Allowing Use of Passenger Facility Fees for Noise Reduction At California Schools
ALLOWING USE OF PASSENGER FACILITY FEES FOR NOISE REDUCTION AT CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS -- (House of Representatives - September 17, 2008)
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Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 996. This bill is going to help alleviate the impact of airport noise in Los Angeles, California, by permitting passenger facility charges collected by the Los Angeles International Airport to be used for noise mitigation during the construction of a new school.
Furthermore, this bill defines the projects that are eligible to ensure that money intended for noise mitigation is used for exactly that and nothing else. This bill is yet another provision to be pulled from H.R. 2881, the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2007, and moved as a standalone bill.
Unfortunately, our counterparts in the Senate have not been able to reach an agreement among themselves and pass a comprehensive 4-year bill, and time is running out to get just such a bill done this year.
Mr. Speaker, I would urge the Senate to settle their differences and allow the Congress to send much-needed relief to an agency in turmoil as well as the flying public.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. GRAVES. I was going to pretty much just talk about the specific merits of S. 996, but since my colleague pointed out that we should stay on topic, I think I would just expand just a little bit because this is an aviation bill, this is talking about--and it was mentioned--the number of planes flying in and out of Los Angeles International Airport and just how important that part of the transportation system is to this country and how much we are going to lose in this country if pieces of legislation like the un-American energy bill that was passed last night are enacted into law.
It's unfortunate because so many things in this country travel. Every single product, every single person in this country travels one way or another, either by train or by plane or by ship or by barge or by pipeline or by truck. Everything in this country travels, and we are a country that is very, very dependent on foreign sources of oil, unfortunately, for those products that we need for gasoline, for diesel fuel.
We would like to see, and I would like to see, that dependence reduced. That dependence needs to be reduced, and we have the resources right here in the United States. Unfortunately, the bill that was passed last night locked away the biggest chunk of those resources permanently. That bill permanently put away any opportunity to go after those resources off the Outer Continental Shelf between zero and 50 miles where the biggest chunk of those resources are and where it would be the easiest to go after those resources.
It's unfortunate because there are no alternatives in certain areas of transportation, for instance, aviation, which we're talking about today. There are no alternatives but aviation fuel. It comes from petroleum. No alternatives are out there.
It will be nice one of these days in this country when we do have alternatives to address some of our issues when it comes to being a country so dependent on petroleum, on gasoline, and diesel fuel.
We already have a few great hybrids in this country, whether it's electricity or ethanol or biofuels. We have some great alternatives. But if you're talking about real power to pull a train or to drive a ship or to push a barge or to pull farm machinery or to pull a truck or to fly an airplane, we have to have fuel. And it's unfortunate that we continue to see pieces of legislation brought forth in this Chamber that do absolutely nothing to address our real need in this country. And we're talking about all of those things that are important to us for energy--nuclear power, clean-burning coal technology, coal to gas, more drilling in places like ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf, and all of those areas throughout the United States that have oil.
And we can do it in such an environmentally friendly way. And that's one of the most frustrating parts of this entire argument. We can do it in such an environmentally friendly way because of the technologies today that allow us to do so many different things underground when it comes to those wells and comes to those rigs. We don't have to hurt our environment to be dependent on the United States and to Americanize United States resources. We don't have to harm our environment in any way. We can work with our environment. And we continue to use those resources that are un-American.
So it's unfortunate, again, that we passed such an un-American bill in this Chamber last night. Many of us did not support that bill simply because it makes us more dependent on those foreign sources of oil and it locks away the biggest percentage of that oil that we have and those resources that we have right here in the United States. It didn't even address the refining issue that we have in the United States and the capacity problems that we have in the United States. And that's as much a part of this as anything else.
So all of these modes of transportation, we're going to be doing a few things here for a little while, talking about different areas of transportation. It's unfortunate because all of those modes of transportation carry those goods and those people from one place to another. And when the price of that energy goes up, it costs consumers money. It costs everyone out there more money when it comes to purchasing those products or just transporting themselves from one place to another.
So again, a very un-American energy bill was passed out of this Chamber last night. And we hope that we will be able to have an American energy bill, one that is dependent on American sources, sometime soon before this Congress breaks in October. This Congress continues to break time and time again without addressing this issue, without coming up with a bill that will solve those problems and will go to the President's desk. And it's unfortunate, Mr. Speaker.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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