Jack Kingston: “I want to, first of all, start off by complimenting the Chair of the committee. We have had a number of hearings this…”

“I want to, first of all, start off by complimenting the Chair of the committee. We have had a number of hearings this year. We've had a lot of great oversight opportunities. I look forward to more. We've thoroughly reviewed this bill, and there's many things that we found agreement on. There are some things that we're going to have debate on today and things that we'll continue to debate as the bill goes through the process, but I want to commend Ms. DeLauro for a bill well put together. Also, I want to thank her staff, Martha Foley, Leslie Barrack, Diem-Lihn Jones, Adrienne Simmonson, Kelly Wade and Brian Ronholm, and thank them for everything that they've done. And on our side, Martin Delgado, Dave Gibbons. You'll note, on the Democrat side, I pronounced the Republican side with equal ineptitude as I do the Democrats. Jamie Swafford, Meg Gilley, Merritt Myers, Emily Watson, Heather McNatt, Elizabeth Davis and Jason Lawrence and Scott Stevens. We have a lot of folks who've helped. One of my friends on the floor said, Well, how many people does this take? And I said, Well, you know this is almost a $100 billion bill, so we all have to get involved in it. I also wanted to say something about Ray LaHood. Mr. LaHood is a great committee member. He's going to be leaving Congress at the end of this term and made that announcement this week, and I thought I'd be remiss if we didn't say something about Mr. LaHood.”