On the recordMay 12, 2015
Again, I thank the gentleman for the leadership he has taken on not only this bill but on infrastructure in our country. I did want to say a few more words because in these last 6 days we can't leave words unsaid. I want to say that what my chief frustration is--there is really no serious thinking going on in this House about ways to replace the highway trust fund except what is in the GROW AMERICA Act, and that, of course, would be for one 6-year period. The reason I bring this up is because I want the American people to help us think about what has happened to the highway trust fund. We have got to bring it together this time and grow America with repatriated taxes that would otherwise not be there. But let's think of why we have to do that. The efficiency that we now have and we ought to be proud of that, but it means that that 1950s approach, which worked so magically, is now entirely out of date, and there have got to be other ways to fund transportation and infrastructure. I was very frustrated that in the last bill, we call it MAP-21, there were not even pilots to guide us, like the so-called VMT miles driven that all of us, even those of us who are in hybrid cars, those who therefore don't contribute as much on the present highway fund, would play our part. We need to sit around a table right here in the House and figure out what to do in the long run because we didn't do that last July when this bill was extended.…
