Political Quotes

“I rise to say a very quick word or two about the TEA-21, I believe, Transportation Efficiency Act of the year 2000 and to express my deep appreciation for the leadership that Chairman Chafee, Chairman Warner and Senator Baucus have provided. This, as has been said, is one of the very largest bills that we have acted upon. It has an impact on each of our States and will have for the next 6 years. It has been a very difficult fight to raise the dollars necessary and to allocate them fairly. I express the deepest appreciation to all three of my colleagues I mentioned. I want to say what tremendous work has been done by the staff on the majority side, Jimmie Powell, Ann Loomis, Dan Corbett; on the minority side, Tom Sliter and Kathy Ruffalo. On my own staff, Tracy Henke has worked literally hundreds of hours and has had very little sleep, as all of the staff on Environment and Public Works. They have done an outstanding job. When we started this process, I said there were five essential goals: Increase the funding for highways. We need a bigger pie. We need, for the State of Missouri, to get a fair share. We must upgrade and repair deteriorating bridges. We need to put the trust back into the highway trust fund so that people who pay gas taxes into the trust fund will know that those gas taxes are coming back to build better roads, bridges, highways and transportation system.”