Floor Statements

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.

Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairman Shuster for yielding.

I rise in very strong support of H.R. 4, the reauthorization bill.

The Subcommittee on Aviation began the reauthorization process over 3 years ago, a very long process. In that time, we have held a series of roundtables and hearings on the state of the FAA's certification and safety processes, regulatory efforts, airport grant programs, customer service, and the air traffic control system.

The subcommittee also had more than 200 stakeholder meetings in order to gather feedback and hear from various constituencies to understand what would work in the real world--not what 535 Members of Congress may think, but to get input from the people who have to make it work every day.

I want to thank those who came to the table willing to share their thoughts and to work together with us.

With the passage of H.R. 4, we will be taking an important step toward ensuring the FAA and our aviation industry does not suffer through another long series of extensions.

Unfortunately, it seems like just about every year Congress is voting to keep the government open, while the FAA and nearly 4,000 of the FAA's incredible employees, who are my constituents working at the Technical Center in Egg Harbor Township, which is at the Atlantic City Airport, are forced to make preparations in case they have to shut down.

Now, just so everybody understands, when we do an extension, we generally don't act on it until the last minute. These dedicated employees, these engineers in these laboratories that only exist at this Tech Center, are forced to stop their work and prepare for a shutdown. This costs a tremendous amount of dollars each time we do this. Hopefully, with the passage of this bill, we will be able to avoid that.

H.R. 4 also provides the long-term authorization of the FAA, which will allow us to avoid the shutdowns and these threats of shutdowns. This means that important safety projects will be

able to move forward without the inefficient starts and stops and they come without any hesitation, as we have seen in the past.

Most importantly, FAA employees, including, again, dedicated employees of my Tech Center--now, just keep in mind, this is the premier facility in the Nation for safety, security, research, and development. As I mentioned before, these laboratories don't exist anywhere else. Many of these engineers' expertise doesn't exist anywhere else. This will enable them to help keep the United States premier in the world.

Mr. Larsen referenced our position in the world. We don't want that challenged. We want this bill to be able to allow us as an economic driver. When you start looking at the numbers of what aviation means to the economy of the United States, you get an understanding of how critically important this is.

We have worked closely with a number of constituency groups, and I think we have included their provisions in this bill.

I want to point out that some of these battles take a while. And very diligently and very forcefully, the flight attendants have made their case for the 10-hour rest period. As mentioned by Mr. DeFazio, this is something that we don't want flight attendants being fatigued no more than we want pilots being fatigued.

Mr. Chair, I thank Chairman Shuster for including this in the bill.

Mr. Chair, as we move forward, I want to particularly thank Rick Larsen, who has been a great partner. For those who may not be aware, Rick and I have been together first through the Coast Guard and Maritime Subcommittee and now through the Aviation Subcommittee. I think the relationship that we have and what we have been able to do is a model that can and should be worked for the rest of Congress. It is one that I cherish and value. And, Mr. Chair, I thank Mr. Larsen again very much.

Mr. Chair, I also want to thank Peter DeFazio for being a good partner and thank Bill Shuster for helping me become Aviation chair 6 years ago, putting his faith in me. I think we have had a great partnership. Mr. Shuster has been a great leader in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. I value our relationship. I value our work together.

Mr. Chair, I urge everyone to support this bill. I think it is going to move America forward.

Mr. Speaker, I will miss votes scheduled for Wednesday, February 14 and Thursday, February 15, 2018 due to the planned funeral of my oldest brother George LoBiondo in Rosenhayn, New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Montana for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring H.R. 4285, to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 123 Bridgeton Pike in Mullica Hill, New Jersey, as the James C. ``Billy'' Johnson Post Office Building, to the floor for consideration.

Second Lieutenant Johnson was born and raised in my district in Richwood, New Jersey, in 1920. Due to his strong desire to serve his country, Billy enlisted as a private in the United States Army in 1941. He was later commissioned as an officer.

He was assigned to the 370th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Division during the height of the Italian Campaign in World War II. Second Lieutenant Johnson made the ultimate sacrifice for his country when he was tragically killed in action in October of 1944.

It is because of his steadfast commitment to his country, along with his valor and dedication to his country, that I support the naming of this post office after Second Lieutenant Johnson.

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, Ms. Waters, Mr. Hensarling, and Mr. Duffy, for their work on this bill, and especially to my good friend, Steve Scalise.

I know there was an effort to do this the right way, but I rise in opposition for a couple of reasons. First, I am disappointed. I am disappointed because we, in this body, had an opportunity to have a bipartisan bill that would have probably generated more than 400 votes, that we would have had a big high-five moment, and we could have moved forward. The Senate would have taken it. The President would have taken it.

But now we have a situation that makes me angry--angry because we are picking winners and losers, angry because the misery index for some Members is more important than the misery index in my district or the Northeast.

Five years ago, we were about a month after Superstorm Sandy. We had political hand-to-hand combat to get what the rest of the Nation has gotten almost automatically with every natural disaster in the whole course of our Nation's history. But no, Superstorm Sandy, there had to be an offset. We barely got the help we needed.

This is all tied in together because we still have people suffering in New Jersey and New York and the Northeast from the aftermath of Sandy, and it is tied into this with Federal flood insurance. It is critically important.

And why should it be that the concerns of my district and the people who I represent have any less of an influence on what happens here?

I am angry, and I am disappointed that I have to fight with my own party on these issues. I am not at all sorry to stand up as strongly as I can for the constituents who deserve this--hardworking people who are trying to stay in their homes.

I know the program has problems. I know we have to do this in a different way, and we have had an opportunity to do it in a bipartisan way, where all of our constituents should have been helped, instead of picking winners and losers.

I am sick and tired of having to defend the people in my district and the people in the Northeast from policies that don't mean the right thing for us.

Please do the right thing; vote ``no.'' Let's come back with a bill that makes sense.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 276) a bill to amend title 49, United States Code, to ensure reliable air service in American Samoa, 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. 276.

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

I rise today in support of H.R. 276, as amended. This bill will improve transportation in American Samoa by making air service between its islands more reliable and predictable.

Specifically, the bill streamlines a burdensome Federal regulatory process that artificially inhibits economic growth and jobs on the islands. The Senate unanimously passed similar legislation in the last Congress, and I am hopeful they will join with us this year in addressing this issue.

I want to thank the sponsor of the bill, the gentlewoman from American Samoa (Mrs. Radewagen), for her tireless efforts on behalf of her constituents and for working with us to bring a bill that benefits so many of them to the floor.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 276.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen) and the staff for their help on this.

I urge all Members to support H.R. 276, as amended.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to amend the title of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove all cosponsors from H.R. 416.

Amendment XXV:

Section 1:

``In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.''

Section 2:

``Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.''

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5266) to reauthorize the National Estuary Programs, and for other purposes, 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 materials on H.R. 5266.

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

First, I want to thank Mr. Shuster, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Bishop, and Mr. Larsen for helping me bring H.R. 5266, the National Estuary Programs Reauthorization, to the floor.

I also want to thank my colleagues, Mr. Posey and Mr. Murphy of Florida, in helping me get this legislation drafted and ushered through the committee in a bipartisan way.

This version of the National Estuary Programs Reauthorization is fiscally responsible by reducing the authorization levels by $8 million, while ultimately increasing the amount of money each estuary program will receive. This reauthorization will detail just how the EPA is to spend the authorized and appropriated money.

Unlike many programs under the Clean Water Act, the National Estuary Program is a nonregulatory program; instead, it is designed to support the collaborative voluntary efforts of Federal, State, and local stakeholders to restore degraded estuaries.

Unfortunately, National Estuary Programs have been losing money due to the EPA administrative costs. By setting limits of 5 percent for administrative costs for the EPA, we can guarantee 80 percent of the funding goes to the end user and the NEP and not bureaucratic salaries and red tape.

In this year's reauthorization, we have also set aside 15 percent of the funding for a competitive award program. This program will seek applications meant to deal with urgent and challenging issues that threaten the ecological and economic well-being of coastal areas.

By structuring how the money is spent and lowering authorization levels, this legislation strikes the right balance of fiscal and environmental responsibilities. I urge all Members to support H.R. 5266.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Posey).

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time, but I do not have any more speakers.

Mr. Speaker, again, I thank my colleagues Mr. Bishop, Mr. Larsen, Mr. Shuster, and Mr. Gibbs. I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting this important legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I join in with congratulations to Donald Norcross. I have known Donald for a number of years as a State legislator, and before that, we worked together at a local level.

Donald will always put his constituents first. He will always put his district first. He will be a great asset to this Congress, and I look forward to working with you, Donald. Congratulations.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Stone Harbor, NJ resident Colonel Paul G. Humphreys of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) who will retire from the United States Army on July 1, 2014, after twenty-eight years of distinguished service. Colonel Humphreys significantly contributed to the global fight against IEDs during his final tour of duty as JIEDDO's Chief of Staff. His efforts improved the safety and security of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines as they operate in areas plagued by IEDs.

Colonel Humphreys is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, Class of 1986. During his 26-year career as an infantry officer, he has commanded from the platoon to battalion level and served in numerous staff assignments from brigade to Joint headquarters. He completed five combat tours to include Operation Just Cause, Operation Desert Storm, Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom I and III and most recently Operation New Dawn.

Colonel Humphreys has earned numerous awards and decorations including the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal and the Army Achievement Medal, among others.

I am proud to share in the celebration of Colonel Humphreys' military career. I would also like to congratulate his wife, Tammy, and his children, Devon, Brandon, Aubrie and Rhianna--whose love and support has aided and strengthened Colonel Humphreys as he has served our great Nation. I wish him all the best in his retirement.

I thank you, Chairman Frelinghuysen, and also want to thank Ranking Member Peter Visclosky for setting an example of how to take care of our Nation's dramatic needs and do it in an inclusive, bipartisan fashion.

Chairman Frelinghuysen has shown great leadership in providing the resources our warfighters need to successfully defend our Nation, both here and abroad. He and I have often worked together on issues of shared interest, and I thank him for engaging with me on this very important issue.

Currently, the aircraft that are meant to protect our Nation's sovereign air space from both domestic and foreign threats, and also are routinely deployed, with the big Air Force, into war theaters overseas have gone without much-needed upgrades.

The F-16 Block 30 aircraft are tasked with a mission that absolutely cannot fail. The 177th Fighter Wing out of Atlantic City, New Jersey, along with other Air National Guard wings throughout the country, are assigned this critically important task of ensuring our home defense and, again, being able to integrate fully with the big Air Force into conflicts overseas, as they have done multiple times and, in fact, they are doing right now as we speak.

Due to the reduction of modernization programs, these F-16 Block 30 aircraft are without key combat avionic upgrades, such as the Scalable Agile Beam Radar.

Threats to our Nation continue to grow all over the world, from sovereign countries and terrorist organizations alike. The diversity of threats means that these aircraft must have the latest capability to make split-second decisions to protect our Nation here and abroad.

I ask that the chairman work with me to ensure that our Nation's airspace is properly defended, and that these F-16 aircraft are properly fitted for the threats of the 21st century.

With that, I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen).

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise for the purpose of engaging in a colloquy with the gentleman from Virginia, Chairman Wolf, and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Keating).

NOAA's habitat restoration programs yield substantial, long-term economic value and help create jobs, not only along the Jersey Shore, but among all coastal areas throughout this Nation. It is my understanding that the fiscal year 2015 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill provides $25 million for habitat conservation and restoration, including sustainable habitat management, but it appears that no funding is specifically designated for the fisheries habitat restoration.

As you move forward with this bill, I ask that you try to fund NOAA's fisheries habitat restoration programs and thereby allow NOAA to continue supporting community-based restoration and provide expertise to the natural resource damage assessment restoration efforts. Fisheries habitat restoration directly supports the volunteer rebuilding of sustainable fisheries and recovery of these federally listed species.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

I thank the chairman. I thank Mr. Keating.

I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

I thank the chairman, I thank my colleagues, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Polis