Political Quotes

“I come to the floor today, thrilled to announce major progress on something that I have been working on since my earliest days here in the U.S. Senate: replacing the I-5 bridge between Vancouver, WA, and Portland, OR. Late last week, the administration began the notification and review process for grants from the brand new Mega Grant Program we all worked together to establish in the bipartisan infrastructure law, and I was proud to help write the provisions that made sure the Mega Program was funded when we passed that law. So I am ecstatic that the I-5 Bridge Replacement Project will be receiving $600 million in Federal funding from the Mega Grant Program to move us forward on a project that is hugely important to Washington State, to the Pacific Northwest, and really the entire country. This has been a long time coming, and I should know because I have been there for just about every step of this journey. I remember meeting with Senator Hatfield from Oregon when I was first elected to talk about the need to replace the I-5 crossing between our States-- Washington and Oregon--which was already in bad condition in the 1990s. We sat down with folks to hold one of the first of many, many, many conversations about what needed to be done and how we could make it happen. Then, in 2003, as the top Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, I held a hearing in Vancouver to discuss why this project was so important.…”