Thomas E. Petri: “I would remind the gentleman that we have come together. The legislation before us, S. 1134, passed the United States…”

“I would remind the gentleman that we have come together. The legislation before us, S. 1134, passed the United States Senate by unanimous consent. It has a few people who seem to have raised some concerns here, but the fact of the matter is that Al Franken, the Senator from Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar, the Senator from Minnesota, Ron Johnson, the Senator from Wisconsin, Herb Kohl--Senators from both parties have joined together in recognizing the need and importance and urging their colleagues who unanimously supported this. It's about time we did our job here in the House of Representatives. This project has been studied for over 20 years. Representative Ron Kind, as he said so eloquently in his statement, has consulted with every conceivable interest group in the area. As my colleague, Representative Bachmann, said, the people in Minnesota and Wisconsin are wondering when we're going to do our job. This is a major hazard now, an old bridge. We saw what happened with other bridges in Minnesota, a growing population, commuter populations back and forth in the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area. It's about time this hazard was removed and we had a bridge that we could be proud of and that was less intrusive than the one that's there now. So I urge my colleagues to pass the legislation before us, and I yield back the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.…”