Transit Administration.

The number of technical corrections that we provide in this legislation will allow hundreds, maybe even thousands, of projects to move more vigorously ahead to the construction stage, and I'm quite certain that we will see a generation of at least 40,000 family-wage, highway-related construction jobs that will help lift this economy out of its doldrums. With over a million construction trades workers out of a job, we'll make at least a start in getting the economy back on track and putting them back to work.

For bringing us to this stage, I especially want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), ranking member of the committee, who has devoted a great deal of time. I know personally that he has interceded with the leadership in the other body to ask them to move this legislation along, and proceeded with one of the principal recalcitrant Members of the other body. He's really done his share of shouldering the workload and then some, and I'm grateful to the gentleman. And I appreciate the enduring participation with the former chairman, Mr. Young, the work that we did together in the last Congress to move the SAFETEA-LU legislation and then the technical corrections portion of it, and I appreciate that participation.

This really is a bipartisan initiative in the best tradition of this committee. Again, I thank the gentleman from Florida for his splendid work and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for the splendid effort he has made.

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

I have no further speakers on our side at this time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my time.

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on our time?

I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Alaska.

Mr. Speaker, I would inquire of the gentleman from Florida if he has other speakers. We are waiting for one speaker on our side.

Mr. Speaker, I will continue to reserve my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

One of the items in our technical corrections bill that I mentioned at the outset was clarifying language to help the Federal Transit Administration to properly interpret section 3011 of SAFETEA-LU on New Start and Small Start project justifications. The reason for that language was that in the consideration of the bill in the House and Senate, and then during conference on SAFETEA-LU, it was clear the Federal Transit Administration was trying to, by administrative action, change existing law.

So we, the lawmakers, gave specific direction to FTA that rather than rely so heavily on their own fabricated cost-effectiveness index in determining authorization or approval of New Start and Small Start projects, they are giving inadequate consideration to other factors, economic development and environmental benefits among them, the investments that private sector interests make at transit stops on major projects, such as Dallas Area Rapid Transit, such as the Washington Area Metro project, where over $20 billion in private sector capital investments have been made along the stops. In Dallas, it is over $1 billion. FTA was not taking into consideration those additional benefits that flow from the investment in a transit project.

Similarly, they were not taking those factors into consideration in evaluating the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project extension out to Wiehle Avenue, which is otherwise known as the Dulles Metro Extension.

Well, I am delighted that even before we moved this bill through to final enactment, the Federal Transit Administration announced this morning that it intends ``to approve entry into final design for the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project,'' one of the most important transit projects in the entire United States. This is a vital decision. It is very important to move ahead with this project, so, frankly, we don't look like a third world country when it comes to moving people and goods in our economy.

I would also like to take this opportunity to note that one of the technical corrections that was so important for us to make in this legislation is for the authority to move ahead with MAGLEV development. Magnetic levitation technology was initiated in the United States going back even before ISTEA in 1991 under an amendment that I advanced with the support of the Congressional Steel Caucus to perfect magnetic levitation technology.

I yield myself an additional 2 minutes.

While we continued to study it and develop it in university research centers and in contracts with the private sector, Germany and Japan moved ahead with test track MAGLEV technology projects. One of those, the German technology version, has already been implemented in Shanghai, China, while we continue to lag behind because we have not moved ahead with sufficient authority.

Well, we have provided that authority in SAFETEA-LU, but the language wasn't precise enough to satisfy the Federal Transit Administration to move ahead. So we have corrected that ambiguity, if you will, or at least what the Department of Transportation considered to be an ambiguity, with the following language. ``Fifty percent of the funds will be allocated to the Nevada Department of Transportation, who shall cooperate with the California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission for the MAGLEV project between Las Vegas and Primm.'' In addition, the other 50 percent of the funds shall be allocated ``for existing MAGLEV projects located east of the Mississippi River, using such criteria as the Secretary deems appropriate.''

In the accompanying report, section 102 language on MAGLEV, we further specify how those funds are to be used, specifically, the 50 percent allocated to the California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission for Las Vegas-Primm and the other 50 percent for projects east of the Mississippi. The intent of this clarification is to limit the eligible projects to three existing projects east of the Mississippi River; Pittsburgh, Baltimore-Washington and Atlanta-Chattanooga, in a competition to be determined by and evaluated and resolved by the Secretary of Transportation.

I yield myself an additional minute.

I earnestly hope now that after two decades of studying, evaluating and developing in very limited test modes, MAGLEV technology will now be able to move ahead with passenger MAGLEV technology.

I also note for the record that the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) and I have been working with the Port Authority of Los Angeles-Long Beach and the California Transportation Department, and Mr. Rohrabacher with the Governor's office in California, on a MAGLEV circular route, loop route, from the Port of Los Angeles to Riverside, California, to carry container cargo that can actually pay its own way to the interior of California and avoid the grade crossings and actually haul paying passenger containers.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

I think these opportunities for advancing the state of the art of this very exciting magnetic levitation technology will now come to fruition with the final language in this legislation on these two projects, plus the initiative in the Port of Long Beach-Los Angeles.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. How much remains?

I yield myself the balance of my time again to express my great appreciation to the gentleman from Florida for the splendid cooperation, bipartisan participation, for the efforts made here in this body and with the other body on moving them along to bring the technical corrections to a conclusion.

I also want to note for the record the gentleman from Florida joined with me in the appeal, in fact, he initiated the request to the Secretary of Transportation, Ms. Peters, last October, for a meeting in our committee offices with the Governor of Virginia, the Commissioner of Transportation for Virginia, the Northern Virginia bipartisan Republican and Democratic House delegation, with Senator Warner's staff and FTA Administrator Simpson to discuss this Dulles Metrorail project, to bring to the attention of the administration that this is a bipartisan initiative, that we are together on supporting it, and to move it ahead. Now we are there. I thank the gentleman for his consistency and constancy on that initiative.

I concur also with the gentleman's remarks. These are technical corrections. There are 485 of them. Some of them, a good many of them, are just misspellings that needed to be technically corrected. There was some wording that the Federal Highway Administration wanted clarification on, that the Federal Transit Administration asked us to provide clarifying language on, and we do that in this legislation.

There were other projects where Members found that a project had been designated and was not exactly what their constituents were anticipating, they wanted to change it, dollar for dollar, no increasing, no additional spending. It is appropriate.

As former Chairman Bud Shuster was fond of saying: We Members of Congress are not potted plants. We are not there to just stand and look on benignly while the executive branch implements the legislation that we vote for. We are the ones who are accountable to raise the revenues; we are the ones who are accountable to put the policies in place, and we have a say in how they are carried out. And that is what we do with these Member high-priority projects.

So I urge all Members to support this legislation as an affirmation of the role of the people's body in setting transportation policy.

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

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

First, let me thank the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Oberstar, and the ranking member, Mr. Mica, for bringing this technical corrections bill to the floor. I will be supporting this bill today because it is a good bill.

I want to again thank my minority member, Mr. Oberstar. When I was chairman, we had worked very hard on TEA-LU. It was the only positive piece of legislation this Congress passed in 6 years. When I say positive, it left a part of infrastructure, not all of it, for the good of this Nation. I take great pride in that because it probably created about 185,000 new jobs, $286 billion to be spent for the infrastructure and for the economy of this great Nation.

I bring that up because I hear some people talking about, well, we will repeal the 18.2 percent tax on fuel to help our consumers out. Then goodbye to the roads, the repairs, the new needs for the additional automobiles on our highways. I say beware. It will be a terrible disaster for this great Nation of ours. We have other ideas about solving the high gas prices, but that is probably the worst I have heard of all.

Having said that, I am going to go through a chronological order of what has occurred about the issue of Coconut Road. In 2001, I became chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, a position I held for 6 years. This committee is the largest committee in the House of Representatives, with oversight over all modes of transportation; aviation, highways, railroads, all public buildings, waterways, and emergency management.

As the only Congressman from Alaska, I worked very hard for the State of Alaska. I worked with the Governor, State legislature, and local officials. I can say with great pride we did very well for the State of Alaska because we need transportation in that State, as every other State needs it.

I want to remind people, the responsibility of a chairman is to address the transportation needs in all of the country. As chairman, I worked with officials throughout the country, Governors, mayors, transportation officials, and, of course, all 434 Members and delegates of this body.

As we prepared for the writing of the national transportation bill, members of our committee and I traveled extensively throughout the country at the request of House Members and State and local officials. For the thousands and thousands of transportation projects requested of us, I visited as many communities as possible to meet with the Members, local officials, and public to discuss these requests.

In 2004, Florida Gulf Coast University President William Merwin commissioned a study of a road improvement that would increase the university's ability to cope with hurricanes and other disasters. One of the recommendations in the report was for the construction of an on- ramp from Coconut Road to I-75.

In 2005, the City of Bonita Springs hired a consultant to determine if the interchange at Coconut Road and I-75 would improve traffic congestion on Bonita Beach Road, Corkscrew Road, Old 41, I-75 and Coconut Road. The study determined that the Coconut interchange would take 9,000 cars off of Bonita Road and Corkscrew Road each day, but add about 6,000 cars per day to Coconut Road.

In February 2005, I was invited by a congressional colleague, who was a member of the Transportation Committee, to his district in Florida to hear the needs and concerns of local constituents. On February 19, a town hall meeting was held at Florida Gulf Coast University, whose arena also serves as a hurricane shelter.

This town hall meeting was attended by more than 200 local constituents, transportation officials, and elected officials. One of the issues discussed at the town hall meeting was the need for a hurricane evacuation route to ensure that people could get to safety more quickly during a national disaster. This project was to be an interchange from the heavily traveled I-75 highway to Coconut Road, which leads to the Florida Gulf Coast University in Bonita Springs.

At the town hall meeting, University President William Merwin spoke of the need for a research center at the university that would focus on transportation improvements using new technologies. He also presented a study showing the need for the interchange at Coconut Road to help hurricane evacuees reach the two main shelters in south Lee County. The goal was to provide $10 million for a study, not to build, but study this interchange.

I also would like to note, to the credit of the Florida delegation, this area received $81 million for the widening of I-75. This funding was totally justified and important to the area. The $10 million for the Coconut Road study did not take any money away or divert any funds of the $81 million allocated for I-75 widening. The $10 million for the Coconut Road was funded separately under the national highway bill. Otherwise, it was money above the line.

This interchange study had the support of the Florida Gulf Coast University, the Technical Advisory Committee, which consisted of city and county transportation experts, and the local citizens' advisory committee. The Bonita Springs City Council and the Regional Planning Council Staff have also supported the interchange study. The Technical Advisory Committee and local citizens' advisory committee voted unanimously to include the study in the long range Lee Metropolitan Planning Organization Transportation plan. Unanimously voted for. However, the Metropolitan Planning Organization voted not to include the interchange study in their long range plan. They instead wanted to transfer the $10 million to another project, including I-75.

While I don't agree with this organization's decision, I respect it. It's important to stress that this study funding did not go to any one person, it did not go to any one group of people. The funding was to go to the State of Florida, were they to choose to proceed with the study.

This has always been a good project. The residents of this community deserve to have a safe and effective evacuation route for themselves in case of a national disaster. With Hurricanes Katrina and Rita we saw firsthand what happens when Americans are unable to get to safety. But for now, I support these residents in their wanting to put this money towards another project. I have always supported the community's right to do what they think is best for them. The change is in this technical corrections bill, and I support it.

So why I am talking about this, other than to give the chronological order of event that occurred? Well, it's very easy. I have been the subject of much innuendo concerning my intent and motivation of this project. These accusations have little, if any, connection with what actually occurred.

I outlined my intent and motivations on this, and it is quite different from what I have been hearing lately about this study. Some of the media have made this study into being about one land owner in the area. Not one word has been mentioned about the hundreds of people who attended the town hall meeting in support of this study or about the numerous local organizations and officials who supported it.

This study was included in the largest national highway bill in history.

There were more than 6,200 high priority projects, some call them earmarks, in that bill. About half of these were sponsored by the Democrats and Republicans of this body. About half were sponsored evenly by Republicans and Democrats in the other body. These 6,200 high priority project earmarks from the House and Senate totaled 5 percent of the total highway bill. Five percent.

Two committees handled this bill, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and the Ways and Means Committee. Four committees worked on this bill in the Senate. I did not write this bill by myself. There were six committee chairmen, six ranking members, and dozens of subcommittee chairmen and subcommittee ranking members, members of both party's leadership, and countless others who played major roles in the legislation.

The 6,200 high priority projects, earmarks, were requested by virtually every Member in this House, other than 14 Members of the House, including Mr. Flake. This body had nothing to do with the projects requested by the other body, and they had nothing to do with those requested by this body.

This was a massive bill that was not completed until several months after the previous highway authorization had already expired. Members and staff were literally working around the clock until we were able to pass the bill in July, 2005.

As to the debate concerning the process of the enrollment of this and any other legislation, that is not a process I own or control. There are officers of the House and the Senate whose job it is to oversee this process. A committee chairman does not control the enrollment process. I have never been in an enrollment office, and I do not believe any chairman has that right.

After all the accusations and rumors about this bill, I hope this sets the record straight. This project was asked for by the community, it was supported by the Congressman from that district, and there are letters to back that up. But, the Senate is meddling in House affairs. I am supporting this bill. I welcome, if you want to welcome, an investigation into the House. I will support that. But, remember, that is a slippery, slippery road which we are about to be involved in.

We have an opportunity in this bill to stimulate the economy, keep our people working. I am going to support this legislation. But keep in mind that Coconut Road was not my idea. It was created and fostered by the local people of that community.

It's not the first time in the enrollment process. Even in this bill, Jacksonville was mentioned in the bill. What we didn't know, when the Senate and the House voted on it, was that there were six Jacksonvilles in this Nation. It had to be changed, and it was changed prior going to the President's desk, and the House never voted on it. I can go on to other cases where legislation has been changed by the enrollment process when it is considered not the intent of the House.

I thank the gentleman.

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

As we consider before the House H.R. 1195, I want to express my support for this legislation. And, first off, I'd like to thank the chairman of the committee, Mr. Oberstar, for his work and efforts, for his staff; Mr. DeFazio, who chairs the Highway Subcommittee; and also Mr. Duncan on our side of the aisle.

Now, I know that this bill's being here didn't come by accident. As you heard, this has passed the House at least four other times. A great deal of credit for the achievement in bringing this legislation forward also must go to the former Chair of the committee, the distinguished gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young). Mr. Young worked closely with Mr. Oberstar in crafting legislation to deal with some of the needed changes that were necessary. When you pass a, I think it was, $286 billion transportation and highway transit authorization bill, there are always technical corrections that are needed. It's almost impossible to pass a bill of that magnitude with that many numbers, that many projects, and not come back and make adjustments, both in some of the formulas that are required and also in some of the requests from Members. So this is part of the process.

One of the most important things, as people also ask us what we are doing to move the economy forward, I think it's absolutely essential that our transportation and infrastructure projects move forward. And without this legislation that cannot be possible because, again, of some of the drafting requirements under the July, 2005, SAFETEA-LU bill that was passed.

So here we are, the fifth time the House of Representatives will pass this legislation. It should be on its way to the President. As you heard, this legislation passed in the 109th Congress. It passed in the 110th Congress. Under the leadership of Chairman Young and then ranking member of the committee Mr. Oberstar, it moved forward, and now we have it in this Congress.

The technical corrections in this bill have been clearly identified by the Department of Transportation and also by State Departments of Transportation and are mostly a conforming nature or correcting drafting errors. Again, a huge bill with many provisions.

The largest section of the bill, section 105, makes changes to 386 high-priority projects in section 1702 of the SAFETEA-LU bill. These changes address surface transportation projects that cannot be executed as they are currently drafted in the current law, again, that we passed back in July of 2005. And, of course, next year we will be doing another bill, and that's why it's so important that we get this on the President's desk as soon as possible so that these technical changes clarify who the recipients are and project descriptions and make corrections that in some instances will increase project funding levels and decrease others to achieve budget neutrality.

There are many Members of Congress in the House and Senate who have written to our committee or to the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works or the Banking Committee in the Senate supporting specific projects and policy corrections. These requests have been submitted, I believe, through an open and transparent process. On my side of the aisle, I've tried to keep all of these requests public, available to the press, and, again, in a very transparent manner for everyone to see what has been requested, what the projects are, and who has requested them.

In this legislation there are 150 corrections made at the request of Senators, 197 corrections made at the request of House Democrats, and 138 corrections made at the request of House Republicans.

I support this legislation. It's necessary, again, to move these projects forward to stimulate our economy and build our Nation's infrastructure.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the members of our committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mack) has requested time, and I would like to yield him 2 minutes.

Might I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

I would like to yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young).

I do have other speakers. I would be pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

May I inquire as to how much time our side has?

I would like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman who heads up the Highway Subcommittee on our side, our ranking member, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan).

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

In closing for our side, again I want to thank Mr. Oberstar and Mr. DeFazio and Mr. Duncan, who spoke previously, and Mr. Young, the previous Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Let me just respond to a couple of items here. First of all, I want to join Mr. Oberstar. Both of us worked very hard and intently with the Governor of Virginia and with the delegation from Virginia, the Northern Virginia congressional delegation. I am so delighted to see that the extension of the Metrorail will continue out to Dulles.

It is expensive, folks. It is not going to get any cheaper. If you are looking at solutions to help the environment and deal with congestion, that is one of them, and we have to move forward. I am very pleased, and I thank the gentleman for his efforts and our joint efforts in making that possible.

We are all joined together by one common denominator in transportation, from sea to shining sea: We face congestion everywhere, in small towns, middle-sized towns, metropolitan areas. This bill, more than any other legislation that we will do this year, will move projects forward.

Now, there has been some criticism that this changes earmarks or redefines some earmarks. Yes, it does. These are congressional earmarks, and I say from our side of the aisle, I can tell you that we have done everything we can to make this process transparent, open, and have Members publicly state what their intent is. So I feel good about what we have done.

I can't control what the other body does. Mr. Oberstar can't either. But we have done our best to vet these projects and move the interests of this country, which is building and moving the infrastructure of this country forward. This legislation will do that. I urge Members to support this legislation.

Now, I know it does have a provision in here that does allow the Department of Justice to conduct an investigation on one of the projects. The leadership of the House and Senate and Mr. Young and others have agreed to move forward with this. I don't think it sets a good precedent, because the House and Senate should be the judge of their own Members under the Constitution. Be that as it may, I will still support this bill, move forward with the process, and we will try to do our best to keep America moving forward with its infrastructure and transportation projects, which is absolutely vital to our economy at this time.

I ask Members to support this legislation, and again thank all those involved.

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank Chairman Oberstar, Ranking Member Duncan, Mr. DeFazio, who is the chairman of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, everyone, including staff, for their work on this important technical corrections bill.

I am pleased to rise tonight and voice my support for H.R. 3248 and encourage my colleagues to do the same. This, in fact, is the fourth time we have brought this bill to the floor in the past 18 months. It is imperative that we pass this measure and for the Senate to follow our lead and pass it as well. I think we have a pretty good agreement with the Senate to do just that.

Once the President signs this legislation, SAFETEA-LU, which is the major transportation and highway transit funding bill that we passed less than 2 years ago, all the provisions of that will finally be able to accomplish what Congress set out to do. There are many minor errors, and that was a pretty massive bill, and there are some minor changes in policy, tweaks in policy and in Member projects in the SAFETEA-LU bill that we passed that need this technical correction.

We have heard from the Department of Transportation and also several State DOTs regarding fixes to different programs and also high-priority projects. I believe this bill tonight addresses most of the issues that have been brought to the attention of our committee.

This bill also makes critical corrections to the Federal Highway Research Program to ensure that the department can continue essential research programs, including the Future Strategic Highway Research Program and the University Transportation Center Research Program.

The bill also extends the deadline for the National Surface Transportation and Policy and Review Study Commission and corrects several drafting errors regarding the Magnetic Levitation Transportation Deployment Program. Extending the deadline on the National Transportation Surface Policy and Review Study Commission is very important, particularly as we take on in 2009 the important responsibility of putting in place another bill that will replace SAFETEA-LU to set our policy and projects and transportation priorities for the future.

So, it is important to note that this bill does not make any substantial policy changes to the SAFETEA-LU bill, but, again, it deals with technical corrections. Again, this bill corrects provisions that were not workable by the States or by the Department of Transportation. They have relayed their concerns and we have addressed them in this bill.

It also is important to note that the Congressional Budget Office has scored this bill and estimates that, over the 2007-2012 period, this bill will reduce contract authority by $1 million and will increase receipts by less than $500,000.

There is one purely technical correction that is not included in this package. SAFETEA-LU inadvertently changes certain regulations for trucks with a gross vehicle weight of less than 10,000 pounds. When Congress passed SAFETEA-LU, this change was not a policy change that Congress knew about or intended to make. If Congress wanted to make this change, we would have debated and discussed it. Rather, this was something we were not aware of, and this change has had, in effect, very serious unintended consequences, especially for our small businesses.

I had hoped to fix this problem with a technical fix. However, some groups who have benefited from this error have, unfortunately, prevented us from doing so tonight and in this legislation. It is unfortunate a policy change that no Member anticipated and voted on will not be corrected in this legislation tonight.

Despite this particular shortcoming and oversight, again, I am pleased to have worked with Chairman Oberstar, Ranking Member Duncan in revitalizing this very necessary technical corrections bill, and I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting the bill tonight.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to one of the most distinguished Members of the House, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I want to reiterate for the Record that the issue that former Speaker Hastert has brought before the floor, it is my understanding that we did not intend to restrict the scope of the project to only funding for interchange improvements, and the intent of the language was to also fund the other improvements on Route 34, and we will work with the gentleman from Illinois to make certain that point is clarified.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield at this time to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan). And, actually, he is our ranking member of the Highway Subcommittee and has done an incredible job on this and also leading the Highway Subcommittee and former chairman of Water Resources and former chairman of Aviation, and he should have handled this bill, but I am delighted to yield 3 minutes to Mr. Duncan.

Mr. Speaker, I do have one additional speaker, Mr. McHenry, from Spruce Pine and Hickory and other wonderful locations in the great State of North Carolina; and I yield him 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers. I was hoping the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) would make it to the floor. We took this bill out of the order we anticipated it coming up in, and the gentleman from Arkansas would have been recognized.

Again, I thank Mr. Oberstar working with our side of the aisle; Mr. Duncan, my ranking member; the lead Republican on the Highway Subcommittee, Mr. DeFazio; and all of the staff on both sides. They worked real hard on this and over some weekends.

We had originally planned to tack this onto the WRDA bill, but that was not meant to be. Actually, that might work out quite well because this might become law before WRDA, given the comments I have gotten from the White House on the WRDA legislation.

But I thank all those involved in making certain that the laws that we pass have the intent and the content and the necessary corrections.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3248) to amend the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users to make technical corrections, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members

may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous and tabular material.

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill is one that has not only bipartisan but bicameral agreement among all the committees of jurisdiction over the Nation's highways, highway safety and public transportation programs. Our Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the Senate Committees on Environment and Public Works, Banking and Housing and Urban Affairs and Commerce, Science and Transportation, all of us met, discussed, agreed on these technical corrections.

In fact, in the last Congress, we were so much in agreement that we passed this bill five times in the House. They passed it a couple of times in the other body. But somehow it just never got to the point of being sent to the President.

We took it up again this year. We were going to include it in the Water Resources Development Act, but at the last moment, technical glitches arose in the other body.

So we are taking it up separately in this body in order to pass it and send it over to the other body. Hopefully, they will be able to act on it before the end of the week and send it to the President for the President's signature.

There are over 400 technical corrections, really, truly technical in nature, waiting for 2 years to be adjusted and to be enacted. Tonight we can do that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to observe a very tragic occurrence that happened just 2 hours ago in Minneapolis.

The bridge on Interstate 35 over the Mississippi River near the University of Minnesota collapsed just 2 hours ago, dropping at least eight cars and a truck in the water. A school bus that had just barely missed crashing into the water was damaged, and students on board were bloodied and injured.

The crumbled wreckage of the bridge is on the east bank and in the water. The concrete roadway is in the river gorge. It is a 40-year-old bridge, and it is a tragic occurrence, and I make that observation during the midst of technical corrections as an indication of how vitally important it is for us to continue our vigilance on the integrity and condition of the Nation's roadways.

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

Of course.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield.

Mr. Speaker, I recall very well when crafting SAFETEA- LU, the project that the gentleman has raised, it was never the

intention of the committee nor the intention of the language to restrict the scope of the project only to the interchange when it is clear from the thrust of the project that it was intended to cover other improvements along the Route 34 corridor.

Along with Mr. Mica, I will work with the Speaker to make adjustments. It is a little late for us to get it into this bill. If we had known about it sufficiently in advance, we certainly could have made an adjustment. But there will be other vehicles where we will be able to accomplish that, and we will work with the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the chairman of the Surface Transportation Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I listened thoughtfully to the comments of the gentleman from North Carolina. Those are issues that can be addressed in another time and another venue. We will most certainly address those matters in good order.

As I said at the outset, this is the seventh time the House has passed this technical corrections bill. We've been waiting patiently for the other body to join us in meaningful action on the bill, and so I know there's going to be a recorded vote. That's going to be reaffirmation of the strong stand the House has taken on these, and they truly are technical matters. We ought to just get them passed so that we can get over, so the States and the Federal Government agencies can get on with the work they need to undertake and that these adjustments to Members' projects can be made and be carried forward.

That's really what this is all about, and other matters that go beyond the scope of this current technical correction we will address in future legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time and ask for an ``aye'' vote on the bill.