We must reject the Band-Aid and duct tape approach and go big and bold.

Right now, when it comes to highways, we find ourselves caught in a familiar dilemma, between raising taxes or cutting back on the highway program.

We can fund a 6-year bill at the level that a 21st-century infrastructure system demands without raising taxes on small business owners and working families.

I want to make it clear at the outset that my goal as chairman of this committee to find a way to fund a long-term infrastructure bill.

We cannot do it under just the State funds or a short-term patch. You need to have a multi-year commitment as a Federal partner in order to be able to move forward in those programs.

I support electric vehicles or natural gas vehicles.

If we cannot get a 6-year reauthorization, we are putting our communities at risk.

This money is invested in America.

What we need in this country is an interstate system of pipelines so we can get the natural gas resources and the oil resources that are so abundant in this country.

We believe in federalism. Because we believe that the people in the State of Oregon and the people in the State of Utah can make much, much, much better decisions about what road projects and bridge projects should be funded in Oregon and…

I would hope that we could take this moment of opportunities--we have 43 days, and, Mr. Chairman, we are willing to work night and day with you on a bipartisan basis to step up and decide we are really going to invest in the future.

Put it on the table. See how much revenue you can get from it.

We cannot keep doing that.

Devolution would destroy that kind of opportunity.

This is a law that was passed 60 years ago specifically to keep minorities off of Federal road projects. It is discriminatory in effect, and it was discriminatory in its intention, and it is high time we repeal this law.

This was a constructive contribution to the debate over legislation that eventually became MAP-21.

My goal as chairman of this committee is to find a way to fund a long-term infrastructure bill.

Let us not take things off the table before we start this discussion.