Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users

TRANSPORTATION EQUITY ACT: A LEGACY FOR USERS -- (House of Representatives - April 01, 2004)

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Mr. LARSEN of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I want to rise in support of H.R. 3550, but I do want to note that this bill barely scratches the surface of America's transportation needs. At $275 billion, this bill is certainly a lot, but it is only slightly more than an inflationary increase over TEA 21. Furthermore, at this amount, the United States loses out on almost 4.8 million new jobs in Washington State. Specifically, my State could lose out on thousands and thousands of jobs as a result of the funding level in this bill.

In a year when millions of Americans are looking for work, this does not come close to helping the thousands of Americans get back to work. I hope as this bill moves through this House and to conference, we can pursue a funding level that will meet the needs of our transportation systems and help provide job opportunities for more Americans.

Having said all that, I surely want to thank the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young); the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri); and the ranking members, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), for their work on this bill, which has helped out the Pacific Northwest.

Specifically, TEA LU doubles the funding for the Ferry Boat Discretionary program. The Puget Sound is home to the largest ferry system in the country, and these funds are vital to the Washington State ferries' efforts to service and replace aging vessels. I look forward to working with all of you in conference to increasing these funds in order to keep America's ferry systems afloat for years to come.

In addition, the bill includes funding for projects of national and regional significance. The Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle, damaged by an earthquake in February 2001, is threatening to collapse and shut off the transport of goods from ports in Washington State to locations all across the country. So I hope we can further improve this new and exciting program.

In conclusion, I want to say that I hope the final version of this legislation will make very clear that the existing high-priority corridors continue to be eligible for funding. I also hope that the House conferees in this legislation will make every effort to strike the restrictions in the trade corridor provision approved by the other body limiting freight corridor only to multi-State corridors.

Mr. Chairman, again I want to thank the committee leadership and the committee staff for their hard work on this bill, and I look forward to working with all of you on these issues as the bill moves forward.