[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 34 (Friday, March 2, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1371-S1372]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SURFACE TRANSPORTATION ACT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, this is a new year, and thankfully it has 
brought new signs of economic recovery--not as vibrant as we would like 
but some recovery--but it will never be good enough while we have 
millions of Americans unemployed in this country. As we say in the 
Senate, those on this side of the aisle, Democrats, we are not going to 
take our eye off the target; that is, a healthy economy. The bipartisan 
Transportation bill before the Senate is an important step in that 
direction. This bill will save or create almost 3 million jobs. Yet my 
Republican colleagues have caused the waste of about a month of 
precious time here on the Senate floor in obstructing this very 
important piece of legislation. So it is with disappointment that I am 
going to file cloture on this Transportation bill.
  It seems 85 votes to begin debate on a measure no longer indicates a 
smooth legislative path forward. We would think that with 85 votes, we 
would have timely approval of the bill, but that has not taken place. 
That is because my Republican colleagues want to waste time on 
unrelated, ideological, nongermane, nonrelevant amendments instead of 
talking about the Nation's failing infrastructure.
  There is no one, no one thinks--and I say that--no one believes that 
our roads, our highways, our bridges are up to snuff. They are not. We 
need significant work to bring them to a better condition. Tens of 
thousands of bridges are in a state of disrepair. So Republicans, 
instead of working on this valuable infrastructure bill, have been 
causing us to waste time on unrelated issues.
  We have spent the last several weeks on women's access to health 
care, and,

[[Page S1372]]

of course, amendments they are talking about doing in addition to that 
would weaken our environmental protection, make our water less pure, 
our air dirtier--this instead of rebuilding, as I indicated we need to 
do, our roads and our bridges, even against their better judgment. One 
Republican leader said yesterday: We have spent enough time this year 
on trying to repeal the health care bill. But they have had to retract 
that because the tea party rose and said: Oh, we have to have more 
votes.
  They are meaningless votes. Everyone knows there is going to be no 
repeal of the health care bill this year. So the Republican leader, who 
talked about this yesterday, was talking about maybe doing what Senator 
Alexander and Senator Pryor think we should do: spend our time on 
things that are constructive, such as getting our appropriations bills 
done. But, no, the tea party stepped in, and now there are going to be 
efforts made to repeal the health care bill. In fact, I read in the 
paper today a complete flip-flop from yesterday. Instead of not dealing 
with trying to repeal the health care bill the rest of this legislative 
year, now the word is that the entire month of March is going to be 
spent dealing with health care.
  It is time to move forward on this bill. Hopefully, seven--that is 
all we need. There are 47 Republicans, and we need 7 of them to invoke 
cloture on this bill. That vote will occur Tuesday morning. All the 
nongermane, nonrelevant amendments, let them do them on a piece of 
legislation that is not so vital to the economy of this country. We are 
going to move forward on this bill. I certainly hope we can get seven 
Republicans to join with us. There are 53 of us, seven of them.

  I have always said I would be happy to come up with an agreement. If 
they want to offer amendments that are relevant to what we are doing, 
that is fine. But that hasn't been forthcoming. I hope the weekend will 
give my Republican colleagues a chance to reflect on whether they are 
willing to put ideology ahead of the economy. Three million jobs and 
what do we spend our time on? An ideological issue to take health care 
away from women.

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