Political Quotes

“Mr. President, every State of the Nation has many infrastructure needs. In Iowa, we rely on our roads, bridges, air, and freight to move our goods and people throughout Iowa, throughout the United States, and eventually throughout the world. I am encouraged that a bipartisan framework has been agreed to for moving forward on an infrastructure bill. I will be interested in seeing more details about the policy and the way to pay for the bill as the bill proceeds forward. Today, I would like to discuss one aspect of infrastructure, and that is our inland waterways. For Iowa, that is the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. For other States, it is a lot of other important rivers. I ask my colleagues to take this important mode of transportation into account as they work on legislation. I have also sent this request in a letter to both the Senate Environment and Public Works as well as the Appropriations Committees. The inland and intercostal waterways and our ports are vital to the United States and serve 41 States throughout our Nation. Shippers and consumers depend on the ability to move around 630 million tons of cargo each year, valued at about $232 billion on these waterways. In turn, the inland waterways system supports well over half a million jobs. Now, I am going to go into some of the information that is on the chart here.…”