Eleanor Holmes Norton

As important as it was that we broke through and actually did get an infrastructure bill last Congress, it was for only 2 years because it was based on the gas tax, and it runs out after 2 years.

Since when should we give people who use the roads a pass on paying for those roads?

I am grateful to this panel for all of your very specific testimony and ideas.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My only concern is, if these systems are really as old and presumably unreliable as is implied by this columnist, I really do wonder about cybersecurity and about investing in cybersecurity in such old systems only…

First, let me say I appreciate the gentleman's remarks and comparing what we are going through here to what we all went through. He and I were both on the committee after Hurricane Katrina. I can tell you, we never expected to see anything…

I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

And I thank the gentleman from Utah for his kind remarks. (Ms. NORTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

I have been an aficionado of public-private projects in my own Subcommittee on Economic Development.

That is a fine date, Mr. Chairman. We will either be over the cliff or not by that time.

I am not sure there is a good defense.

We really, in some kind of dream of our own, to keep the notion going that somehow these States from west to east will continue to move forward.

I think you are doing the right thing, take back the money.

This is a country of jurisdictions. Some will come later, all will come, and those who come early will be ahead.

I don't know about California and other places where high-speed rail may be controversial, but I do know where we are furthest along, and all I want to do is to see us get started so that we have a pilot to show that we can do this.

Is that the chief reason that HUD was made the lead coordinator?

I am still not convinced that Governors don't have authority, perhaps with their legislators, to keep from smacking us in the face with more liability.

I wish you would, within 30 days, get information to the chairman about what action HUD and FEMA have together taken.

Isn't there something we can do about that? I mean, I can understand that people who have lived in an area all their lives, they can't possibly imagine not living there.

Are we sure that there will be no rebuilding, Mr. Tombar, in the affected areas until some barriers are constructed that would go far toward making a similar disaster not impossible?

The reality of such a possibility, along with the slowly creeping sea-level rise from climate warming, should serve as a compelling call to action for local infrastructure planners.

I cannot believe that, even in the 100-year exercise that we have just gone through, that kind of devastating loss along the northeast shoreline was anticipated.

Now what we have learned as a result of the droughts, as a result of Sandy, as a result of Katrina, is that, I don't know, we may not have another 9/11; we certainly have done a lot to prepare in case we are faced with another tragedy of…

How would you describe the major difference now between this new relationship with HUD, with HUD as apparently the lead coordinating agency and yet FEMA?

I am very interested in this program that apparently is being used in New York to allow people to stay in their own homes without power instead of going to temporary housing.

That is a very important efficiency, and I commend you on that.