On the recordJuly 25, 2018
it is always an honor to follow the President pro tempore of the Senate on the Senate floor. I am here to talk about the work we are working through and what--for decades would actually be an understatement--for a couple of centuries was the principal work of the Congress, which was to set our priorities by how we spend the money people have entrusted us with. Today I want to talk specifically about the importance of transportation, and the ag bill is in here, too--the agricultural bill. Certainly, those things come together in a way that allows us to be competitive or don't come together in a way that doesn't allow us to be as competitive as we would like to be. There is no question that our Nation's infrastructure is not what it should be. The Interstate Highway System, built under the leadership of President Eisenhower, some of it is now over seven decades old, a lot of it over five decades old. It is not where it should be. It has outlived the projected life, and that is a good thing. The construction and repair are better than thought to be at the time, but they are not the kinds of things that are going to last forever. It has been reported that we have a backlog of at least $836 billion in highway and bridge infrastructure, just that part of our infrastructure. I am the chairman of the Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Aviation.…
