David Price: “I want to join with Mr. Quigley, Ms. Duckworth, Ms. Waters, and other colleagues to call attention to the abysmally low…”

“I want to join with Mr. Quigley, Ms. Duckworth, Ms. Waters, and other colleagues to call attention to the abysmally low funding contained in this bill for the TIGER program and to the need to increase and multiply this investment for the sake of our communities. We have many concerns with this T-HUD bill before us, but I want to talk particularly about the TIGER program, otherwise known as the National Infrastructure Investments. It is a critical grant program which provides a unique opportunity for the Department of Transportation to invest in shovel-ready projects across transportation modes that promise to achieve critical national objectives, laying the groundwork for our future prosperity. TIGER bridges critical gaps in formula funding programs to ensure that we are able to make investments in projects that are essential to both local and national goals. Each innovative project this program funds is multimodal, multijurisdictional and/or otherwise challenging to fund through existing transportation programs and funding streams. Unfortunately, the bill before us would reduce the program's landmark flexibility by restricting the eligibility for TIGER to only road, bridge, freight, and port projects.…”