Every member understands the important work that the Corps does in their district.

The benefits of the bipartisan infrastructure law will be felt by everyday Americans for decades.

Today, this committee continues its bipartisan work on the next biennial Water Resources Development Act.

Enacting a WRDA bill every two years is important and a priority of this committee.

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.

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

Grace has focused and been focused on water--obviously, being from California sharpens your focus--since the day I met her.

It is particularly important that we ensure that our rural, Tribal, and disadvantaged communities cannot be left behind.

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.

We face a critical need for continued investment in our water infrastructure, but we have laid the foundation for success through laws like WRDA 2020 and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

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.

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.

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.

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…

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

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.

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.

This is a win for the constituents and the environment.