Bud Shuster: “I am very pleased that today the House is considering the conference report to H.R. 22, the Fixing America's Surface…”

“I am very pleased that today the House is considering the conference report to H.R. 22, the Fixing America's Surface Transportation, or the FAST Act. I believe this bill will be one of the most important things this Congress can accomplish for our country. This conference report is appropriately named the FAST Act for a few reasons. It will certainly help fix America's surface transportation infrastructure. The process has been fast. In fact, from the day of introduction until today is 44 days that we have moved this bill forward; so, it happened fast. I think some of our staff, who worked very hard in this process to help get this bill done, actually had to fast over the Thanksgiving holiday. So my thanks go out to staff on both sides of the aisle for working through the holiday as they did to get this bill put together and brought to the floor. Ranking Member DeFazio and I worked diligently with our House and Senate conferees to put together this conference report. I want to thank Mr. DeFazio for all his efforts. Before I describe the transportation provisions in the conference report, I do want to note that the conference report includes numerous other provisions that were in either the House- or the Senate-passed versions of the bill. These provisions are in the jurisdiction of the Committees on Ways and Means, Financial Services, Energy and Commerce, Natural Resources, and Judiciary. Mr.…”