Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge passage of my amendment to increase funding for the Passenger Rail Improvement, Modernization, and Expansion program. The coalition that supports the PRIME program spans ideology and geography. We are united in this belief: America can still do big things. Ten of our colleagues joined me by cosponsoring this amendment and, today, 80 Representatives and Senators joined Representatives Costa, Ocasio-Cortez, and me, calling for investments in high-speed rail. In our country today, transportation is the leading driver of carbon emissions. Americans have fewer options for inner-city travel than citizens of China and France. And families are unable to afford homes where they work, and they can't go to where they work from where they can afford homes. On top of that, trains are slower in America today than they were in the 1930s, a century ago. The PRIME program is a great first step to fixing these problems. Regions like the Pacific Northwest can create an economic mega-region and see a 10:1 return by investing in the Cascadia High-Speed Rail Corridor, at less than half the cost of another lane of highway in either direction. Americans across the Midwest would have access to new jobs and housing opportunities. You could live in Chattanooga and get to work in Atlanta in a little more than a half hour. We can build a system that is faster than driving and more convenient than flying, and we can power it on low-power emissions. Mr.…”