[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 183 (Monday, November 6, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H5423-H5425]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




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

  The Committee resumed its sitting.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chair, while I recognize the concerns of my good friend, the 
ranking member of the full committee, I think you need to put some of 
them in a little bit of context, particularly the subject of the Amtrak 
Northeast corridor.
  While I recognize there is always a desire for greater support for 
the Northeast Corridor, I believe our bill strikes a necessary balance 
given the allocation we have for the year. I would also note that we 
are having just as many Members who believe we are spending too much as 
those who think we are spending too little.
  Our $99.2 million appropriation supports the contingencies and 
legally mandated improvements to the Northeast Corridor. I recognize 
that while this level is certainly lower than last year, we must make 
three major points and take them into account.
  First, prior to the passage of the Infrastructure Investments and 
Jobs Act, the Northeast Corridor normally received about $650 million 
to $700 million for capital improvements on an annual basis. This was 
at a time when Amtrak was nearly profitable. Today's ridership levels 
are still not back to where they were then, and the changing work 
patterns indicate that they may never return to those same levels.
  The IIJA provides $1.2 billion, in addition to what we appropriate in 
this bill, annually in advanced appropriations to the Northeast 
Corridor for capital improvements. When you combine our appropriation 
with the advance, the total support for the Northeast Corridor is still 
double what it was prior to November 2021.
  Further, Mr. Chairman, two-thirds of the Federal Railroad 
Administration's Federal-State partnership program advanced 
appropriations are set aside for projects in the Northeast Corridor, 
and we are also beginning to see these dollars flow.
  This week, the FRA announced $16.4 billion in funding for projects 
along the Northeast Corridor, with $16.2 billion of those going to 
projects where Amtrak is the sponsor or one of the core beneficiaries 
of the project.
  Clearly, the IIJA advanced appropriations are providing an amount of 
funding higher than Amtrak has ever seen in the past, particularly 
given the fact that their ridership is at a lower level.
  The thing that my colleagues never address is that we are running a 
$2 trillion deficit. These programs are significantly above what 
Amtrak, particularly the Northeast Corridor, was receiving less than 2 
years ago. We regret we have to make some adjustment, but we need to 
begin to bring this deficit down. This legislation responsibly does 
that.
  Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1800

  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Waters), the ranking member of the Financial Services 
Committee.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chair, I thank Congressman Quigley very much for his 
leadership on the Subcommittee of Appropriations for T-HUD.
  Let me just remind everyone that the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. 
Cole), my friend on the opposite side of the aisle, voted against the 
infrastructure bill. I just want everybody to know that.
  I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 4820, which is among the worst--
if not the worst--housing appropriations bill that has ever come to the 
House floor. This bill would exacerbate the affordable housing crisis 
by slashing the Federal housing budget by nearly 30 percent.
  What is more concerning is the human cost of such draconian cuts. 
Specifically, these cuts would result in at least 15,000 families 
losing rental assistance, 20,000 affordable homes lost from the supply 
pipeline, and 78,000

[[Page H5424]]

children put at risk of in-home lead hazards.
  Mr. Chair, our children, families, and communities cannot afford such 
devastating costs. If we want to talk about dollars, research shows 
that cutting funding for homelessness and lead abatement costs 
taxpayers more due to increased cost of our healthcare, education, and 
criminal justice systems.
  Further, housing is a primary driver of inflation. This bill will 
only cause housing costs and inflation to rise even more.
  It is unconscionable that as we enter the colder holiday season, 
Republicans would rather evict families than simply fund housing 
programs at the levels needed to support current families receiving 
assistance. Indeed, 600,000 people are already homeless in the United 
States. Home prices have skyrocketed by 45 percent since 2020. Over 35 
million people experienced rent hikes in the last year, and an alarming 
4 million households are now on the brink of eviction or foreclosure.
  Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. I just continue 
by saying the Trump tax cuts for the rich cost $4 trillion. They are 
conservative when they want to be, but when we are needing housing 
opportunities for the least of these in this country, they cannot 
afford to be charitable and take care of the people of this country who 
need safe and secure housing.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  My friend is certainly correct, I voted against the Infrastructure, 
Investment and Jobs Act, and I did so for a very good reason. It didn't 
pay for itself. There have been three previous transportation bills in 
my time here, two under President Obama. I voted for those because they 
paid for themselves.
  My friends worry about rising costs. They should worry about rising 
costs. It is their reckless spending that sparked the worst inflation 
in 40 years and the highest interest rates in 20 years. When they are 
concerned about housing costs, just look in the mirror.
  That is not just me saying that. Go back and look at all the 
Democratic economists that criticized the passage of the so-called 
American Rescue Plan where my friends injected $1.9 trillion into the 
economy at a time when we were growing at over 6 percent and rapidly 
recovering.
  We do have problems with what it costs. Nobody in my son's lifetime--
he is 41 years old--ever paid 8 percent interest rates, but my friends 
got us there. It didn't take them long to do it, either.
  The record deficits we are running are why we are having to make some 
of these reductions. The income to the Federal Government is actually 
higher than it has been in quite some time. It is higher on a 
percentage basis, it is higher in actual totals, but you can't continue 
to spend at these rates. That is what caused inflation. That is what 
drove up housing prices. That is why we are passing this legislation, 
to try and begin to responsibly fund important programs as opposed to 
just throwing money at problems and leaving the American people to deal 
with the bill in terms of higher costs, higher inflation, and more 
expensive housing.
  Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Payne).
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for the 
opportunity to discuss this very important issue.
  I rise today to oppose the Transportation, Housing and Urban 
Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2024.
  Today is a monumental day for transportation in America. It is the 
day the Biden administration announced billions of dollars in funding 
for much-needed transportation projects and the day that the 
Republicans brought this bill to the floor to cut funding designated to 
make transportation in this country safer.
  The differences are severe. The Biden administration is building and 
repairing bridges and subway tunnels to make American transportation 
more efficient. Republicans seem to want to make it more dangerous.
  Here are a few of the drastic cuts Republicans want to enact:
  They want to cut $7 billion in funding from the Department of 
Transportation.
  They want to eliminate the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity 
Passenger Rail program. This program funds projects to improve rail 
performance and expand it into underserved communities.
  They want to cut Amtrak funding by 65 percent and cut it by 92 
percent in the most populous Northeast corridor.
  In addition, they want to cut funding for Consolidated Rail 
Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Program grants in half. This 
program funds rail safety technology, eliminates deadly railroad 
crossings, and installs safety fencing around the Nation's rail 
network. It will save lives across the country, but Republicans want to 
cut it anyway.
  In the process, they are showing the American people they do not care 
about their safety nor their transportation system.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Massachusetts (Ms. Pressley).
  Ms. PRESSLEY. Mr. Chair, I oppose this legislation for the draconian 
cuts and dangerous provisions included in it, but also for the critical 
funding priorities that were excluded.
  With this appropriations bill, Republicans callously stripped 
community project funding for The Pryde, an affordable LGBTQ+ senior 
housing development in the Massachusetts Seventh.
  It would seem for my colleagues across the aisle that the word 
``freedom'' is selectively applied. It does not apply to my bodily 
autonomy. It does not apply to intellectual freedom for women, African 
Americans, or our LGBTQ siblings when it comes to our books, and it 
does not apply to the freedom to love whom you love.
  This project satisfies the committee's requirements and would meet a 
critical need in my district at a time when mortgages are skyrocketing 
and one-third of LGBTQ seniors are living in poverty, and many are 
forced to recloset themselves in order to age in community in their 
twilight years. Unconscionable.
  Republicans are choosing homophobia over housing, profits over 
people, cruelty over compassion. Their actions to target, attack, and 
dehumanize our LGBTQ siblings are nothing more than a show of contempt.
  While The Pryde has a pathway for other Federal funding, this act of 
policy violence contributes to the physical violence that far too many 
LGBTQ folks experience.
  As the vice chair of the Task Force on Aging and Families, I want my 
LGBTQ constituents and siblings in the movement to know they deserve 
safe and affordable housing, they deserve to be seen and loved, and I 
will never stop fighting for them.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  I think I need to make clear at this point in time that the 
infrastructure law, that supplemental funding cannot be used to run and 
operate trains. This means these resources can do nothing to protect 
current train service or the jobs that keep our trains running 
smoothly.
  In addition, the Northeast Corridor Commission estimates a $57 
billion cost to address major and basic infrastructure along Amtrak's 
100-year-old Northeast corridor with an additional $43 billion cost for 
stations-related improvements to increase accessibility for riders.
  I thank Chairman Cole for his leadership and his willingness to 
accommodate as many requests as possible. He has been an honest broker 
on this and kept the lines of communication open, which goes a long way 
in this environment.
  I also give my appreciation to his staff and mine, who have spent 
tireless hours to get us to this moment. I look forward to working with 
the chairman as we refine this process for fiscal year 2025. This 
includes minority staff Christina Monroe, Jackie Kilroy, and Nora Faye; 
Charlie from my office, and Doug Disrud with the majority and his 
staff.
  Beyond what has been said before, this is a bad bill at a bad time, 
and I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time to 
close.

[[Page H5425]]

  Mr. Chairman, I begin by reciprocating the very kind remarks of my 
working partner, Mr. Quigley. I find him to be a person of 
extraordinary ability, a wonderful working partner, and somebody that I 
look forward to continuing a dialogue with as we go through the 
process.
  As my friend knows, we are not at the end of that process. Our aim is 
to pass a vehicle and be able to go to conference, where I know my 
friend and I will continue to work on some of the concerns that, 
frankly, people on both sides of the aisle have. I think that is the 
way we ought to work, and I am very proud of the relationship that we 
have that will allow that to continue.
  I will, however, point out that we have several problems. The reality 
is our funding levels are actually essentially where we were in 2022. 
This is 2023. We have not gone a long way past that.
  Second, there is an enormous amount of money that has been 
interjected into the infrastructure bill by the Infrastructure 
Investment and Jobs Act, and that money needs to be offset in some way 
to bring down this extraordinary deficit that we have.
  My friends are concerned, appropriately so, about the cost of things. 
Those costs have been raised mostly by excessive government spending. 
The worst thing that we have out there right now is simply what 
interest rates are compared to what they were, literally, when the 
President walked into office. They were 1.4 percent. They peaked at 9 
percent. They are still running somewhere around 7 percent. If you 
don't think it makes a difference, go try to buy a home.

  You have to begin to responsibly restrain government spending. This 
bill does that. It takes us from $101 billion in total spending to $93 
billion. That is a significant cut. That is exactly where we were in 
2022, not very long ago.
  We will continue to work and try to find common ground with our 
friends because I recognize, as I know my friend does, at the end of 
the day, all appropriations bills have to be bipartisan, but they are 
usually not bipartisan at this stage in the process. I am not surprised 
that that is where we are right now.
  I think there are a lot of good features in this. I think, quite 
frankly, Tribal housing and Tribal roads have been underfunded for 
decades. It didn't matter who was in power. This bill begins to address 
that.
  I think we have critical needs at the FAA, where we need to train 
more air traffic controllers to modernize the system. This bill does 
that. It matches up pretty closely to what this Congress actually 
passed when it passed the FAA Reauthorization Act earlier this year.
  There is lots of infrastructure in this bill. Would we like more? 
Yes, we would. Maybe we will be able to get more, but right now we have 
to operate within the allocation that we have.
  I think we have more in common to work with here than probably the 
initial debate and the early rhetoric suggests, and I will just close 
by saying my friend has my commitment that I will continue to work with 
him.
  I share his admiration for the staff on both sides of the aisle. 
Sometimes I often like to say Members may not work together very well, 
but staff almost always does around here. At the end of the day, more 
problems are solved at that level sometimes than solved by the rhetoric 
on the floor.
  My friend and I, I hope we get to a deal. I know we have one thing 
above all in common. We both know what a continuing resolution would 
mean. We both know that is a bad outcome. If that happens, we will lose 
the improvements in this bill, particularly for FAA, but for other 
areas as well.

                              {time}  1815

  My friend has my commitment that we will continue to work together. 
We may not get to the same place in the debate over this particular 
piece of legislation, but if we are going to have something that 
actually becomes law, he and I will have to come to an agreement. At 
some point, I am confident that we will.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The CHAIR. All time for general debate has expired.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mrs. 
Miller-Meeks) having assumed the chair, Mr. Bacon, Chair of the 
Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that 
that Committee, having had under consideration 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, had come to no 
resolution thereon.

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