On the recordFebruary 13, 2018
I thank Mr. Price for the specific details. I am glad that he brought up the environment issues. They certainly need to be discussed. And he is quite correct, the FAST Act, which is now just 2 years old, significantly moved projects faster through the entire program--I suppose we ought to say the FAST Act had some logic to it--and still maintained the underlying strong desire to protect our environment. Climate change: he couldn't be more correct about that, and the specific programs that he mentioned that the President intends to cut. If this was some sort of a--I don't know--State fair, and you had somebody on the boardwalk with the shell game, that is what is being played here. Programs that are working--he mentioned the TIGER program and the funding programs that the States and local municipalities know how to use and are now planning to put their own money in--the President would terminate those and start a whole new series of programs. New administrative, new chaos. We have to make this point: all of us want infrastructure. Here is the report card: Ds, Ds, Ds, one B, and a couple of Cs along the way. Just to maintain these programs at the present would be $2 trillion-- not building new, not adding to what we have, but $2 trillion--just to maintain this. What does the President offer us? $200 billion. That is a B, not a T. $200 billion. The same money that we are already spending. No new dollars. Somehow that would leverage State, local, and private. Mr.…





