Political Quotes

“first let me say thank you for a job well done to Chairman Young, Mr. Oberstar, Mr. Petri, and Mr. Lipinski for their leadership on bringing this bill to the floor today. Without their leadership and persistence we would not have a bill to even consider today. Despite a threat of a veto and suggestions that we should have a scaled down bill that would not even provide enough funding to the states to do general operations and maintenance of their transportation systems and other suggestions that we should have a 2-year bill, we are here today to consider a good, six-year bill. While I would have preferred the original bipartisan bill that the committee supported at the $375 billion funding level over 6 years, I support the bill before us today in hopes that we can make the bill even better in conference. The bill before us provides $275 billion over 6 years and maintains roughly an 80/20 split in hwy and transit funding. Also, I am pleased that we have a section in the bill for mega projects--projects that are very important to our nation's transportation system that otherwise could not be funded out of the normal state funding formula. Finally, it is important that we pass this bill out of the House and conference quickly. When we invest a billion dollars in our infrastructure we create 47,500 new jobs and $6.2 billion in economic activity.”