Rob Woodall: “I thank my friend on the Rules Committee for yielding. This is a big bill for Georgia. It is a big bill for all of…”

“I thank my friend on the Rules Committee for yielding. This is a big bill for Georgia. It is a big bill for all of America. Mr. Speaker, it is so often that we hear about conflict in this body. We all know that jobs are important to absolutely everyone's constituency; and when we all know that 99 percent of our imports and exports travel through our ports, it is easy to come together and get excited about doing things that matter. We have got the Panama Canal opening for newer and wider and bigger ships, but my own home port in Savannah is not ready, through no fault of our own. We began that process back in the 1990s to begin to expand the Port of Savannah, and it has taken 15 years to get through that permitting process. This bill says: Who benefits from that? Whose constituency is it that benefits from jobs being slowed or delayed for 15 years? No one's does. So we are able to come together and say let's do it; let's do it right, but let's do it in an efficient manner. Three years is what we have given, 36 months, to study each and every aspect in the permitting process, and to do those things concurrently. Today, Mr. Speaker, as you know, you have to do one study first and then a second one and then a third one and then a fourth one, and you can't start the next one until the first one is finished. Today we say, if we know we have six studies to do, let's do them simultaneously. Let's go ahead and get all the work done. We all benefit from that, Mr. Speaker.…”