John Rice Carter: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise today with serious reservations about the proposed…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise today with serious reservations about the proposed infrastructure policies coming before this body. Every Member in Congress represents a district with infrastructure needs. Urban or rural, conservative or liberal, we all represent communities that have dire infrastructure needs we should be addressing. That is why President Biden's recent discussion about infrastructure, along with his comments about wanting to establish a bipartisan legislative effort were encouraging. Unfortunately, none of this would come to fruition. We didn't see a bipartisan push. We didn't see significant input taken from Members and Senators on our side of the aisle. We didn't see a willingness to want to work together. The $2.2 trillion plan wasn't released after significant back-and- forth discussions. No, it was released after development by the White House and then pushed out in a media blitz. As anticipated, the package was a partisan exercise. Just 5 percent goes to repairing roads and bridges. As the core definition of infrastructure, there is very little attention shown. Only 1 percent goes to airports. Other countries around the world continue to build state-of-the-art airports, as airports here in the United States struggle to keep up with demand. Ports and inland waterways, an issue important to me as the representative of two major seaports, is even more astounding.…”