Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5850 the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2011. The bill provides critical funding to our infrastructure across the United States and in the territories. In particular, the bill funds $400 million in a third round of TIGER grants for investment in significant ``National Infrastructure Investments.'' I appreciate the Committee's continued support of this effort and would continue to urge the U.S. Department of Transportation to obligate these funds towards truly innovative projects. I would also urge the Department of Transportation to more adequately fund port infrastructure projects with TIGER funds. I also greatly appreciate the Committee's continued commitment to funding the NextGen modernization program at the Federal Aviation Administration. In particular, I appreciate the Committee's increase of $10.1 million for the Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS). GBAS, also known as Local Area Augmentation-System (LAAS), is a critical component of the NextGen framework. GBAS provides very precise terminal arrival, approach and landing operations for aircraft that have available GPS systems. GBAS conforms to requirements identified in the FAA NextGen Implementation Plan, the National Airspace System (NAS) Enterprise Architecture and the Roadmap for Performance Based Navigation.…”