Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2005

TRANSPORTATION, TREASURY, AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005 -- (House of Representatives - September 22, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 770 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, H.R. 5025.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the gentleman from Oklahoma a question.

We have had five or six amendments adopted, the Van Hollen amendment, the Davis amendment on Cuba, the Lee amendment on Cuba, the Waters amendment on Cuba, the Stenholm amendment on debt ceiling and, I believe, one other. Last year, we had the experience of seeing a good many amendments which had been adopted on this floor to this and several other bills evaporate as soon as they went to conference.

I would like to know whether the gentleman can assure us that he will insist on retaining each of these amendments and will not bring this bill back from conference if these amendments do not stay in the conference this year.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate the gentleman's point, and he is well aware that the controversial amendments which relate to Cuba always bring up a lot of heat in the debate in this House. Those amendments are subject to a presidential veto. We have had the message from the White House in the statement of administrative policy, which is very unequivocal in indicating the President would veto the bill over Cuba.

This is why, in past years, the gentleman has certainly seen that amendment, as the gentleman phrases it, evaporate or at least not come through in the conference report to the same degree before. My responsibility, as the gentleman appreciates, is to produce a bill that will pass into law. I am unable to give him the assurance that he is seeking, and I am sure he understands why, although he is not pleased by it.

Mr. OBEY. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his candor.

Let me say this, Mr. Chairman, I had originally been willing to support this bill as it came out of committee, even though many of us on this side of the aisle thought the bill woefully inadequate in terms of funding levels for various transportation accounts. But the majority has been in a three-cornered feud with itself. The authorizing committee and a number of others in the majority party caucus, for different reasons, have shredded this bill. They have knocked out, at this point, highway aid to the States. They have knocked out mass transit. They have knocked out funding for airport construction. They have knocked out 80 percent of the Department of Transportation funds that originally were contained in this bill.

In addition to that, we have received no assurance whatsoever that the amendments that the House adopted would be retained in conference. In fact, we have essentially been told, because of the presidential threat of a veto, that these amendments will once again be stripped in the conference. That means that virtually all of the action that occurred on this floor has been meaningless with respect to the items that were debated today and late last night.

I am certainly willing to meet my responsibilities to help move bills forward, even if I do not always agree with their content, provided the majority party itself takes its duty seriously. But if the majority party itself, if the majority party leadership itself will not defend their own legislative product as it comes out of the committee, I certainly do not see why I should, especially when House actions, given the arbitrary action of the authorizing committee, have turned this bill into a cadaver.

So, at this point, I intend to vote "no," because I am not going to vote for a bill which effectively cuts more than half the dollar resources out of this bill and which effectively cuts 80 percent of the transportation funding out of the bill just because some people in this House happen to think that committee jurisdiction is more important than being responsible.

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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ISTOOK. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and let me simply say that I am not only concerned with the Cuba provisions, I am very much concerned with the transportation items. And I am not about to go on record voting for a bill which has cut these bills, in essence, almost 80 percent below last year's level in terms of transportation items.

I have seen the majority party's campaign committee play games with that too often, and I do not expect to see ads run against Members of the Congress because they voted for a product which the majority party itself is asking them to vote for. That has happened too many times for me to be suckered by that one.

Mr. ISTOOK. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I reemphasize that this bill is the vehicle for the transportation funding. It goes to the conference with the Senate. The things that were stricken on points of order can then be restored and will be restored. A vote against this bill is a vote against the transportation funding that is important to every Member. It is important to their States and important to projects in their districts.

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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would just observe the gentleman said this is a good bill. There is not anything left of this bill except the enacting clause; that is in great shape. Outside of that, it is a hollow shell.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, what is left, is a good bill. And whatever repairs need to be made will be made in the conference. So I urge the Members to vote against the motion to recommit and for final passage on the bill.

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MOTION TO RECOMMIT OFFERED BY MR. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the bill?

Mr. OBEY. In its present form, I certainly am.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to recommit.

The Clerk read as follows:

Mr. Obey moves to recommit the bill, H.R. 5025, to the Committee on Appropriations with instructions to report the same back to the House promptly with an amendment to restore funding for Payments to Air Carriers, Grants-in-Aid for Airports, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, and the Surface Transportation Board and increase funding above the levels in H.R. 5025, as reported, for the Federal-Aid Highways Limitation on Obligations, Grants to the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, new fixed guideway systems, and Grants-in-Aid for Airports.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, last week during consideration of this bill, three factions of the majority party took turns in striking entire accounts out of this bill.

More than half the budgetary resources that had been in the bill are now missing.

More than 80 percent of the Department of Transportation's resources have been deleted from this bill. This bill is now missing more than $41 billion in funding that was supposed to flow to each of our States for highways, transit and aviation.

My motion to recommit the Department of Transportation programs and provides adequate funding for addressing the Nation's transportation needs. This motion asks that the Committee on Appropriations restore the accounts that were deleted by points of order, and it calls for increased funding above the committee-reported levels for highways, transit, new start projects, Amtrak and Grants-in-Aid for airports.

It restores funding for rural airports through the Essential Air Service Program, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Surface Transportation Board.

The motion is important because without it we are simply not meeting some of the crucial transportation needs of the country.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that my friend from Oklahoma will say that because of the form of this motion that this bill will effectively be delayed or killed. The fact is, that is not correct. This bill is already dead. This bill is already on the way to the morgue. It quit breathing last Friday. All I am trying to do is to resuscitate the bill and make it something other than a cadaver.

So, without this motion, this House is acquiescing in the fact that jurisdictional arguments between committees have resulted in a bill which has little more than the enacting title, and I do not think that it does very much credit to the House.

If you vote for this amendment, you will be voting to resuscitate the programs that were knocked out because of the willfulness of the authorizing committee last week, and I would urge a "yes" vote for the proposition.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ISTOOK. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

All of that can be solved by simply having the Committee on Rules this time do its duty and report out a rule that protects a rational bill.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's concern, and certainly the Committee on Rules could have done something on the current bill and could do something on a different bill, but why do we expect the Committee on Rules would have any different action?

The only sure course of action to get this bill passed to fund the transportation for every Member of this body for their States and also to address the desires that different Members have for their different districts is to pass the bill, move it on to the House-Senate conference where we bring it back, and all those problems are wiped clean because now we are under a different parliamentary process that governs the conference report.

I oppose the motion to recommit. There is no sense in killing the bill. Let us keep it alive so that we can keep transportation moving in the country.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the motion to recommit.

There was no objection.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.

The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the noes appeared to have it.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.

The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.

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