[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 30 (Monday, February 27, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H952-H953]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENT

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Last December, the Speaker told us that the Republican 
signature jobs bill was going to be the surface transportation 
reauthorization. Yet, under pressure from the extreme right in his 
caucus 2 weeks ago, he said in the Republican caucus that this 
transportation bill is not a jobs bill. And they wrote for the first 
time since the founding of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Highway 
System a purely partisan transportation bill in the hope of jamming it 
through.
  Well, it's all fallen apart now. Yet there are 150,000 bridges 
falling apart in the Federal system. Forty percent of the pavement on 
the national system needs to be restored, and there's a $70

[[Page H953]]

billion backlog for critical equipment in our transit systems. These 
could be jobs--Made in America jobs.
  But we need to work together. Transportation is not, never has been, 
and should not be a partisan issue. By trying to make it partisan, 
they've stalled and failed. It's time to go back to the drawing board 
and put together a bill that's good for America. We don't have to have 
partisan politics on every issue, and transportation investment should 
not be one of those.

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