Larry Bucshon: “I would like to thank Mr. Walz for bringing this to the floor. I believe that we all can agree we must pass a long-term…”

“I would like to thank Mr. Walz for bringing this to the floor. I believe that we all can agree we must pass a long-term highway bill. In my home State of Indiana, Interstate 69 is being constructed through my district, connecting my district to our State's capital. When I return home every weekend, I see how important Federal dollars are to the construction industry and how necessary infrastructure is to the economic development of our cities and towns. As a member of the conference committee for the highway bill, I have personally been involved in this process. My House colleagues and I have attended several negotiation sessions and have discussed this legislation at length with the Senate staff. I wish our friends in the Senate were as involved in the process, because we could have resolved many of these issues weeks ago. I think my friends on the other side of the aisle here in the House seem to forget that we don't just rubberstamp Senate bills and that they don't rubberstamp ours. If that were the case, they'd take up the 30 House-passed job-creating bills that we've sent over to them in the last year. Nobody is more committed to this legislation than Members of the House on the Republican side. We want to streamline the project delivery process, eliminate duplicative programs, give more power back to the States, and stretch our limited dollars further. These are proposals that every Member of this body should support.…”