On the recordMarch 2, 2011
I come to the floor to support this extension. I appreciated the comments from Chair Mica talking about the involvement with the Senate and the House working together and the listening sessions that are taking place around the country. I am absolutely convinced that my friend, Mr. Mica, is sincere in his interest in infrastructure. I have had the pleasure of working with Mr. Rahall, Mr. Duncan, Mr. DeFazio. There is a team in place, people who are interested in moving this forward. It's absolutely imperative that we extend the reauthorization through this construction cycle. And making the decision now, setting it to work, so people can plan and act. It's not as good as a reauthorization by any stretch of the imagination, but it gets us through this construction cycle and it avoids another unfortunate situation. We are 7 1/2 years into a 6-year reauthorization. No one is happy about that. We need to do better. I am all for looking at squeezing out any inefficiency, examining programs to focus them, make them work better. But the simple fact is we need to spend more on infrastructure, not less.
