[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 183 (Monday, November 6, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H5420-H5423]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2024


                             General Leave

  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous materials on H.R. 4820, and that I may include 
tabular material on the same.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Oklahoma?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 838 and rule 
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House 
on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 4820.
  The Chair appoints the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bacon) to preside 
over the Committee of the Whole.

                              {time}  1730


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill 
(H.R. 4820) making appropriations for the Departments of 
Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies 
for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes, 
with Mr. Bacon in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIR. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the 
first time.
  General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed 1 
hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking 
minority member of the Committee on Appropriations, or their respective 
designees.
  The gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole) and the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole).
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to stand before you today as we consider 
the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies 
bill for fiscal year 2024.
  I am glad that we are back at work moving appropriations bills 
through the House floor under our new Speaker. We are continuing to 
fulfill our constitutional duties.
  I thank Chairman Granger, Ranking Member DeLauro, and my partner on 
this bill, Ranking Member   Mike Quigley.
  This bill responsibly funds our most critical transportation and 
housing needs and will have a positive impact on every congressional 
district in the country.
  At the same time, the bill meets the challenge before us to reduce 
spending and get our debt under control. The bill reduces spending 25 
percent below fiscal year 2023 levels, with a CBO score of $65 billion. 
We achieve these savings through a rescission of IRS funds and by 
reducing billions in excessive spending.
  To really compare this bill to last year, we need to be honest about 
what was in the fiscal year 2023 bill, what it actually contains.
  First, I will point out that last year, my Democratic friends labeled 
an extra $3.6 billion as emergency funding. We do not repeat that 
mistake this year.
  Second, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill uses 
receipts from HUD-backed mortgages and refinancing to offset spending. 
In fiscal year 2023, this provided $10 billion to offset spending. For 
fiscal year 2024, that receipt number is down over 70 percent.
  Why?
  It is because few people want to refinance at an 8 percent interest 
rate.
  The real level of spending in the T-HUD bill was $101 billion in 2023 
compared to $93 billion in the same bill before us today. This is a 
decrease of $8 billion, bringing the total slightly below the 2022 
level.
  Every year across government we face unavoidable cost increases in 
some programs. I believe we need to be responsible when addressing 
these costs. This bill does just that by cutting excess, removing 
duplication, and even trimming some programs that are, quite frankly, 
popular on both sides of the aisle.
  Nevertheless, we also made sure to prioritize the core missions of 
DOT and HUD. We prioritize transportation safety on our railways, 
roads, and airways. I am proud that we provide resources for the 
Federal Aviation Administration to hire 1,800 new air traffic 
controllers to backfill the retiring workforce and deploy air traffic 
controllers to understaffed facilities. We also provide funding for the 
most critical air traffic control modernization programs. We all feel 
the impact of a strained air traffic control system. This bill will 
address some of those strains.

[[Page H5421]]

  These investments will generate economic growth and ensure 
uninterrupted air service, which is critical for rural and remote 
communities and metropolitan areas alike.
  This bill provides $60 billion for highways and bridges through the 
highway trust fund. These resources are directly allocated to our State 
departments of transportation, enabling State and local governments to 
collaborate on the highest priority road projects.
  The bill prioritizes safety programs at the Department of 
Transportation to ensure that our roads and railways are safe for 
freight haulers and the traveling public.
  The bill supports the DOT's maritime mission for full funding for 
national security programs. We ensure a responsible safety net with 
housing support for our most vulnerable citizens, especially the 
elderly, disabled veterans, and the working poor. These programs are 
run at the local level, through public housing authorities, private 
landlords, and faith-based organizations.
  The bill supports self-sufficiency programs so that families can move 
up and out of rental assistance. Our housing assistance programs should 
be a hand up and not a handout.
  I have heard from Members on both sides of the aisle about the 
importance of Community Development Block Grants, or CDBGs, so we 
provide the fiscal year '23 enacted level of $3.3 billion for this 
program.
  I am proud of the work that we have done in this bill to meet our 
trust and treaty responsibilities to Native Americans. For years, HUD 
Tribal programs languished, their buying power eroded by inflation. At 
the same time, much of the housing on Tribal lands has deteriorated to 
the point of being dangerous and uninhabitable. So we have increased 
the Indian Housing Block Grant Program to $1.1 billion, catching up to 
an inflation-adjusted 1998 level. While this does not make up for 
decades of underinvestment, it is at least a start. The bill also 
increases investments in historically underfunded Tribal road programs.
  The bill includes provisions that will scale back the Biden 
administration's regulatory overreach. For example, we prohibit funds 
such as to implement the affirmatively furthering fair housing rule at 
HUD. This does nothing to impair HUD's enforcement of the Fair Housing 
Act but cuts red tape for public housing authorities and other 
recipients of HUD funds.
  The bill also bars the DOT from imposing new carbon emission 
reduction targets for highway projects. This would be particularly 
burdensome for small and rural communities.
  In addition, the bill prohibits funds for drones subsidized by the 
Chinese Government. This will safeguard our national security and 
create a fair playing field for American manufacturers.
  These are just a few of the policy provisions in the bill that will 
scale back the Biden administration's overreach. I am pleased that we 
will consider several amendments that will do even more to keep a check 
on the excesses of this administration.
  I thank Members of the House for their input to this bill. We 
received roughly 9,000 requests, and we were able to meet over two-
thirds of them, including community project funding for transportation 
infrastructure and bricks-and-mortar community development projects.
  The alternative to passing this and other appropriations bills is a 
continuing resolution. Let me remind all Members that a CR will serve 
no one well. This bill is an ideal example of why we must avoid putting 
the government on autopilot.
  Under a CR, our air traffic control system would suffer delays 
because of staffing shortages, housing assistance would be revoked from 
vulnerable Americans, and spending that is no longer needed from fiscal 
year 2023 would be carried forward for another year.
  We must avoid that outcome.
  In closing, Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased that we are moving 
forward. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I 
reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill, and I 
yield myself the such time as I may consume.
  As ranking member of the Transportation, Housing and Urban 
Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, I take 
pride in how the work of this subcommittee impacts the day-to-day lives 
of every person in our country.
  Whether it is working to improve morning commutes to work and to 
school, fighting against the emissions that come along with moving 
people and goods from one place to another, or ensuring every American 
has a safe and stable place to call home, this bill touches the lives 
of every American.
  Yet, this bill undercuts the fundamental values of the American 
people, and it does so at the expense of our lowest income families. 
Rather than continuing investments to upgrade our outdated 
infrastructure, this bill would weaken the safety of our transportation 
workers and communities. Instead of reducing congestion on our roads, 
delays at our airports, and bottlenecks at train stations, this bill 
would make our daily commutes and travel times longer.
  When we should be investing more resources in safe and stable 
affordable housing to help the millions of American families that are 
barely able to get by each month, this bill would eliminate the 
opportunity for 22,000 working families to secure an affordable 
mortgage or home to rent.
  All in all, this bill trades the basic needs of everyday Americans 
for the wants of the wealthiest. This message is made very clear when 
the bill cuts more than $7 billion for freight, rail, transit, and port 
infrastructure projects that span all 50 States and the District of 
Columbia, urban and rural.
  This includes a complete elimination of the Thriving Communities 
program, striking out any new funding for the popular and bipartisan 
RAISE and Mega grant programs, gutting funding for light rail, subways, 
and bus projects by 82 percent, and slashing Amtrak's Northeast 
corridor funding by 92 percent; crippling the entire national network 
from Florida to New York, Texas to California, and in my own district, 
from Chicago to Arkansas, Montana, and all the way to the Pacific 
Northwest.

  This bill also eliminates more than $2 billion for housing 
development and community revitalization programs, based on merit and 
need, I might add, including pulling back half a billion dollars 
intended to make housing safer for low-income children and families.
  A safe and stable roof over your child's head should not be a worry 
for working parents already struggling to make ends meet. Yet, if 
enacted into law, this bill would force millions of families, the 
elderly, and the disabled to make even more difficult decisions each 
day on whether to live in a home riddled with lead and mold, all while 
the bill eliminates $25 billion from the Internal Revenue Service for 
tax oversight for the wealthy, an agency that this bill does not even 
have jurisdiction over.
  Compounding these concerns are the several controversial policy 
riders that unnecessarily attack high-speed rail, roll back 
transportation safety, and call into question civil rights protections 
for most Americans.
  This bill does not represent what a majority of our constituents have 
called on us to do, and I fear we have yet to see what additional cuts 
may be taken within this bill to appease those Members calling for 
draconian levels of spending, on the backs of everyday Americans.
  As such, Mr. Chair, I respectfully cannot support this bill, and I 
reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. LaMalfa).
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for 
yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, one of the components in this legislation has to do 
with the California high-speed rail line which was originally bonded 
for $9.9 billion in 2008. The high-speed rail would run from San 
Francisco to Los Angeles, and the projected total cost was deemed to be 
around $33 billion that the voters of California were sold when this 
was placed on the ballot. They would fund $9.9 billion of it. The rest 
would come from the private sector, seeing that it would be such a 
great investment and they would make a lot of money at that. The 
completion date would be 2020.

[[Page H5422]]

  As I look at the calendar, we are already 3 years behind the 2020 
date. As well, they have been looking for more money because they have 
fallen way short. The silence has been deafening from the private 
investors who have not come in on that because they know it is a money 
loser.
  So what do we have?
  Instead, California keeps coming begging to the Federal Government 
for more and more funds. They were able to scoop up about $3 billion 
soon after the Obama stimulus act.
  Do you remember that one, Mr. Chair, back in 2009, look for the 
shovel-ready projects?
  So they were able to scoop that up. They took that money because the 
other States who initially took that money gave it back because they 
weren't going to make high-speed rail work in their States for anywhere 
near the right price.

                              {time}  1745

  Here we are, at least 3 years after the initial date, and projections 
now are somewhere around 2035. They are just now chipping away at the 
Central Valley portion that would run from about Merced to Bakersfield 
and end in an almond orchard out there somewhere.
  They are running out of funding, so they keep coming back to the 
Federal Government for more. They got $3 billion of ARRA funding back 
then, and they have since passed a carbon tax in California, where they 
auction off carbon credit rights in order to prop this up even more.
  They are coming to us once again. They are $28 billion short of just 
fulfilling the Central Valley portion, not the whole $33 billion that 
voters were sold many years ago. It is going to end up being about $128 
billion at current projections.
  Mr. Chair, we have to stop throwing money down this rathole. 
Initially, they tried to tell us it would be a million jobs, back when 
I was in the State legislature. They finally admitted after 3 years 
that they meant a million job-years. I guess that means 5,000 workers 
working for 20 years or something like that, or 200 years. Some crazy 
number would mean a million job-years.
  By the time you would actually take this rail, which is going to be 
electrified from San Francisco to San Jose, you would have to switch 
trains. You may well have to switch trains around here somewhere, too. 
You could take Southwest from San Francisco to L.A., be on the beach, 
and already have a sunburn before you could actually get off the high-
speed rail where you are going. Plus, this is without being subsidized 
by the taxpayers for the ultraexpensive tickets these are going to be 
because of the massive overrun in costs.
  Mr. Chair, I appreciate my colleague, Chairman Cole, for including 
this language in the bill that would block $3 billion of new spending 
on this from Federal taxpayers.
  The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman 
from California.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Chair, instead, why don't we invest infrastructure 
money to build the water storage that would grow these crops that all 
Americans would utilize and enjoy, which they already do since 90 
percent are grown in California?
  Let's invest in good things instead of this dumb high-speed rail 
project, which is a rathole, a boondoggle, that will not pay off.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Chair, I yield 8 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the ranking member of the Appropriations 
Committee.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chair, I thank Chairman Cole and Ranking Member 
Quigley for their work on this bill. I also thank the majority and 
minority staff, particularly Christina Monroe, Nora Faye, and Jackie 
Kilroy, for all of their hard work.
  Americans deserve the safest, most advanced systems in the world, 
across all forms of transportation. Yet, we have seen our 
transportation systems fail to meet the needs of the American people.
  Between air-traffic control interruptions, catastrophic train 
derailments, highways collapsing, and record pedestrian fatalities, we 
should be increasing investments to strengthen our transportation 
systems and to keep people safe, not retreating from our transportation 
future.
  Furthermore, every community is affected by the lack of affordable 
housing. There is a shortage of 7.3 million affordable homes 
nationwide. Yet, this bill fails to meet the housing needs of a growing 
and aging population.
  This bill will make everything from commuting to shipping goods 
slower, more difficult, and more expensive for Americans. This bill 
guts rail investments, including a 64 percent reduction for Amtrak, 
resulting in service eliminations, delays to station improvements, and 
furloughs to its workforce, which will impact 20 million riders.
  The brunt of this cut is borne by the Northeast Corridor--from $1.3 
billion to $99 million, or a 92 percent cut. Northeast Corridor rail 
service is the lifeblood of the $5.8 trillion economic region that 
spans 12 States from Virginia to Maine. Business travelers and 
commuters, myself included, rely on this service to make our economy 
grow. Thousands across the region are employed directly or indirectly 
by rail service and the commerce that it drives.
  We are not just talking about how people get to and from New York 
City or how we get to Washington, D.C. There are 7 million jobs within 
a 5-mile radius of a Northeast Corridor station. Communities of every 
size line the route, from rural towns to suburbs to urban destinations, 
and those communities rely heavily on rail travel for connectivity and 
commerce.
  This includes communities like Aberdeen, Maryland, and Roanoke and 
Lynchburg, Virginia, that have stops on the Northeast Regional service. 
Communities like Connellsville and Greensburg, Pennsylvania, which are 
connected to the Northeast Corridor by intercity routes would also see 
drastic cuts.
  Even beyond the Northeast, at these proposed levels, Amtrak 
anticipates nearly all long-distance and State-supported services would 
be impacted on national network routes.
  Services would be at risk across the country: the Heartland Flyer in 
Oklahoma, the Silver Service to south Florida, the Texas Eagle from 
Chicago to Arkansas and Texas, and the Empire Builder from Chicago to 
Montana to the Pacific Northwest.
  Thirteen of our colleagues in the majority supported the bipartisan 
infrastructure law, and even if they did not, they have not missed the 
ribbon cuttings. Yet, that law was never intended to replace annual 
appropriations. We cannot make that law's historic investments while 
gutting the annual appropriations that close the funding gap on complex 
and costly projects.
  In parallel, we are setting our transportation infrastructure back 
decades. The majority sets investments in housing back, as well. This 
bill fails to protect housing for seniors, veterans, people with 
disabilities, and working families, and it fails to improve the safety 
of those in low-income housing.

  Gutting the HOME program, the sole Federal program dedicated to 
affordable housing construction, by 67 percent will further squeeze the 
housing supply. This would result in nearly 17,000 fewer affordable 
homes built or rehabilitated this year and rental assistance for 5,000 
fewer people.
  The bill puts children and families at risk by cutting $564 million 
for health hazard remediations in low-income housing, including lead-
based paint hazards, jeopardizing the safety of our most vulnerable 
populations.
  In Flint, Michigan, thousands of children were exposed to lead-
poisoned water for more than a year as a direct result of chronic 
underfunding of the EPA and overreliance on State management of Federal 
environmental law. We cannot repeat these costly mistakes.
  To be clear, there is no amount of safe lead exposure. In children 
exposed to lead, you can expect to see delayed or stunted growth, 
learning difficulties, behavioral problems, and hearing and speech 
deficiencies. Failing to adequately address this issue will have dire 
long-term effects on our children's health and our Nation's future. Our 
children deserve better.
  We must be honest about why we have a Fair Housing Act to begin with. 
The U.S. Government was an active

[[Page H5423]]

participant in creating the racial segregation we still see today. 
Black majority neighborhoods were bulldozed to create urban freeways. 
Racial covenants, redlining, and restrictive zoning were not just the 
norm; they were frequently required by Federal housing programs.
  It took the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and President 
Lyndon B. Johnson's urging to push this body to pass the Civil Rights 
Act of which the Fair Housing Act was included as title VIII. Mr. 
Chair, 161 Republicans and 166 Democrats voted for this landmark 
legislation because members of both parties understood the deep-rooted 
problems in this country and decided to meet that challenge. I worry 
that we no longer have two parties that are willing to meet today's 
challenges.
  This bill would cripple our economy and eliminate thousands of jobs, 
and I must underscore that this is no messaging bill. I am taking 
Republicans at their word, as should all the American people. This is 
where they plan to take this country.
  I must address the unforgivable manner in which community project 
funds were handled in the markup of this bill. Out of thousands of 
projects that adhered to published criteria, the majority cut funding 
for three solely because of their association with LGBTQ+ causes. This 
is truly despicable, and it sends the message that some of the American 
people are not worthy of humanity or dignity because of who they love.
  With unthinkable cuts to transportation and housing and indefensible 
riders, I must vote against this bill, and I urge my colleagues to do 
the same. It will take bipartisan, bicameral support to get the 2024 
Transportation-Housing bill signed into law.
  Mr. Chair, I implore my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: 
End this partisan charade and join Democrats at the negotiating table.
  The CHAIR. The Committee will rise informally.
  The Speaker pro tempore (Mr. LaMalfa) assumed the chair.

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