[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 41 (Tuesday, March 11, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H1448]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LIVABLE COMMUNITIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2007, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is 
recognized during morning-hour debate for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
  In a couple of hours, the House of Representatives will be dealing on 
the suspension calendar with House Resolution 936, a commemoration of 
the 200th anniversary of the Gallatin plan. This historic effort was a 
plan commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, led by his Secretary 
of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, to design a system to knit together a 
ragtag group of 13 colonies into a transcontinental nation. It focused 
on transportation, on waterways, it planted the seeds for what would 
ultimately become the transcontinental railroad, and actually unleashed 
a pattern that carried through to the national park system, the hydro 
system and, indeed, the national interstate highway system signed into 
law by President Eisenhower.
  Today's commemoration comes at a critical time, for just as Albert 
Gallatin did something important for the founding of our Nation, today 
America's infrastructure is falling apart. The American Society of 
Civil Engineers rates our infrastructure at a D-minus. It's one of the 
reasons our economy is in decline. We're losing the competition to 
Europe, to Asia. China is investing nine times as much of their 
national output as we are in infrastructure. And at a time of $110 a 
barrel oil, will $4 a gallon gasoline be far behind?
  We live in a carbon-constrained, water-stressed environment with an 
imperative need to rebuild and renew America. It is time to celebrate 
this historic vision which helped build America for much of the first 
two centuries of our existence. It is critical that we remain true to 
that tradition, but today infrastructure means more than just roads, 
bridges, waterways and canals. We're talking about railroads, aviation, 
power transmission lines, pipelines, indeed the green infrastructure, 
the network of environmental, park and open space that means so much to 
the protection of the environment and clean air.
  It is time for us to craft a new plan, a vision for this century, one 
that takes into account global warming, rising energy prices, the 
change in demographics and the knowledge that we know today about how 
to put the pieces together. Renewing and rebuilding America ought to be 
something that people on both sides of the aisle can agree with, that 
we can unite behind a vast coalition that includes the Garden Club, the 
Sierra Club, organized labor and business, the professions, local 
government and environmental activists to make sure that we're putting 
the pieces together appropriately today, that we have the resources, 
the vision, the partnership that will make livable communities for all 
of our families, where they will all be safer, healthier and more 
economically secure.
  I look forward to the debate today on the Gallatin plan and the 
commitment of an infrastructure vision for this century.

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