Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman for the time and congratulate him and Ranking Member Lowey for a great job on this. I also want to thank the gentleman from Arizona, Ed Pastor, my ranking member, and certainly the staff that did such a great job under very difficult circumstances to put this all together. Madam Speaker, this represents a return to regular order and an example of fair negotiation between the House and the Senate. In the T- HUD division, we strive to maintain important transportation infrastructure investments and to maintain housing programs for low- income citizens and veterans. To this end, we have funded the T-HUD departments and agencies as follows: The MAP-21 authorized levels for highways and transit. For the FAA, we provide funding to fully support the operations of air traffic controllers. We also include resources for the next round of investments in the so-called NextGen air traffic control system, a long-term initiative to ease air traffic congestion. We do not fund high-speed rail, as we have yet to see any plan that outlines how such a system would work and how it would be paid for. For rail, we added policy reforms and oversight mechanisms for Amtrak in order to ensure that resources provided to Amtrak are put to best use. For housing, we provided assistance for 2.2 million families serviced by the Housing Choice Vouchers program. We also provide $75 million for 10,000 new veterans' housing vouchers.…”