James M. Jeffords: “I rise today, our third day of debate on the highway bill. As we have stated before, this is vital legislation that will…”

“I rise today, our third day of debate on the highway bill. As we have stated before, this is vital legislation that will have an impact on every American. I join Senator Inhofe in calling on my colleagues to come to the floor to offer amendments. With that said, I would like to address some of the important provisions in this bill. I would like to spend a minute talking about bridges and our need to make sure that adequate funding exists to maintain these structures. As many of my colleagues know, I have a passion for bridges and specifically covered bridges. While covered bridges are no longer critical parts of our Nation's infrastructure, they provide an important link to our collective past and are feats of engineering and longevity. The National Covered Bridge Preservation Program, which I authored in 1998, has been a great success, albeit a slightly underfunded success. From the Thetford Center Covered Bridge to the Weathersfield Falls Covered Bridge, I have taken great pride in being able to work to rehabilitate these bridges in Vermont. Given my passion for the topic, many members may think that Vermont has the Nation's largest number of these bridges. In fact, Pennsylvania has 220 covered bridges, Ohio has 144 covered bridges, and Vermont has only 99 covered bridges. Even California has 12 covered bridges and Missouri has 5. It is my great regret that I do not believe Oklahoma has any of these fine structures.…”