Sam Graves: “I wish I could say to my colleagues that we were putting our time to good use today, but we all know that we have an…”

“I wish I could say to my colleagues that we were putting our time to good use today, but we all know that we have an incredibly important obligation, and we have got a lot of work to do when it comes to infrastructure. We need to pass a long-term surface transportation bill to provide States and local communities the certainty to plan and execute highway, bridge, and transit projects across this country. If we don't do that, or if we pass short-term extensions, it throws their plans into chaos and it jeopardizes needed improvements. But that is exactly what we are going to do because the infrastructure bill in this entire process got highjacked by a partisan agenda that has more to do with pushing the Green New Deal than it does fixing our infrastructure. During all my time serving on the committee, Republicans and Democrats have always been able to work out their differences and find common ground to pass a surface transportation bill. We have always been able to do that. It is the most important legislative product that we produce on the committee, and members have always treated it as such. Time and again, that has been our committee's hallmark because that is the only road to actually getting something done for the good of our infrastructure, for transportation workers, and for the economy. But on this bill, that didn't happen. And I can assure you that wasn't my choice.…”