congressional_record: CREC-2002-11-22-pt1-PgE2135-2
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| granule_id | date | congress | session | volume | issue | title | chamber | granule_class | sub_granule_class | page_start | page_end | speakers | bills | citation | full_text |
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| CREC-2002-11-22-pt1-PgE2135-2 | 2002-11-22 | 107 | 2 | RECOGNIZING CONGRESSMAN BILL COYNE | HOUSE | EXTENSIONS | RECOGNIZING | E2135 | E2135 | [{"name": "John P. Murtha", "role": "speaking"}] | 148 Cong. Rec. E2135 | Congressional Record, Volume 148 Issue 152 (Friday, November 22, 2002) [Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 152 (Friday, November 22, 2002)] [Extensions of Remarks] [Page E2135] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] RECOGNIZING CONGRESSMAN BILL COYNE ______ HON. JOHN P. MURTHA of pennsylvania in the house of representatives Friday, November 22, 2002 Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to pay tribute to my long time friend and colleague. Bill Coyne will retire from this institution after serving 11 terms as a Member of this institution. Bill is a lifelong resident of Pittsburgh, and so like myself, is a native of the southwestern Pennsylvania district he has so faithfully represented for the past 22 years. The 14th District includes the city of Pittsburgh as well as 33 other surrounding communities in the very heart of this country's steel producing center. From his post as a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, he has been able to develop and promote countless economic policy initiatives to the benefit of the Southwestern region as well as the Nation, including those dealing with Social Security, trade, tax reform, health care, housing and community development, job creation, and job training. In addition to serving as ranking member of the Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Bill has served on the Banking Committee, the Budget Committee, the Committee on House Administration, and the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. He has consistently used his committee assignments to promote federal policies to the benefit of urban America. During the 103rd Congress, Bill succeeded in making the tax-exempt Industrial Development Bond permanent. IDB's helped to create or retain more than 26,000 manufacturing jobs in Pennsylvania alone between 1987 and 1992. He also led the successful House Ways and Means opposition to a proposed $1 per gallon hike in the Federal fuel tax for waterway commerce in 1993, which was of enormous economic benefit for the Three Rivers area he represents. Bill also successfully inserted language in the 1993 reconciliation bill that provided low-income workers with an improved opportunity to receive an Earned Income Tax Credit on a monthly basis, instead of waiting for a single annual payment. In the 104th Congress, Bill Coyne worked with many of his Democratic colleagues to protect Federal funding for programs serving children, seniors, and working families, and to ensure that the burden of Federal taxation was not disproportionately borne by working families. He also worked to provide tax incentives for businesses and municipalities to clean up and redevelop abandoned industrial sites, and he worked to expand protection for workers' rights in international trade agreements. In the 105th Congress, he worked for middle-class tax relief while balancing the Federal budget responsibly. He was a supporter of both the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. He worked successfully to include a provision in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 which allowed businesses to deduct the cost of cleaning up brownfields sites in certain targeted areas. He was also actively involved in developing and enacting legislation to reform the Internal Revenue Service, and much of his Taxpayer Bill of Rights legislation was in that bill. Bill Coyne worked to make organ transplant regulations fairer and worked with me to make the Disproportionate Share Hospital program's formula for hospitals fairer as well. He also worked to provide nearly $800 million in projects for his district in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) including reconstruction of Drake, Library and Overbrook trolley lines, construction of an extension of the MLK Jr. Busway, construction of an industrial access road in Lawrenceville, and construction of transit links between downtown and the North Shore. During the 106th Congress, Bill Coyne continued to work to protect federal programs that serve children, senior citizens, the disabled, and working families; enact a Medicare prescription drug benefit; strengthen U.S. laws that punish unfair foreign trade practices; protect Americans' pensions and other retirement benefits; increase funding for medical research and education; and make the Federal Tax Code simpler and fairer by reforming the capital gains tax and the alternative minimum tax. He also worked successfully to increase public awareness about food stamp eligibility and to expand the brownfields tax provision and push back its expiration date by several years. Bill Coyne is a graduate of Central Catholic High School and Robert Morris College. He served in the United States Army in Korea from 1955 to 1957. He worked as a corporate accountant for 13 years before entering politics in 1970. He served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1971 to 1972 and on the Pittsburgh City Council from 1973 until 1980. I'm proud to have served alongside Bill Coyne and worked with him for these many years for the benefit of our adjoining districts and Pennsylvania as a whole. Bill's seniority on Ways and Means will be sorely missed by Pennsylvania. His expertise as a legislator will be missed by all Americans who were helped by his good work. His good nature, friendship, and collegiality will I know be missed by his fellow Pennsylvania Members and indeed by all of us here in the House of Representatives. Please join me in wishing him well in his retirement from public service. ____________________ |