[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 27, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H530]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             NEW LEGISLATIVE PROCESS A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, we are hearing a lot here on Capitol 
Hill about Otto von Bismarck's old sausage metaphor, that one doesn't 
want to watch either sausage or legislation being made. Well, for too 
long, Madam Speaker, the legislative process in this House was a scene 
right out of Upton Sinclair's graphic novel, ``The Jungle.''
  But currently with a new Congress and new Administration I would say 
that it has been a breath of fresh air watching this legislative 
process. It has been open. The ingredients have been great. The 
legislative leadership, the new President and his administrative team, 
have been involved, talking with people in both parties, in both 
chambers, and we are moving towards a package that I think people ought 
to embrace enthusiastically.
  The economic stimulus is moving into stage II, almost the home 
stretch. We are putting down positions, principles and guidelines. Any 
timetable at this juncture is perhaps artificial in nature. The target 
figure of $825 billion or $800 billion or $850 billion is a little 
arbitrary and subject to amendment, to adjustment. Such parameters are 
useful, maybe necessary. They are not set in stone, and it is necessary 
that we do this right. What we can agree upon is to make the economic 
impact as soon as possible while we help rebuild and renew America to 
make it better.
  I am concerned as the process moves forward, particularly as it 
relates to the infrastructure portion, that we make sure that the money 
gets to where it needs to go.

                              {time}  1045

  Primarily, I want to make sure that our metropolitan areas around the 
country are not shortchanged.
  The last Surface Transportation Act was held up for 2 years because 
people were arguing about whether States got an allocation that was 
fair enough. But the greatest disparity for transportation funding in 
this country was between metropolitan areas, which seldom got their 
fair share: 78 cents on the dollar in Dallas, southern California 
shortchanged by over $1 billion.
  One of the things we ought to do now, in this package while it's 
still in the formative stage, is to make sure that we use the existing 
STP allocation for all funds, not just part of the transportation 
funding. This formula would guarantee that metropolitan areas get their 
fair share and not concentrate money unduly in State departments of 
transportation.
  The second suggestion I would make is that we not use a lot of 
onerous paperwork to make sure that people are complying with the use-
it-or-lose-it provisions.
  We have very powerful compliance tools. We could simply make modest 
reductions in future revenue streams for people that don't make their 
target--hold them accountable, get the spending, and be able to protect 
the Treasury.
  Third, we ought to consider having local incentives for people that 
are actually going to reach in and put more of their own money into 
projects, being able to provide some modest incentive so that we reward 
and not penalize those who will get more money into the economy faster.
  Last, we ought to assure that States put the money where it can be 
spent. For example, if the State of New York has areas that can't take 
advantage of their allocation in time, but there are areas that can, we 
encourage the shift. The City of New York has almost $2 billion worth 
of projects that could meet that 2010 guideline. We ought to put 
language into this bill that encourages States to reallocate to areas 
that can use it, not risk losing it.
  We ought to make sure that we don't shortchange transit investments. 
I think we ought to go back to the marker laid down by Chairman 
Oberstar last December, of $12 billion; that ought to be a 
recommendation as a floor for transit. This would assure that we are 
able to make investments in these transportation activities that 
actually create more jobs than other types of transportation 
investments. Transit is very job intensive.
  A perfect example is a project we have in Portland, Oregon, where we 
have had stuck in the Department of Transportation a ``small-start'' 
streetcar expansion project for months. It meets all the statutory 
criteria, but the Bush Department of Transportation and their FTA and 
OMB could not figure out how to allocate the money. They couldn't even 
issue ``small start'' administrative rules that complied with the 
statute.
  This is an opportunity to be able to jump start something that would 
not only be millions of local dollars for the transit project, but it 
would incent millions more for related development along the alignment. 
And it's not just Portland, Oregon; it's Tucson, it's Seattle. We have 
a chance to jump start a new American industry for streetcars for the 
80 communities around America who want to move in this direction, even 
manufacturing streetcars in America for the first time in two-thirds of 
a century.
  I urge we move in a positive way. Support transit, support our 
metropolitan areas, get our economy moving while we revitalize our 
communities.

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