Pete Domenici: “let me address the question, because my colleague has been very persuasive. When you give a picture with 11 cities…”

“let me address the question, because my colleague has been very persuasive. When you give a picture with 11 cities getting 90 percent of the transit moneys for mass transportation--about that, or 80 some-odd plus percent for the 11 regions; and I really think they are regions that receive most of the rail modernization, three quarters of the people--so where do you put the money? I don't say this to diminish my colleague's argument in terms of providing funds for those regions which are now developing needs because they have become high-growth, fast-growth and therefore they want to begin to have the people movers. They want to move people, get them off the roads. They want to partake of this program. That is not an issue. We will come into conflict with people who say all additional moneys, all new moneys for rail modernization shall go to cities that heretofore have not participated. Then what you are saying is that those communities that are now moving hundreds of millions of people, 1 billion plus riders annually--that is a lot of people; a lot of people going to work--thereafter additional funds can't be used to modernize to keep these systems operational. Now, are we saying they have a fixed cost and that their costs don't go up; that they don't have a need for additional funds over and above the levels they have been traditionally receiving? Of course not.…”