mr. latham: mr. chairman, i would like to yield five minutes to the distinguished gentleman from ohio who has brought a lot of knowledge and insight to the committee, mr. latourette. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. latourette: i want to thank the speaker and my good friend mr. latham a classmate from 1994. i want to commend the chairman of the subcommittee, mr. olver, and our ranking member, mr. latham, for putting together a good bill, both on the transportation and the h.u.d. side there will be some criticism on the floor today about how much money it spends and let me just tell you, as someone who spent 14 years on the transportation and infrastructure committee we need to be embarrassed about what we spend on transportation in this country. if you look at the american society of civil engineers, thr report that they come out with on an annual basis a scorecard in terms of how we're doing if more americans read that scorecard they wouldn't put their families in the min

mr. latham: i have a the motion to reconsider to recommit at the desk. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman qualifies. the clerk -- >> mr. speaker -- the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from massachusetts rise? >> mr. speaker, i reserve a point of order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves a point of order. the clerk will read. the clerk: mr. latham of iowa moves to recommit the bill h.r. 3288 to the committee on appropriations with instructions to report the same back to the house forthwith with the following amendment. page 4, strike lines 11 through 16, and insert the following, transportation planning, research, and development for necessary expenses for conducting transportation planning, research systems development, development activities, and making grants to remain available until expended, $10,233,000. page 7, strike line 16, and all that follows through line 23 on page 10 and insert the following, federal aviation administration and operations, airport and airway trust fund for expenses for necessary expen

mr. latham. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from iowa is recognized for four minutes. mr. latham: i thank the speaker. i thank the gentleman from florida for the time. madam speaker, rise in opposition to this rule because i do not want to lend my support to a politically cooked process that freezes the american people out of having their say through a constructive amendment process. i know the large number of the majority members do not want this process either. for the same reasons that i don't. . the majority may think they are freezing out the minority, but they are freezing out all of our constituents. these closed and structured rules are designed to avoid the tough votes and those familiar with the situation know that. on the surface, the rules may be promoted as a means of moving the process along in a timely fashion and there may be some tone of truth to that. however, the real issue is the difficult votes and that's sad, because that's what we get paid to do here. we don't get paid to duck tough votes around here. i have to wonder sometimes if our predecessors fro

mr. latham: i thank the gentleman from michigan for the time. and mr. speaker, i rise in reluctant support of this bill. i also rise to point out that what we're doing today in considering the increase for the highway trust fund is exactly what i sought to do last week in an amendment presented to the rules committee. my amendment was aimed at employing a little common sense and transferring excessive resources in the rapid rail appropriation to the much needed resource category in the highway trust fund. i was seeking to transfer to the trust fund $3 billion of the $4 billion as currently in the rapid rail appropriation in the house version of the fy 2010 transportation appropriations bill. this amendment would have let $1 billion for rail that the president had requested. as things now stand, the $4 billion on top of the $8 billion in the stimulus package remains in the rail account. and at least $2 billion of that is part of a future infrastructure bank, which is only just an idea, no authorization, nothing. it may be at least a year and probably muc

mr. latham: i thank the speaker very much. and sometimes i wonder if ybody on the other side of the aisle ever goes home. because i tell i in doing town meetings we have three or four times more people than normal show up. and i will tell you what, they are scared to death of what they see happening in this country. when they look at the $787 billion stimulus package that has no benefit to anyone today. when they look at people voting for cap and trade without even having read the bill, only to find out that that in iowa would cost 17,000 jobs for each of the next 20 years and 2.5 million jobs nationwide for the next 20 years. they go what's going on? when am i going to get our government back? when are people going to listen to us and be responsive? what this debate is all about is about our children and grandchildren and what we are going to leave them for the future. what it's going to do for someone who wants an opportunity to start a small business, to grow and prosper and be part of this economy. the speaker pro tempore: