Hearing of the House Appropriations Committee - FY 2016 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill

Hearing

Good morning. I join with the Chairman in extending our thoughts and prayers to the
passengers, victims and first responders who were involved in last night's Amtrak derailment.
This was a sad and scary event. As with any transportation disaster, the NTSB will conduct a
thorough and professional investigation and issue a report of their findings, and from those
findings, we will take action.

Today, I am pleased to present the fiscal year 2016 THUD bill to the Committee for your
consideration, with goal of bringing the THUD bill to the floor. In total resources, the bill before
you today provides $108.7 billion in budget authority and obligation limitation for the various
programs in the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development and
Related Agencies. CBO has scored us at the set 302(b) level of $55.27 billion in discretionary
budget authority - $1.5 billion above the enacted FY 2015 levels, but when comparing
appropriated dollars, this bill is really only $25 million over 2015.

I want to thank Ranking Member Price for his willingness to discuss the issues and challenges of
the programs and funding levels under our jurisdiction. I hope there are more than a few bright
spots of common ground in the funding levels we were able to achieve.

I'd like to thank Chairman Rogers for his support and very generous allocation to this
subcommittee. Many of the financial holes we face in crafting this bill are due to factors beyond
our control and the additional funds went to simply backfilling unpredictable CBO scoring and
inflation factors of housing programs.

I'd like to thank Ranking Member Lowey for her contributions to making the safety programs a
priority for this bill and her commitment to the process.

Finally I'd like to thank the members of the subcommittee. We held a number of hearings and
people asked a lot of good, relevant questions. I'm pleased to say our agencies have responded
to the questions for the record -- with the exception of the FAA -- and the Subcommittee' s
hearing volumes are ready to be published.

I would be remiss if I didn't recognize the incredible hard work of the professional committee
staff: Dena Baron, Doug Disrud, Cheryle Tucker, Carl Barrick, Jenny Hollrah, and Kate
Hallahan and Joe Carlile on the Minority staff. I'd also like to recognize Cesar Gonzalez and
Miguel Mendoza on my personal staff.

This is a balanced bill. I'd like to highlight a few areas that are of great importance to Members
of the Committee:

* We meet the oblim levels contained in the current MAP-21 extension for surface
programs. We support the authorizing committees proposing an extension bill to carry
these important programs forward.

* We provide $100 million for new TIGER awards.

* We provide $129 million over last year for FAA operations to ensure the orderly
operation of the air traffic control system.

* For FAA NextGen investments, the bill includes $931 million.

* Every single one of FTA's signed full funding grant agreements is funded consistent with
the agreed-upon payout schedule, and all the proposed small starts are funded. Further,
we provide $250 million for up and coming agreements and $40 million for core capacity
projects.

* CDBG is funded at last year's level of $3 billion - $200 million more than the request.

* HOME is funded at $900 million through appropriations and trust funds.

* Other housing programs are funded at levels sufficient to continue providing a HUDassisted
housing option.

To be able to meet these priorities, we made some strategic reductions to capital accounts and we
scrubbed the bill for overhead savings. Further, this bill has no new programs, no new fees, and
almost all S&E accounts are at last year's level or lower. I've also tried to be sensitive and
accommodate the priorities of the members of this Committee. Where we could, we included
your requests.

I've seen some comments that this bill contains foreign policy provisions. Let me be clear: we
have included narrowly crafted provisions to continue a basic rule of law principle that we
should not allow the trafficking of or profiting from confiscated property, in other words, stolen
property.

I'm sure there will be a few remarks today about more money. I'd like to remind people that if
we wrote to a number that exceeded the budget resolution, the sequestration that would hit in
2016 wouldn't take into account our priorities. We wouldn't be able to protect the transportation
systems our nation depends on, or provide housing to millions of American families. This bill
takes steps to make sure our highest priorities are adequately funded.

I believe we have a balanced bill, meeting the budget agreement, and I urge the Committee's
support.

Thank you and I yield the balance of my time.

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