Jim Inhofe: “First of all, I reextend my appreciation to the Senator from Nevada for all the help he has been. His expertise is well…”

“First of all, I reextend my appreciation to the Senator from Nevada for all the help he has been. His expertise is well known in this Chamber, and he has been on the opposite side of me probably more than on my side. I like it this way better. I would like to amplify a couple things Senator Reid talked about. I think it is significant, when you talk about where we are now relative to where we were in TEA-21, the last 6-year reauthorization. Our average is 35.6 percent higher. The average State is higher than it was in TEA-21. In the comments he made about a computer run, I know this is kind of complicated to explain to people because it is the only way I think you can come up with something that is very fair. Prior to this, in previous years under TEA-21, we had the 1104 table which was a minimum guarantee. That was a percentage that each State had that was a percentage of the total growth. It was purely politically driven. I don't like the way some of these things come out of the computer. But when this came out, I agreed with Senator Reid, there is not a better way of doing it.”