Frank A. LoBiondo

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California for the kind words and for his service to our country, and I say ditto about an honor to serve with him and everyone else in this body.

I rise today to urge passage of H.R. 6602, to reauthorize the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail. This was something that I worked on with the late Senator Frank Lautenberg a number of years ago.

Since its inception in 1988, the Coastal Heritage Trail has been a major success throughout my district, as well as the entire State.

Now, although there are 12 Members of Congress from the State of New Jersey, the Second Congressional District, which I have had the honor of representing, is about 40 percent of the State geographically, so this trail spans nearly 300 miles, covering much of New Jersey's coastline. It was designed to provide an educational and enjoyable understanding of the natural, maritime, and cultural sites of our coast, which, I must admit, are many.

The Coastal Heritage Trail is divided into five regions linked by the common heritage of life on the Jersey shore, as well as the Raritan and Delaware Bays.

Finally, this trail has been a great example of the work that can be done through collaboration with public and private partnerships, and I think the success of the trail is really because of these collaborations and the different, various groups that have come together to understand how working together can really make a difference.

Through partnership with the National Park Service, Congress, and local organizations, the Coastal Heritage Trail has received support and has been beautifully maintained until authorization recently lapsed. With this lapse of authorization, the public sector groups and the private sector

groups were not able to maintain the trail, which they had most of the resource to take care of this. So it has been a big problem with the lapse.

Mr. Speaker, it is time to redesignate this trail so it can be enjoyed by countless residents and visitors to New Jersey for many years to come. I urge passage of H.R. 6602. I thank my colleagues for considering this, and I very much appreciate the opportunity to move this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Shuster for yielding.

It is an honor to have represented the Coast Guard's only recruit training center in the Nation which is in my district. It is an honor to have represented the Coast Guard Air Station in Atlantic City, which is the largest helicopter air station that the Coast Guard has.

Most of all, I want to recognize the men and women of the Coast Guard whom this bill will benefit. There are very few issues that have been so bipartisan across the board in my time here

in Congress. When I first came, I didn't really understand the commitment that the men and women of the Coast Guard continue to make for our Nation, always being asked to do more and given less to do it.

In many respects I wish we could have done more over the years, but to be able to move forward with a bill like this that is so bipartisan I think speaks to our commitment as a legislative body to the men and women to whom we owe so much that protect our country.

I want to particularly thank Geoff Gosselin who is now with the full Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, but was on my staff for a number of years and really did an amazing and outstanding job with Coast Guard issues for me in helping me to understand them and move them forward. So I want to thank all of my colleagues who have made this day possible.

Mr. Speaker, this is a day we should all celebrate. It is not that often we have an opportunity to have a bipartisan, bicameral bill that does so much to help America.

There are a lot of thank yous to go around. You have heard about the particulars of the bill. I want to thank Bill Shuster, who has been a very good friend and has put his faith and trust in allowing me to chair the Aviation Subcommittee 6 years. I thank Peter DeFazio and Rick Larsen for their help. Rick has been a partner with me on Coast Guard and aviation issues.

Also, the staff doesn't get enough thanks for the time and energy and work they put into it. I thank Holly Lyons, Naveen Rao, and Hunter Presti for all they have done over the years to make this committee move forward. And very special thanks to Geoff Gosselin, who was my legislative director for a number of years and has been a part of the major committee staff for a long time.

This is really important to me. Aviation and the FAA has been a passion for me for all of my years in Congress. I have the honor of representing the Federal Aviation Administration's crown jewel technical center, which is in my district. The technical center is the heartbeat of aviation and the FAA in America. It is, as I said, the crown jewel for safety and security, and for keeping our Nation safe with the greatest aviation system in the world.

But it is not because of the sophisticated laboratories and equipment. Yes, we have all that. It is the thousands of men and women who work there who put their heart, soul, energy, and enthusiasm into the dedication of making sure that our aviation system in the United States of America is the finest and the best. This bill will give the certainty and stability for them to do their job for 5 years.

As you heard Chairman Shuster say, this has not happened since 1982. So for the men and women of the tech center, for the heart and soul that you have put into our system, God bless you and thank you for doing the great job that you do.