Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I think everybody in this body wants an infrastructure bill. We all want to see better roads and bridges. We want to see more sustainable, resilient communities. Mr. Speaker, this bill, about half of it actually is money for infrastructure. About half. Looking back over the last few years that I have been here, we have been able to work through, we have been able to cut red tape, break logjams. In fact, projects, Mr. Speaker, that date back to before I was born, we have been able to work through all of the obstacles and impediments and get the authorization in place and get them funded. This bill doesn't give us a fair shot. Let me explain. Mr. Speaker, in the law today it describes the criteria for how dollars are supposed to be handed out under various grant programs. The Secretary of Transportation came out and ignored all of that and invented his own new criteria for climate change, for racial equity, and for environmental justice. I don't have any problems with those objectives, but what in the world do they have to do with transportation? When we saw them applied for the first time, we saw a community of 30,000 people get a $92 million grant, and it doesn't have national significance as the law requires.…”