Political Quotes

“H.R. 4475 provides appropriations for the fiscal year 2000 for the Department of Transportation and related agencies appropriations. The bill that the committee presents to the House is a good and balanced bill. The committee has increased funding for some agencies which have been hard hit over the past few years, like the Coast Guard, while cutting out areas of unnecessary spending. The bill meets fully the Congressional commitment to highway, transit and aviation spending in TEA-21 and AIR-21, and fully funds Amtrak's Congressionally-mandated glidepath to operational self-sufficiency. Briefly, the bill includes $30.7 billion for highways, an increase of nearly $2 billion; $12 billion for the FAA, an increase of 25 percent, including $3.2 billion for airport grants programs; $6.3 billion for transit programs, an increase of almost $500 million; $521 million for Amtrak; and $4.6 billion for the Coast Guard, an increase of almost $600 million over last year, including almost $560 million for drug interdiction. I might just say, this is an opportunity for the Coast Guard with this money to really deal with the issue of drug interdiction and open fire on the drug runners coming out of South America.”