Bill Shuster

It is outrageous, it is outrageous that we even have to deal with this issue this way, because it is nothing more than a technical correction. Indeed, if we were the ones who were involved in putting something in here which inadvertently…

The NTSB is a relatively small agency but the work it does, the accident reports it issues, and the recommendations it makes have contributed to the improvements in safety that we have seen. However, the recent tragedies involving Valuejet…

I would emphasize that this is not the first time that Congress has addressed airport and airline security. In 12985 we passed the International Security and Development Cooperation Act requiring that the public be notified when airports…

We have right here the proposed Committee on Commerce offer which was that you backed away from the 75-percent trigger with regard to New York City and Alaska. So you violated the instructions of the House, No. 1. No. 2, I have a letter…

That is not accurate. There is no mandate that the corps carry out that provision, No. 1. No. 2, there is nothing in this legislation that says the grants in title V will be funded first. No. 3, your commerce conferees violated the…

It is with a very happy tear in my eye that I announce the wire services are reporting that our colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McDade] has been acquitted of all charges.

It is certainly not the intent of the committee to harm any of the Missouri River interests with this language. While the provision was put in response to concerns to several of our committee members, clearly all Missouri River interests…

With regard to the potential national railroad strikes, as of early this morning, labor and management have reached agreement on all the outstanding disputes, thereby averting the possibility of a shutdown and averting the need for…

The date of that quote is June 28, 1995. At that time we had issued our release and we spelled out the seven principles of this bill, and nothing has changed up to this day.

The bill accomplishes preservation of the committee carrier system, which is important to the carriers, but it also injects a very healthy and significant dose of flexibility, of competitive opportunity into the carrier and shipper…

Mr. Chairman, perhaps my good friend from Illinois misspoke, because when he said that the so-called secret contracts will have antitrust immunity, that simply is not the case. The antitrust immunity applies only to the published rates…

I cannot tell you how deeply disappointed I am that I believed we had a deal. We had a very delicate compromise in which everybody gave up something: the shippers, the carriers, all interested parties. In fact, while the shippers were very…

I want to emphasize the extraordinary bipartisan support on this extraordinary victory here. Without the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Oberstar] and his colleagues, this simply never could have happened. Beyond that, however, this has been…

Sure. It is even worse in the sense that they spend $1, FEMA spends $1 on a flood on an emergency. They spend $1 out there in Oklahoma City near the building that was blown up to fix up the street, and this kicks in. It really does not…

This amendment goes far beyond the issue of special projects. If we want to fight about special projects, ISTEA is the place to do that, not here. But this goes far beyond that. For example, if interstate maintenance, the national highway…

This is not the place to fight that battle. The place to fight this battle is when we bring ISTEA to the floor for reauthorization. I am sure there will be a bloody battle, in our committee and on the floor, over the whole question not…

Perhaps what I hear the gentleman saying is that there are those who think that if we designate worthy projects here, that is a terrible thing, but if we shovel the money back to the States, then there are angels in heaven in the State…

I find it a bit amusing that the gentleman would now take this position when indeed we have in our possession a letter from the gentleman asking us to fund a special project for him.

I am sure this Congress does not want to accede to a particular administration; what procedures they may deem wise to use, we may think they are very unwise, so we are not about to turn over to the bureaucrats downtown some procedure which…

Mr. Chairman, I would inform the gentleman that the transit account is part of the highway trust fund, and indeed is handled as the highway funds are handled as well.

There is nothing here that deals with transit funds, which is only one of the many reasons this amendment should be defeated.

I do not believe that is what the amendment does. What the amendment does is say you cannot spend it.

All I can tell the gentleman is, it is our intention and our belief that in fact what we are doing here is saying that the line-item veto shall apply as it applies in the current line-item veto law. If the gentleman has questions about the…

This amendment will make this legislation subject to the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, the answer is yes.

During the debate on the rule, Mr. Chairman, some concern was expressed as to whether the Line-Item Veto Act would apply to trust fund spending if this bill passes. We believe it will, and it certainly is our intent that it apply. However…