Jeanne Shaheen: “we voted 85 to 11 to start work on the highway bill, which is an essential piece of legislation to reauthorize our…”

“we voted 85 to 11 to start work on the highway bill, which is an essential piece of legislation to reauthorize our highway and transit programs. Eight hundred sixty-eight days have passed since our last Federal Transportation bill expired. If you cannot do the math very fast, just to put a little more emphasis on that, that is 2 years, 4 months, and 18 days since the last Federal Transportation bill expired. We need new legislation to help streamline Federal programs, spur job creation, and move our transportation system into the 21st century. This Transportation bill before us is about infrastructure. We call it infrastructure because ``infra'' means ``below.'' So it is the foundation beneath everything else on which our civilized country is built. As we think about the buildings and operating our municipalities and our States and our Federal Government, our country, it is about making sure we have a sound infrastructure. Our businesses, our workers, our innovators, all of them rely on a system of quality infrastructure to succeed. More funding for transportation in this bill means we can do critical roads and bridges, and we can do repairs to the existing roads and bridges. It means we have more transit for buses and railroads, and it means we can put people back to work. More jobs for construction and manufacturing workers, more jobs for workers means more consumer spending and a stronger overall economy.…”