Tim Walz: “I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. He's a good friend and colleague and an honest broker on things. I agree with…”

“I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. He's a good friend and colleague and an honest broker on things. I agree with the gentleman on the categorically excluded bridges; 96 percent are now. So we can decide now, do we want to bog down on that last 4 percent, or do we want to get a bill forward? I think there's agreement here. I think we're in a clear-cut case of if the perfect gets in the way of the good, the American public pays for that. But I appreciate his support on this and his desire to get a bill done. And I think it's been obvious that he wants this transportation bill done, so I thank the gentleman. With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio). {time} 1810 Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Since the founding of our Nation, there has been bipartisan agreement on the need for the Federal Government to play a strong role in interconnecting the States of our country. It was George Washington who said: The only binding cement, and no otherwise to be effected but by opening such communications as will make it easier and cheaper for them to bring the product of their labor to our markets. And that's relevant today, I'll address that in a moment. The second quote which is relevant to the dispute today is: We are either united people under one head for Federal purposes, or we are 13 independent sovereign entities eternally counteracting each other. This is the need--and the gentleman knows this photo well.…”