Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this commonsense, bipartisan legislation, and I thank Chairman DeFazio and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves) for working with me on it. Our country must do a better job inspecting infrastructure. There is a nationwide backlog, and it is because traditional methods of inspecting critical infrastructure are often time-consuming, dangerous, and expensive. Inspections are essential, though, and we have seen tragic results around the country when structural flaws go unnoticed. Modern technology has given us a great tool that we can use for inspections: Drones. Using a drone to inspect infrastructure in hard- to-reach places, such as underneath bridges, can speed up the inspection process so that we can get through the backlog more quickly, and it can help save money, as well. In fact, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimate that utilizing drones reduces the cost of infrastructure inspections by 74 percent and the time needed to conduct the inspection by 88 percent. Not only that, but drone inspections are much safer for the workers than having a human hang under a tall bridge. It is an easy way to improve job safety.…”