Political Quotes

“I thank the gentlelady for yielding to me, Mr. Speaker, and I rise in opposition to H.R. 1734, the Civilian Property Realignment Act. Although I support the efforts to improve the process used to dispose of Federal property, I believe in its current form this legislation inappropriately limits the access that service providers for the homeless have traditionally had to surplus Federal property. Current law requires that all Federal surplus properties be considered for use by entities that provide assistance for the homeless. This legislation would create a BRAC-like commission to dispose of unused Federal property, and would require a majority vote of this commission before any specific property could be considered for homeless assistance. This provision is misguided and should have been eliminated before this legislation reached the floor. I submitted to the Rules Committee a commonsense amendment that would have fixed this problem. My amendment would have ensured that section 501 of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which provides for the discounted conveyance of surplus Federal property to homeless assistance providers, would continue to apply to all properties approved for disposal by the commission established by H.R. 1734. Unfortunately, my amendment was not made in order. There is no evidence that the current process for reviewing properties for use by homeless assistance providers has slowed property disposals.…”