Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

The committee shares the gentleman's support of NextGen programs. However, this amendment increases one activity in the operations account and makes no other further adjustments. The result is individual program levels that exceed the account level, which one cannot do.

To meet our allocation, the subcommittee looked closely at all accounts and at all programs. The subcommittee placed a high priority on FAA operations with just a 2 percent cut below the budget request. Within the operations account, the subcommittee balanced the number of high priority areas, including NextGen, aviation safety and air traffic control. This amendment throws this account off balance. The programs within the account would no longer add up to the top line, and the FAA could simply ignore the subcommittee's direction on other program levels in the account. So, therefore, we urge a ``no'' vote.

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Mr. WOLF. I just want to speak briefly in support of what Mr. Moran said.

Mr. Chairman, this law that we are drastically changing was really the result of a bipartisan agreement with regard to the Congress, and it was authored by former Congressman Tom Davis from northern Virginia. We voted on this one other time. A similar amendment was offered by Mr. Garrett last year. It failed by a vote of 160-243.

In 2008, the Congress made a 10-year commitment as the Federal partner to provide capital funds for the needs of the Metro system. It was a commitment. It's in the law. We voted on it. We worked on it. It was bipartisan. Now we come up with the Garrett amendment. These funds are matched, as said by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), by WMATA's regional partners--Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Again, it was voted on before, in the last Congress, and it failed overwhelmingly by a vote of 160-243.

Eliminating this funding means that Congress would be choosing to go back on its commitment to provide the money needed to maintain a safe and reliable system used by many of your constituents--the people who visit. Metro is currently using Federal funds to improve a 30-year-old system to address the critical safety recommendations made by the National Transportation Safety Board. People died on the Metro. This money is being used to make the Metro safe. As the other Member said, many Members have constituents who come from all over the country to use it. More than half of the Metro rail system serves Federal facilities like the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and many others.

I would ask Members to keep the commitment that was made in a bipartisan way and to vote down the Garrett amendment.

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