To reinstate the Interim Management Strategy governing off-road vehicle use in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North Carolina, pending the issuance of a final rule for off-road vehicle use by the National Park Service.

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. 1195) to amend the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users to make technical corrections, and for other purposes, as amended.

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 material on H.R. 1195.

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

Mr. Speaker, this legislation is truly a compendium of technical corrections. When you look at a bill the magnitude of SAFETEA-LU and its extraordinary importance in our economy, and I believe the signature accomplishment of the last Congress, there are bound to be some drafting errors and other minor concerns in the legislation. We recognized those quite early on and had hoped to pass this bill, this technical corrections bill, during the last Congress; but it was never considered by the Senate, as are so many things that we do around here. Hopefully, this time we will get this needed work done.

There are some essential things to be accomplished in this legislation. There is an oversight in the bill that results in the Surface Transportation Research Development and Deployment account being oversubscribed. People say, who cares.

Well, actually it means that critical programs for the Federal Highway Administration Legacy Research and research programs will not be funded, and that creates a major problem. For instance, this would mean that we would not get the biennial ``Conditions and Performance Report.'' If we are going to maintain and improve our Nation's transportation infrastructure, we need to understand its status, its condition, and its need for future investment as we move toward yet another transportation bill in the coming Congress.

It provides appraisals of highways, bridges, and transit finance, their expenditures in those accounts, and compares it to the needs we have, operational performance and future investment requirements.

It also would free up additional funding for the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, something that was created as part of SAFETEA-LU and has yet to get its work accomplished. We have charged them with both looking at and assessing the future needs, building on the requirements I just mentioned, the annual reports of the Department of Transportation, but even going beyond that to determine our infrastructure needs both to maintain the current infrastructure, to enhance it, and to mitigate congestion and to move toward a less congested and more fuel-efficient transportation future.

They have also been charged with looking at how we pay for these vital investments and assessing the current revenue source, the gas tax, and some assorted excise taxes with future needs. This is again critical work to be done by that commission.

This will better fund their work and give them some of the staff assistance they need, give them the capability of obtaining the data that they need, and extend the deadline for the report to Congress, which will be a crucial building block in the next transportation bill, by 6 months. We have now set a deadline of December 31, 2007.

The bill also clarifies something regarding a sense of Congress regarding the buy America requirement. We feel that the Federal Highway Administration is not implementing the Buy America Act consistent with our, Congress's, statutory intent. They are beginning to break projects down into segments in a way that was not anticipated so that they can basically go around some of the buy America requirements. We want to reinforce here that the separate component test is not what we intended, and the amendment included in this bill is intended to clarify congressional intent and provide guidance to the Federal Highway Administration in the implementation of that section of the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Absolutely. The gentleman from Alaska has had extensive conversation with the chairman of the committee. It is my understanding that he is fully committed to helping resolve this issue.

There is a problem with retroactive reimbursement, but we are looking at other ways to deal with critical access to a vital health facility in Anchorage.

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

I want to thank the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) for his leadership as chairman of the full committee as we went through that process in the last Congress, and also the fact that he is willing to get out front at the beginning to begin to try to address what is actually an investment deficit so far as it goes to transportation in the United States, something that can be easily recognized if one travels to other countries and sees how committed they are, particularly to competitors like China and the investments they are making which are absolutely on a massive scale to make their economy more efficient to move their people more efficiently.

We need to not only maintain what we have and live on the benefits of our past investment; we need to ensure more robust future investments. I assure the gentleman I have begun a series of hearings that are on two tracks in the subcommittee I chair to look both at the future investment needs and also potential ways to raise the funds we need to make those investments.

I look forward to working with the gentleman and others as we go through that process.

I do want to assure Members since there is a new sensitivity around here about PAYGO that H.R. 1195 complies fully with House budget rules; and although it only addresses changes to previously authorized projects, not new projects, it also fully adheres to the new House Member earmark disclosure requirements.

This is legislation that I recommend wholly to my colleagues, and they can vote for it in good conscience. It will help build our future and realize the full dream of SAFETEA-LU as we move through its full term.

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

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

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.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Florida, the ranking member, for yielding me this time; and I thank him for giving me the privilege of serving as the ranking member of the Highway and Transit Subcommittee. It is a pleasure to work with him and Chairman Oberstar and with my good friend, Chairman Peter DeFazio, on the Highway and Transit Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3248 make technical corrections to the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, or what we typically call SAFETEA-LU.

This is the fourth time we have worked to finalize these technical corrections to SAFETEA-LU. During the 109th Congress, the House passed H.R. 5689, a bill to make technical corrections to SAFETEA-LU in June, 2006. During the summer and fall of 2006, we worked with the Senate to create the bipartisan H.R. 6233, which was a very similar product to the bill that we passed at the beginning of this Congress. Now we are trying again; and hopefully this bill, H.R. 3248, will go to the President for his signature of this very necessary bill.

As my colleagues have said, this bill makes numerous technical corrections to the Federal Surface Transportation Programs authorized by SAFETEA-LU. The technical corrections included in this bill have been identified by the Department of Transportation and State DOTs and are mostly of a conforming nature or to correct drafting errors.

The most important correction we are making is to strengthen the Federal Highway Research Program by ensuring the continuation of the legacy research programs carried out by the Department of Transportation. This research hopefully will lead to not only safer highways but also less congestion, which is very, very important to this Nation, that we work on that.

The largest section of this bill is section 105, which makes changes to almost 350 of the high-priority projects in section 1702 of SAFETEA- LU. These changes address ``broken'' surface transportation projects, clarifying recipients and increasing certain project funding levels and decreasing others to achieve budget neutrality.

I especially appreciate the fact that Chairman Oberstar and Ranking Member Mica have allowed me to put in language that will allow the city of Knoxville to go forward with a very important transit center project; and, also, I am very pleased that we are rearranging some funding so that the very small town of Calhoun, Tennessee, in my district, can pave some roads. This is very, very important to them. So often we leave out the small towns in rural areas or they don't get nearly as much attention and funding as the big cities do.

This is a very good bill, and I urge the support of all of my colleagues. I think it is one that will pass with total bipartisan support.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding me this time.

The trial lawyers have an uncanny way of making their living. Although the title of this legislation is a technical corrections bill, one glaring technical correction that needs to be made is left out.

As the ranking member said earlier tonight, the original SAFETEA-LU bill amended the definition of a commercial motor vehicle to exclude vehicles 10,000 pounds and less. The Department of Transportation had never issued regulations of this type of vehicle, which is essentially a small van or something smaller. It seemed to clear up the books and just make sense when it was done at the time. All too often what seems to be a simple idea ends up having much more significant consequences.

What was considered a cleaning up of the books turned out to be a dramatic shift in labor law. The Fair Labor Standards Act exempts drivers of vehicles that can be regulated by the Secretary of Transportation. The definitional change of a commercial vehicle unwittingly brought a whole new class of employee under that act.

In writing the provision, neither Congress nor the administration intended to fundamentally alter our national labor policies, but that is exactly what happened.

What are the consequences? As I said, the trial lawyers have an uncanny ability to find sources to make money off of. Companies across the country that believed that their business model was and is perfectly legal because it had been may get a knock on the door from their friendly neighborhood trial lawyer informing them that they are now liable for overtime wages dating back to August 15, 2005, when SAFETEA-LU was signed into law.

Congress didn't know what they had done. The administration didn't know

they had done this. How can we expect a small delivery service or some satellite dish installer or plumber to know that their business model is no longer viable?

No one will argue that people aren't entitled to a fair and equitable, appropriate wage, but if we are going to significantly alter national labor law, we should have a full and open debate and we should do it intentionally, not by accident and not by trial lawyers. I think that is the one glaring omission from this act. If we would fix that, we would have a number of employers from around this country who would be safe from more trial lawyer, frivolous lawsuits.

Shouldn't we ensure that companies are held liable? Sure, but we should do it as a Congress in a knowing way, a way that is befitting of this body, not by accident. We should not make them pay for our Congress' mistakes.