Joel Hefley: “just to deal with the figures the gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] talked about, we can talk about the fact that…”

“just to deal with the figures the gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] talked about, we can talk about the fact that this number comes from here and that number comes from there, but the bottom line is that when we figure it up, the President came in with a request for $412 million. The Committee on Public Works and Transportation got hold of it and raised the figure to $441 million. Then the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs dealt with it, and they reached the figure of $402 million. The compromise was $422 million, and, yes, in that $422 million there is the CBO's scoring for $80 million as kind of a contingency sum, such funds as may be necessary. But we know in this body that when we have floods on the Mississippi River or we have earthquakes in Los Angeles, we have special appropriations to add to this. So in estimating that this $80 million will be enough, we do not know whether it will be enough. Every year it seems like we have a disaster somewhere of some kind. There will probably be even more. So, Mr. Chairman, we are talking here of $10 million in addition to what the President has requested, and I am simply asking that we bring it back to the President's request.”