Joe Barton: “I want to point out once again, the Clinton-Gore administration supports passage of this bill. It passed the Senate by…”

“I want to point out once again, the Clinton-Gore administration supports passage of this bill. It passed the Senate by unanimous consent, which, if I understand correctly, there are 45 Democrat Senators in the other body. So this should not be a partisan issue. I want to briefly read from the report that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) asked the GAO to do on pipeline safety. On page 5, in the summary section, it says, ``The office,'' meaning the office that is responsible for overseeing pipeline safety, ``has historically had the lowest rate of implementation for these recommendations of any Transportation agency and has not implemented 22 statutory requirements, 12 of which date from 1992 or earlier.'' Now, the law that is before us is stronger than the current law. And the Clinton-Gore administration has not implemented the current law. For my friends on the other side of the aisle that have concerns, legitimate concerns, direct those to the present administration. Help us pass this bill and then get it implemented.”