John Mica

I think Congress even took back some of the money that had been appropriated.

We are not going to stop, we are not going to be dissuaded by our detractors.

We are doing for the next generation what previous generations did for us, we have an obligation to do what other generations did.

Ms. Hahn when you see the mayor of Los Angeles, tell him what we need now is light rail to the airport and that is my continuing message to the city of Los Angeles.

What we need now is vision. What we need now is leadership.

I want to thank all of our witnesses before us today, and I look forward to your testimony about this important issue.

Now is the time to make that investment for alternatives to congested highways and to simultaneously create jobs.

If we continue to disrupt our ag industry, we will continue to lose our number one industry.

I want to see something that shows that we actually have a budget.

Can we afford to have something fun? Can we afford to have a luxury right now?

This plan that we once had has no plan.

The United States is falling further behind and must lead the pack instead of be behind the pack.

The Northeast Corridor is where I think we should be putting the focus, some dollars;

I am pleased to welcome everyone to this hearing and this opportunity to review the progress of high-speed rail.

Today is another one of our hearings focused on passenger rail in the United States, and this is an oversight hearing.

Good morning. I would like to call this hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to order.

Mr. Mica. Well, some of the temporary housing assistance we have provided will soon be expiring.

Mr. Mica. We have heard other disasters, Irene, still back to Katrina, in which there are obligations that have been made.

I need to thank this committee and the appropriators for fully funding the Disaster Relief Fund in the previous budget.

I want to thank this committee and the House of Representatives for finally recognizing the sovereignty of the federally recognized tribes.

We want to find a way to make certain that this process moves forward as quickly, efficiently, and as responsibly.

Well, hang on to your shorts because, you know, if you are looking at multibillion-dollar recovery and you can only get $7 million out of $25 million promised, you may be in for a long ride.

So, again, there appears to be difficulty in past storms.

But until you have an ID that can tell you who that person is, everything that they do with these programs, to me, is, again, sort of a sham.

So, you really--and what scares me with these pre-clearance programs... is kind of scary to think about this, but Mr. Cravaack is a pilot, and he actually controls the--a plane and can do whatever he wants with the plane.