Barbara Boxer: “I am very pleased to be here today. This has been a long and winding road to get to the point where we can pass a…”

“I am very pleased to be here today. This has been a long and winding road to get to the point where we can pass a transportation bill which is a very good bill and which is very bipartisan. According to a formula, each and every one of our States will get more than they have in the past. This is what our States are facing. This is a bridge between Arizona and California. I am sure my friend knows what happened. People commuting between our States have had to go 400 miles out of their way. We cannot turn away from this vote today. I know and my friend from Oklahoma knows that each one of us would have written a different bill, but the process means we have to come together. This person says ``I don't like the process'' and this one says ``I don't like the pay- fors.'' Well, I am sure Senator Inhofe and I feel the same way, but we know that if we run into a construction worker who is unemployed and we say ``Well, we didn't vote for this because we didn't like the process,'' they would say ``I need a paycheck.'' So I am going to ask our colleagues to vote aye for three reasons. First, let's get our construction workers back to work. We have so many of them--hundreds of thousands--who are out of work. The general contractors told us last week that in 25 States they are seeing layoffs of construction workers because we are not doing a long-term bill. So let's help our construction workers get back to work. Mr.…”