[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 142 (Thursday, September 22, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6347-H6348]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    AMERICA'S INFRASTRUCTURE DEFICIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
  As Washington appears to be trapped in partisan gridlock, sliding to 
budget paralysis and the potential of another government shutdown 
looming, there is one particular area that doesn't get the attention it 
merits, even as it is the key to our economic recovery. This is our 
serious and ever-growing infrastructure deficit. America's roads, 
bridges, water systems, transit, aviation ports all are in serious need 
of repair.
  The American Society of Civil Engineers has, over the years, given 
grades every 5 years to the state of infrastructure in the United 
States. Sadly, the latest survey showed that we are still getting a 
failing grade, and the gap necessary to bring these resources up to 
standard is growing larger, over $2.3 trillion for 5 years to make it 
in a reasonable state of repair.
  For example, we lose 6 billion gallons of water every day through 
leaks in aging pipes and sewer mains throughout the country. This is 
enough water to fill 9,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. If you laid 
them end to end, you could swim from Washington, D.C., to Pittsburgh in 
the amount that is leaked every single day.
  But it doesn't end there. In terms of the sad state of rail, 
deteriorating bridges, here is an opportunity for us to step forward 
dealing with a serious challenge that threatens America's productivity, 
threatens America's environmental and physical health, and puts 
hundreds of thousands of Americans to work at family wage jobs 
virtually overnight.
  Madam Speaker, in times past, investment in infrastructure has been 
something that has captured the vision for the United States; but more 
than that, it has been part of how we have repaired some of our 
problems fiscally.
  Remember in 1982, Ronald Reagan approved, as part of his budget 
stabilization program, a 5-cent a gallon increase in a user fee for 
gasoline that helped put the budget in balance and be able to finance 
needed infrastructure.
  In 1993, as part of the Clinton program that led to the first 
balanced budgets that we had seen in decades, every year the deficit 
declined until the last 3 years he was in office, three successive 
years of increasing budget surplus, while we had an unprecedented 
increase in jobs, they included a modest gas tax increase.
  There are a whole host of areas for user fees. I have bipartisan 
legislation for a water trust fund that would deal

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with the problem I mentioned a moment ago. We have the superfund tax on 
the petrochemical industry to pay for the damage to the environment 
that they created that expired in 1995 and has not been renewed but we 
still have the superfunds to clean up, pushing that burden on State and 
local governments and on businesses that are required to spend money 
that wasn't their fault, giving the petrochemical industry a pass.
  There's an opportunity, Madam Speaker, as the supercommittee is 
meeting, for Congress to step up in a bipartisan way to have resources 
to help rebuild and renew America. We're falling behind the Chinese. 
We're falling behind the Indians, the Brazilians, and the European 
Union, even while unemployment in the building trades is 20 percent or 
more from coast to coast.
  There's an opportunity here for us to be able to stabilize the 
budget, deal with the infrastructure deficit, put hundreds of thousands 
of Americans to work virtually overnight, and maybe, just maybe, work 
together to heal the frayed political process here in Washington, D.C.

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