so when people throw out nepa, when people throw around nepa as something -- one reason why we shouldn'tadopt this, that is simply a bogus argument. finally i just want to make one more point here about this being a give away. in fact, there are some of my persuasion that may have a bit of heartburn with this because the matter of fact we e giving the federal government more land than we are exchanging for private development of this copper land. mr. chairman, i know you have heard the arguments over there andhe time and i have been here and yet this is something i think is worthy of support because we do want to make sure that those lands are protected in a way. so to suggest that there is a give away here is simply not the case because the exchange is of equal value. with that, mr. chairman, i reserve my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from arizona. mr. grijalva: i continue to reserve. the chair: the gentleman from washington. mr. hastings: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i am very pleased to yield to a former member of the natural resources committee, the

this would continue to delegate nepa to caltrans. without this extension, the ability for caltrans to administer the nepa process would have gone away. that was approved by the governor. ab1097 authorizes bid preferences for domestic content for transit agencies. a federal law allows that but requires a state to adopt a statute. this aligned itself with federal authorities, so the transit agency can now, with the permission of the state, including a higher level of domestic content requirements in their procurement processes. a very interesting bill that we have marked down for watch, ab 1900. this provides relief for leadership projects in the newly defined set of projects. residential, commercial, cultural, everything except -- pretty much any kind of major new structure that requires at least $100 million in investment and be certified as a silver leed project. infrastructure could qualify itself for a special designation by the governor. if it receives a designation, then any appeals against the validity of the ceqa process would

so when people throw out nepa, when people throw around nepa as something -- one reason why we shouldn't adopt this, that is simply a bogus argument. finally i just want to make one more point here about this being a give away. in fact, there are some of my persuasion that may have a bit of heartburn with this because the matter of fact we are giving the federal government more land than we are exchanging for private development of this copper land. mr. chairman, i know you have heard the arguments over there and the time and i have been here and yet this is something i think is worthy of support because we do want to make sure that those lands are protected in a way. so to suggest that there is a give away here is simply not the case because the exchange is of equal value. with that, mr. chairman, i reserve my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from arizona. mr. grijalva: i continue to reserve. the chair: the gentleman from washington. mr. hastings: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i am very pleased to yield to a former member of the natural resources committee

extensive review that began in 1999 and concluded with the planning approval in december 2008, and finally nepa approval from the federal government in november 2008. the key steps to the central subway project, past 42 recent times -- -- fast forward to recent times, the agency is in the process of acquiring the real estate. we will close escrow on the chinatown station property as of november 1. we have begun three major construction contracts that will deliver the seven construction -- the seven construction contracts that will deliver the program. we have entered into final design, have awarded three major design contracts. the current state of final design completion is 90% complete. also, we have received a letter of no prejudice approval from the fta that will allow us to consider advanced construction which will allow was to put forth the utility contracts in construction and award the requirements for the tunnel contract. a milestone for the project was submission of the full funding grant agreement application to the federal government on september 19 of this year. that represents sig

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pipeline's environmental and safety impact consistent with the national environmental policy act or nepa to the congress provide an environmental impact statement consistent with nepa to evaluate the proposed pipelines potential environmental and safety impact. in preparing the environmental and picked statement over the past two and a half years, we have conducted some 40 some public meetings along the pipeline route and in washington, d.c. to gather public comments and to develop the scope and the draft of the impact statement. on august 26th, we released the final environmental the impact statement which addresses the more than 250,000 comments from the public comment period. the final environmental impact study is just one factor to be considered in the review process. it does not represent the final decision for our final decision on the permit application. now, as we move into the national interest determination, the department of state is compiling additional information to determine if the proposed keystone xl pipeline is in the u.s. national interest and decide whether or not to

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compliance with all requirements under federal law, including the national environmental policy act or nepa. in addition, the implementation of this legislation has no cost to the taxpayer. having a single agency overseeing the project remains important, if not more important now that the project is operational. the united states bureau of reclamation has the expertise to conduct oversight on water supply projects and does so on many other projects that are within national forests. this commonsense legislation meets the needs of s.r.p. and reclamation to ensure the infrastructure can be maintained while accommodating the forest service, ensuring they continue to manage the lands underlying the utility corridor with respect to recreation, wildfire, law enforcement and other activities consistent with its authorities, responsibilities and expertise. it is important to note that when the house natural resources subcommittee on water and power held a hearing on my bill on may 12, all parties, including the bureau of reclamation and the forest service, agreed that h.r. 489 is vital to the long-t

it looks like also we are sort of forced into a full-blown nepa environmental study.uestion the need for that. anyone with any common sense or logic that can determine that this has to be vastly more favorable to the environment, more direct routing, less emissions, more efficient use of airspace, i am not sure where they're coming from. but, again we don't need rocket science or continued extensive full-blown red tape dotting i's and crossing t.'s with even common sense would tell us the m. bar mental positive impacts of next-generation technology is critical. one other thing that concerns me and i'm a strong advocate of having the private sector involved in this development, and having witnessed back before he became chairman, sitting in this very room, and we would have hearings bringing forth new technology and faa was doing the developmental program. they would go on and on. they would just ask for another billion or 2 billion, and they say, our success is right around the corner. well we are seeing some of adam or gently repeated again and also with concerns me