defazio: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. defazio: i ronically it was exactly one year ago today -- ironically it was exactly one year ago today that the chairman of the ways and means committee said they needed time to come together for funding a six-year surface transportation bill investing in our transportation system. one year ago today. there was an extension till may. there was the extension until the end of the year. there was an extension to may. i think 34 temporary extensions we've seen now. and now we're talking about another temporary extension with the hope that maybe they can find some money under the couch cushions or pass tax reform and cut taxes on rich people and use dynamic scoring and put it in the trust fund. i don't know what their solution is. we've had a user-fee funded transportation system in this country since dwight david eisenhower was president. followed by ronald reagan who doubled the tax and ronald reagan also put transit into the high

defazio of oregon. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 369 the gentleman from oregon and a member opposed each will control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from oregon. mr. defazio: i thank the chair. well, you know, there was a time when monday santo supported labeling -- monsanto supported labeling. here's what they said back then. we encourage -- here it is. they fully support u.k. food manufacturers and retailers in their introduction of these labels. we believe you should be aware of all the facts before making a purchase. we encourage you to look out for these labels. that was then, this is now. now monsanto says such labeling and their allies in this fight say such labeling is impossible, impractical unnecessary. but there was a time when monsanto was proud of their genetically modified organisms. why not now? we've heard all these arguments, some of which aren't exactly accurate, about the great benefits of g.m.o.'s and why not put on there g.m.o.'s solve global warming? put

defazio: i yield the gentleman a minute and a half. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. the gentleman is recognized. >> mr. speaker, members of the house, the simple truth is, as has been articulated so well here today by my colleagues, that this nation desperately needs a long-term transportation funding bill to repair our nation's crumbling infrastructure, not another kick the can down the road short-term, temporary, convoluted fix. last week, congress appropriately honored the late chairman of the transportation committee jim oberstar, with the naming of his hometown post office in chisholm, minnesota. mr. nolan: what a wonderful tribute it was to chairman oberstar. but here we are once again, kicking the can down the road on the issue that jim oberstar cared most about. as chairman, jim worked hard to ensure the committee drafted good strong, bipartisan legislation. that's what we need here today. the transportation committee -- if the transportation committee were allowed to do that, i have every c

defazio. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oregon investigate for three -- is recognized for three minutes. mr. defazio: i thank the gentleman for yielding. as we have heard a year ago today the house passed a temporary extension, one year. chairman ryan, ways and means, who is supposed to figure out how to pay for this said we will use this year to put the transportation highway trust fund on a sustainable path so we can avoid stopgap legislation in the future. well, it didn't happen. but they were occupied with much more important things. for instance, they said that a state's estate's worth more than $10 million shouldn't pay a penny taxes. none. that cost $289 billion. if we dedicated that to surface transportation, we could have basically doubled spending over 10 years. so today the democrats are here to offer a real six-year long-term increase in investment in america's failing infrastructure. 140,000 bridges need repair or replacement on the national highway system. 40% of the

defazio: mr. speaker, i would direct anyone interested in this legislation to my remarks on the five-month bill and with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oregon yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. dent: mr. speaker, i ask all 435 members of this house to support h.r. 3236 with a yes vote, and with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from wisconsin is recognized. mr. ryan: mr. speaker, i just want to echo the comments of the prior chair. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin is recognized. mr. ryan: thank you. this is -- we think this is the right solution. this is very similar to the bill we passed earlier. we believe this gives us the time we need to try to put together a long-term highway solution. that's why we're in favo

defazio: i thank the gentleman for yielding. i have listened to interest -- with interest to the speakers who preceded me, and the gentleman from massachusetts is absolutely right. the simple solution is to adopt a uniform national mandatory standard but that gave 88% of the american people polled that said we'd like the information on the label. it will not add costs anymore than printing red dye number 2 adds costs to the label. it will add no cost, and it will have a uniform national standard. you won't have to worry about a proliferation of the states and you wouldn't have to contradict yourselves as republicans when every day you're down here screaming about states' rights and now when states do something you don't like, oh my god. states' rights, hu out of here. it's not -- ha, out of here. it's not just the labeling. so, yeah, there are three blue states that labeled and you don't care to preempt their laws. got that. but there are a lot of red states and purple states and blue states where the departments of agriculture

had the privilege of working on both sides of the aisle with chairman shuster with ranking member defazio and many other members of that committee. and i know, the speaker has told me he wants a six-year bill and i believe him but why put it off? we've got -- we've got the inhofe-boxer-mcconnell-durbin product. it passed overwhelmingly. take it up. now, the committee for responsible federal budget, here's what they said. it's refreshing to see congress focus on a multiyear solution instead of another short-term patch, and they say of our bill this is a fiscally responsible bill that relies on solid offsets. now, let me be clear. i didn't love every offset. i see my friend from maryland. we tried desperately to get better offsets and there may be people in the house who don't like the offsets. come together and figure out another way. why don't you see if you can fully fund a six-year bill. we fully funded a three-year bill. so i ask the question of the speaker, what is it about our bill that you don't like and where is your bill? now, they'll shuster yesterday -- chairman shuster said yes

defazio, their help and assistance in this. as former chief forest -- of the forest service said, we don't have a fire problem in our nation's forests. we have a land management problem and it needs to be addressed quickly. that is exactly what the westerman bill does. it addresses that problem. the status quo flat-out is not working. forest service has recommended or recognize that we have at least 58 million acres that are in dire need of assistance right now, that can easily be burned in this next fire season. that's bigger than my home state of utah, which is still the 11th largest state in the nation. if you add the higher end estimates, then you add more acreage into that, which means you'd add the state of utah and michigan. 1/3 of the entire forests we have are in danger of being destroyed if we do not do something immediately. the forest service right now can only address the problem in three million acres, 5 is the minimum -- that simply means it would take them over 20 years to address the problems, that's more than

defazio: mr. speaker, today i'm introducing legislation to direct the administrator of the federal emergency management agency to fund the purchase, installation and activation of an early warning system on the cascade yeah zone off the pest. the cascadia falls has the potential of unleashing a quake that actually could exceed that off of japan and as we know in japan 15,000 people died $300 billion in damages. in oregon, our state expects thousands of deaths $32 billion in infrastructure. if the united states of america would deploy like japan and other countries are doing an early warning system, thousands of lives could be saved. inland we could evacuate schools. portland they could get people off the bridges that are going to collapse. and manufacturing operations that are critical could be suspended. we have the potential to save thousands of lives, tens of millions, billions of dollars in excess damages and it would just require the united states of america to do what other countries are doi