[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 98 (Tuesday, July 19, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H6087-H6088]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    STATUS OF SURFACE TRANSPORTATION EXTENSION ACT OF 2005, PART III

  (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, the purpose of my request is to inquire of 
the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and 
to ask him to take this opportunity to explain the extension that we 
will soon be considering on the House floor when the papers arrive from 
the Legislative Counsel's Office.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, it is 
my understanding this is a simple extension of 2 days until midnight, 
Thursday coming, and that, in fact, there will be monies to run the 
Department; and it is also my understanding that there will be some 
monies, 2 days' worth, disbursed to the States. This is not our idea; 
this was at the Senate's insistence. This is an attempt, for those who 
may be just now listening, to finalize the TEA-LU bill, the 
transportation bill.
  The agony that the gentleman and I have gone through in the last 34 
days is something that I do not want to write about. Maybe we should 
have been stationed at Guantanamo; it would have made it a lot easier. 
But we are very close now to a solution, and this is an attempt again 
to keep the pressure on and make sure we do finalize this

[[Page H6088]]

Thursday night so we can have a transportation bill that will do a 
partial job for the Nation, better than what we have, but not nearly as 
good as we need. Maybe in the future we will get everything we want.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the chairman 
for his explanation. We had agreed among the House conferees that 
initially this would be a simple extension, to pay only the employees 
of the Federal Highway Administration and not monies for the States. 
The other body has insisted that States be permitted to approve new 
contracts; but there will be no Member projects, there will be no 
specific designations in this agreement. Members have been asking me 
about that matter, and I have assured them that this is a clean, simple 
extension for 2 days.
  But it will mean that close to $200 million of new spending by the 
States will go out as the Senate has insisted. Contracts that have not 
yet been awarded by the States can be awarded in these next 2 days, and 
that could be roughly 1 percent of the annual funding of our Federal 
Highway and Transit program.
  Is that the chairman's understanding?
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct. As far as 
I am concerned, I would not like to have any extension, period. But we 
are dealing with a 2-bodied monster here, and we have to work with the 
other side as much as we possibly can and salvage as much as we can. 
Hopefully, this will be the last one. This is our ninth extension on 
this legislation. I feel a little bit chagrined about that as chairman. 
I thought we could do better; but, again, I underestimated the lack of 
foresight of the other body that does not understand the importance of 
this legislation. But, hopefully, this will be the last one we have.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, for the record, it must be said that the 
chairman has worked mightily, put in extraordinary hours, and used his 
enormous powers of persuasion to achieve the agreement in conference 
with the other body and, when necessary for extensions, to do it simply 
and cleanly and not have these other expenditures. But this is a 2-body 
Congress, and we do have to come to agreement with the other body. 
Despite the chairman's best judgment, in which I totally concur, we are 
forced into this unfortunate situation, which is not in the best public 
interests, I must say.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield, I can agree with the gentleman. As the gentleman knows, we have 
to deal with what we have, and we will try to make this a little less 
painful tonight and, as I hope will happen on Thursday, so we can pass 
this legislation and have it on the President's desk before we go home 
for the August break.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the explanation.

                          ____________________