Floor Statements

A group of millionaire and billionaire CEOs that call themselves the Campaign to Fix the Debt is visiting the White House today. According to Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Social Security must be reduced.

It didn't contribute anything to the debt or deficit, but that's his solution. What did he say? He said:

You're going to have to do something undoubtedly to lower

people's expectations of what they're going to get.

He went on to say:

Social Security wasn't devised to be a system that

supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year

career.

Well, his arrogance is only exceeded by his ignorance. That's not the way Social Security works, Mr. Blankfein. It's an earned benefit. I know you wouldn't know about that because you've got $11.9 million in your retirement fund, and you're not too worried about the future of Social Security. The average benefit is $14,000 a year, and most people work 45 years to get that. And you say they need to lower their expectations?

Well, I've got a solution for you: pay Social Security tax on all your income, and you too will get a benefit. And you might need it because we're not bailing out Wall Street again.

I thank my friend, the gentleman, for the time.

We could, today on the floor, just replay the debate from 11 years ago in the lame-duck session about China. It's about exporting U.S. goods to China. Just get them in the WTO, give them permanent normal trade relations, and they'll follow the rules. Well, when we adopted that, our trade deficit with China was $84 billion. Today it's $295 billion.

The issue isn't the tariffs the Russians have. The issue wasn't the tariffs that the Chinese had. It's all of their manipulation and nontariff barriers that go into these nonmarket economies. How is it going to be any difference with Russia?

The debate is disconnected from the reality. We're concerned about Syria, so let's reward them with permanent normal trade relations. You can't go to the WTO and complain about the Russians supporting a thug who's killing his people in Syria. That's not something you can use the WTO for.

We are giving up the tools we have to try and push Russia on economic issues; and we're binding ourselves to this international body, which has a secret dispute resolution process with unelected bureaucrats who have no conflict-of-interest rules. Now, that's a powerful tool we're going to use against those Russians. It worked real well against the Chinese. It doesn't work against the way the Chinese are manipulating their markets to keep out our goods, to steal our international property, and all the host of other unfair trade practices there that the Russians can just duplicate very easily. The WTO is not the solution to these issues.

We have more power today with a bilateral agreement. We have more power today with the capability of depriving them of a normal trade relation status with the United States. If we want to use our clout, we should vote this bill down.

And it's not just about Syria and human rights and a host of other abuses in Russia. It's about American jobs. Today, the biggest export under the WTO for the last 15 years has been American jobs. How is that going to change by binding us, one more time, to the WTO with one more nonmarket, essentially dictatorial economy with a corrupt regime running the country?

How is that going to work any differently than it has worked with China? It won't. This is a recipe for more job loss. It's not about saying, Oh, the terrorists will go away, and they're just going to start buying all our goods. No, it's not going to happen. All the same abuses that we have seen in China will be replicated by the regime in Russia, and it will become, yet again, another large addition to the deficit side of our ledger on trade. I urge Members to oppose this.

Well, the Republican refrain is quite familiar: these tax increases will cause economic devastation, a recession, millions of lost jobs. Is that today's fiscal cliff? No. Actually, that's the Republicans in opposing the Clinton-era tax increases, 1993, opposed by every Republican.

Did their predicted doom and gloom come true? Well, kind of not, actually. We balanced the budget, we paid down debt, and we had 3.8 percent unemployment while the millionaires and billionaires were paying a slightly higher rate of taxes.

Fast forward to today's debate: restore the Clinton-era tax rates to millionaires and billionaires. Republicans have dusted off the nineties rhetoric--economic collapse, devastation, at least 700,000 jobs. The job-creator millionaires and billionaires, they're living on the edge. They have no discretionary income. Any modest increase in taxes to them will stop them from making productive, job-creating investments, like the hundreds of millions of dollars they spent on super PACs in the last election to try and elect a President and a Congress that will bend to their will and lower their taxes even further while cutting middle-income families' programs that are essential, like Social Security and student financial aid.

Now, after their impassioned defense of tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, Republicans do have a second priority--they're not a one-note party, so you've got to give them credit for that--and that is to somehow kill Social Security, which they've never supported. They think it makes people lazy. Well, there are millionaires and billionaires that don't ever expect they will need it, so they don't care.

And under the guise of deficit reduction, the Republicans are saying, well, we've either got to privatize Social Security, got to increase the retirement age, or we've got to reduce the already inadequate COLA that seniors get. Let's chain the CPI. That's their refrain: we must cut entitlements. Well, guess what, Social Security has never contributed one penny to the deficit or the debt of the United States of America. It is a program which pays for itself.

So why this single-minded focus on cutting Social Security? Yeah, it does have a projected problem of about 23 percent to pay full benefits starting in 2036. So, yeah, there's a long-term problem; but, actually, that's quite easily fixed. All we have to do is close the tax loophole. And maybe we agree there.

Here's a loophole I'd like to close: Why does a millionaire pay one- tenth the rate of taxes to Social Security of a cop on the beat, or a soldier in the field, or a teacher in the classroom? I don't know. That's what the law says. Well, how about we lift the cap and have the millionaires and billionaires pay the same percent of their income to Social Security as cops and teachers and soldiers in the military. Seems fair to me. There's a loophole we could close. And that would give Social Security assets adequate to pay 100 percent of benefits for at least 75 years into the future, as far as the actuaries will

guarantee. So there's a loophole we can agree on closing, hopefully.

But they are going to have to give up on this lame argument that somehow making millionaires and billionaires pay taxes at the rate of the Clinton era, when we had record low unemployment, will hurt our economy.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Well, today, the do-nothing Congress will slink out of town. It's going to be the earliest adjournment in an election year since 1960; but, you know, I guess the Nation has no problems and there's no work undone, so it's just time to go home and campaign. It's pretty extraordinary. We've enacted one-quarter the number of bills into law of Harry Truman's do-nothing Congress, 1947-48. So I guess this is the ``do-nothing-er'' Congress.

So here we are again today. We are going to consider today--the only work today will be four bills that have previously passed the House. Someone hasn't read their civics textbooks. If you pass a bill and send it to the Senate, it's there; they'll consider it or they won't consider it. If you pass it again and send it again, it doesn't make any difference. In fact, it's somewhat repetitive and wasteful of everybody's time when we could be doing postal reform to ensure the future of the post office. We could be doing a farm bill; there are a lot of people suffering a horrible drought. We could be dealing with the sequestration, which there's concern on both sides of the aisle on that. But we're not. We're considering four bills previously passed and one new one.

Well, I have a reasonable amendment to an unreasonable bill, which is now before us, which is the one new bill before us. My amendment would ask that within 6 months--that's not very long--the Department of Transportation and the EPA submit a report to Congress on fugitive coal dust. Now, it seems a couple of extraordinary letters have been sent out saying, my God, this will stop projects and exports that are going forward--undue delay. I'm not aware of anything that would be delayed by this. It says a study will be done; it doesn't delay any ongoing applications or projects at all. But what it would do is potentially avert a tremendous amount of litigation down the road. If we find that fugitive coal dust is not a problem--which the coal industry says--then that would relieve a lot

of people in gateway ports and large cities in the West where coal dust is being proposed to transit through those cities, including cities in my district.

People are very concerned about this. They want to know, is it a problem. How far from the loading point does fugitive coal dust get emitted from the car? Are there ways to deal with the fugitive coal dust? Does the surfactant work? Is that a solution? Should the cars be covered? Is that a solution? What are the problems? What are the problems at its destination in terms of whether or not there would be coal dust at the port destinations? If the coal is stored outside, how is it transported onto the ship? Et cetera, et cetera. So if we had these answers, we could talk about the safe and clean transport and allay a lot of concerns that are ultimately going to lead to a lot of litigation unless we know.

Now, the industry says, oh, it's been studied. Well, no, it hasn't. In fact, one railroad has pursued action against the coal industry because fugitive coal dust has caused safety problems on the railroad. It gets into the ballast; it blocks the ballast from draining. The ballast destabilizes, the tracks destabilize, and trains can derail. Now, that seems to me like a problem that should be dealt with. And there may be some very, very simple ways to deal with it. Some say surfactants; some say covered cars. There are other potential solutions out there. Wouldn't it be good to know? Wouldn't it be good to know? That's all I'm saying. A 6-month study and a report to Congress won't delay anything at all. It just would give us some knowledge. And I would hope that we legislate around here with a little bit of knowledge and not just off the cuff.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Does that mean there's only one speaker on their side?

May I inquire of the Chair how much time I have remaining.

Again, we will hear apocryphal denouncements from the other side of the aisle--this will cost millions of jobs and billions of dollars and stymie our exports. No, it's a study. It's a study that would take 6 months. It's a study that, if it agrees with the industry's conclusions, would assure the American public that there won't be problems with these trains transiting through their hometowns.

It's something we should know. It's something the government should look at. Apparently, there are some propriety studies that we aren't allowed to see that say there's no problem. Well, if that's true, then the railroads and the industry should let the American public see those propriety studies. Really, not too many people are willing to take someone at their word when it comes to an issue of public health.

So it's a very simple amendment. It won't delay anything; it will take 6 months. It will cost very little, and it will give us the information and knowledge we need to figure out how to safely transport coal.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, today, I am voting in favor of H.R. 6213. First and foremost, the American taxpayer should not take a backseat to venture capitalists. This bill ensures that any loan default falls first on the company's investors and remaining assets instead of on the taxpayer.

The Department of Energy's loan guarantee program needs better oversight to protect taxpayers from the financial risks of emerging technologies in a competitive and volatile energy market.

I am also concerned that the loan guarantee program, which was created under the Bush administration in 2005, heavily favors thermal industries--including coal. This money would be better spent on innovative, cutting-edge technologies that will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, cut greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, and make the United States more energy independent.

Limited federal dollars should go to creating high-wage, high-tech jobs that can't be exported--they should not be used to subsidize the largest energy companies that have benefited from billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies and decades of federal support.

That's why I am also voting for Representative Waxman's amendment. H.R. 6213 allows DOE to use its existing authority to award $34 billion in loan guarantees to projects on the Republican-deemed ``winners' list.'' This is a list of 50 or so applications that were submitted to DOE prior to the end of 2011. More than three-quarters of the applications are from the nuclear and coal industries.

By voting in favor of Representative Waxman's amendment, I support allowing DOE to consider new applications until the remaining loan guarantee dollars are exhausted. This will create a level playing field for all technologies including renewables like wind, solar, and biomass.

I thank the Speaker.

About 27 miles away from here, secret negotiations are ongoing. A number of us have asked to be allowed to observe the negotiations because it will have a dramatic impact on the future of the United States of America and our economy, but no Member of Congress has been allowed into these negotiations. This is over something called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It's essentially NAFTA for the whole Pacific Rim.

Now, imagine how well that's going to work. NAFTA, of course, has cost the U.S. hundreds of thousands of jobs in many industries.

Now, this is a new agreement, a new forum, the President has put his stamp on it, it is called a living agreement, meaning it's being negotiated among a small number of relatively small countries, but the U.S. is running the show. But later on, other countries, like Japan and China, can plug in.

We know very little about what's being negotiated because, again, the documents are all kept secret from Members of Congress. They have been shared, however, with 600 corporations who, at the click of a mouse, can access them through a secure site on-line. But yet no Member of Congress is allowed to see these documents, no one representing the American people.

Now, the problem is that we have had some leaks, and the analysis is if Japan is allowed to join, and the U.S. is trying to get Japan to join, we'll lose 90,000 automotive jobs immediately. This is yet another example of failed trade policy of the United States of America.

It is also rumored--again remember, no elected representative of the American people is allowed to view these documents which 600 U.S. corporations are allowed to review and annotate and make suggestions on--that it would have intellectual property restrictions that would far exceed those that were

already rejected by the elected representatives of the American people, the House and the Senate, so-called SOPA and PIPA.

These intellectual property restrictions in this agreement, it is rumored, will far exceed those already rejected, yet they would be binding on the United States of America, again going around our elected representatives.

It is also rumored that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is seeking to roll back previous reforms that even George Bush negotiated in the U.S.-Peru FTA that enhanced access to affordable medicines. The pharmaceutical industry doesn't like inexpensive, affordable, life- saving medicines. That would be rolled back.

Further, it would allow drug companies to challenge the price formularies in Canada. Remember, U.S. citizens can buy drugs made by U.S. companies in the U.S. much more cheaply in Canada than here because the Canadian government negotiates on their behalf. It's rumored that this agreement would force Canada to raise their drug prices.

It is also rumored that it might actually prohibit the United States Government from negotiating or allowing under part D Medicare-- pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies are involved but the insurance companies can negotiate under authority of law lower drug prices. It may also prohibit the drug formulary for Medicaid which saves hundreds of millions and billions of dollars a year, and the VA, which provides our veterans with low-cost pharmaceuticals.

All of those things may be preempted by this Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Now, this is really an extraordinary thing that this is being done in secret and no Member of Congress is allowed to review it.

It has one chapter we know about, which is so egregious that Australia has said they have to have a total exemption. And the U.S. has said, sure, okay. We understand you want to protect your people. We'll let you do that, but we don't want to protect ours.

This is a little provision, similar to NAFTA, which gives corporations the power to challenge in foreign tribunals--not U.S. courts--our domestic laws that protect consumers and the environment. We would now give this authority to corporations, if China accesses to this, that are run by the Communist Government of China because they own many of the corporations in their country. The People's Liberation Army owns those corporations.

This is extraordinary. Six hundred corporations have access to this document, but no Member of Congress has access to this document, and yet this is the trade future. This is the 21st century trade agreement, we're told by this administration.

Further, the chief negotiator for the United States has said it's his greater desire that China become part of this because then China would be bound by these rules. Oh, yeah, I heard that before. We used to vote annually on China's trade performance and we had a stick called ``most- favored-nation status.'' When we gave up that stick--I voted against it--we gave them permanent most-favored-nation status, then they could join the World Trade Organization. But they said, don't worry, now they'll have to follow the rules. Guess what? They don't. And if they get in this agreement, they won't follow the rules either.

Kiss our economy good-bye if this secret agreement goes through.

Recently, the Chinese consul general sent a letter to the mayor of Corvallis, a small city in my district. The letter was followed up by personal visits by the vice consul and the deputy consul general. Now, we always welcome visitors, but under these circumstances, we have some concerns.

They are trying to pressure the mayor of the City of Corvallis to compel a local businessman to remove a mural dedicated to free Tibet and Taiwan independence from his downtown building. It was characterized by the local newspaper as a shakedown because the original letter broadly hinted that it might be in Corvallis' best interest economically to cooperate with the request.

I am shocked and appalled that apparently Chinese professional diplomats have failed to read the Constitution of the United States of America before traveling here to represent their country.

This represents the basis of our representative democracy, our freedom of speech, and our rights, and it will not be bullied by China or any other overseas interest.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We could devote much more than an hour to Jerry Costello's career in Congress.

I sat next to Jerry on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for more than two decades, and there is no more knowledgeable, dedicated advocate in the United States Congress--most recently on aviation issues, but across the board on infrastructure issues which underlie our economy and our productivity and our growth-- than Jerry Costello. His work has been phenomenal. He has done more than I could have imagined in his period of time. And we will miss him.

I congratulate him upon a well and hard-earned retirement.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Yes, I am.

This is the final amendment to the bill. It won't kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will be immediately amended and will proceed to final passage.

It's a pretty simple amendment. It would create a tax break for the real job creators in America, which are small businesses and middle- income families. A middle-income person with a job or a small business and enough money to go out and invest and buy products made in America for his business--that's a key component of this--would be allowed an expensing.

The Republican version of the bill would limit the expensing to small businesses to $100,000 a year for the purchases of new equipment made in America. If this amendment is adopted, those same small businesses would be allowed to expense up to $1 million to purchase products made in America, which would put people back to work.

Now, I know we're going to hear of the millionaires and billionaires because this tax increase, or restoration of the Clinton era rates, would only apply to incomes over $1 million. So a millionaire still gets the break on the first $1 million. It's only on income over $1 million that would go to the Clinton era rates.

They'll say they're the job creators and that it would depress job creation. Let's think back to the Clinton administration. We had a 39.6 percent top bracket on the millionaires and billionaires. We had 3.8 percent unemployment in the United States of America,

and we paid down debt for the first time since the Eisenhower administration. I'd like to go back to those bad old days.

Now, we've been doing the Bush tax cuts for 12 years. Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs from cutting taxes on people's incomes of over $1 million? They aren't creating those jobs. Let me give you two quick examples from my district, and they're typical.

I have Palo Alto Software, a small business. They make software for business start-ups. We contacted them, and they said, Yes, we could invest way more both in new hardware, new software, and other things that would enhance our business than $100,000 if we were given this expensing privilege, and we would put more people back to work.

Bulk Handling Systems, they make recycling systems in my district. They had the same answer: If you gave us a million dollars of expensing, we would spend every penny of that on products made in America and put people back to work.

The bottom line is the Republicans want to limit these small businesses, these real job creators, to a $100,000 deduction when they could use a million dollars in expensing and put more people back to work, because their premise is that the millionaire, the person who got hundreds of millions or more in income, that having them not pay more taxes on their income over $1 million will create more jobs than the small business. I don't buy that. I don't think the American people buy that.

There's no limit on what they can do with their huge tax breaks, their very expensive tax breaks. They can buy another vacation home in the Caribbean. They can buy a Lamborghini. Paris Hilton can go on a shopping spree in London or Paris.

This bill limits the expensing and the purchase of equipment to products made in the United States of America. I want to see things made in this country again. I want to put Americans back to work, not people overseas.

It's time that we admitted that we can't afford to continue the tax cuts over $1 million of income.

It would also reduce the deficit over 10 years by $29 billion after we create jobs, after we give this expensing privilege to small businesses.

The choice is yours. You can stick with those who have income over $1 million or you can side with small businesses and American workers. You decide.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

In 1989, I sponsored a bill, along with 11 other Democrats, to audit the Federal Reserve.

The Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial saying we would destroy the American economy if we audited the Federal Reserve. Well, guess what? Eighteen years later, Wall Street destroyed the economy of the United States of America--Wall Street, the big banks--and then they were bailed out secretly by the Federal Reserve. We don't know how many trillions of dollars the Federal Reserve committed to them. We know their profits were billions, tens of billions on the bailout they got. So it's past time to audit the Federal Reserve.

Today we'll take up a bill, finally, Ron Paul's bill, to audit the Reserve. I strongly support it.

I also urge Members to support my bill, which would establish conflict-of-interest rules for the Federal Reserve and take the two- thirds of the Federal Reserve that is controlled by Wall Street banks, take those people off the board and put citizen representatives who represent the taxpayers and the consumers of the United States, not the big banks, on that board.

On January 19, 2011, the Republicans voted to repeal ObamaCare. Thirty other times on the floor since then, they have voted to repeal ObamaCare, or part of ObamaCare. And today, for the 31st time, they will vote to repeal ObamaCare.

How about doing something productive for the American people in terms of lowering health insurance and health care costs instead of your political theater here?

The Supreme Court has ruled. Let's roll up our sleeves and improve what is the law of the land.

I propose that today we should vote on my bipartisan amendment to take away the antitrust immunity of your friends, the insurance industry, so they can't collude to drive up prices, they can't collude to restrict coverage and divide up markets and make it more expensive for all Americans. The Consumers Union says this would mean a 10 to 25 percent drop in everybody's health insurance in this country.

Let's do something real. Stop the political theater. Let's help the American people get affordable health care and health insurance.

Repeal and replace. If multiple failed attempts constitute delivery on a promise, the Republicans have delivered in spades.

Today, the House of Representatives, for the 31st time in this session, will take up legislation to repeal all or part of the Affordable Care Act, so-called ``ObamaCare.'' There have been 31 attempts tying up the floor of the House. One's enough. We already did it the first or second day we were here. The Senate is not going to take it up, but repetition is their mantra here for pretend legislation.

They could take up real legislation. In fact, they had an opportunity as part of today's faux repeal to take up my legislation, which passed the last House of Representatives with massive bipartisan support, which would provide lower health care costs and health insurance costs for every American. That was real legislation.

Why won't we do that? Maybe because it would upset the insurance industry, and they're awful generous at campaign time on that side of the aisle. Maybe. I don't know why.

I offered to the Rules Committee an amendment to take away the antitrust immunity of the insurance industry. Yes, the insurance industry can and does get together behind closed doors and collude to drive up your rates, to exclude your coverage, and do a whole host of other things. They have been somewhat constrained by the Affordable Care Act in some of their collusive practices. Actually, the House version of the bill contains repeal of the antitrust amendment. The Senate, due to, as I understand it, one Democratic Senator, Ben Nelson, failed to include it in their version of the law. We had a separate vote later in the House. Over 400 Democrats and Republicans voted for it. It's common sense.

They want to talk about free enterprise. It's not free enterprise when an industry can get together and collude to screw consumers. It's just not. That's not free enterprise.

My amendment was not allowed. So we're just going to have another fake debate about repealing all of ObamaCare. Let's think about their vision here. Remember, it was repeal and replace. Where is the replace part? They're not talking about the replace part. That's strange. I guess they just want to go back to the way things were--status quo. That would be in the 10 years before ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act, health insurance premiums were up 100 percent. That's an average of 10 percent a year.

Let's go back to those good old days. Uninsured, up from 35 to 44 million, during those same 10 years. Let's go back to those good old days.

Rescissions? Wow, the industry could and did refuse to renew your policy or take it away when you got sick, due to technicalities. That was called a rescission, a dirty little secret. That was outlawed by the Affordable Care Act. They want to bring that back. Give the industry the right, when you get sick with cancer, to take away your policy even though you have been paying your premium for 20 years at these inflated rates.

Then, denial of coverage, of course, we'll bring back denial of coverage--any preexisting condition. Nope, sorry, we won't sell you a policy.

Lifetime limits, they want to bring back all those good old things because they have no replacement. They haven't talked about replacement. All they're talking about is repeal.

Let's put just a few statistics on who would not benefit under their proposal.

In my district, 7,400 young Americans under age 26 are on their parents' policy. Nationwide, 3.1 million young Americans have insurance today who won't have it if their repeal bill goes through.

Seniors, they are getting a 50 percent discount in the doughnut hole that never should have been created. I voted against their doughnut hole bill and the bill that subsidized the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry and didn't do a great job overnight helping out seniors with their pharmaceuticals.

We could have done it for less, straight up, negotiate lower drug prices and offer a policy at cost. No, they wouldn't do that because the industry didn't like it. A pretty consistent theme here of sucking up to the insurance industry.

Then 148,000 people in my district now get free preventive care under their insurance, 54 million people across the country. That goes away when their repeal bill goes through with no replacement.

Children with preexisting conditions; 36,000 in my district have coverage now, 17 million nationwide. Tough luck, kids. You're back off the policy here under the Republican vision for the future of health insurance.

Lifetime limits; 230,000 people in my district, 105 million people nationally. Most people don't know their policies have lifetime limits until they get a catastrophic illness and they start to read the fine print and the insurance company stops paying the bills and you go bankrupt.

They want to bring back those good old days with repeal of this horrible ObamaCare.

Then we have the business rebates and on and on. This is kind of a dyspeptic view of the world here. Let's go back to the dysfunctional system we had before.

Is ObamaCare great? No. Can we fix it? Yes. Should we fix it? Yes. Should we adopt measures that would make it better, like taking away the antitrust exemption of the health insurance industry? Yes. Will they bring those issues up? No. They just want to pretend. It's pretend Congress day.

I yield myself 2 minutes.

This is 27 months of certainty for the States. That's good. They'll be able to plan major projects. That will mean there will be some equipment acquisitions by contractors and others, unlike the short-term miniscule amount of money spent during the so-called ``stimulus'' bill, which I opposed. That's good. But this is not enough.

Ten years ago, the United States of America was rated as having the fifth-best transportation infrastructure in the world. Not great, but not that bad. Today, we are 25th in the world. Most Third World countries are spending a much larger percentage of their gross domestic product on transportation infrastructure than we are.

The Eisenhower legacy is crumbling. We have 150,000 bridges that need repair or replacement. Forty percent of the pavement on the national highway system needs to be totally redone, not just surfaced. And we have a $70 billion backlog in transit, and we have Buy America rules, which guarantee that all the products that go into those jobs, that investment we need, would be kept here at home. So we did not get to that point with this bill.

This is essentially a little decline from what we just spent last year on transportation infrastructure. And what we spent last year, according to two blue ribbon panels commissioned during the Bush administration, is about half of what we need to begin to bring this up to a world-class system to compete with the rest of the world and deal with the deficiencies. Build a 21st century transportation system. This money in this bill for 27 months will be enough to put a few more Band- Aids on the 20th century, and the 19th century infrastructure, in some places, that we're still utilizing.

There are good things. It builds on the ideas that Chairman Oberstar and I offered 2 years ago to dramatically consolidate the bureaucracy downtown at the Department of Transportation. We don't need to be spending money on 106 different programs that are so complicated that no one knows how to apply, and how to apply the rules, and all that. That's good. We're going to consolidate that. It does some streamlining so projects will get done more quickly.

There are a number of salutary aspects of this bill. But we need to do better by the American people the next time we address that issue.

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

I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) be permitted to control the balance of the time.

Mr. Speaker, more than three and a half years ago an impoundment holding disposed ash waste broke open, creating a massive spill in Kingston, Tennessee. The spill covered entire neighborhoods and the Clinch River with over one billion gallons of coal fly ash-- displacing residents and resulting in $1.2 billion in clean up costs.

The accident underscored the need for strong rules to ensure structural stability and the safety of coal ash impoundments. Yet, as of today, no national rules have been put into place to prevent another Kingston spill.

Two years ago the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first- ever regulations to ensure the safe disposal and management of coal ash from power plants under the nation's primary law for regulating solid waste, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

EPA presented two regulatory options: regulating coal ash as hazardous waste under Subtitle C or regulating coal ash as a non- hazardous waste under Subtitle D. But the EPA's proposal has stalled creating uncertainty for businesses and families.

As I said when the House of Representatives considered this issue last October, I have concerns that designating fly ash as a hazardous material will have major impacts on the recycling and reuse of fly ash to manufacture wallboard, roofing materials and bricks, and especially concrete.

In 2008 alone, the concrete industry used 15.8 million tons of fly ash in the manufacturing of ready mixed concrete making it the most widely used supplemental cementing material. When combined with cement, fly ash improves the durability, strength, constructability, and economy of concrete.

It also has huge environmental benefits. Using coal ash--an industrial byproduct--in concrete results in longer lasting structures and reduction in the amount of waste materials sent to landfills, raw materials extracted, energy required for production, and air emissions, including carbon dioxide.

A ``hazardous'' designation of fly ash could put these benefits in jeopardy. It could make fly ash storage and transportation more expensive, and create a legal environment that would deter cement manufacturers from recycling fly ash in cement production.

The result would not only be devastating for the cement manufacturing industry and American jobs, it could also divert millions of tons of coal fly ash from beneficial uses to surface impoundments like the one that broke open in Kingston, Tennessee--an outcome nobody wants.

I don't think H.R. 2273 is a perfect bill. And, to be clear, I support strong regulations for the disposal and storage of coal ash. But, these regulations can and should be completed without jeopardizing the recycling and reuse of fly ash.

I am supporting Rep. McKinley's motion to instruct because it would move the conversation forward on how to find a reasonable and responsible balance between protecting communities and our environment, while also incentivizing the recycling and reuse of coal ash--goals we can all support.

It is my understanding that my colleagues on the conference are making progress in finding that balance. Meaningful conversations that began more than six months ago between key stakeholders are beginning to bear some fruit on this issue.

We shouldn't ignore this issue--it's too important. We shouldn't wait for an undefined period of time before strong rules are put in place. We shouldn't discourage recycling and reuse of coal ash by unnecessarily labeling it as ``hazardous waste.''

Let's pass this motion and get back to work on a long-term bill.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment is simple. What it says is that should this legislation pass and the 100,000 acres of forest pass over to the Sealaska Native corporation, a for-profit corporation, that we would ban the export of unprocessed logs from those lands. This would be consistent with the law that applies to the lower 48 west of the Mississippi River.

In 1990, I partnered with Senator Bob Packwood from Oregon to make permanent what had then been an appropriations rider ban since the era of Wayne Morris, and the rationale for that was that we should not be a tree farm for other nations. We want to be an industrial Nation. We want to get value added. We want to export finished products overseas.

We've seen in the last couple of years a flood of private-lands exports from Oregon and Washington, which is timber actually being wasted. Until very recently, the Chinese were paying above-market prices for raw logs,

Douglas fir logs, which they were using, prime timber, one time in construction forms, and then discarding, an incredible waste of a resource and also an economic loss to the Pacific Northwest.

Despite the fact that Washington State exported $1 billion worth of non-Federal raw logs last year, which is twice the amount that they exported just 2 years before, the number of logging jobs did not increase despite this export, and the number of sawmill jobs dropped by a third in Washington State. We're exporting a limited natural resource to which we could add value through what we have, the most productive mills in the world in the United States of America. And instead, those logs are going overseas, and we're actually losing jobs.

Yes, it is profitable for the private landowners, and we don't have restrictions on the export of private logs. But this is public forest lands today which would be converted to private forest lands, and we believe that the potential benefits should be maximized should this happen and that these logs should be manufactured before being exported. If they were exported, I would say in fact there would be a substantial raw-log market in my State because my mills are importing timber from around the world, actually, and from other States in the U.S. to keep their mills running.

In Oregon, non-Federal raw-log exports, again private-land exports, have doubled over the last 3 years to $2.3 billion in value while my sawmills and logging industry reached new lows. This harvesting for export of raw logs is not benefiting the local economies or the United States of America. And in Alaska, raw-log exports from Alaska to China have increased 16-fold over the last decade. Yet the economic benefits of running those logs or potentially running those logs through sawmills was not realized, benefiting rural communities.

I have many depressed rural areas that I represent. We're fighting over how we can get some more logs off Federal lands, logs which can't be exported. These logs could not only benefit Alaskans who could use the manufacturing jobs, and perhaps would see some new investment in sawmill capacity should this amount of timber come onto the market, but also potentially other west coast States, including Oregon and Washington, where our sawmills are struggling to find adequate supply.

So I believe this would be a beneficial, commonsense amendment. It would bring Federal logs, Federal trees, Federal forests, and would make the use of those logs, should they be harvested, consistent with the rest of the Federal lands in the western United States.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I certainly respect the gentleman from Alaska, and I know that it's his intention to benefit the people of Alaska. I've been involved in this issue now for almost--well, for 22 years on the issue of exporting raw logs. In fact, I did try and restrict the export of private logs back there in 1990 and couldn't get that, but at least we got the Federal and at least we've kept the State, and we do get value added. And for every 1,000 board feet of timber harvested, we get more jobs than just a logging job, a trucking job, and a loading it on the ship job. We get the jobs in the mills. I would argue that the same would flow to Alaska should this amendment pass.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time and urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.