Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I rise, obviously, in great support of this bill. This is the fourth of the 12 appropriations bills that I hope to bring to the floor before August. It continues to move the ball down the field toward our goal of completing all of our appropriations work on time within the framework of the Ryan-Murray budget deal.

The bill contains a fiscally responsible level of discretionary funding--$52 billion for the important Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, agencies that support critical transportation infrastructure, safety, and housing assistance programs.

With this bill in particular, we had to make some smart but difficult decisions, as Mr. Pastor and Chairman Latham have said. Although the 302(b) allocation is $1.2 billion more than last year, when technical adjustments are taken into account, it is more than $1 billion below the current level. As Chairman Latham and Mr. Pastor have described, this is due to a considerable drop in Federal Housing Administration receipts that are used as offsets within this legislation.

As a result, this bill, by necessity, strikes a fine balance between fiscal restraint and targeted investment in programs that will boost our economy, improve our quality of life, and provide housing options to those Americans most in need.

One of our chief priorities in this bill is providing key infrastructure programs with the funding needed to keep our economy moving. The bill provides $40.26 billion from the highway trust fund for the Federal highway program for road investments, the same as the current level and contingent on the enactment of new transportation authorization legislation. It also includes funding to help communities build, maintain, and keep safe their mass transit systems.

Smooth, efficient, and safe air travel is another priority in this bill. We ensured that we provided full funding for air traffic control personnel, including controllers and safety inspectors. We are investing in the future of air travel as well, helping to ease future congestion and reduce delays by fully funding NextGen.

To protect every American who uses or lives near our roads, airways, pipelines, and waterways, we increased funding for important transportation safety programs.

Within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, we ensured that all those who are currently served by critical housing programs continue to keep a roof over their heads. To do so, the bill increases funding for public and Indian housing by $6.2 million. We also fully fund the President's request for veterans' housing vouchers.

Lastly, Community Development Block Grants have been held consistent with last year's funding level.

As I said before, to balance out the important increases in the bill and to factor in the reductions in FHA receipts, cuts to lower-priority programs were necessary. For instance, the bill reduces Amtrak by $193 million below last year and places strict policy reforms on how tax dollars are spent on this service.

We also reduced TIGER grants by $500 million below last year's level and mandated that these funds address our most critical transportation needs--road, highway, and bridge construction and improvement. None of these funds under this bill will go toward nonessential purposes, like streetscaping.

Overall, Mr. Chairman, this is a good bill. It will address our most immediate infrastructure needs and provides our most vulnerable citizens with housing.

Before I close my remarks, Mr. Chairman, I want to say a few words about the coauthors of this bill--Chairman Latham and the ranking member, Mr. Pastor. As you know, this will be their last T-HUD bill before they leave us at the end of the year for greener pastures.

These two men have been great assets to our committee, for their expertise, their willingness to work together, and their great attitudes; and we are going to miss them greatly. Their swan song, this bill, is a fine achievement, a capstone on two accomplished careers.

I want to thank them both for their hard work on this bill and others through the years and for their contributions to the Appropriations Committee and the House and the Nation.

My friend Mr. Latham and I have labored together on this committee for a good while--18 years, TOM says--and we have been friends all along. We served together on the Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee for many, many years, among others, and I have learned to respect Chairman Latham.

He is a great personal friend whom I treasure greatly. Mr. Pastor, the same way--we have worked together on this committee for a number of years as well. We have tried to serve the Nation and the Congress as best we could, and these two gentlemen have done great work on behalf of the American people.

This is a tough bill. It is a good bill, but it is a tough bill. They had to squeeze some oversized feet into some undersized shoes, given the allocation that they had to work with, but they came through with flying colors.

So I enthusiastically urge my colleagues in the House to vote for this bill because it is the best we can do, and it is a great bill, but also, I want to say in closing, as a tribute to these two fine public servants.

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