John Mica: “I have to thank the chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta), for taking this measure this far. I want…”

“I have to thank the chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta), for taking this measure this far. I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Carson) also. I have to also thank Mr. Denham and others for bringing this legislation forward. My involvement as a member and former chair of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure was that we had the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, which the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta) chairs and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Carson) is the ranking member. They have taken this proposal that we thought about for sometime, and we heard Mr. Duncan's work for years and brought it forward to a great piece of legislation that can save billions of dollars for the taxpayers. The Federal Government and the American people are, by far, the largest landowners of anyone anywhere. The American people own more Federal property than anyone. There are some problems, though, and we identified those. When we were in the minority several years back, we had more time to do studies and reports. Mr. Speaker, we produced a report that was called ``Sitting on Our Assets: The Federal Government's Misuse of Taxpayer-Owned Assets.'' What we did is we went through some of the public buildings and properties that are sitting idle.…”