On the recordFebruary 29, 2012
Madam President, I thank Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island for his words. Also, he is an exceptional member of the Environment and Public Works committee. First and foremost, he brings us the point of view of his State and he fights on every issue every day. He brings national leadership to the floor on the issue of infrastructure and the need to keep up with our incredible failing infrastructure--the fact that we have to fix these bridges, 70,000 of which are insufficient, and 50 percent of the roads that are not up to par. In Rhode Island, we have serious problems, and the Senator has brought those to the floor. He is a leader on a clean and healthy environment, protecting the air and water for his people. The Senator could not be more eloquent. He is making a point that we could come up with very difficult amendments and slow things up and gum up the works, et cetera, but doesn't my friend think that with so many construction workers out of work--they have well over 15 percent unemployment in the construction industry, which is about twice the national rate, which is too high as it is--we have a chance to protect 1.8 million jobs and create another million jobs, and isn't it time to say that birth control was an issue that was resolved decades ago and let's move on to the task at hand and put people back to work?





