[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 152 (Friday, November 22, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2135]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RECOGNIZING CONGRESSMAN BILL COYNE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOHN P. MURTHA

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, November 22, 2002

  Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to pay tribute to my long 
time friend and colleague. Bill Coyne will retire from this institution 
after serving 11 terms as a Member of this institution.
  Bill is a lifelong resident of Pittsburgh, and so like myself, is a 
native of the southwestern Pennsylvania district he has so faithfully 
represented for the past 22 years.
  The 14th District includes the city of Pittsburgh as well as 33 other 
surrounding communities in the very heart of this country's steel 
producing center. From his post as a senior member of the Ways and 
Means Committee, he has been able to develop and promote countless 
economic policy initiatives to the benefit of the Southwestern region 
as well as the Nation, including those dealing with Social Security, 
trade, tax reform, health care, housing and community development, job 
creation, and job training.
  In addition to serving as ranking member of the Ways and Means 
Oversight Subcommittee Bill has served on the Banking Committee, the 
Budget Committee, the Committee on House Administration, and the 
Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. He has consistently used 
his committee assignments to promote federal policies to the benefit of 
urban America.
  During the 103rd Congress, Bill succeeded in making the tax-exempt 
Industrial Development Bond permanent. IDB's helped to create or retain 
more than 26,000 manufacturing jobs in Pennsylvania alone between 1987 
and 1992. He also led the successful House Ways and Means opposition to 
a proposed $1 per gallon hike in the Federal fuel tax for waterway 
commerce in 1993, which was of enormous economic benefit for the Three 
Rivers area he represents.
  Bill also successfully inserted language in the 1993 reconciliation 
bill that provided low-income workers with an improved opportunity to 
receive an Earned Income Tax Credit on a monthly basis, instead of 
waiting for a single annual payment.
  In the 104th Congress, Bill Coyne worked with many of his Democratic 
colleagues to protect Federal funding for programs serving children, 
seniors, and working families, and to ensure that the burden of Federal 
taxation was not disproportionately borne by working families. He also 
worked to provide tax incentives for businesses and municipalities to 
clean up and redevelop abandoned industrial sites, and he worked to 
expand protection for workers' rights in international trade 
agreements.
  In the 105th Congress, he worked for middle-class tax relief while 
balancing the Federal budget responsibly. He was a supporter of both 
the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. He 
worked successfully to include a provision in the Taxpayer Relief Act 
of 1997 which allowed businesses to deduct the cost of cleaning up 
brownfields sites in certain targeted areas. He was also actively 
involved in developing and enacting legislation to reform the Internal 
Revenue Service, and much of his Taxpayer Bill of Rights legislation 
was in that bill.
  Bill Coyne worked to make organ transplant regulations fairer and 
worked with me to make the Disproportionate Share Hospital program's 
formula for hospitals fairer as well. He also worked to provide nearly 
$800 million in projects for his district in the Transportation Equity 
Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) including reconstruction of Drake, 
Library and Overbrook trolley lines, construction of an extension of 
the MLK Jr. Busway, construction of an industrial access road in 
Lawrenceville, and construction of transit links between downtown and 
the North Shore.
  During the 106th Congress, Bill Coyne continued to work to protect 
federal programs that serve children, senior citizens, the disabled, 
and working families; enact a Medicare prescription drug benefit; 
strengthen U.S. laws that punish unfair foreign trade practices; 
protect Americans' pensions and other retirement benefits; increase 
funding for medical research and education; and make the Federal Tax 
Code simpler and fairer by reforming the capital gains tax and the 
alternative minimum tax. He also worked successfully to increase public 
awareness about food stamp eligibility and to expand the brownfields 
tax provision and push back its expiration date by several years.
  Bill Coyne is a graduate of Central Catholic High School and Robert 
Morris College. He served in the United States Army in Korea from 1955 
to 1957. He worked as a corporate accountant for 13 years before 
entering politics in 1970. He served in the Pennsylvania House of 
Representatives from 1971 to 1972 and on the Pittsburgh City Council 
from 1973 until 1980.
  I'm proud to have served alongside Bill Coyne and worked with him for 
these many years for the benefit of our adjoining districts and 
Pennsylvania as a whole. Bill's seniority on Ways and Means will be 
sorely missed by Pennsylvania. His expertise as a legislator will be 
missed by all Americans who were helped by his good work. His good 
nature, friendship, and collegiality will I know be missed by his 
fellow Pennsylvania Members and indeed by all of us here in the House 
of Representatives. Please join me in wishing him well in his 
retirement from public service.

                          ____________________