on transportation and infrastructure will come to order today we consider three bills the d c old post office building redevelopment act the pre disaster mitigation act and jimmy miller for getting the room back in functioning order so soon after our festivities of last night and i want to thank members both sides of the aisle who  personalized comments last night for past also participating in our event gene i was delighted to see both of you and i i still can't believe frankly that the of personal privilege let me just say last night we got sort of messed up with votes as happens as we all know around here but we really did have an incredible salute to staff and others and members that didn't get a to participate in the occasion it was very very special and as i said last night no one deserves this recognition or the honor to hang and you know that the press  side his daughter grandchild son in law were here it was a very special and memorable occasion and i think everyone joins us in congratulating you jim committee just shows you i never paid attention to all those years or expected never expected this to happen but at any rate there we are and thank the artist for improving upon the subject matter our first order of business is consideration of h r five or one that the old post office building redevelopment act ask unanimous consent to discharge the subcommittee on economic development public buildings emergency measure it called the bill h five or one that the bill be considered as read and open to amendment at any point without objection sort of and i'll recognize the chair of subsidy miss norton to explain the bill on america's main street pennsylvania avenue the old post office building has been an underperforming asset in the g s a as inventory for almost as long as i have been on the transportation committee the buildings two thousand and seven rent payments of five point four million dollars paled in comparison to the total expenses that g s a spent on the property at eleven point nine million dollars resulting in a loss of six point one million dollars in two thousand and seven to the government to understand the financial burden on the federal government one has only to multiply this figure over the many decades during which the government has taken millions of dollars in losses on the old post office add this amount to millions of dollars in renovations and additions that eventually proved useless in making the building a viable source of revenue and we begin to get a clear picture of the need to move this project forward this is mr chairman however considered one of the nation's capital great historic treasures it simply is unusable in its present form consequently i introduced h r five of that the zero one to assure the full use of the old post office of the benefit of federal taxpayers and this city in essence this bill authorizes the administrator of general services  agreements with the private sector using competitive procedures to promote competition and protect the government's interests in developing the old post office building thank you gentlemen for that explanation this this location is just so unique so special you would think it would be just a game buster development opportunity and yes the problem was go back to my second engage a private sector developer to develop the property lease it out and make this a premier functioning office space retail food court it didn't they don't have space for them and immediately but we can't let this property sit there to be an eyesore frankly and a drain on the on the facilities and i know this was a matter that he was particularly exasperated about this legislation will give the g s a the opportunity to redevelop that old post office building and also thank you and i thank you norton for actually launch helping us launch a new era with this hearing today today's a pretty exciting time because i've tried to initiate a campaign i call  not sitting on our asset and this is part of that campaign is to not sit on our assets and i can imagine hundreds of thousands of square feet government owned sitting in the heart of our nation's capital you just heard the chairman describe last year we took in five million and we spent eleven million dollars and whether you're taking  hundreds of thousands of square feet in the center of our nation's capital or we're taking a swath of real estate from washington d c baltimore through wilmington through philadelphia through trenton through newark and through manhattan that northeast corridor and sitting on that huge real estate asset and not and not giving it the opportunity to fully be utilized fully be developed and that's what this is all about i salute norton today for launching this effort please from our side to join her thank mr oberstar also for his participation and we're going to hear from mr graves at the appropriate administration to redevelop the old post office on pennsylvania avenue has been pointed out the old post office has been under utilized for decades it requires over one hundred million dollars and renovations private to redevelopment of the old post office building is going to save american taxpayers nearly one hundred million dollars by shifting renovation cost from the public to the private developer i support the legislation and would encourage my colleagues to do the same do other members wish to be heard  nature of substitute be considered as read without objection sort of the members and members folders delmas recognize to explain or substitute mrs chairman the amendment makes several changes to the introduced a bill and i believe the amendment makes the bill a better bill him in a specific lee identifies the pavilion an x as as an improvement to the old post office and is to be included in the redevelopment effort to further the amendment authorizes the general services administration to provide replacement space using existing authority for the tenants that are currently in the building the amendment does not include a provision that would have authorized the the  the g s a to sell the building because of course never sell historic buildings government never does and never will further the amendment directs the administrator of t s a to proceed with the redevelopment of the post office building consistent with the development plan submitted by the g s a to the committee on france which in two thousand and approved by the by the committee by committee resolution dated may sixteenth two thousand and one your memory is non controversial and has bipartisan support i extend my thanks to ranking member grays for his support on this bill and thank all my colleagues as i ask for their support as state that any development of the post office building must be in accordance with the development plan of g s a submitted to the committee in december two thousand this was something we worked out years ago  disaster mitigation program this program will sunset on september thirtieth of this year the pre disaster mitigation program is authorized by section two zero zero three of the stafford act and was first authorized by this committee in the disaster mitigation act of two thousand on april thirtieth two thousand and eight the economic development and public buildings and emergency management subcommittee held a hearing titled saving lives and money through the pre disaster mitigation program at that hearing we heard as the that there is that there is empirical and anecdotal evidence to show that this program saves far more than is invested h r sixty one i would authorize this program for three years increase the minimum each state receives from the current half an five hundred thousand dollars to five and seventy five thousand and codified the competitive aspects of the program graham has consistently shown been shown to provide an excellent return on investment and i ask members of the committee to support the bill i thank the gentleman for their explanation and to do that i will add that pre disaster mitigation program has been a  very very great success regrettably funding for it was terminated by the president ministration just after one of the great successes and one of the often cited examples was city of seattle which uses pre disaster mitigation grant program to strengthen buildings in the city of seattle february twenty eighth two thousand and one mayor of seattle and others including famous cited those pre disaster mitigation grants is the reason that lives  saved there was estimates of savings up up to five hundred million dollars in public and damage to public and private facilities because of the mitigation i'd like to call up on the screen a picture of the house from a report by the congressional budget office the house in coastal mississippi title action several years later this house after that all of that that raising was done that house was the only one left on its street in the aftermath of katrina that is really extraordinary i have an example closer to home in my own congressional district in july july third nineteen ninety nine straight line winds of one hundred miles an hour and a swath fifteen miles wide blew through the superior national forest on the boundary waters canoe area wilderness right on the canadian border blew down twenty six million trees equivalent to three years of timber harvesting for the whole state of minnesota setting up a massive fire disaster potential in the wilderness area or nothing could be done the harvesting is permitted in the superior national forest area where there is a very highly developed  area of resorts outfitters private homes the forest service went to work with fema funds to salvage the the trees that have been blown down rescue homes and with the pre disaster funding outfitted those property owners who chose to participate in the program with sprinkler systems there are several hundred  sprinkler systems a status that i think three four hundred maybe is more than that last year this time last year april there was a big fire  started in the boundary waters in the wilderness area spread to the area outside all those property owners were using pre disaster mitigation funds establish and maintain their sprinkler systems were spared the fire one hundred forty seven  structures were burned but the ones that were protected with the pre disaster sprinkler system funding were spared and there are many other such examples that we could measure this past monday i had a meeting with my fame well with federal fema officials and my state emergency management operator and all of my local emergency management operators and it was it was very educational if you all haven't done that of course we're getting ready for the hurricane season in florida where and you know my district has been hit by one time were hit by three hurricanes i guess it was two thousand and four we've had floods fires and hurricanes floods fires and tornadoes and i got hit with two tornadoes actually i was going to work on the locus plan we haven't had those  yet but we've been hit by everything's up sitting down with those folks who maybe were out to do a hearing on this because they tell you some things that you have to deal with these federal agencies but this is something i think that we can do that's cost effective got an inland poor rural county and you know when you get hit with a storm and florida everybody goes inland they all go to one particular county that sort of gets cut off  because it's next to the st john's river and surrounded by water flooding so everybody flees there and i have no certified shelters and we have a school that we want to renovate to be a shelter to meet the fema guidelines we have to tear the school down which we just they couldn't possibly afford to do to renovate it we don't qualify for the different levels then they said we would like a  we'd like to when we're going to do these renovations if we can get a waiver to do the right ovations we'd like to put in a generator now that would make sense wouldn't it but you don't qualify for the generator chill after the disaster  emergency management director said that there are right now there is no if we have a disaster there is no housing there's no housing because you can't use the trailers we have a huge inventory of mobile homes but there 's no plan or no availability for us to deal with housing up we have a major disaster and i never i never gave any thought of that but we were sort of getting ready so in louisiana huge numbers who are still in those trailers we're having a hearing on a national housing plan that we required to see what to do within is it in june chairman the the pre disaster mitigation program is a very important resource for communities working to protect lives to reduce property damage from disasters this program is a proven success as you pointed out earlier t independent studies have shown that each federal mitigation dollar saves the taxpayers over that three dollars in future disaster assistance and the part of it that i am most interested in is these mitigation projects help save lives by funding alert sirens and safe rooms trying to take people from devastation of tornadoes like the ones we've seen in the midwest and in the south this year in fact we're going through the process today we've got severe weather in the midwest with tornadoes and sirens are a very for the district of minnesota had asked us to consider to rename the courthouse just already named the warren berger courthouse and to to change the naming from a federal building and courthouse the warren berger federal building and courthouse to the warren burger court house i said oh sure let's schedule it but clear it with the republican courthouse even though the building has other federal tenants other in this case in minnesota there are four or five other federal government agencies that has the effect of people saying well i'm going to the courthouse to see the forest service have kind of giving the impression well you go to jail or you've got some kind of legal problem and apparently this is this is surreptitiously happening across the country i've said let's let's withhold that proposition and let's subject this issue to further staff review and i want to say this here is our members to think about it and most of us have courthouses if not in our district certainly in our state and if you know of such naming by the judiciary bring it to our attention both sides of the aisle is judges are really trying to run away with things will you know but we heard some of the similar requests i think we do need to work together and make certain that this straightened out and i'll proceed on the same page and warren berger is a great man a great justice his name was still stay on the building just be the federal building and courthouse until we resolve this issue our last order of business is going and we have to move quickly because was to mike asserting that the notice are going to be a vote of about twenty minutes is h r six o three the passenger rail investment and improvement act of two thousand that first let me also congratulate you on this very handsome portrait here several of my colleagues was very happy that i was called back to the district and could not be here last night to give  you accolades but that is such a me that is the transportation who and i want to add my congratulations to the group i strongly recommend eighty six zero zero three the five hundred mi in for a year for developing state testing recorders and three hundred and forty five million per year to pay down debt three hundred and forty five million per year for high speed rail programs and requires a plan for restoring service to the sunset limited line and drag him through physical states and recent focus on customer service along with increase in highway and airport congestion and rising gas prices interested in fashion arena more popular and necessary then ever all made to an amtrak celebrated national train day by holding events throughout the country showcase an inner city passion a real and his importance to the nation celebrate national train day by holding events throughout my including press conferences and i've been in jacksonville when a plot at the sampled auto train station every great turnouts show in strong support for android and i of operation t g v no air passenger commercial service in brussels in paris one train leaving every three minutes eleven hundred passengers six in the many others examples europe investing three hundred fifty billion dollars in upgrading its transportation network we need to do the same this bill sets us on course to do that after years of starvation budgets for amtrak we now see our way to an investment plan a sustainable investment plan for amtrak out into the future and i particularly want to dismiss brown thank mr mike  we opened the first meeting of the committee on transportation infrastructure in january last year he has wanted to develop a high speed rail system has had certain ideas that we have incorporated into this legislation makes it a occasion and marking up mr oberstar and i sat down you know we represent you whether it's the republican side or the democrat side and we sat down at the very beginning he mentioned that we had lunch down the street and we we decide decided some of the things we had today that are aren't partisan issues but in the best interest of the country we decided on what we had to build our water resources infrastructure we decided on ward and you all helped so we did and that the biggest investment and water infrastructure in the history of the nation together we even overrode a presidential veto and we didn't and we didn't leave a chapter out that's right and we did yeah we don't have to go back and do the damn thing again and that's and we're grateful to staff too because both sides we have great staff that work hard on some of these things technical corrections that wasn't done before remember seven years now word of bill many years we've been waiting to try to update with technical corrections projects important to the country but we did that and we sat down and we said we to going to do something about high speed rail about improving amtrak and national passenger rail service and this is that the culmination of that effort i have to thank the chairman and i have to thank m dog working on transportation issues and without their efforts in the staff we couldn't have done this so i think again today is a historic year that could launch now this isn't done by any means guys and i know some of the folks on the other side have to answer to their own constituencies but we all if we can push this forward and this isn't the mike idea or and oberstar idea this is going to be our idea because we can improve it it's not perfect what's in the legislation and we're open to suggestions so that we make it work in a way make it applicable to everyone this isn't just for the northeast corridor this is for the country and if we can get this working and one or two models that will be replicated and today when you've got we've got we're facing four dollar a gallon gasoline and it's going to get even worse from what we hear when the environment  is under attack at this present provides an option the option isn't just say no the option is to do something about it and we're doing something today so there's an advantage to every single member in every single district with this proposal let me say something to labor and i know we've got some labor representatives out here please work with us we've had endorsement of this proposal by at least one of the  organized labor is this is about the future of the workers to amtrak's employment's gone from twenty eight thousand down to nineteen thousand that isn't a bright future wages and salaries at amtrak employees of l e is less than what the private sector is and they've had to fight like dogs and even go to into legal proceedings to try to get what their brothers and sisters are running so for for labor and for expanding employment can whatever protections we need but whoever operates this it will be operated with american labor rep or representative and all of the operations and we're committed to that so we want everybody to be comfortable with this particularly labor finally services on my side of the aisle they're going to you know there's going to be some people that will have a little heartburn with the price tag on this but we've got to make the investment and you know the answer is that zero ing amtrak out i've been the harshest critic of a track but we've got to have long distance passenger service we've got to have high speed service this t best of what the private sector can offer or miss dorton said we use the private sector to promote competition and then we put the guarantees in for working men and women and others and adapt to different communities around the  but when we're spending it and we have a good investment plan that's the key so that's that's my little commentary one point of personal privilege we're going to lose this staff our side and john brennan who has worked on this and work for the committee longer i've only been here in my position a year and a half but then on the committee sixteen years john has been with us five and a half years he was away by the private sector huge salary and not a tough decision but i know it is a tough one he's going to move with this family i just want to recognize john brennan our staff director on the republican side this is his last meeting people need an alternative a fuel efficient alternative and cost effective alternative i think many of the things we're doing in this bill in terms of the potential for future capital investment upgrading  privatization and privatization is not always a better solution and not always more cost effective solution but i but i feel that you've built in protections with the study that will lead us to some information and knowledge and then get to determine the future and where we go from there and i thank you in the subcommittee chairwoman for that particular concern to be on the west coast is the potential for high speed rail corridor from eugene oregon  british columbia was one of the first six designated by congress in the one nine hundred ninety s but there's been precious little federal commitment or investment in that quarter during that time period our two states washington and oregon have put some money into it but we far far away from realizing the potential and we don't deal with it in this bill but we have to find a way to deal with those non dedicated routes the tracks that are controlled by freight and figure out how we're truly going to partner with the freight railroads to realize the potential of high speed rail because i think that is where the american public wants to see this system go and i know the chairman of the full committee wants to see the system be like the french system and markup that's occurring under the gaze of the of the chairman's new portrait includes railroads because over the last five decades i believe chairman oberstar has has developed itself into the most knowledgeable and influential american on transportation issues that's of course why they invite him to europe to hear his perspective but more importantly over those five decades i believe he's he's earned the title of the iron horse transportation for all those years and so i want to congratulate you on your  mica for your efforts and working with me and working together on this what i think everybody says is accurate historic legislation haven't we authorized amtrak in over ten years and i think it's apparent to all of us productivity and i think as we look to the future last we just recently went over the three hundred million population mark in this country just a year or so ago it took a sixty five years to go from two hundred million to three hundred million it's only going to take us thirty five years to to hit four hundred million in this country and when you look at the maps and the projection of population everybody is not moving to arizona the density in the northeast corridor and these rail corridors around the country is only going to increase so the need to come up with a high speed rail system to improve what we have today is going to be even more imperative and we need to start on it now because it's it's not going to occur overnight fuel prices are record levels delays and cancellations in the aviation industry are growing the entire system is being as being congested the entire transportation system and i think this bill is it is a balance bill a bill altogether which i'm not one of those there are others that believe that we should sell it off in the private sector can it can make a profit and i'm not so sure that's the case and i think what we've done in this bill by these some of these private initiatives and these are privatization they're allowing the private sector to come in and take part in in improving amtrak the northeast corridor which mr mica talked about i think is very important going to have we hope our companies look at this partnering with amtrak  our parting with other governmental entities coming up with a solution to the private sector putting their capital into this and i think are going to come up with a a real number on what it will cost to have truly have high speed rail in the in the northeast co r and i think we've all been guessing about it for the last couple of decades we really don't know and i think we're going to we're going to get a solution or a proposal that that's workable now there's also the potential that the private sector comes and says can't work i don't believe that's going to be the case but we really need to take this opportunity to explore this and along with the northeast corridor we've also have provisions in here that to look at lines  longer amtrak service they shut them down for various reasons have the private sector come in and look at some of these around the country determine which one they want to as a pilot project want to reestablish and those that could be the sunset limited across the southeast and there's others in this country that i think people are going to look at as well as looking at identifying a couple of low performing underperforming performing very poorly lines in this country that public private partnership can come in and make some improvements to see that that accord or can operate without a significant government subsidy again i think our goal should be to move wards last or zeroing out government subsidies i'm not sure if we can get there but i think we have to make an attempt and i think this bill goes a long way in moving in that direction so i'm very very pleased and proud to be a co sponsor of this bill i want to thank chairman over starr again for working with me chairwoman brown and and mr mica so thank you very much ranking member and especially ms brown on what is surely a landmark bill there have been times in recent years when i feared for the very survival of o amtrak amtrak here we remember after nine eleven when it took us two weeks to get air travel back up here i don't know what this country or the northeast corridor would have done without amtrak even in its in its decrepit and sometimes it is virtually decrepit condition amtrak say during that period  and i think it's worth over and over again i associate myself with mr schuster's remarks except that we were member how we got amtrak how we got amtrak as a private sector threw up his hands and threw it at us and the reason for that is that there is no train system in the world that operates today without substantial subsidy there's no way to get around that doesn't mean the private sector doesn't have a role but it doesn't mean that if you want europe as if you want what jap an has if you want to bring us even into the twentieth century much less a twenty first century you've got to face how to run a railroad  today i am very grateful for this bill but what it does to the very the northeast corridor in particular which is one of the perhaps premier routes of amtrak because  will be able to keep the tracks in good good repair to get new cars to keep this train which is very much used in this corridor are moving and amtrak has had the worst possible condition it has and you authorize amtrak or you authorize us to help and frag deal with if huge backlog of matters like it's it's health care costs is overtime pay how can you have people not able to pay overtime on a railroad that's what i mean when i say  was beginning to wonder for its survival and not all of us remember when on both sides of the aisle we went to the floor to pull money from other parts of the transportation bill to save amtrak rather than zero it out because the entire country understands that we can't do without amtrak and we can do with many more studies the notion that we authorize funds to move on high speed rail which most of our allies have been one for decades one in harrisburg pennsylvania harrisburg the philadelphia the keystone corridor or is a line now it's running a hundred miles an hour and has for over the last year and it's been a great success in ridership is increased almost twenty percent the last year and i personally when i go to philadelphia from western pennsylvania i go to harrisburg and and take that line into philadelphia because it's so much easier it's cost effective and so we do have a lot of covering my time member when i said there's a role for the private sector but the government didn't start out and amtrak the private sector which is supposed to be the sector for efficiency he said we just can't handle this we've got to face it certainly there are parts of the country and parts of perhaps amtrak which would be handled that way but do you want to railroad that serves the continent or not and if you do you've got to step up to do what needs to be done the way this bill does and i congratulate all of you i think we are on the same page misused well thank you i'll be brief too i want to congratulate the chairman the ranking member and the chairman ranking member of the subcommittee on this bill it's about time and this comes as a repudiation of eight to ten years of trying to eliminate amtrak  remember the new york times the washington post yesterday talking about how many smaller towns and cities including new haven penn new haven connecticut and  think maryland are losing their air service and they're the airlines because the fuel crisis are shutting down service to many different places and it isn't for amtrak many places will have no service let me also point out that in terms of fuel in the fuel we can expect two hundred dollars barrel oil by next year we know that it's not going to come down anytime soon who's this country to make ourselves energy efficient as possible and rail is much more energy efficient even then buses or airplanes or anything else so expanding our passenger and our freight rail services are going to be key priorities that we're going to maintain our economy so this is a first step back and i congratulate everyone will be brief this bill brings a unique perspective to texas most passenger trains the people in texas see are in museums i see freight trains and they drive a ford f one fifty pickup trucks and now  but just cut off that microphone the gentleman is recognized the amendment is present for all members and without objection the reading of the men will be dispensed with jones recognized in support and potentially others around the country in alaska there are attempts to declare entire stretches of rail lines of historic and i'm not talking about old train stations but the actual track the train runs on we had a similar situation regarding interstate highways and we corrected that problem in safety lou this again would give railroads exactly the same treatment as interstate highways for historical purposes the amendment prevents rail lines from being designated as historical the provision is needed right now by alaska railroad and north carolina state  historic interest while the same time assuring that rail safety is not compromised so i hope that the chairman work with me and mr mica and to to make sure we can get something moving forward concerning this this provision i  thank you and i withdraw the men back thank the gentleman for offering and then withdrawing the amendment there are certainly storch considerations connection with passenger rail services  network of largely privately owned and controlled rail infrastructure in contrast to the interstate which is owned by the state the o t s they had already inventoried their start bridges and other facilities and were gathering information for a list of individual elements that would be that could be evaluated appropriately i think we need to have a process similar to that which we engaged in on the interstate possibly even a public hearing on the subject to fully that and evaluate and i'm committed to working with the gentleman from pennsylvania the gentleman from florida to addressing the subject matter narrowing the issues and resolving questions that have been already raised even at this late hour it's amazing how information gets out we didn't get notice of this a moment yesterday  and and already the national trust for historic preservation was up in arms about it and several others so we have some patching and fixing to do here before we go further thank you revise or strike any provisions of any bills or deported today that would cause sequential referral to another committee or cause the bill to be subject to a budget act or rule twenty one pay as you go point of order without objection so ordered for santa clause one rule twenty two i ask designate offer such motions as may be necessary in the house to go to conference with the senate on the following bills that were reported favorably by the committee or similar senate bill h r five or one as amended h r say six one