Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014
Floor Speech
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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the FY14 Transportation-HUD appropriations bill.
This bill is the perfect illustration of the majority's cruel and misguided priorities. We hear a lot from the other side about how we need to cut the budget, reduce the deficit and rein in spending, but, clearly, that's just rhetoric. Last week, the majority put a bill on the floor that increased defense spending substantially, including extra funding for programs the administration and the military didn't want and have no intention of using. The reality is that the majority in this House is perfectly willing to increase spending for things they care about, like military contracts, but not for ensuring adequate housing, investing in economic and community development or even in transportation infrastructure.
The bill before us today is so bad that it's hard to imagine how it can be fixed. The House bill is fully $10 billion less than the Senate bill, and it's virtually impossible to find offsets for amendments to improve the bill, but it's important for us to highlight some of the egregious cuts, such as the drastic cuts to the Amtrak capital and operating budget. Just a few years ago, Congress passed the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, PRIIA, which authorized a total of $9.8 billion for Amtrak for the fiscal years 2009 through 2013, but the actual appropriations for Amtrak over this time period was $2.5 billion below the authorized amount.
There is no question we need to invest more in our railroads. A working group for the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission reported that the total capital cost estimate of establishing a national intercity passenger rail network between now and 2050 would be about $357 billion, or a little over $8 billion annually. We are nowhere near that, and the bill before us today takes us in exactly the wrong direction. This bill slashes Amtrak's capital program by 37 percent and Amtrak's operations by 25 percent from last year's enacted level.
These funding levels would have a drastic impact on Amtrak's ability to maintain service. Once you take into account Amtrak's financial obligations, such as contract payments and federally mandated safety work, Amtrak would have only $100 million to cover the investment needs of the entire system. The Northeast corridor alone requires about $780 million per year to address longstanding state of good repair needs, and Amtrak will have to defer maintenance, which will cause service delays and interruptions, and increased costs in the long run.
This is idiotic. I know some people are Amtrak haters no matter the facts, but here are a few more facts that are noteworthy.
Commuter lines on the Northeast corridor carry 235 million passengers every year. These are mostly business travelers who rely on the reliability of Amtrak's rail in order for them to get to work and foster economic growth. If Amtrak cannot maintain the rails adequately, all of these commuter rail systems around all of our major cities will stop being efficient, will stop being able to transport their people.
Amtrak employs nearly 20,000 people in 46 States. Amtrak employees paid more than $64 million in State and local taxes last year. Amtrak did business for suppliers equaling about $1.3 billion last year. Cutting funding for Amtrak jeopardizes all of this economic activity and all of the good-paying jobs associated with it. It will ultimately cost taxpayers a lot of money in the long run.
Amtrak provides a vital service for communities all around the country. We should be increasing investments in Amtrak and developing intercity and high-speed rail. This bill includes no funds whatsoever for the TIGER grant program. In fact, it rescinds $237 million in previous TIGER funds. The bill also includes no funding for the Projects of National and Regional Significance account, which is authorized under the MAP-21 bill that we passed last year but that is now subject to general fund appropriations. The New Starts program will fund some new transit programs, but that account is cut as well, and there is only enough funding to maintain commitments to projects currently in the pipeline. So there are, essentially, no programs to fund any new construction of major transportation projects.
The majority has offered no solutions for how to invest in future economic growth, to facilitate interstate commerce and to maintain our global competitiveness. I urge my colleagues to reject these disastrous cuts to Amtrak, these disastrous cuts to TIGER and to general infrastructure, and to support moving us back toward an intelligent transportation policy. I have to urge a ``no'' vote on the FY14 Transportation-HUD appropriations bill.
Later in this debate, I will discuss the equally disastrous cuts in Community Development Block Grants. It's just another example of how this bill is dismantling the United States.
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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to express my strong opposition to the draconian cuts to the Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG, program in this legislation.
The CDBG program has a proven record of success in stabilizing and revitalizing communities across the country by directly providing funds to local communities and giving them the flexibility to decide where the funding will have the greatest impact. In the last 7 years, CDBG has assisted over a million low- and moderate-income homeowners to rehabilitate their homes, keeping neighborhoods and communities safe and stable.
More than 30 million people have benefited from CDBG-funded public improvement programs, including senior and child care centers, homes for persons with disabilities, safe streets, and shelters for victims of domestic violence. Funds have also been used to provide public services to millions of low- and moderate-income households, including employment training, meals to seniors, and services for abused children.
But the real impact of CDBG is not seen on the national scale. It is seen on the streets and in the neighborhoods of the communities that receive these funds. In my district, CDBG funds have established adult literacy programs, legal support for immigrant victims of domestic violence, and youth summer employment opportunities. It has preserved public housing and addressed vacant housing and lots in at-risk neighborhoods, providing support and guidance for small, locally owned businesses.
Because of the flexibility CDBG provides, the city government has been able to identify the most pressing needs and the most at-risk communities and allocate funds as they are needed. When we invest CDBG funds in our cities, we see an immediate impact in the neighborhoods as nonprofit and private entities follow, bringing new development and opportunities for residents.
Mr. Chairman, CDBG was a change from the old way in which specific programs were specifically funded. People in this House--mostly Republicans, I must say--said, Give more flexibility to local governments; instead of giving to 20 categorical-specific programs, fund them into one or two Community Development Block Grants so they can be used more efficiently. We have done that. We have combined a lot of categorical programs into CDBG, and now we want to tear it to pieces.
Despite the success that CDBG has had, the bill we are debating on the floor today would cut funding to $1.6 billion, which is a 50 percent cut from this year, and the lowest funding level in the 40-year history of the program--lower than when President Ford supported it, even without inflation adjustments.
In New York, CDBG funding would fall from $164 million to $82 million. These funding levels will leave hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and millions of Americans without access to the vital services and support that CDBG provides.
How did we get here? Why are we voting to gut this proven, efficient, flexible program? Why are we voting for a 50 percent cut in an already much too small allotment? The answer is simple: the slash-and-burn Republican budget. The same budget that provides tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations and unneeded increases in defense spending while slashing funding for Medicaid, food stamps, and WIC has left appropriators with such small funding allocations that this bill was unworkable and unrealistic from the start.
So here we are, slashing programs that serve and protect the most vulnerable among us--programs that are proven to save us money in the long run and programs that support flexibility and accountability in our communities.
We may disagree, Mr. Chairman, on how to keep our economy strong, but we should all agree that we must stop piling these cuts on the backs of seniors and the working poor, women, kids, and the middle class. Stop these cuts to our communities. We should reject this bill unless it's grossly increased in the aggregate, which it won't be, as we know. So we should reject this bill.
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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment to increase transit funding for Capital Investment Grants, also known as the New Starts program, by $127 million, which would bring it to the same level as the bill currently being considered in the Senate.
Earlier this year, almost 100 Members joined me in sending a letter to the Appropriations Committee requesting funding for transit, at a minimum, at the levels authorized in MAP-21 and in the President's request. In one of the few bright spots in this bill, transit formula grants are funded at the MAP-21 authorized level, in large part because the formula grants are funded out of the mass transit account of the highway trust fund. Unfortunately, the New Starts and Small Starts program, which comes out of general revenue and funds the construction of new fixed guideway systems, such as new subway lines, bus rapid transit, and light rail is cut 7 percent below the enacted level and 8 percent below the President's request. This shows how important it is that the provision in last year's Republican bill that would have cut regular mass transit funds out of the highway trust fund and subject it to appropriations was defeated because otherwise we would have a drastic cut there, too.
This bill is out of step with the demands of the American people. According to the American Public Transportation Association, a record 10.5 billion trips were taken last year, the second highest annual ridership since 1957. This increase in ridership is occurring all over the country, in places like Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Florida, Arizona, and Utah, to name just a few. Despite the increase in ridership, Federal transportation funding is not keeping up with demand. Public transportation agencies all across the country are facing possible job cuts, maintenance backlogs, service reductions, and fare hikes.
The funding levels in this bill provide barely enough to meet our existing commitments to projects currently under construction, and there is a small amount of money for only a few new Small Starts. The funding level is too low to adequately finance planning and development of additional transit projects. The policy framework in this bill is one of attrition and contraction: to provide just enough money to close out the old projects, with no plans to invest in major new transit systems in any meaningful way in the future. We are not adequately investing in building new capacity and expanding transit service around this country, but I suppose that is the point--to slowly starve these programs to the point that they cease to be effective and then argue that they are not necessary.
But I am optimistic that we will ultimately provide greater funding for transit. This is an issue that historically has had bipartisan support. Many of my Republican friends joined me in protecting the transit funding guarantees during consideration of surface transportation legislation last year and in defeating the leadership's attempt to eliminate it. The business community and the real estate industry support funding for public transportation, along with a wide range of labor, civil rights, environmental, and civic organizations. Public transportation has broad support all over the country because people understand that investing in transit is one of the smartest things we can do to create jobs right here in America, reduce congestion and dependence on foreign oil, and spur economic growth.
My amendment would increase the New Starts program by $127 million, which is a modest amount considering how much we should be investing in our infrastructure, but at least it would put the House bill on equal footing with the Senate. Unfortunately, there is no account to use as an offset that wouldn't cause significant harm to other important programs, and, therefore, I have offered none. I understand the chairman may insist upon raising a point of order, and this just shows the limitations under which we are working in this impossible bill in which there is grossly inadequate funding all around so that you can't responsibly ask for an offset without destroying mass transit or something else that is of great import in order to support adequate expenditures.
I urge my colleagues to support increasing transit funding in whatever final product for FY14 appropriations becomes law.
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