William O. Lipinski

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to an outstanding gentleman, Frank Wachowski, more commonly known as ``The Chicago Weather Man,'' who will be honored on October 16, 2004 with the prestigious Thomas Jefferson Award. It is with great honor that I recognize the contribution of a man who continues to serve the Chicagoland area and the state of Illinois.

The Thomas Jefferson Awards are presented to people who work to better their communities through volunteer and community services. They are ordinary people who do extraordinary things without expectations of recognition or reward.

For over 25 years, Frank Wachowski has volunteered his services as a cooperative observer for the National Weather Service and has closely worked with Tom Skilling, chief meteorologist at WGN-TV in Chicago. More than 11,000 volunteers nationwide take observations on farms, in urban and suburban areas, National Parks, seashores, and mountaintops. The Cooperative Network has been recognized as the most definitive source of information on our nation's climate trends as the data collections are truly representative of where people live, work and play.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me today in honoring Frank Wachowski for all of his hard work and dedication, as I hope that others are inspired by him to become involved in community service projects.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a remarkable gentleman, and friend, Mr. Stanley Balzekas in the celebration of his 80th birthday on October 8, 1924. It is with great honor that I recognize the contributions of a man who continues to serve the community of the Third Congressional District of Illinois.

The Balzekas family's years of service have been an invaluable contribution to the City of Chicago and beyond, as the Balzekas family members have been prominent leaders in the business and cultural life of our community. Stanley Balzekas's personal sacrifices of time and energy to family, friends and country stand as a testament of a truly fine individual. For his service to our Nation in the United States Army during World War II, we owe Mr. Balzekas a debt of gratitude.

Mr. Balzekas's interest and dedication to Chicago's great Lithuanian population has made him one of the foremost leaders amongst Chicago's diverse, ethnic communities; his great desire to bring peace to all people for the betterment of mankind is just one of his many noble qualities. He has worked with leading institutions, such as the Library of Congress, the National Endowment of the Arts and Humanities, Baltic freedom organizations, and the Chicago Public Library to enhance the world's understanding of Lithuania's deep history.

Mr. Balzekas has enriched the diverse fabric of our entire Chicago community by founding the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, one of the largest ethnic museums and libraries in the United States. Through such measures, Mr. Balzekas has been a dedicated guardian of the heritage, history and culture of this nation's Lithuanian ancestry.

Currently, Mr. Balzekas proudly serves as the Honorary Consul General of the Consulate for the Republic of Lithuania in Palm Beach, Florida. He also presides over the Ethnic Cultural Preservation Council, Chicago Sister Cities International Committee, the Baltic Foundation, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art and as vice-chairman for the Lithuanian- American Council.

Mr. Balzekas has been blessed with a wonderful family of three children and four grandchildren, all of which will be celebrating his birthday this week.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me in honoring Mr. Stanley Balzekas on reaching the milestone year of 80, and I wish him many future years of happiness and enjoyment in his personal and professional endeavors.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, on September 29, the bipartisan leadership of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure introduced H.R. 5183, the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2004. H.R. 5183 would extend our Nation's surface transportation programs for an additional 8 months, through May 31, 2005. While I fully support this extension, I am certainly not pleased that we need to consider such a measure once again. This is the fifth such extension we are considering since our highway and transit programs expired exactly 1 year ago.

Earlier this year, my colleagues in this body labored long and very hard to pass H.R. 3550. In writing TEA-LU, our committee considered the interests and needs of almost every single Member of this body.

We held dozens of hearings and we heard from many Members. We heard about their needs in their districts that they represent. Most importantly, we listened. We tried to accommodate the needs of every Member within the $275 billion bill. All in all, I think that the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young), the ranking member, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri) and myself on the Committee on Transportation and the Infrastructure did a good job. I believe we wrote a good bipartisan bill.

This body passed TEA-LU by a vote of 357-65. But now many, many months later, this measure is stalled in conference. Let me be clear, the leadership in this body has worked long and hard to negotiate an increase in the funding level from $275 billion to $299 billion. I believe that this is a good funding level. We would all like to have more, but democracy is compromise and we have all had to compromise.

My understanding is that most of my colleagues in this Chamber will accept the $299 billion funding for this bill. The leadership of this body should be commended for their efforts. Unfortunately, the conference is still stalled due to opposition from some Members of the other body.

We simply cannot continue to allow our highway and transit programs to limp along, extension after extension. States and localities are bearing the brunt of this inaction. State DOTs are flatlining their capital budgets. Critical transportation projects are not getting completed. Congestion problems are getting worse.

However, hope springs eternal. I, for one, believe we can get it done. Much like Ronald Wilson Reagan, I am an eternal optimist. I also have faith in our democratic process, and I have faith in our leadership on the committee and in this body. We still have an opportunity to finish negotiations on the highway conference, but to do so I would urge the other body to put aside partisan differences and think about the Nation, and we simply need to get this job done. But for now I urge my colleagues to support the extension.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

I thank the gentleman from New Jersey very much.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the ranking member of the full committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for those words, particularly those kind words about myself.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

First of all, I want to once again say that I appreciate the kind words the gentleman from Minnesota had to say about me. I would like to say that I learned a great deal from him over the course of my time here in the House of Representatives. Oftentimes I refer to him as Mr. Transportation, and I sincerely mean that. He probably knows more about transportation than anyone I have met in the 22 years I have been in the House of Representatives and he has certainly been enormously helpful to me in my career here. I also want to thank Chairman Young and Chairman Petri for including me as much as they have in the deliberations on this bill, through the subcommittee, the full committee, the House floor, and in the conference committee. I have really felt like a partner in this legislation. If I had been in the majority, I do not think that I could have been treated any better than I was by Chairman Young and Chairman Petri, and I sincerely appreciate that.

It has been very enjoyable working on this bill. I have been very pleased, as I say, with the participation that we have been given by the majority. There has been a lot of talk here today about this bill not becoming law and us not getting out of conference. I simply want to say, and I will preface this for the benefit of the few people who do not know, the Speaker of the House and I have a very good relationship and we have had for a long time. So I say that because I want to say that no one has worked harder to get this bill passed into law than Denny Hastert. I know that Chairman Young has had many, many meetings with him.

I know that the Speaker has gone to the White House on countless occasions. I know he has talked to the Senators, the Senate conference committee members. I know that the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young); the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), ranking member; the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri) have worked very hard on this bill. But I do not think they worked any harder on getting this bill passed than the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) has, and I want to make sure everyone understands that in this body. Yes, we have problems. Yes, the Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the House. But as I know from Illinois, where the Democrats control the governorship, the Senate, and the House, sometimes when one party controls everything, they do not quite get along as well as they would have if they were in the minority. So I appreciate that. I understand that.

I would also like to say in conclusion that there have been people who have helped our staff and helped the Democratic side considerably. That is, people from the House Legislative Counsel, Dave, Curt, and Rosemary; from DOT, Megan, Brigham, Jim, Gary; from NHTSA, Scott, Brian, Marlene; from FTA, William, Kris, Rita; from FHWA, Ross, Sue, Carolyn, and Susan. And certainly, David and Ward on our staff here have put an awful lot of work into this bill.

I am still hopeful that when we get back from our recess during the course of the election period of time that we will be able to pass this bill so that I will still be here in the House of Representatives when this bill becomes law. I am for the extension. Let us move on it. Let us get back to work trying to be bring this bill to conference.

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