John W. Olver

The absolute platinum standard for fiscal irresponsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of her party and the Presidents of her party. The national debt for this country when President Carter left office in 1981 was less than $1 trillion…

No, there is none. There is none. But the offset that the gentleman has used is salaries and expenses, salaries and expenses is an account which, in the tightness of this budget, in trying to do for section 8 and CDBG and the other places…

I too am concerned about the environmental impact of aviation. Noise is a very serious issue and impossible to solve to the satisfaction of all. Although new technologies and planes and air space redesign will assist in the noise problem…

Well, the budget that we are dealing with has no increase in taxes whatsoever related to it. I think the gentleman understands that. In fact, even the budget resolution that guides the budgeting this year for all of our bills, all of our…

this is a vital public safety concern that we must address. I understand that the FAA has been working with the National Academy of Sciences and has factored in many of its recommendations from the Academy. The FAA is also working with…

this and the previous amendment go together. Together, if these two amendments pass, our air traffic control system will be set back years in the process from which they have been going forward in trying to modernize both the air traffic…

I am saying that they finally put the grant proposals out for award, but a year late essentially, and each time only after it is clear, for instance, the 2007 moneys will finally be sent out for grant announcements at the very end of this…

Sixty-four years is a long and, it seems, quite unreasonable time to wait for the government to resolve this issue. So I pledge to work with you both on this issue as we move forward in this process and conference this bill with the Senate.

As far as I can see, the amendment is essentially the same. It is based on exactly the same citation in the U.S. Code but has a different target. But again, the amendment is merely a restatement of current law which already prohibits the…

I again oppose this amendment. This is just a continuation of the effort to strangle Amtrak. In this instance I think that what I'd like to do is to just try to review with the, whoever is still listening at this hour of the night what the…

Madam Chairman, I'm pleased to present to the House the fiscal year 2008 Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. I thank Members for their input and work on this bill. I especially recognize the important…

I would like to remind that the authorizing committee just brought out legislation and has added 20,000 in authorization for each of the next 5 years. Whether we will have the funding next year to actually provide that money, I do not…

this is an effort to bring Amtrak to a stop, simply. Over the last couple of years, we have had the President recommend no funding for Amtrak. We have refused that and funded them so they could continue service at the level that they were…

But what we find out in that process is that the States very disproportionately focused that rescission upon enhancements and took enhancements in some places completely out of the budget, which, under the highway fund, we are supposed to…

I urge the adoption of the rule and passage of the bill. Let me briefly summarize the highlights of the bill. With regard to Transportation, the bill meets the highway and transit funding guarantees mandated by the authorizations…

Now, as the gentleman from Georgia has explained it, I, of course, had thought that without instruction the amendment would end up being an across-the-board amendment. But what in fact has happened here is that the gentleman's amendment…

I commend the gentleman who has just spoken. I think he has taken a very responsible, very serious approach to budgeting over the last several sessions, and I appreciate that sort of thing very much. But I would say that here we are in…

the research is valuable to regional professionals and policy makers who are involved in the management of sport and commercial fisheries and are attempting to stop and reverse declines in those commercial fish populations across the…

But I rise today particularly to commend Chairwoman Lowey, Ranking Member Wolf, and the subcommittee for their efforts to relieve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. By providing over $200 million for peacekeeping and humanitarian aid to…

I understand and applaud you and the ranking member for that $100 million above the President's request. That is very commendable, but the atrocity and the genocide continue.

We would lose that $400 million of very important investments for the security and well-being of this country. And I would just also like to point out that there are substantial increases, which the ranking member has pointed out, that…

Mr. Chairman, each of the people who have already spoken in favor of this piece of legislation, which would take $1.3 billion or $1.8 billion, whichever it is, I don't remember precisely, out of the recommended budget, the budget that has…

I rise today to plead for the survival of the people of Darfur. Despite a peace agreement signed in May and the U.N. Security Council's approval for a peacekeeping force of 20,000 last month, Darfur is descending into chaos. Twelve years…

I cannot yield any time? The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman cannot yield blocks of time. The gentleman may yield to others, but not specific amounts of time to be enforced by the Chair.

at the outset here I want to say that this is a worthy program. However, the President's request this year for budgeting under the jurisdiction of this subcommittee was at least $3 billion below the enacted levels for the same functions in…