On the recordJune 29, 2012
As a member of the House transportation conference committee, I join my colleagues in proudly supporting this legislation. My House colleagues and I attended many of the conference negotiations, and we fought hard for commonsense transportation reforms. This bill streamlines the environmental review process, consolidates and eliminates duplicative programs, and provides more flexibility to the States. Passing this legislation will provide job security for millions of Americans. I'm grateful to my House and Senate colleagues that stood with me in opposing an amendment that was in the Senate bill. This amendment unfairly punished the State of Indiana for pursuing a public-private partnership. Not only would it have cost Indiana millions in transportation funding, but it would have set our country backwards in innovative transportation policy. This type of thinking is not where we need to be headed in transportation policy. We need to put taxpayers first and continue to engage the private sector in transportation projects. I would like to thank the House and Senate staff, who have been working tirelessly on the legislation. I thank Chairman Mica, Senator Boxer, and Senator Inhofe for their leadership on this issue. Thanks to everybody's work, 25,000 Hoosiers will have job security for the next 2 years. I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation, and let's put millions of Americans back to work.
