we could ask our guest to find seats place a good morning today we're marking up the germans amendment h r nine ninety six the highway we reauthorization tax act of two thousand and five the bill addresses at least some of the need to upgrade our nation's highways and infrastructure to improve driver safety reduce congestion and frankly replace infrastructure that is far beyond its estimated year usage we all know that the american highway system is a critical component of our economic growth in terms of job growth more and more the movement of goods within and between major metropolitan areas last year the house and the senate did not complete negotiations on a six year reauthorization of the federal highway program this is left us with no choice but as we did last year authorize a short term extension this situation is never ideal and our goal obviously is to now move legislation that will provide two usual multi year increment including the short term extension the transportation infrastructure committee marked up and chairman down young has moved through the committee h r three the revenue provisions necessary to fund that particular purposes of the highway trust fund monies and we make sure that the bill moving through the transportation committee is funded commensurate with the president's request and the chair hopes the same will be done in the senate so we can meet in a relatively short conference and provide american citizens with the kind of extension maintenance and support advantage of this opportunity whether you can give us any idea about social security in the energy hearings when the state you're going to have some security next week and we understand that experts social security trustees and others to begin to outline the condition and or if you prefer the problem associated with social security our job is to examine a number of those solutions it is wholly within our jurisdiction and that's our responsibility so when we have the first official hearing the process will have officially begun my goal is to continue to carry on communications with members on the committee members who are not on the committee who have concerns and certainly with the other how the senate when we have a specific plan is less clear although if we are going to move i think we should try to move in as expeditious fashion as possible on the energy bill leadership has indicated they would like to try to move following the spring break which is a little bit early this year and the chair requested that leadership not move as rapidly as they had initially indicated because we need to reexamine that tax portion of the energy bill with the president's new number which is  significantly less than we had been using as a potential target number in the previous congress we're going to have to really examine very carefully not just our commitment to the current major uses  fossil fuels but also those alternate energy sources that we might want to continue to promote and that was dying the fact it'll be probably in a smaller overall bill the select revenue committee will be holding hearings and those that schedule will be announced in the near future as we begin that process as well as his chairman thank you so much would the minority be given an opportunity to participate in the selection of witnesses on the souces security as always you certainly will be able to do that as we pulled the panels together the chair will solicit recommendations and they will be made a part of the panel  analyzing what it is that we need to do and how we're supposed to get there there is a chairman's amendment to the measure and the chair would ask consent that h r nine one six be considered as read and open to amendment at any point there being no objection the chair would offer an amendment the nature of a substitute and ask unanimous consent that it be considered as red herring no objection  would you explain the underlying bill and that the same time as has become our custom the chairman's amendment which not to be too difficult for most members to grasp thank you mr chairman the chairman's amendment for the highway trust fund in the aquatic resources trust fund which are currently due to expire at the end of may thirty first of this year through september thirtieth of two thousand and nine and as the chairman indicated updates the permissible purposes for which money can be spent to include the reauthorization bill h r three introduced by mr young it also extends the motor fuels and other excise taxes financing the trust funds currently due to expire on september thirtieth of this year it extends those hexes through september thirtieth two thousand and eleven at their current rates it does not extend the current law provision which is due to expire at september thirtieth this ear that permits the general fund to retain four point eight cents per gallon of certain taxes otherwise dedicated to the highway trust fund and the aquatic resources trust fund thus after september thirtieth of this year the general fund will retain any of that money finally it includes certain technical corrections to fuels related provisions that were enacted as part of the jobs creation act of two thousand and four that concludes my description and i thank you michigan any member wish a piece of legislation could be in any way considered a tax increase is or mean that would be the opinion of the chair that's just not a tax increase well i would refer to the joint tax and i believe we do have a spreadsheet that the joint tax has presented to us and if a gentleman would refer you should have it in front of you it lists all of the items and under each of them in the period show on it says no revenue effect no revenue no effect no revenue effect no revenue no effect no revenue no effect net total is no revenue effect so i don't think it could be interpreted as a tax increase although there are creative ways in which someone might attempt to describe no revenue effect as a tax increase the one thing we need to remember is not withstanding the fact it says no no no revenue effect it is a revenue bill and under the constitution the revenue bills must originate in the house notwithstanding the fact we chose to have bill was not extended i believe that at the end of september if this if their taxes were not extended they'd fall back to four point three cents per gallon which is the permanent right and so what we're doing here today is maintaining the present rate of eighteen point three that's correct it will actually from four point three up to eighteen point three at the end if we pass this bill well it's currently eighteen point three so it would simply extend the eighteen point three to twenty eleven ok all right i just want to clarify because i know you know campaign to the names a lot of stuff gets and i just want to have it on the record where we were on this issue thank you mr chairman thank you gentleman for his members will have the usual two calendar days for the purpose of filing views without objection the staff is granted the customary technical drafting a sortie on the bill considered today chair thanks the committee and the committee is a