John Mica: “I brought this chart that shows $4.05 a gallon gasoline today. That is the average national cost. In some jurisdictions…”

“I brought this chart that shows $4.05 a gallon gasoline today. That is the average national cost. In some jurisdictions it is more. This is not an energy policy. This is not acceptable to the American people, $4.05 a gallon gasoline. First of all, I strongly support the manager's amendment. Contained in it are provisions that we would have high-speed rail service. We heard the gentleman, the former Governor of Delaware, Mr. Castle, the distinguished Representative now from Delaware, talk about having stops. I think when I visited Wilmington, when I visited Philadelphia and New York and stops along the way, people were excited about this proposal, because it offered them an option to expensive gasoline. The proposal that we bring forward is revolutionary. It does allow the Secretary of Transportation to take proposals. The reason we took the Northeast Corridor first is because that is the only real estate and asset that Amtrak wholly owns, almost all of it all the way to Boston. There is a little bit between New York and Boston that they don't own. That is why we took the first leg of this high speed proposal from Washington, D.C., right down the block to downtown Manhattan. We don't specify technology, but we say it must be there within 2 hours, and we have a provision that assures stops along the way. Revolutionary. Again, what it would do for air travel congestion would be monumental for this Nation.”