[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 29, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8223-S8224]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                                  1998

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will resume consideration of S. 
1048, the Department of Transportation appropriations bill, which the 
clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1048) making appropriations for the Department 
     of Transportation and related agencies for the fiscal year 
     ending September 30, 1998, and for other purposes.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
  Pending:

       Shelby (for D'Amato-Moynihan) amendment No. 1022, to direct 
     a transit fare study in the New York City metropolitan area.


                           Amendment No. 1022

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pending is amendment No. 1022 to the bill 
offered by Senator Shelby on behalf of Senator D'Amato.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, what is the pending business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending business is amendment No. 1022, 
offered by the Senator from Alabama on behalf of the Senator from New 
York, Senator D'Amato, to bill number S. 1048.
  Mr. SHELBY. I ask unanimous consent that we temporarily set that 
amendment aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, we are now resuming consideration of the 
fiscal year 1998 Transportation appropriations bill under a unanimous-
consent agreement reached last evening. I believe this is important 
legislation that will have very significant effects on every State in 
this Union. It sets a record-high obligation ceiling on Federal highway 
spending. It provides the resources for the Federal Aviation 
Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard to operate our Nation's airways 
and waterways safely and efficiently.
  Mr. President, it increases, again, our commitment to improving 
highway safety in this Nation. We want to finish our deliberations on 
this bill and pass it, if we can, and I ask now for the cooperation of 
all my colleagues in the Senate who have the option to offer amendments 
under the consent agreement and have not yet brought them to our 
attention. I would like for them to come to the floor with their 
amendments.
  Later, I intend to seek a unanimous-consent agreement that all 
amendments must be offered this evening, that we debate any amendments 
on which there is disagreement this evening, and that we have a final 
vote tomorrow. Accordingly, I encourage all Members desiring to speak 
on the bill on any of the amendments that they propose to come to the 
floor as soon as possible.
  Further, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following 
amendments--we have a list of amendments and some of them we have 
worked out and will be stricken. If I could, I would like to go through 
the list of the ones that we worked on and we will not have to 
consider. First is the Hollings amendment on the list; the Graham 
transit amendment; the Durbin amendment; two amendments by Senator 
Enzi; the Mack amendment; one of the Abraham amendments; the Bond 
amendment--two of the Bond amendments. I believe that would take care 
of a number of them. Some of the other amendments still will be before 
us, we hope, in some form soon or will be disposed of in some way.
  Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, this has been cleared on this side. 
Therefore, we have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. No objection is heard to the agreement.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of S. 1048, the 
Transportation appropriations bill for fiscal year 1998.
  The Transportation appropriations bill may be the most important of 
all the appropriations bills. It establishes the Federal investment 
level in our Nation's highways, airports, passenger, rail, and mass 
transit systems. I have spoken many times on the Senate floor regarding 
the importance of maintaining and improving the Nation's physical 
infrastructure. Our economy is highly dependent on the efficient 
movement of goods and people. Congestion and capacity constraints on 
our Nation's highways and delays at our airports cost the U.S. economy 
billions of dollars each year in lost productivity. But while the 
estimated costs associated with congestion grow each year, our Federal 
investment in infrastructure has continued to decline significantly.

  Indeed, since 1980, our national investment in infrastructure has 
declined, both as a percentage of our gross domestic product and as a 
percentage of our Federal budget. The bill before the Senate today 
seeks to reverse the destructive trend of Federal disinvestment. Most 
importantly, as far as this Senator is concerned, the Federal aid 
highway obligation ceiling will rise to a historic high of $21.8 
billion, an increase of more than $3 billion, or 17 percent. Our 
Nation's airports will enjoy a 16-percent increase in Federal funding 
for critical capital and safety improvement projects, an increase of 
$260 million.
  Now, Mr. President, these additional highway funds are sorely needed 
in all States of the Nation. Indeed, the historic $3 billion increase 
is still only one-fifth the size of the increase that the Federal 
Highway Administration estimates would be necessary to cease 
deterioration in the condition of our National Highway System. Put 
another way, if we wanted to see a net improvement in the condition of 
our roads and bridges, we would be required to provide an increase in 
excess of $15 billion in the bill, or a total of almost $37 billion. 
Unfortunately, the restrictions that have been placed on domestic 
discretionary spending through the Federal budget process preclude us 
from providing such an increase through this bill. But I still want to 
commend the managers for making our Federal investment in highways a 
priority in the development of this bill.
  These highway funds are not the only critical investments in this 
bill. The Transportation appropriations bill includes our entire annual 
investment in critical safety programs in all modes of transportation. 
These include investments to maintain and modernize our air traffic 
control system, programs for the prevention of drunk driving, funding 
for rail safety inspectors and motor carrier inspectors, as well as 
programs of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the 
National Transportation Safety Board.
  Mr. President, when one considers the costs to society in terms of 
the thousands of lives lost each year through accidents involving our 
transportation system, the devastation is great. Whether it be highway 
deaths, or airline disasters, or train accidents, it matters little to 
those who lose their lives, or to those who are permanently disabled, 
or to their families, as to which mode of transportation was involved. 
We simply must do all that we can to reduce the death and the 
destruction that occurs annually in our various transportation systems.

[[Page S8224]]

  In doing so, we not only save lives, we also save the billions of 
dollars that these accidents cost the economy each year in terms of 
property damage and lost productivity, as well as the health care 
costs--and they are often long-term--associated with these tragedies.
  I believe it is necessary to point out, Mr. President, that it will 
require a two-step process for us to get increased highway construction 
funding, as well as highway safety funding to our States. This 
appropriations bill is the first step, but it will be equally essential 
for us to pass the surface transportation authorization bill in the 
very near future. Our major Federal highway construction, highway 
safety, and mass transit programs are set to expire in less than 10 
weeks' time. As has been the usual convention, the annual 
appropriations bill sets an obligation limitation on these highway 
construction, highway safety, and mass transit programs.
  But it is the responsibility of the authorizing committees--the 
Committees on Environment and Public Works and Commerce and Banking--to 
provide the necessary contract authority so that these programs will 
continue beyond September 30. I know it has been the stated desire of 
the majority leader to bring such an authorization bill before the 
Senate as soon as possible. And I am one of many Senators who anxiously 
await an opportunity to debate a new surface transportation 
authorization bill on the Senate floor.
  Mr. President, I commend Senator Shelby for his excellent work in his 
first year as chairman of the Transportation Subcommittee. He held a 
thorough and informative set of hearings at the beginning of the year. 
I was pleased to have had the opportunity to participate in some of 
them. And I also commend Senator Lautenberg, the ranking member of the 
Transportation Subcommittee, who, as ranking member of the Budget 
Committee, toiled diligently to ensure that the budget resolution 
treated transportation as an important budget priority for the coming 
year.
  Senator Shelby and Senator Lautenberg have continued to act in the 
cooperative bipartisan fashion that has always characterized the 
workings of the Transportation Subcommittee.
  Mr. President, these Senators, who act as managers of a bill as 
important as this is, put an immense amount of time into their work. 
They conduct thorough hearings. They work with able staff. They conduct 
markups on the bill at the subcommittee level, and the bill is 
generally approved by the Appropriations Committee. The bill has 
usually emanated from the subcommittee, and seldom does the full 
committee make changes in those subcommittee actions that go into the 
formulation of the bill.
  I know that Senator Shelby has worked hard, and he has done a good 
job, as did Senator Lautenberg when he was chairman of the 
Transportation Subcommittee. They are both highly dedicated to their 
work, and they are both very well respected. And I want to commend both 
of these Senators. They are working in the best interests of the 
Nation. They are working in the best interests of the States that make 
up the Nation. And they are working in the best interests of the future 
and the people who will depend upon adequate modes of transportation 
today and in the future.
  I also want to thank the Presiding Officer. I note that he listens to 
what Senators are saying. And that is important. He is alert to what is 
going on, on the floor. He is alert to what is being said. He is not 
working crossword puzzles. He is not signing his mail. He is not 
reading a book. He is busily engaged in the business of presiding. So I 
compliment all of these whose names I have mentioned.
  As I think of the work that is done by Senator Shelby and Senator 
Lautenberg, I used to be the chairman of the Transportation 
Appropriations Subcommittee a good many years ago. I was instrumental 
years ago in helping to get the first appropriations for the 
metropolitan transit system here. That was before most Senators were 
Members of this body. But I saw the need for a transportation system in 
the District of Columbia to serve the metropolitan area, and I 
supported mass transit throughout the years. When I was chairman of the 
full committee, I did not come to bury mass transit. I came to praise 
mass transit and to save mass transit and to help mass transit. I am 
sorry to say that I have not been accorded the same reciprocity toward 
highways, especially from some of the Members of the other body. I 
don't mention names because that is against the Senate rules.
  But we are all working for the Nation. And when we work to improve 
the transportation of the Nation, we work to build the Nation's 
prosperity. We work for the increased safety of those who travel, and 
we work for the young men and women who will be the leaders of the 
Nation in years to come.
  It reminds me of a bit of verse by Will Dromgoole. One might think 
that that author was a man. The name is Will, but it was a woman.

     An old man traveling a long highway
     Came at evening, cold and gray
     To a chasm vast and wide and steep,
     With waters rolling cold and deep.
     The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
     The sullen stream held no fears for him.
     But he turned, when he reached the other side.
     And he built a bridge to span the tide.

     ``Old man,'' said a fellow pilgrim standing near.
     ``You are wasting your strength in building here.
     Your journey will end with the passing day,
     And you never again will travel this way.
     You have crossed the chasm deep and wide;
     Why build you a bridge at eventide?''

     The builder lifted his old gray head.
     ``Good friend, in the path I have come,'' he said,
     ``There followeth after me today
     A youth whose feet must pass this way.
     This chasm, which was but naught to me,
     To that fair youth might a pitfall be.
     He, too, must cross in the twilight dim.
     Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.''

  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to 
speak as if in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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