On the recordJune 3, 2015
Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to echo his opposition to this amendment, although I do commend Mr. Garrett for his focus on safety and operations. I, too, would like to raise that appropriation to the request level. That is a good objective. There are a couple of problems here, though. One, is that because of differences in outlay rates, to pick up $17 million on the safety and operations side you have to cut $83 million from the transit New Starts. That has to do with differences in outlay rates. But the fact is, it is a substantial cut. And these New Starts in the bill, I remind colleagues, are already $1.3 billion below the President's request. They are $198 million below what we have this year. These are badly underfunded items. So we simply, again, are robbing Peter to pay Paul. But because of the disproportionate impact here, and the fact that New Starts are already so underresourced, I reluctantly oppose this amendment.
