Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include tabular and extraneous material on H.R. 5850.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, it is my privilege and pleasure to present the fiscal year 2011 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies appropriations bill to the House.

I want to thank all of the subcommittee members for their input and help with writing this bill. In particular, I would like to recognize my ranking member, Tom Latham, for his valuable insights during the 13 hearings the subcommittee held covering the budgets and the challenges facing transportation and housing. We do not always agree, but I greatly appreciate his partnership, and his input has made the bill better.

I also want to recognize the hard work of our staff, specifically on the minority side, Dena Baron--who I notice is soon to multiply--Matt McCardle and Doug Bobbitt, and on the majority side, Kate Hallahan, David Napoliello, Laura Hogshead, Sylvia Garcia, Patrick Hatch, Eve Goldsher, Kristin Palmer, and Blair Anderson. My ranking member and I are lucky to have such a dedicated staff who work amicably and respectfully together. They have spent many late nights putting this bill together, and we would not be here today without their hard work.

The committee-reported bill provides $67.4 billion in discretionary resources, a decrease of $500 million below the FY 2010 enacted level and more than $1.3 billion below the President's request. Within an allocation that is 2 percent below the President's request, we have still been able to develop a bill that creates jobs through investments in infrastructure and supports families that have been hit the hardest by the foreclosure crisis. These targeted increases are possible because the bill makes a number of significant reductions from the budget request by not funding $4.8 billion in new, unauthorized initiatives that were proposed by the administration, including the National Infrastructure Bank, the Choice Neighborhoods program, and a major program to transform how our 3,200 public housing authorities function.

Specifically within transportation, investments are targeted to areas that will create skilled jobs immediately and build the infrastructure that underpins future economic growth. The fact remains that our transportation network has great investment needs with aging highways, bridges, and transit systems, and an air traffic control system in desperate need of modernization. It is my belief that we can no longer defer investments in our transportation systems, which provide the foundation for our Nation's economy.

Specifically, the bill provides: $45.2 billion for the Federal Highway Administration, which is an increase of $3.9 billion above the President's request, that will allow States to complete additional infrastructure projects, spur the economy, and create approximately 142,000 new jobs.

It provides $11.3 billion for public transportation programs, an increase in total budgetary resources of $508 million above the President's request, in order to help address the nearly $80 billion maintenance backlog needed to meet a state of good repair on the Nation's fixed guideway and bus systems.

It provides a total of $3.2 billion for Amtrak, the High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail program, and investments in Positive Train Control. This includes a $127.5 million increase for the first year of Amtrak's fleet plan that will support the development of a domestic manufacturing base for locomotives and railcars, and it provides $1.16 billion for NextGen, to modernize our outdated air traffic control system, which will reduce operational costs and allow airlines to utilize our airspace more efficiently.

Within housing, we were able to use a portion of the savings, which I mentioned above, to fill holes where the President eliminated or deeply cut vital programs, including:

Restoring funding to construct housing units for the elderly and disabled to their fiscal 2010 levels;

Restoring $75 million for 10,000 new VASH housing vouchers, which continues Congress' commitment to homeless veterans;

Providing $200 million for HOPE VI to rehabilitate the most severely distressed public housing communities in the Nation; and

Restoring $455 million to the Public Housing Capital Fund to help Public Housing Authorities make critical repairs and improvements to public housing units. Every dollar invested in this program returns over $2 to the local economies and to the construction industry.

This bill also recognizes that, as the foreclosure crisis continues and with experts estimating that a record 1 million households will lose homes in 2010, access to supportive services is critical.

To that extent, the bill continues the National Reinvestment Corporation's Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program, because homeowners who receive such counseling through this program are 60 percent more likely to avoid foreclosure than those who do not use such aid. It provides $2.2 billion for homeless assistance grants to shelter families forced from their homes, and it takes a strong step forward in our commitment to reducing chronic homelessness.

Overall, HUD programs are maintained at levels that will ensure affordable housing opportunities are available as families recover from the economic downturn.

More broadly, this bill recognizes that the current paradigm in which affordable housing is connected to unaffordable commutes is unsustainable for families' budgets. As such, the bill provides $677 million to coordinate transportation and infrastructure investments with the availability of housing and community services in order to decrease transportation costs, improve access to jobs and services, promote healthy communities, and enhance community connectivity.

Finally, I expect many Members to come before this body today to talk about reducing spending and the moral imperative of not leaving a deficit for future generations. Let me remind everyone that the investments in this bill address another looming deficit, specifically our transportation and housing infrastructure deficit.

The Department of Transportation's most recent Conditions and Performance Report indicates there is an annual investment gap of $26.9 billion to maintain our current system of highways and bridges and an annual gap of $95.9 billion to improve the system. Every dollar deferred today will catch up to the next generation in the form of falling bridges, broken roads, deteriorating housing, and an economy choked by congestion.

In conclusion, we worked hard to balance many competing needs to produce a bill that reflects the bipartisan needs of transportation and housing and that puts Americans back to work. I am pleased with the product, and I urge Members to support it.

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I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the chairman of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick), a very valued member of the Appropriations subcommittee.

I yield the gentlelady 1 additional minute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel), who is a member of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I yield an additional minute to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean) for the purposes of a colloquy.

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I am glad to work with the gentlewoman from Illinois on grade separation issues which impact our transportation networks and communities across the country, all over the country. The problem you describe is exactly the type of project that should be addressed in the TIGER grant program, which works to address transportation issues of regional and national significance and particularly ones which are intermodal in nature.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore) for the purposes of a colloquy.

I thank the gentlewoman from Wisconsin for raising this issue, and I've come to realize and I appreciate how important this bridge is to you and your constituents.

The committee, which looks at many critical infrastructure issues like this one across the country, stands ready to work with you on this project in the future.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I understand that the distinguished minority leader has this amendment which will terminate the doctoral dissertation research program at HUD. Even though I believe strongly in the value of good research and what such good research can play in improving the effectiveness of government programs over time, I'm willing to accept the gentleman's amendment in the spirit of comity.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the distinguished minority leader.

The bill before us includes $40 million for HUD to provide technical assistance to nonprofit organizations, cities, States on how to use HUD funding efficiently and effectively.

The amendment removes every penny, every penny, of this technical

assistance funding from HUD. It is a meat axe amendment.

Cutting funding for technical assistance does nothing but make the programs less effective, which I doubt is the gentleman's intent. In fact, technical assistance is the only way that communities can increase their capacity and improve program delivery to their vulnerable populations who need assistance.

Technical assistance funding allows HUD to train communities' own staff on the issues that most affect their particular population. For example, technical assistance funds are used to enhance and inform responses to the foreclosure crisis when HUD provides funding for foreclosure counseling and renovating vacant homes.

These funds are responsive to need. They address broader social and economic imperatives, such as the recent increase in the homeless population, which has been brought on by the longest and deepest recession since the Second World War.

To deny communities technical assistance is to render the HUD programs less effective than they can and should be, and that, very simply, slows down the recovery.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the gentleman's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

The amendment by the distinguished minority leader would cut the DOT budget office to below last year's funding level. Even though I believe that these funds are needed at the department and that we have added much new work to the load in the Department of Transportation through the recovery legislation, with some misgiving, I will, again, in an effort at comity and bipartisanship, accept the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to this amendment, but I don't plan to oppose it.

Because I recognize that while this amendment has been signed by eight or 10 Members, that there are a good many other Members who could have signed the amendment who have districts where anywhere from 20 to 30, and sometimes even higher, percentages of all the housing in those districts have either gone through foreclosure and actually foreclosed, or are in foreclosure processes, or in a third case--maybe it's a fourth case--are under water in the sense that the value of their home is less, by sometimes substantial amounts, than the remaining mortgage principle.

I understand that this amendment is designed to draw attention to the national foreclosure crisis, which is still raging in too many communities, and which began more than 3 years ago--actually, probably the seeds were sown for the foreclosure crisis earlier in the decade, and some would say all the way back into the 1980s, much more than a decade ago.

I agree that more needs to be done to help families who are struggling with foreclosure. I would hope that the Department of Treasury, which has been spearheading the administration's efforts thus far, would increase collaboration with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the FDIC and the newly-created Foreclosure Task Force, which the gentlewoman and the other Members who are signers are members of.

I believe the Secretary of HUD is the right person to be helping us through this crisis. So I will be happy to work with the gentlewoman and the other members of the task force in order to ensure that the hardest hit areas of the country receiving funding through what are the remaining sources of potential funding: Number one, the third round of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program that was funded within the financial services reform law signed just last week, and also the remainder of funds that are to be brought back from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which was first passed in 2008 in the HERA bill, which clearly gave out more money than they were able to effectively expend when that was given out later in 2008.

In the end, this amendment cuts all travel, which would eliminate critical oversight and the monitoring of housing programs for low- income Americans. I know that is not the intent of the gentlewoman or of the other signers of the amendment. I am willing to accept the gentlewoman's amendment as offered at this time. Going forward, I will work with the gentlewoman and with the signers of the amendment to ensure that housing for low-income individuals is not jeopardized down the road.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire of the time I have remaining?

I yield my remaining 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Will the gentleman yield?

I understand that this amendment will reduce funding for policy development and research staff at HUD by $2,978,450. Even though, as I've said earlier in comments to the distinguished minority leader, that I believe strongly in the role of research, I will, with some misgiving, accept the gentleman's amendment.

I claim time in opposition, though I am not opposed to the amendment.

I appreciate the work the gentleman has done, and I accept the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise in opposition to the amendment.

This amendment would cut $1.8 billion in areas that include important increases above the President's budget. And let me simply remind people that our budget, as brought forward, is $1.3 billion below the President's request. This amendment proposes to remove another $1.8 billion. It is the legislative branch's clearly stated constitutional responsibility to appropriate the proper allocation of resources. And that responsibility must not be ceded to the executive branch.

This amendment would result in cuts to a number of programs that are critical to creating jobs, increasing transportation safety, and restoring support to programs serving vulnerable Americans across the country. It removes $400 million from the TIGER grant program, where for the $1.5 billion Recovery Act TIGER grant program, the requests coming from all of the 50 States were almost $57 billion, showing how much this kind of infrastructure was needed. This funding would have a positive impact on the economy, create thousands of jobs, and occur over a several-year period, thereby serving as a slow release remedy to keep the recovery going as it ought to do.

The amendment also cuts $400 million from the high-speed rail program, which is designed to continue building a high-speed passenger rail network. This again would create jobs and help reinvigorate our manufacturing base. That again, for moneys for appropriations in the Recovery Act, received 259 applications totaling $56 billion for the $8 billion it was provided in the Recovery Act. And the additional moneys are needed to keep investments, not that we put investments in in these places and don't actually produce something, that those continue so that you can complete jobs that will allow more high-speed rail programs in this country, as others have already spoken of.

The amendment would cut $178 million from the FTA's capital investment funds, the New Starts and Small Starts program, cut that back to the 2010 level. It would cut $24 million from FTA's safety activities, if those are authorized. And I need to point out that while the funds are only available to the FTA if the authorizing legislation is enacted, the need for additional transit safety oversight is immense. We have had several accidents on several of our major transit systems. And DOT needs the ability to hire safety personnel to provide oversight.

The amendment would cut $456 million from the Public Housing Capital Fund. Again, that supports renovation and construction of public housing units, where there is a backlog of $25 billion in needs that have been identified in that program.

It would cut $175 million from the HOME Investment Partnerships Program to restore funding to the 2010 level. The HOME is the largest Federal block grant to State and local governments designed exclusively to create affordable for low-income households.

It is a homeownership program for low-income households. We can't afford to cut these programs, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this amendment. All of these are job-creating investments in our infrastructure and provide critical construction jobs in an industry that has been decimated.

While they are not all fast release, they are long-term remedies, as I suggested, for the longest recession since World War II.

I rise to claim time in opposition to the amendment.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham).

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

That is correct.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I rise in strong opposition to the amendment. Actually this is about the worst kind of amendment that you can have, because it provides no indication of priorities whatsoever. It just cuts everything in the whole government an equal percentage amount and gives no priority indication whatsoever.

Let me tell you what this amendment ends up doing. In the Department of Housing and Urban Development, this amendment would mean a reduction of more than $3 billion for section 8 tenant based vouchers. Simply, that means that about 450,000 of this country's lowest income citizens would no longer be able to afford their monthly rent.

In addition, the project based section 8 program would see about a $1.7 billion reduction in it, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Americans there unable to afford a roof over their head. Homelessness would be increased dramatically and more Americans would require assistance through HUD's homeless program. Unfortunately, the homeless program would itself be receiving a massive cut of nearly $400 million, making service at the current levels quite impossible, at the same time that we would be creating more homeless people.

In the Department of Transportation, this amendment would eliminate more than $3 billion worth of funding from the Federal Aviation Administration. That would just about assure a part-time air traffic control system which would put us in severe safety jeopardy. Add to that the more than $2 billion which would be cut from the Federal Transit Administration, eliminating some of the best transportation options that are available to millions of Americans, and everyone here can begin to truly see the repercussions of this amendment.

Fiscal prudence simply cannot mean turning hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes, eliminating almost a quarter of a million jobs, and creating real transportation safety concerns.

This bill is wisely balanced to meet the needs of citizens within current fiscal constraints. In fact, Mr. Chairman, I am asking you a question if I may: Is this amendment--since I am supposed to address all comments through the Chair--is this amendment deliberately designed to prolong the great recession and send America back into a double dip recession or a great depression? Because that's what happened. In the Great Depression, we went into a double dip recession, or a depression, and ended up with that depression lasting at least twice as long as it otherwise would have.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has made some comments. He is entitled to his opinions, but he cannot create his own history.

He has said that history shows that you cannot raise taxes and have a growing economy. That is completely belied by President Clinton's economic program in the early nineties when taxes were raised, with Republicans--the gentleman's party--claiming that that would destroy the economy. And yet the economy grew the fastest that it has done. We created 20 million jobs during the rest of the Clinton administration. That compares with the puny number of jobs, about one-quarter of that number, that were created during the time that Mr. Bush was in the White House the same number of years. With that, I just must point out that the gentleman is trying to re-create and create his own history.

We should defeat this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise to claim time in opposition, though I do not oppose the amendment.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham) for comments.

Mr. Chairman, I would just say to my ranking member that I had exactly the same reaction to this and was all prepared to get very excited and oppose this one adamantly, but we were assured that a re- look at the HECM situation and the needs there indicated that it could yield this $10 million offset.

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

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

I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished chairman of the authorizing committee, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

I again yield such time as he may consume to the chairman of the authorizing committee, Mr. Oberstar.

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition, though I am not opposed to the amendment.

I'm very sensitive to the issues that the gentlewoman has raised, and I think these are very modest changes and I'm quite willing to accept the amendment that she has proposed.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I would oppose the amendment, both as the gentleman has described it and also as it is written. As the amendment is written and in our hands, it is a straight across-the-board amendment of a couple of billion dollars difference from the one that was offered by Mr. Culberson earlier and has been defeated by roll call vote in the last round of roll calls.

As described by the gentleman, he is dealing with monies that are not yet expended in the Recovery Act.

And those monies in the Recovery Act are ones that are, in the Recovery Act, those are monies, some of which are under high-speed rail or TIGER Grants, those monies have not yet been fully obligated, but they were not expected ever to have expended out in this first couple of years of the Recovery Act's life.

They were expected to be expended within the next 2 or 3 years at our given time until the end of fiscal 2012 to be expended. Others are being expended and really going into jobs right now, day after day after day. Every day, more of the monies that spend out more rapidly get used and get counted as having been expended at the end of every month.

But the amendment that is in our hands is specifically merely a sum of money taken off the bottom line of the bill on all appropriated funds, which is all of the discretionary $67 billion, and $10 billion off $67 billion would be about 16 or so, 15 or 16 percent of that appropriated money that the bill involved. But it has nothing to do with monies that are related to the ARRA.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, but the gentleman is not talking about the amendment that is before us. He is talking about a different issue, about money that has not been expended in ARRA funds or money that has not yet been expended in the 2010. I am not quite sure which it is.

But the amendment that is before us, at least as we have understood it, as we have it given to us, is an amendment that simply takes from the bottom line of the bill before us from the discretionary amount a total of $10.5 billion, and I must oppose that proposal.

In closing, I just want to repeat again that our bill is already $1.3 billion below the President's request that, as I had said earlier today, and have said at least twice, that we have used the President's request. We have not funded, in the base bill that is here today, several items that have never been authorized and really require authorization that total $4.8 billion.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition to the gentleman's amendment, though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa.

I thank the gentleman for his comments and I agree with him totally. These kinds of disasters need to be taken care of as soon as can be possible after they occur.

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

Will the gentleman yield?

We carried this amendment last year. We accepted this amendment last year, and I am perfectly happy to accept the amendment again this year if that is acceptable to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment as presented by the gentlewoman from Arizona.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment provides a new wrinkle on what we have been dealing with earlier. Again, this is somewhat different from what the gentlewoman has expressed, but as written, it reads, ``Each amount appropriated or otherwise made available by this act that is not required to be appropriated or otherwise made available by a provision of law is hereby reduced by 5 percent.'' Now, what that means is it's not just discretionary expenditure, but it also applies to the nondiscretionary part of this bill. It is not just on the $67 billion of discretionary expenditure that is part of this underlying bill, but the whole $126 billion, which covers all of the contractor authority for all of the small safety agencies that get money out of the Highway Trust Fund, and also applies to the moneys that go to the FTA that come out of the transit portion of the Highway Trust Fund. So that is the way that is written.

There is a provision at the end, the part that I read, ``or otherwise made available by a provision of law,'' which leaves CBO unable to score this amendment at all, and they cannot tell us what it really is meant to do. It says it cannot be implemented in this form.

So I must oppose this amendment for all of those reasons, because it goes far beyond the discretionary expenditure. That is different. Each of the earlier large cut amendments have been ones that purported to take only from the discretionary expenditure, and this one covers all of what is involved in this legislation, both the discretionary and the contract authority supported parts of the legislation, plus apparently some other things.

I will be glad to yield to the gentlewoman.

Well, we cannot change the language of the amendment at this point. I would be happy to work with the gentlewoman to find out exactly what was intended to be done here and try to work with you, but for the moment, I must oppose this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I think enough has been said. It cannot be amended. It cannot be implemented. It cannot even be scored to know how much is really involved in it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, the amendment is not a modest one by any means. It is a double ax taken to the legislation that is involved. It takes $18 billion out of only the discretionary amount of funding that is provided in the underlying bill. As such, that is between 20 and 25 percent of the reduction in all of the discretionary accounts from the underlying bill.

Who would have ever thought that we would have gotten so deep in deregulation and had our major financial services regulating agencies so asleep at the switch that we would have ended up in a housing crisis, a foreclosure crisis, that has been raging to the point where there are 6 or 8 million foreclosed homes? It almost brought, not only the American financial system to its knees, but almost the whole world's financial system to its knees. It ended up with the Secretary of the Treasury, under the administration of the previous President, coming to Congress and asking for us--begging us, begging the Congress--to bail out the biggest banks in this country, the banks which caused the housing crisis by running a casino on Wall Street.

In that process, by that time, by the time they came to Congress to ask for that bailout, we were already four quarters into a recession in this country, a recession that raged throughout the whole of the year of 2008 and on into at least the first two quarters of 2009.

We have begun to come back out of that recession. We passed a stimulus bill within 1 month of the new President's being inaugurated, which, within another month, turned job losses to job gains--or at least to a reduction of job losses for a series of months. Now, in the last 6 months or so, there have been job gains. We have been out of the recession, but it is not a recovery that is happening very quickly.

Whoever would have thought that all of those things would have happened?

We have a series of economists who pointed out we had to do exactly those things--first, the bailout of the banks, which most of us in Congress, I think from both sides, voted for, and there were people on the other side of the aisle who voted for that legislation. Most of us expected that there would be some kind of evenhanded handling of the largest investment banks and also of those who had been bilked out of their money in the housing crisis and who had gone through foreclosures,

but the foreclosure crisis has gone on and gone on and gone on much farther than it should have been allowed to go.

Whoever would have thought that all of those things would have happened in America?

We are now coming out of this recession. If an amendment were implemented, such as the one the gentleman from Ohio has proposed, it would send us right back into the recession. We cannot do this. Though, I wonder, as I think I may have asked you earlier, Mr. Chairman: Is this a deliberate effort to put us back into a double-dip recession that would be so similar to the Great Depression?

This was exactly what happened in 1937, which was 4 years after the inauguration of FDR. Four years later, we went back into a recession, which took another 4 years of experiencing a really very, very bad economy. We are coming out with the rather prudent actions that have been taken by Congress and by this administration, and we must continue on that path.

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

I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown), who is the chairperson of the authorizing committee for rail.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to express that this amendment for a program which is totally authorized, and we are not running above the authorization number on Amtrak by any means at all, but this is a killer amendment for Amtrak to remove all of their capital funds, as this amendment purports to do. So I oppose the amendment, and urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).

(Mr. KENNEDY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks).

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

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

I now yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Rochester, New York (Ms. Slaughter).

I now yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Buffalo, New York (Mr. Higgins).

I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I claim time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to Mr. Pierluisi from Puerto Rico.

I yield the gentleman from Puerto Rico 1 additional minute.

May I inquire how much time remains.

Mr. Chairman, I am very interested in this conversation. The gentleman from Arizona, who is usually so rational about this whole effort that he puts forward, he is going to earn a reputation as a grinch for trying to take the one Member representing 4 million people in Puerto Rico, taking a program that would provide ADA compliance in a very small park in a community that's done for children and teens, and he wants to deny the representative for those 4 million people the opportunity to have a very small earmark.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee do now rise.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to celebrate Hampshire College for opening its doors and welcoming its first students 40 years ago tomorrow.

The Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts is home to the Five College Consortium, which includes three private liberal arts colleges, Amherst, Mount Holyoke and Smith; the state's flagship public university campus, the University of Massachusetts Amherst; and a progressive institution of higher education, Hampshire College. For 40 years now, the Consortium has served as a vehicle for collaboration and resource sharing across all five campuses, including broadening access to higher education and unsurpassed academic excellence. This structure encourages the use of a vast curriculum, faculty and resources, and presents each student with a richer and fuller educational experience.

Hampshire College was founded within this consortial setting to offer an original education in which students design their own course of study in close consultation with faculty mentors. Hampshire's educational approach emphasizes individual choice and development, and its pedagogical cornerstone is an inquiry-based mode of teaching and learning. Just as it attracts talented and intellectually ambitious students, Hampshire appeals to faculty who are excited to experiment with new methods of teaching, and are keen to co-teach with their colleagues.

Rather than being characterized by traditional, discipline-based departments, Hampshire College has five academic schools: the School of Cognitive Science; Interdisciplinary Arts; Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies; Natural Science; and the School of Critical Social Inquiry. Each school develops an innovative curriculum, which is project-based and immediately challenges students with current problems in the research literature. Research and teaching at Hampshire tend to work across discipline-based boundaries, as faculty and students collaborate to grapple with problems from a range of perspectives, with an eye toward community impact, social justice, and the well-being of others. Team teaching and interdisciplinary research serve as the basis for collaboration and reflect a remarkable degree of creativity. A low student-faculty ratio (12:1) allows for an emphasis on individualized and small group training, where faculty research and artistic expression is fully integrated into coursework, inviting each class into the process of intellectual and artistic discovery.

Within this mission--and wherever possible--Hampshire students ask questions that motivate their undergraduate years. Careful mentoring at Hampshire has shown to inspire and motivate students beyond the classroom, often resulting in students continuing their education at the graduate level, and indeed, culminating in rewarding careers.

I am honored to represent this fine institution of higher learning. Please join me in congratulating Hampshire College as it continues to define and communicate its extraordinary mission for the next generations of students, their families and the general public.

Mr. Speaker, as financial reform takes shape, we must ask: Do Wall Street banks serve America or themselves? In these last years, we've seen the answer, and it is no surprise. Wall Street serves Wall Street. It could care less about the lives they ruin while seeking profits and bonuses.

The Bush administration allowed Wall Street banks to chase profit by building their growth on a weak foundation of risky debt. Their scheme collapsed. They held America's savings hostage. Congress could not afford to let them fail, so they couldn't lose. Of course, they didn't. America lost.

The International Monetary Fund estimates these gambles have destroyed nearly $3 trillion of economic value. Recently, economists have estimated the entire cost of World War II to be, roughly, the same. In other words, Wall Street banks devised a way to make billions in profits and bonuses while wiping out the savings of millions of Americans.

They cannot be allowed to do that again. The final bill must end their gambling and protect our savings.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Leominster Colonial Band for its 100 years of active involvement in the Leominster community.

The Leominster Colonial Band started as a group of Italian immigrant musicians gathering together and soon became an institution in Leominster. The band was founded by Gaspare Bisceglia, a 16-year-old apprentice bandmaster, who immigrated to Leominster from San Giovanni, Italy. The band gave its first concert on the Leominster common on August 16, 1910.

Known originally as the ``Banda Regione d'Italia,'' the band has undergone several name changes as its role in the city evolved and its membership diversified. It became the ``Italian Colonial Band,'' and later the ``Leominster Colonial Band.''

The history of the Leominster Colonial Band is interwoven with the history of Leominster. Over the years, the band has played at numerous civic events and parades. The band performed in celebrations at the end of World War I and led Leominster's welcoming parade when American troops returned from World War II. The band also played at the dedication of Leominster's Spanish-American War monument.

During the Great Depression, Gaspare Bisceglia established a free summer concert series on the downtown common. This tradition has continued over the years and the band now performs five free concerts every year at Leominster's historic Carter Park. The band plays an annual Christmas concert and regularly plays at Italian feasts in Leominster, Boston and throughout Massachusetts. It frequently participates in church celebrations in the Worcester and Greater Boston areas and plays in processions for weddings and funerals.

In 2006, the Leominster Colonial Band received the ``Citizen of the Year'' award from the Center for Italian Culture at Fitchburg State College, in recognition of its contributions and dedication to Italian culture. In the spring of 2010, the band will be honored with the City of Leominster's ``Citizen of the Year'' award.

I am very proud to represent the town of Leominster, which is rich in history and public spirit. The members of the Leominster Colonial Band demonstrate a spirit of community involvement, a dedication to upholding Italian cultural traditions, and a commitment to performing quality band music. Please join me in congratulating the Leominster Colonial Band as it celebrates its 100th Anniversary.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 961, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 3288) making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include tabular and extraneous material on the conference report to accompany H.R. 3288.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

It is my privilege and pleasure to present the Consolidated Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2010 to the House.

This conference report is the product of many hours of hearings and briefings across six subcommittees, always with bipartisan input and excellent Member participation, and culminated by extensive negotiations with our Senate colleagues. I especially would like to recognize the important contributions of our ranking member, Tom Latham of Iowa, in putting together the Transportation and Housing portions of this bill. While we may not always agree, I always appreciate his partnership, and his input has made the bill better.

I am particularly proud of the Transportation and Housing portion of the report because it demonstrates our mutual commitment to investing in our Nation's housing and transportation infrastructure; our mutual commitment to maintaining critical services in urban and rural communities; our mutual commitment to vulnerable populations such as the elderly and disabled; our mutual commitment to building sustainable communities for our Nation's families; and our mutual commitment to maintaining an efficient and safe transportation system that contributes to America's place in a global economy.

Notably, the conference agreement provides funding to improve and repair roughly 1 million miles of Federal aid highways; to support and expand a public transit system that carried more than 10 billion riders last year; to meet demand for 21st century intercity passenger rail systems, demonstrated by Amtrak's 11 percent growth in annual ridership; and modernizing the air traffic control system that is outdated and manages over 10.5 million flights annually.

Within the Housing and Urban Development programs, the conference agreement fully funds the section 8 rental housing assistance program, thereby ensuring affordable housing for 3\1/2\ million families and individuals; the agreement provides 10,000 new vouchers to homeless veterans; the agreement keeps a roof over the heads of 1.2 million households living in public housing; and the agreement helps communities improve local economies and create jobs through the Community Development Block Grant program.

In conclusion, we worked hard to balance many competing demands to produce a bill that reflects the bipartisan needs for transportation and housing, and strengthens the foundation upon which our economic turnaround is being built. This is a good product, and I urge Members to support it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey). Nita Lowey is the chairwoman of the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee of Appropriations, one of the bills which is included in this package.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 additional minutes to the gentlewoman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). Mr. Obey is the chairman of the full Appropriations Committee but also serves as the chairman of the Labor, Health, and Education Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman 2 additional minutes.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), chairman of the Veterans Administration and Military Construction Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick), who is a member of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee.

I yield myself 2 minutes, Mr. Speaker.

I fully recognize the argument that is being made by the other side on this issue of the level of expenditure. There has been an increase in the discretionary expenditure that we are providing for the needs of this country.

The fact is that, through the 6 previous years before we came into the majority, there was constraint in discretionary expenditures for programs that do things for people in this country and which provided money for our education system, for our health care system, for our transportation systems, and for our infrastructure in general--not just the transportation infrastructure but whatever source of infrastructure--and for our housing, just to name a few, and even for our veterans affairs.

Even with regard to our veterans programs, which provided services while we had two different wars going on around the world--all of them over in Asia--our discretionary expenditures were under very severe constraint, and the level of discretionary expenditure during that 6- year period before fiscal year 2007 was under constraint.

So the budgets that we have passed in the last three sessions when we have been in the majority have had an increase in discretionary expenditure to provide a catch-up expenditure for things going on in this country. We hear among our constituents all the time, Why are we spending so much money in other places around the world when we should be spending it here?

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

Why are we spending so much money there if we cannot find a way of expending for those things that I've mentioned--the housing, the transportation, the health services, and education? Why can't we spend some of that here?

So, yes, our expenditure has been up, but we make no apology for that kind of expenditure given the very reason for why it has occurred. So I will leave it at that. We make no apology for increasing discretionary expenditures on our own people and on the needs of our own people, and that should continue in fact.

I reserve the balance of my time.

How much time remains on both sides?

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), who is also a member of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee.

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. Speaker, how much time does each side now have?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

I yield myself the remainder of the time.

Mr. Speaker, my counterpart, the ranking member from Iowa, has graciously thanked the people on both sides who have done all of the work that our subcommittee dealt with. Actually, since there's six different bills here, I would like to extend that thanks to the people on the staffs of each of the six subcommittees on each side of the aisle who put countless hours into the work that has brought this bill to the floor at this time.

But particularly, let me just personalize it one more step. On our side, my clerk, Kate Hallahan, and on the Republican side, their clerk, Dena Baron, and the people who work under them, for them and with them, and for us and for the people of the country. They have done an exemplary job in the THUD committee, as I think each of the other groups have done for their own particular subcommittee. We should all be very grateful for that.

With the passage of this bill--and I'm going to urge passage as I close--we will on our side have completed the work on 11 of the 12 bills, and thereby we will be a very large step closer to the finish of the budgetary process necessary to provide for the year 2010. And so I am very optimistic today, in fact, a great load rises from the shoulders of all the chairs and ranking members of the subcommittees.

With that, let me just urge a ``yes'' vote on this budget bill in order to be able to reach that point very close to the completion of our work.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to clause 1 of rule XXII and by direction of the Committee on Appropriations, I move to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 3288) making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Madam Speaker, the motion that we have before us is essentially the same motion that we had earlier back in September, September 23, when the Legislative branch appropriations bill was brought to the floor and we were considering doing a continuing resolution for a period of time, which ended up leading to a second continuing resolution at the point that the first one had run out.

The only difference from that motion is that this one now calls for 72 hours rather than 48 hours, thereby making the time constraint a more difficult one given the circumstances that we are in and given the time at which we are supposed to have another continuing resolution run out.

So that's a very small point, because at 48 hours, it would be easier to deal with. Madam Speaker, in a perfect world, we would have 72 hours to further review this bill. However, we cannot guarantee that for the reason that the current CR expires on the 18th and the bills that have been mentioned by the gentleman from Iowa fund critical programs.

The Departments that are funded in these bills cannot wait much longer for the funds, and we want to get the bills enacted for the entire year. It's already December 8. And we need to get these bills done. Plus, we all know that we need to have plenty of time for our colleagues on the Senate side to act.

Now, Madam Speaker, I would just like to point out that in recent years, in 2005--and all of these, of course, were while the present minority was in the majority, and so they were in control of the procedures that were being followed--in 2005, the omnibus at that time included Agriculture, Commerce, Energy-Water, Foreign Operations, Interior, Labor-HHS-Education, the Leg Branch, Transportation, Treasury, VA-HUD and Foreign Operations and that year happened to be the vehicle being used to bring that process to a conclusion.

So the number of bills that were involved in that process were nine plus

the vehicle, 10 of the 12 bills. In that instance, the Agriculture bill had never been considered in the Senate; the Commerce, Justice and State bills had never been considered in the Senate. In fact, that was before--that was Justice and Judiciary at that point, it was a more complicated bill. Energy-Water never were considered in the Senate, Interior had never been considered in the Senate, Labor-HHS had never been considered in the Senate, Leg Branch had never appointed conferees, Transportation and Treasury had never been considered in the Senate, and the VA-HUD bill was never considered in either body.

Yet all of those bills were in that continuing resolution. And so this has been done in the past. That was the omnibus bill that finished up our work for the fiscal year 2005 budget.

Going back a year, we considered an appropriations bill to finish up the fiscal year 2004 sequence that included Agriculture, Commerce, State, Justice, District of Columbia, Foreign Operations, Labor-Health- Education, Transportation, Treasury and VA-HUD; and Agriculture was the vehicle. And CJS was never considered in the Senate. D.C. had not appointed conferees. The Foreign Operations bill had appointed conferees, but never reported a conference report. A report had never been agreed to. Labor-HHS, the conferees had been appointed, but then the conference, the conferees discharged from their appointment and brought it back to the full committee. And so VA-HUD never had appointed conferees. And so it goes.

The conferees in these instances included a series of Members from the majority side, from the variety of the committees in each case. At that time, Mr. Young of Florida was the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. And I could go on here. In 2003, the consolidated appropriations resolution that completed the 2003 budgetary events included Agriculture, Commerce, District of Columbia, those were still part of it, except it was still a separate subcommittee, Energy-Water Development, Foreign Operations, Interior, Labor-HHS, Legislative Branch, Transportation, Treasury and Postal Service were now getting back at least two different reorganizations of the jurisdictions of the Appropriations Committee, all during the period that the present minority making the motion was in control and moved very quickly on the actions.

In that year, 2003, every one of the bills that I have mentioned had never been considered in one or the other branch. Several of them had not been considered in the House, and several of them had not been considered in the Senate. Well, I'm wrong actually. In the House, Leg Branch had never appointed conferees, but it had been considered and the bill had been passed. But in the others, the others had never been considered in either House, in one of the two branches at least.

So it is a time-honored process. When one gets here, we have known we've had now for 3 months since the end of the fiscal year, almost 3 months since the end of the fiscal year, and all of these bills have been put forward in conference in continuing resolutions, and the final continuing resolution ends on the 18 of December, 10 days away. The bill that we have before us is the Transportation, Treasury bill.

My ranking member, Mr. Latham, I want to express my strong appreciation for all the work that he has done on the legislation thus far that is the carrying legislation here. And he has mentioned that there are several bills that are being added, and I'm not going to exactly repeat those because they are already now a part of the Record, and they do not complete our--there is one left. There is a Defense bill that is left.

So we are in a time constraint. We need to move. We have a situation that we understand quite well if I were to go through and list the dates on which the Senate acted finally on several of these bills, they have been passed in the Senate in the case of Commerce at least and Veterans Affairs and Military Construction, but they weren't passed in the Senate until well after the end of the fiscal year 2009. All of our bills have been passed through the House by the end of fiscal year 2009. So we were ready to move forward with individual bills at a much earlier stage.

As I have already stated, we cannot guarantee 72 hours. It would be nice in a perfect world to be able to do that. But we must get this legislation done, or we are putting enormous pressures on the executive Departments of this government and on our own procedures as we move forward toward the appropriations process for fiscal year 2011, which comes quickly on the tail of getting finished with the needs that we have for finishing fiscal year 2010.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would just like to reiterate that the bill that we are considering bringing to conference this morning is the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies bill.

I want to thank, again, my ranking member. This is his first year that Mr. Latham has been the ranking member, and I have enjoyed greatly the communications that we have had, sporadic as they have been. We work kind of in fits and starts because there has been a lot of waiting in the process to get to where we are today.

But I want to thank him in particular for the cooperation and the work that he and his staff have done. And I would name the minority clerk, Dena Baron, and on the minority side David Gibbons and Allison Peters and Janine Scianna. And on our side, I want to give the strongest praise to our staff and to our clerk and that staff with Kate Hallahan, who has given me a list that doesn't even have her name on it. She is so modest here. David Napoliello, Kate Hallahan, Laura Hogshead, Alex Gillen, Sylvia Garcia who is, in this lengthened process, a replacement in the middle of the process of bringing out this legislation for a previous staff member who has now gone on to greener pastures.

And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 24 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, December 9, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, amidst one of the worst recessions in our Nation's history, as Americans are tightening their budgets, our friendly drugmakers are flying high. While promising to support the health care overhaul by cutting $8 billion per year from our Nation's prescription drug costs, they're busy raising the prices of brand-name drugs by 9 percent. That will add more than $10 billion per year to prescription drug costs.

While the Consumer Price Index has fallen, the drugmakers are creating the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992. It was only 3 years ago, in 2006, as the new Medicare part D program was going into effect, our prescription drugmakers raised their prices by four times the general inflation rate for the first quarter of that year.

America, we have foxes in our hen house. Drugmakers are up to the same old tricks again, gouging America's senior citizens while pretending to work cooperatively with us on the health reform effort. Their profit margins are their only concern. How could we have expected anything else?

Mr. Speaker, I rise in favor of H.R. 3962.

Mr. Speaker, we often hear that America has the best health care system in the world.

But, our health care system largely takes care of those who are lucky enough to be able to afford it.

In the past decade, the premiums charged by private health insurance companies have risen more than 75 percent while workers' wages have risen less than 25 percent.

To add insult to injury, the profits of the 10 largest health insurers have risen by 400 percent, and the salaries of their CEO's have tripled.

America now has 50 percent higher health care costs than the highest of the next 20 most industrialized nations.

Yet, Americans suffer the highest infant mortality rate among the G-7 countries. Our infant mortality rate is 50 percent above the average for the other 6 countries.

American life expectancies are more than 2 years lower than the average for the other 6 countries.

Clearly, we have the most expensive health care system in the world, but, equally clearly we don't have the best.

We can and must do better. We must reverse these trends.

This is our chance to fix a broken system.

I am proud to vote in favor of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Care for America Act.

For the 50 million Americans who still do not have health insurance, this historic legislation guarantees you will have good insurance-- insurance that you can afford--which provides a sliding scale of credits available to families that earn up to 400 percent of the federal poverty standard, or $88,200 for a family of 4.

For those of us that are lucky enough to have health insurance, this legislation LL provides added stability by immediately banning lifetime caps and by 2013 eliminating pre-existing condition exclusions and annual caps on insurance coverage. You cannot be denied coverage.

For those who are concerned about losing or having to switch jobs-- especially important in our current economy--this bill brings you added stability. You will always have access to affordable, quality health insurance.

For senior citizens on Medicare, H.R. 3962 protects your benefits. We know that seniors live on largely fixed incomes. As such, this bill puts money back into your pockets by reducing the donut hole immediately by $500 and immediately cuts the cost of brand name drugs in half for those who still find themselves in the hole. Furthermore, the donut hole is completely closed by 2019. The bill provides free Prevention and Wellness care and saves seniors money by reducing copayments and cost-sharing.

Finally, H.R. 3962 makes major investments in primary care so that we will have the critical infrastructure in place to efficiently combat the steady rise of deaths from preventable illness in this country. Between 1997 and 2002, when researchers compared preventable deaths-- from diabetes, cancer, and heart disease amongst others--in 19 industrialized countries, the United States placed last. During those years alone, at least 75,000 men, women and children died because they lacked access to quality preventive care. Furthermore, H.R. 3962 makes new critical investments in training primary care providers, helping them with overwhelming student loan debt and paying them well for their service.

This is a historic time in our country's history. This bill makes the critical investments that are needed to turn our health care system around and provide the health care that our citizens deserve.

I am proud to cast my vote in favor of this monumental legislation.

We often hear that America has the best health care system in the world; but the cold, hard facts don't agree. Between 1997 and 2002, when researchers compared preventable deaths from diabetes, cancer and heart disease, among others, in 19 industrialized countries, the United States placed last, dead last. 75,000 lives could have been saved had the United States achieved just the average preventable death rate of its counterparts. Since 2002, another 75,000 deaths could have been prevented.

The Affordable Health Care for America Act will reduce preventable deaths. H.R. 3962 completely bans preexisting condition exclusions by 2013 and ends copays and deductibles for preventive care under Medicare and Medicaid. And H.R. 3962 will train many more primary care providers and pay them better for their service.

Our current health care system is failing us. We need health reform now.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I want to thank the chairman, Mr. Obey, for the very good allocation that has been afforded the Interior Subcommittee, which has allowed Chairman Dicks and Ranking Member Simpson and their excellent staffs to craft a very good bill.

Madam Speaker, I want to talk about just the funding levels in three particular areas within the bill.

Firstly, this bill provides more than a 12 percent increase in funding for the Indian Health Service, which will greatly improve the quality and the availability of critical health care services to address the many health deficiencies that our Indian people suffer.

Secondly, it provides $500 million for national wildlife refuges, which is an increase of $40 million over the last year. This increase will provide critically needed staff, will improve funding for conservation efforts, and will implement strategies to mitigate climate change.

Lastly, the bill provides an increase in funding above $2.7 billion to restore and help protect the quality of our Nation's air and water.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the conference report.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the founding of Westminster, Massachusetts 250 years ago on October 20, 1759. The following history provided by the Town's 250th Anniversary Committee vividly details a community with a rich cultural heritage and great natural beauty.

Nestled at the foot of Mount Wachusett, the highest mountain in central Massachusetts, Westminster was unsettled territory at the beginning of the 18th century. The land had been designated as payment for soldiers who had fought in King Phillip's War, but for many years no one was interested in leaving the comforts of home to settle in the wilderness. In 1737, however, the descendants of those veterans and others were drawn to the region's bounty and began to settle the region. As the population grew it became a district in 1759 and was given the name of Westminster, a name rooted in traditions of England. Full incorporation of the town came in 1770.

On June 10, 1776 Westminster residents voted to ``stand by and support the (Continental Congress) with their lives and fortunes if they should declare independence on the Crown of Great Britain.'' During the American Revolution, three hundred fifty six Westminster men served either as Minutemen or enlisted soldiers in the American Continental Army.

Water was essential to the early industrial growth of Westminster in the 19th century, beginning with sawmills, gristmills, fulling mills, and tanneries. These industries were followed by the manufacturing of chairs, other furniture, and paper. But when the railroad bypassed the center of town in mid-century, the factories lost their ability to cheaply bring raw materials into town and transport their finished products to the world. Today there is little evidence of these early industries.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, residents of Westminster found jobs in neighboring cities. Indeed, it became clear that Westminster now had the strategic advantage of being located on and near major highways that pass through the Commonwealth.

Today, Westminster's cultural heritage and rural, scenic beauty are appreciated by residents and visitors alike. The Westminster Cracker Factory, the longest running cracker bakery in the country, closed in the 1970s but the red clapboard building is a landmark which anchors the east end of Main Street. The town common on top of Academy Hill and the town center are remarkably preserved and greatly contribute to the Town's distinction of having one of the largest National Register Historic Districts in Massachusetts. Visitors of all ages enjoy Westminster--whether by skiing, hiking or viewing the autumn foliage on Mount Wachusett, dining at the Old Mill while watching ducks swimming on the nearby pond, or taking a tour of Wachusett Brewery.

I am very proud to represent this community, which is rich in history, in natural beauty, and in the public spirit of its citizenry. Please join me in congratulating the Town of Westminster as it celebrates its 250th Anniversary.

Mr. Speaker, I'm proud to stand today in support of the fiscal year 2010 Energy and Water appropriations conference report. I'd like to thank Chairman Pastor and Ranking Member Frelinghuysen for their great work on this legislation, and I praise them for their cooperation and bipartisanship. Because of their work and the excellent work of our subcommittee staff, we have before us a comprehensive, fair, and targeted bill that makes significant investments in our country's future and in the goal of achieving energy independence. They have been able to do this with only a slight increase of $200 million over last year's funding level; yet these investments will build on the success of the American Recovery and Investment and Recovery Act in developing a clean-energy economy and creating more American jobs.

I'm particularly grateful that this bill increases by more than 10 percent the funding for the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program. This program, funded at $2.2 billion, invests in producing cleaner and more efficient energy technologies to produce inexpensive energy from domestic sources.

Included are $225 million for research to harness the vast amount of solar energy reaching the Earth every day, $311 million to improve vehicle and battery technology, and $200 million for research into improving energy efficiency in commercial and residential buildings, which currently consume about 40 percent of our Nation's total energy usage.

As a scientist, I'm pleased to see $4.9 billion for the Office of Science's basic and applied science research program. Such investments are critical to maintaining America's place as a leader in the world economy.

Additionally, this legislation supports President Obama's historic commitment to nuclear nonproliferation by providing $2.1 billion for securing vulnerable nuclear material. This will protect Americans from the risk of nuclear material falling into terrorist hands by securing stockpiles in the former Soviet Union. The money will also improve our ability to stop nuclear and radiological materials from being smuggled into the U.S.

Again, I strongly support this bipartisan legislation, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on final passage.