On the recordJune 12, 2012
I rise to stress the critical infrastructure needs across our Nation and to urge the House of Representatives to act quickly and to pass a meaningful transportation bill. On March 14, the Senate passed the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act by a strong bipartisan vote of 74 to 22. Later that month, I came to the floor of the Senate to highlight the importance of the passage of our surface transportation bill. Since then, the American people have been waiting for the House of Representatives to act on their version of a transportation bill. Three months to the week after the Senate passed our Transportation bill on a 74-to-22 bipartisan vote, with the Nation continuing to wait for action and the June 30 deadline to renew or extend the transportation program coming closer and closer, the leaders of the House of Representatives have announced not a short-term extension but they have announced their interest in a longer term extension to the end of 2012. I suppose the good news is that means we have some interest in moving forward with transportation. But that is not good enough for the people of this country. In Minnesota, as you know, the construction season has begun, and because of our cold winters, we do not always have a long construction season. This kind of delay, where we have a very good bipartisan bill which includes $700 million in construction projects for our State of Minnesota, this kind of delay can be crippling.…
