Conference Report on H.R. 1, Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007

CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 1, IMPLEMENTING RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - July 27, 2007)

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Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding, but above all, I thank him for a bill of historic dimensions.

Mr. Speaker, if this bill did no more than H.R. 1, enact a 9/11 Commission report, it would be that, and it does a great deal more. It's what we have been trying to do ever since you and I have been on this commission.

Let me point out a couple of things. One of the most criticized parts of homeland security has been what is called the revenue sharing or pork barrel spending we did in just distributing this money all over the country. Your task was to somehow make sure everybody got enough money, while pointing the money to where al Qaeda is pointing the threat. That is exactly what you have done with the base Federal funding for emergency preparedness now going, finally, on the basis of risk and vulnerabilities.

Of course, that means New York City and Washington D.C. are getting more attention than before. But those are not the only jurisdictions. Would anyone not want those two jurisdictions to get most of the attention where al Qaeda is giving most of the attention.

I share with Chairman Oberstar the concern that what we put in our bill for the distribution of the transportation security funds was not agreed to by the Senate. So we have another bureaucracy distributing the funds, as we would not have preferred.

But it must be said that you and I sponsored the bill for rail security. Public transportation security could get nowhere. Look what you have in this bill. Where the people are, we have got $4 billion for the first time. We got it for rail, we have got it for public transportation, we got it for buses. Finally, there is a collective sigh of relief.

There is $20 million, I must say, for Union Station. I just want to point that out, because Union Station is 2 seconds away from the Senate of the United States. It's the hub for Amtrak, and it's typical of where your bill looks for where the vulnerability is, where the holes are and shores them up. Your bill will be remembered by history.

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