On the recordJuly 22, 2015
I do just want to take a break from the GMO debate to talk about a huge problem confronting our country, and that is the infrastructure that is in disrepair, from roads to bridges to transit ways around this country. The American people know it, and they are backed up in what they can see in front of them by a report from the American Society of Civil Engineers. They are the nonpartisan pros; they are the experts. They have looked at the state of American infrastructure and given us a grade of a D-plus--D-plus. Nobody should be happy with a D-plus. The sad thing is that this Congress should get an F grade for failing to respond to the bad grade with respect to our failing infrastructure. In the face of this big problem, what did the House do? Well, we are about to run out of money in 8 days. We are about to see the end of the authorization in 8 days; so the House of Representatives, instead of coming up with a long-term plan to address this issue, which is what we should do, came up with another kick-the-can-down-the-road Band-Aid approach. They said, we are going to provide an extension of the inadequate funding for just 5 more months, just to December of this year. Now, we are a great country, and I think everybody knows that if you are planning to make major investments in infrastructure, whether it is our roads or our bridges or transit ways, you need a little more certainty and stability than that.…
