Peter DeFazio

Great. As you know, this is a tremendous concern to the entire Pacific Northwest, and I look forward to that response.

As we rebuild, particularly, I want to look at the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund.

I wrote in December we have heard from stakeholders--and the Corps has asserted numerous times--that they have the existing legal authorities.

I spoke to the acting head of OMB last week, and there seemed to be some confidence that we could have approval this week.

We need to build back better in a way that is resilient, that we are innovative, we can meet future challenges, and we don't leave any parts of the country behind, including rural, Tribal, and disadvantaged communities.

We have allowed for too long our infrastructure--critical infrastructure--to degrade, whether we are talking about the inland waterways, the ports, the harbors, flood protection, or other issues.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided over $17 billion dollars to the Corps.

The Corps has been laughably underfunded for decades, leading to a $100 billion backlog of projects.

Since 2014, this committee has been successful in enacting four consecutive, bipartisan WRDA bills.

This will help reduce the backlog at our ports and reduce the price of goods.

The Corps has been really pathetically underfunded for decades. The backlog of critical infrastructure projects has grown and grown to tens of billions of dollars.

As has been stated earlier, it was former Chairman Bill Shuster who started the tradition and the commitment to doing a Water Resources Development Act every 2 years, beginning in 2014.

I agree with you that we need to make sure that public resources invested in private infrastructure achieve a public benefit.

America needs us. I think we should try to rise to the highest expectations of the American people.

I hope that we can put some of the divisiveness away. I was not encouraged by the markup we had on this bill.

And I was keeping faith with my environmental activists, because they see rail and the future of rail as being one of the solutions, as a cleaner and greener solution to one of our big challenges on climate change.

One of the reasons--and I will--I am not going to ask anybody any questions, so you can relax on that. But one of the reasons that I asked to be a member of this committee, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is because, when…

I do believe in a national system, so I have listened keenly to the concerns of the Southern Rail Commission, and my partners in the Midwest, and down in Texas, and out in California, and I really do believe we have to work on this…

And I was keeping faith with President Biden. I don't think there has been anyone in Government ever in the history of this country that has been so closely affiliated with travel by rail.

Because when I voted for the transportation and infrastructure bill, I felt I was keeping faith with my railroad workers, and I was keeping faith with my rail unions that advocated for a lot of the things in that bill.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is a major victory for the American people, making the largest-ever single investment in America's crumbling infrastructure.

During the entirety of my long congressional career, 35 years, intercity rail has had funding starts and stops, threats to be disbanded, and endured the whims of our annual appropriation process.

The IIJA is revolutionary, providing guaranteed and robust funding levels over the next five years.

The water infrastructure funding in the Jobs Act is a no-brainer, win-win outcome for our constituents and our environment.