Political Quotes

“finally, after much laboring, this massive new substitute, or managers' amendment, is before us. This reflects the tremendous amount of work our staffs have done over the recess as well as the many long weeks and months our committees worked on it. It is not what anybody would say is a perfect bill. Everybody would like more money, and many would like more money in different places. But given the constraints under which we operated, this is the best we have been able to produce. Obviously, we hope that after the Senate may complete action on the supplemental, which I understand may be coming up, we would like to move as quickly as we can on this bill. The leadership on both sides has told us they want to finish the bill by this week. That is an ambitious schedule but, frankly, the current extension of the highway transportation bill runs out at the end of this month. The only hope we have of meeting that deadline and getting a bill to the President is to get it to conference this week. The conference is going to be difficult because of the different approach taken by the House than the approach we have taken. The approach we have taken, and the EPW Committee, on highway funds is one of bipartisan cooperation, to use formulas to assure that the highway money goes to States on the various indicators of need built into the formulas. I happen to think the formulas undercut the crossroads of the United States.…”