I want to thank my good friend the chairman, and I want to thank my good friend Mr. Latham from Iowa, a classmate from 1994. I want to commend the chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Olver, and our ranking member, Mr. Latham, for putting…
I want to thank my good friend the chairman, and I want to thank my good friend Mr. Latham from Iowa, a classmate from 1994.
I want to commend the chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Olver, and our ranking member, Mr. Latham, for putting together a good bill, both on the transportation and the HUD side. There will be some criticism on the floor today about how much money it spends, and let me just tell you, as someone who spent 14 years on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, as a Nation, we need to be embarrassed about what we spend on transportation in this country.
If you look at the American Society of Civil Engineers, their report that they come out with on an annual basis, a scorecard in terms of how we're doing, if more Americans read that scorecard, they wouldn't put their families in the minivan and take them on vacation and drive over some of the bridges in this country.
The difficulty is going to occur later this year, and I have to say I guess I'm disappointed in the administration saying that they're going to kick the highway authorization bill down the road for 18 months, which, coincidentally falls after the next midterm election.
But I have to tell you that it is, in fact, infrastructure which creates jobs, and it's infrastructure which employs people in this country. And as a Republican, I can tell you, if it hadn't been for Dwight Eisenhower's vision on the national highway system, we would not have been the envy of the world we are today.
But sadly, now we begrudgingly, in the 6-year reauthorization, carp about spending $35 billion a year for the entire country. And the need, I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, is far greater than that. And so, while this bill does, in fact, spend more money, and some people may not like the price tag, I think it's important.
I want to talk about two other things relative to the bill. The one is passenger rail service. You know, I had the privilege of being the chairman of the Railroad Subcommittee on Transportation, and we always seemed to give Amtrak just enough money to fail.
And if you look at Amtrak, when they took over the passenger rail service from Conrail, and we didn't want to be in the business anymore and the freight lines didn't want to be in the business anymore, they got bad track, bad rolling stock, bad management. And we sort of limp along.
And I've had friends on my side of the aisle say, well, we can't give them a billion dollars, what a big handout that is. Well, a billion dollars is a lot of money, but the fact of the matter is that if this country is ever going to move and restore passenger rail in this country, it's going to have a price. And anybody that thinks that passenger rail, as a societal prerogative, doesn't have to be subsidized is nuts.
I mean, you go over and you look at the world-class systems in Europe and in Asia. All of those countries have said for trips of 400 miles or less, we want passenger rail to be competitive with travel by car. We want passenger rail to be competitive with air travel, and they made the significant investments to make that happen.
Anybody who has, and I've had the pleasure to travel with the distinguished chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in Europe on trains like the TGV and the Chunnel and in Japan on their high-speed rail. It goes over 200 miles an hour. The fact that we have ignored that as a mode of transportation in this country should be an embarrassment to the greatest country on Earth, and this bill begins to make significant investments in that.
The stimulus package had $8 billion for high-speed rail. This bill has an additional $4 billion. And I'll just tell you, I don't represent a person in the Cleveland area that wouldn't say, if I could go 150, 180, 200 miles an hour from Cleveland to Chicago that I would, in fact, do that.
And you want to talk about climate change. You know, the way to get money around here this year is, if you put green in any legislation, they give you money. But if you want to talk about climate change, I believe the last time I checked, the statistic is 1 gallon of diesel fuel can take 1 ton of cargo from Washington, D.C., to Boston, Massachusetts. I don't know another mode of transportation that is that fuel efficient. You get cars off the road, you get trucks off the road, and you don't create the greenhouse gases that everybody is, in fact, worried about.
I would be happy to yield to the chairman.
I yield to the gentleman.
I thank the chairman very much. And I would say that if you really want to know about transportation, you talk to Jim Oberstar of Minnesota. The man has written most of the books, and I've learned so much of what I've learned in this Congress from sitting on the other side of the aisle from him.
I would only say the gentleman is going to be disappointed now because I spent 14 years on his committee, on the authorizing committee, and we always chafed at the appropriators who authorized on appropriations measures. I've now gone over to the dark side, and I think it's the most wonderful system in the world.
Will the chairman yield?
I thank the distinguished chairman. We are also pleased with the gentleman's amendment and are willing to accept it.
I thank the chairman and I thank Mr. Latham for yielding. I rise in opposition to this amendment. I was glad to hear the chairman of the full Financial Services Committee address this issue, because I was on that committee for 12 years. We've had this debate, and it's lasted hours and hours and hours.
And I will just indicate I'm glad he's moving new legislation, but I would note that two of the cosponsors of this amendment, the full committee chairman and the subcommittee chairman in charge of this particular issue, and if there's a problem with the service requirement, I hope they're going to fix it. He said he has.
Secondly, on March 31 of this year, we passed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, H.R. 1388. The President believes in community service. I assume anybody that voted for the act believes in community service. I know I did. And we are going to encourage community service.
As Mr. Latham indicated, this is 2 hours a week, 8 hours a month. I would accept the argument that some have made on the other side that this is taking a slap at people who are in a position to require public assistance for housing; but I would suggest that when we are just bailing everybody out, when we give billions of dollars to people on Wall Street, over my objection, for horrible business decisions in the subprime market and the securitization of mortgages, when we have given billions of dollars to car executives, automobile executives who have not reformed their business practices in 30 years and now find themselves to be bankrupt, when we have bailed out people that purchased homes they had no business purchasing because they could never afford it based upon their means, I would suggest we go in the direction not of removing this requirement, but let's put community service on the Wall Street bankers.
Let's put it on the guys that run General Motors and Chrysler. Let's put it on the people that have purchased homes and have thrust this Nation into debt.
I'm happy to yield.
I appreciate the gentleman's question. I would just say since the majority resumed this 111th Congress, almost every rule that's come to the floor has been closed.
I'd be happy to yield.
I would just say to the gentleman, I praised the gentleman on the floor for voting that Resolution of Inquiry out 63-0. I would also note that the distinguished majority leader of the House, although you took that action more than 3 weeks ago, has yet to schedule that bill for activity on the floor.
Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.
Mr. Chairman, I want to yield as much time as he may consume to my good friend and colleague from Dayton, Ohio, Mike Turner, the sponsor of this particular provision in the law, to answer the gentleman from Arizona's question.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Can I ask how much time I have?
Let me just say, the gentleman from Arizona, his amendment in this case is misguided and it, in my mind, exercises judgment that I hope not many in this House agree with.
Mr. Turner has stated the case. You know, this business about the local
residents taxing themselves to build the theater. The local residents of Wilmington, Ohio, don't have jobs anymore. DHL pulled out in a town of, I think, 15,000; 8,000 of them lost their jobs. What are they supposed to tax?
And also, if we are supposed to be elected--each of us represented by the 700,000 people, well, then what are we doing here? Why don't we just hand off the entire Federal budget and all of the decisions to the President of the United States and his functionaries? Why do we have a legislative branch? We have a legislative branch because we do have the power of the purse, and we are local representatives closest to the people that get put on the ballot every 2 years, the shortest term in the United States Constitution, so people could keep an eye on us, and if they don't like us, throw us out.
Well, Mike Turner is supposed to stand up for the people in Wilmington, and the biggest need that he's found in Wilmington to fit this bill is to renovate this theater, which he has described as the heart and soul of Wilmington, Ohio, which has had its guts ripped out by this economy. High school graduations take place in this theater. It is a meeting place. The center of town. And if the duly elected representative to the United States House of Representatives from that area says that this is a need in this district, then by God, he should do it and the Constitution authorizes it.
I urge a defeat of the amendment.
I yield back.
Look, Ed Whitfield has been in this House since 1995. He knows his district better than anybody that has spoken on this amendment, and he's described a need in his area. And I would just suggest that if this earmark thing was such a great idea and it really captured the hearts and minds of the American people and would do anything to reduce spending in a significant way, John McCain would be President of the United States today and we would have had a different budget resolution. We would have had different 302(b) allocations.
But again, to deny a Member of Congress the opportunity to identify districts--and I'm not going to say faceless bureaucrats because I'm with the gentleman from Arizona about this health care business. That's a nonstarter for me. But I will tell you that to basically say we're not going to spend the money, we're going to punt, we're not going to do our jobs and represent other people and we're going to let President Obama and his team spend all the dough, it's just wrong.
I urge defeat of the amendment.