John Cornyn: “I, too, support the amendment of the senior Senator from Texas. As a member of the Environment and Public Works…”

“I, too, support the amendment of the senior Senator from Texas. As a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, it has been my privilege to work with the Senator from Oklahoma as the chairman and the Senator from Vermont as the ranking member. While admittedly I was not satisfied with the formula that came out of the committee, based on my belief and the good faith of the chairman and others, we have been discussing ways that we could make this bill fairer to my State. The reason I support this amendment is because I believe it would do that--not just to the State of Texas but to also other what I would call superdonor States such as Florida, California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and Maryland. As the Senator from Arizona says, it is a matter of fundamental fairness. Texas contributes a dollar to the gas tax and, all things considered, currently gets back about 88 cents on the dollar. In fact, I have had some of my legislators come to see me and say that our transportation needs are so great in Texas, given our size, given the 10-year lifespan of NAFTA, increased truck traffic on our highways, that we would just simply like to be able to keep that dollar in Texas, spend it on our own roads and not send it to Washington, DC, and have 10 or 12 cents taken off that dollar and the remainder simply sent back to us. I understand this is a national transportation system we are trying to take care of here.”