Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today represents a missed opportunity to produce good, strong bipartisan legislation focused on the country's real infrastructure needs. Instead, it is one focused on an agenda cloaked under the guise of the term ``infrastructure.'' This bill is all about Green New Deal mandates. In fact, for every $2 spent, $1 of that goes to meet these mandates. The bill rejects widely supported bipartisan projects streamlining provisions that would save taxpayer dollars. The bill creates 41 new programs and adds dozens of new eligibilities to existing programs for progressive priorities, which means true infrastructure needs are likely going to have access to fewer dollars. The bill strips States of their ability to prioritize new roads and bridges. And we all know States need more flexibility to meet their infrastructure needs, not less. Today's bill is also a missed opportunity to address our aging wastewater infrastructure. In the most recent Congress, we reached a bipartisan agreement on a way to move forward on clean water infrastructure with realistic levels of funding that address the needs of our rural communities. Well, not this time. Unfortunately, by choosing partisanship, the majority has chosen a very rocky path that will make it unlikely any final infrastructure package will be able to pass both Chambers and get to the President's desk during this Congress. Mr. Speaker, it didn't have to be this way. Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr.…”