OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users

Date: April 1, 2004
Location: Washignton, DC
Issues: Transportation


TRANSPORTATION EQUITY ACT: A LEGACY FOR USERS -- (House of Representatives - April 01, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of Tuesday, March 30, 2004, and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 3550.

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Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Chairman, I want to take this opportunity to commend the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), and the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri), and the ranking members, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), for all their hard work in bringing this legislation to the floor.

This legislation is very important to my home State of Pennsylvania where we have more road miles to maintain than our friends in New Jersey, New York and New England combined. But, Mr. Chairman, this is not only important to Pennsylvania; it is important to every one of our congressional districts where we have congestion problems, safety hazard problems, and economic development needs and concerns.

I want to thank my leader and my friend, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), for personally not once but twice coming to my congressional district and looking at the problems we face, where we are, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, looking at that unbelievable amount of truck traffic that comes through every day; and in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, where we have the Norfolk Southern coming through 50 times a day, not only disrupting traffic but also the safety concerns of having ambulance crews and fire companies being able to address concerns in the city; and in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, where there is a bike path that has been on the books for 2 decades.

This legislation will allow us to move forward on projects like that. So I want to commend the big four for all their hard efforts in bringing this legislation to the floor. And as was mentioned by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) and by the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan), not only is this good for our highway and transit systems, this legislation is good for our economy.

This legislation truly is a jobs bill, and I commend the big four for all their hard efforts.

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