Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008
Floor Speech
TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - July 24, 2007)
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Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman for yielding and in support of the Hunter-Kaptur amendment. It is a simple limitation amendment. And frankly, one of the chief reasons I'm supporting it, in addition to all the excellent reasons Mr. Hunter has given, is that the administration refuses to report back to Congress its negotiation on this Security and Prosperity Partnership and its impact in a number of areas, including transportation. They have been intransigent, they have been unresponsive and, frankly, they've been secretive. And this is going to have an enormous impact on public welfare across this continent, particularly in our country.
The gentleman talks about security. I support him in that. Right now we've got a situation under NAFTA where so many of our jobs and production platforms have been outsourced to Mexico. We've got all these illegal trucks coming in. They're even making their way all the way to Ohio, up into Detroit, causing us all kinds of difficulty. We need transparency and we need disclosure about what the Security and Prosperity Partnership is all about. The Administration, even on our request, refuses to answer inquiries about the SPP.
Due to NAFTA, we just have tremendous problems with additional illegal drugs in our area coming in transported in a lot of these vehicles that are coming from the border, and in many ways we already have an unregulated flow across our continent.
So I really support the gentleman's efforts here. We need transparency. We need disclosure. We don't need to expand the difficulties we're already having as a result of what has transpired with NAFTA. And with the size of the roadways that are being talked about, and the possibility they will be privatized tollways, we need to have reporting back from this administration.
So I support the gentleman's amendment very strongly.
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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to respond to the gentleman from Michigan and say that my district borders Canada too, across Lake Erie. The planes fly over our border, and we go up to Michigan and we take the Ambassador Bridge and so forth up into Canada. So we share those concerns. But what we don't share is our dismay at the lack of transparency that characterizes the Bush administration. What exactly are they discussing with the Government of Canada, with the Government of Mexico and other governments in the Americas?
We have a right to know. We have a right to participate. We want transparency and disclosure on the SPP. Their secretiveness about what is going on is a deep concern. Vote for the Hunter-Kaptur amendment.
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