Joe Biden: “I would agree fully. The Senator from New Jersey, since he has been here--I am not being solicitous here--has been a…”

“I would agree fully. The Senator from New Jersey, since he has been here--I am not being solicitous here--has been a leader on a number of issues, but two in particular, on environmental issues, and on this issue of transportation. That image, of which is literally true, of 7,500 fully loaded 757's is something I hope everybody kind of keeps in their minds. But put it another way. I ask my colleagues from other States that do not have the same congestion problems, OK, Amtrak goes belly up. Who do you think is going to come after your highway money? Who do you think is coming after your highway money then? Do you think we are going to sit around and say, OK, we are just going to go to gridlock in the East? We are just not going to do anything? We are going to have a new battle. So the money you think you are benefiting from by not spending on Amtrak and putting more money in the highways in States that do not have Amtrak because we are not competing for as many of those dollars with you, we will have to if it changes. What formula will you be able to draft that in fact will not justify our getting the significantly larger amount of the highway trust fund moneys? We are talking about a third of the Nation's population. This is a big deal. We are not asking for anything that we are not entitled to, that does not make good public policy, that is not in the national interest, and that is not anything any other mode of transportation is not already getting.”