Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, another summer building season is well under way without a long-term transportation bill; and we are, quite frankly, down to the wire on the current funding authorization, which expires next Sunday. Yet here we are debating the addition of even more non-transportation- related measures. Congressman McKinley's motion to instruct on coal ash is another example of delay. The transportation conferees ought to be urgently completing their work on a long-term authorization, not being saddled with extraneous requirements which pose a threat to public health. With thousands of jobs on hold until Congress acts, this delay is unconscionable. Our State Departments of Transportation gave us early warning that if Congress did not act on a long-term transportation bill by March 31 the summer building season would be compromised. The Senate recognized this concern, and it sent to the House bipartisan legislation known as MAP 21, which is a bill that passed the Senate with the strong bipartisan support of 74 Senators. Then, as we saw the March 31 deadline come and go, House leadership refused to take up the bipartisan Senate bill, knowing full well that carrying an extension through the summer building season would cost jobs. And it has. Nowhere is our Nation's fragile recovery more apparent than in my home State of Rhode Island, which currently has an unemployment rate of 11 percent.…”