Political Quotes

“Today, the House meets for the second day in a row to consider another infrastructure bill that has come from the House Natural Resources Committee and its Subcommittee on Water, Power, and Oceans, of which I have the honor of chairing. My subcommittee has a strong infrastructure agenda, already hearing testimony on a number of bills aimed at improving our Nation's infrastructure and advancing an all-of- the-above energy and water strategy. Many of our bills, including H.R. 1654, which we are considering today, apply simple solutions to expedite maintenance or construction of water and power infrastructure throughout the Nation. It is vital to rebuild our Nation's infrastructure, and one of the biggest roadblocks is the excess of regulatory red tape that applicants have to wade through before they can even move one shovel of dirt. In Colorado, where I live, a water project was recently completed where water owned by the city of Colorado Springs was taken from a reservoir 60 miles to the south to the city of Colorado Springs for treatment and distribution. The project took 6 years to build. But before that could happen, there were over 200 permits and applications that had to be granted, any one of which could have stopped the whole thing, and that cost $160 million in application fees, lawyers' time, and mitigation. That took 8 years. That took longer than the project itself.…”