[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 49 (Thursday, March 27, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H2736-H2741]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Messer). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, the history of our country, our economic 
development, is predicated on our infrastructure development. Early in 
our history, canals, ports, postal roads, and 152 years ago, the 
transcontinental railroad--audacious at the time--proved to be a 
critical element of tying our nation together, fueling economic growth 
and communication.
  Later, we had the interstate freeway system, which had its genesis 
going back over a century, nurtured in the basement of Franklin 
Roosevelt's White House, signed into law, and advocated by President 
Eisenhower.
  One wonders: Could this Congress in Washington, D.C., today have 
produced the transcontinental railroad, the interstate highway system, 
provided the resources, the resolve, the research to send humans to the 
Moon? You have to pay for it. You have to take a risk. You have to have 
a plan and a design.
  Sadly, it appears that that is lacking at this point.
  I spent years on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, 
which I finally left to go to Ways and Means and to serve on the Budget 
Committee to try and deal with the financing issue.
  In 187 days, the highway trust fund is exhausted. It is not just that 
the reauthorization extension expires on September 30, but we have 
drawn the trust fund balances down to zero. It is already starting to 
be felt around the country. Because you cannot manage the multibillion-
dollars worth of commitments that the Federal Government has made in 
partnership with State and local communities and the private sector 
without having some range of a financial cushion, probably on the order 
of $4 billion.
  So that means that the Federal Government is going to start delaying 
the release of funding and having to choose which obligations it honors 
well before September 30. That means cutting back funding this summer 
is going to make a difference for local communities later this spring. 
Already, States are dealing with this uncertainty and making decisions, 
putting at risk, in some cases, construction seasons.
  I think we have reached the point that there are no more cans to kick 
over or seat cushions to reach behind. If that doesn't make sense to 
you, sleight of hand, to use another general fund fix.
  We have transferred outright over $50 billion to the general fund 
since 2008, and we have backfilled by using the Recovery Act, or the 
so-called stimulus funding. We made an adjustment in the Tax Code 
dealing with provisions for retirement benefits that were adjusted that 
somehow gave us a little headroom that enabled us to fund a 27-month 
extension.
  But we are running out of these fixes, and we are not giving the 
certainty that the private sector, local governments, State 
governments, that our communities need to be able to deal with the more 
complicated, more expensive, longer-term projects, especially those 
that may involve more than one State, those that may be multimodal in 
nature. These expensive and complicated projects require steady, stable 
sources of funding.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been 21 years since the Federal Government last 
adjusted the gas tax. It was 1993. That is back when gasoline was $1.08 
a gallon. It is back when there were fewer demands in terms of the 
highway trust fund, when cars were less fuel-efficient.
  In the course of that time, we have watched inflation eat away at the 
value of that 18.4 cents a gallon that people pay for their Federal gas 
tax, and because people are using more fuel-efficient cars and because 
the vehicle miles traveled have been reduced for 9 consecutive years, 
the amount that the individual pays per mile to support our Federal 
transportation infrastructure has been cut by more than 50 percent. And 
Congress has been dancing around this issue.

                              {time}  1345

  I have proposed that we adopt the recommendation of the Simpson-
Bowles Commission that was so widely heralded 3 years ago, to have a 
phased 3-year increase in the gas tax.
  I would note that it is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, by 
the AFL-CIO, by local governments, by transit agencies, 
environmentalists, by professional groups and organizations, local 
officials.
  It is interesting that the AAA, representing auto users, and the 
trucking industry have both said: Federal Government, you should raise 
the fuel tax--not that we are wild about the fuel tax, but because the 
costs of not doing it are going to cost our motorists, going to cost 
our trucking industry and the American economy far more than the few 
cents per gallon that would be paid.

[[Page H2737]]

  I have also introduced legislation that would extend the vehicle mile 
traveled experiment that Oregon has been doing over the course of the 
last 10 years. That would allow States to experiment with a different 
approach that wouldn't be based on gallons of fuel consumed, but based 
on actual road use, so that people can experiment for themselves to see 
if this is a promising solution.
  Mr. Speaker, for the last 15 years, I have watched blue ribbon 
commissions come forward impaneled by Republicans and Democrats.
  I have listened to the testimony from the business community, from 
organized labor, from local government, from experts all across the 
scale who have recommended that we step up and adequately fund the 
highway trust account, so that we can provide the certainty and the 
capacity to be able to rebuild and renew America.
  I, for one, am open to all sorts of suggestions; but it is 
interesting to note, when my friend Dave Camp introduced his tax reform 
proposal that would have allowed some space for the highway trust fund, 
which was announced on the same day that President Obama--who I think 
sincerely is interested in infrastructure--a proposal for $300 
billion--over $300 billion--that both proposals were pronounced dead on 
arrival, that they had no political backing, they had very little 
likelihood of being passed.
  When they made their announcements, they were not joined by labor, by 
business, by local government, by the professions, by people in both 
parties who are concerned with getting on with business.
  I will have more to say, but I have been joined by a couple of my 
colleagues who are concerned about this, who have been working in this 
arena, who have some proposals, and I would turn first to my colleague 
from Maryland (Mr. Delaney), who has been working in this space, adding 
to the conversation in a way to help us move forward. I am happy to 
yield to him for some comments.
  Mr. DELANEY. I thank my good friend from Oregon for your really 
singular leadership on this issue and your unwavering commitment to 
make sure these problems get solved.
  Mr. Speaker, every 2 years, the American Society of Civil Engineers 
does an analysis of the U.S. infrastructure needs and an assessment of 
our infrastructure as it relates to our competitors around the world.
  In this last analysis they did, they produced a report card, where 
they graded each component of U.S. infrastructure. They also gave us a 
composite grade, and that grade was a D-plus. A D-plus, Mr. Speaker, 
was the grade that the U.S. infrastructure received from the American 
Society of Civil Engineers.
  They estimated further that the amount of investment we would need to 
make as a country to bring our infrastructure up to a high standard is 
$3 trillion to $4 trillion. $3 trillion to $4 trillion, Mr. Speaker, is 
the gap, the investment gap in the infrastructure in the United States 
of America.
  This creates a very significant challenge for us as a Nation, as we 
look to compete in a global and technology-enabled world. To 
successfully compete in a global and technology-enabled world, you need 
world-class transportation, energy, communications, and infrastructure 
to be able to compete successfully.
  It also creates a great opportunity for us, as a Nation, because 
investing in our infrastructure is proven to be one of the great jobs 
programs in this country. It creates middle-skilled jobs. 
Infrastructure disproportionately creates middle-skilled jobs, which is 
what we need in this country.
  We are actually creating high-skilled jobs at a decent rate, we are 
creating low-skilled jobs at a decent rate; but we are not creating 
middle-skilled jobs for middle-class Americans, the kind of Americans 
that built this country, saved this country, and saved the world, and 
that is a great tragedy. Investing in our infrastructure will do that.
  It also happens to pencil out, Mr. Speaker. Across time, the data 
strongly suggests that for every dollar we spend on infrastructure, we 
get $1.92 of economic benefit as a Nation.
  It will create jobs in the short term, it will make us more 
competitive in the long term, and it is a fundamentally good investment 
for us to make as a country.
  As we think about filling this infrastructure hole, we should analyze 
how we actually invest in infrastructure in this country, and there are 
really four ways we do it.
  First, government. Federal Government, State governments, and local 
governments actually grant money to build infrastructure, particularly 
infrastructure that is used for the public or common good. That is an 
important role of government, and government is unique in its ability 
to do that.
  The second way we build infrastructure is through financing it with 
user fees. Things like the highway trust fund that my colleague 
referred to have largely been financed through our gas tax. There are 
other examples, at airports, et cetera, where we charge user fees, and 
that money is collected, and we build infrastructure with it.
  The third way we build infrastructure in this country is through 
public-private partnerships, where we go to the private sector, and for 
certain types of infrastructure, we get the private sector to build the 
infrastructure.
  Finally, the fourth way we build infrastructure is we finance it. In 
other words, State governments and local governments borrow money to 
build infrastructure.

  These are the four ways we build infrastructure in this country. If 
we actually want to close this infrastructure investment gap that we 
have, if we actually want to close this $3 trillion to $4 trillion gap, 
if we want to bring our infrastructure from a D-plus grade to something 
we would be more proud of, like an A grade, we need to be bolstering 
all four of these methods.
  The good news, Mr. Speaker, is that there are bipartisan ways of 
doing all of these things, and that is what we need to focus on. One 
example of a bipartisan solution to this problem is a piece of 
legislation that I introduced with several colleagues almost a year 
ago. It is called the Partnership to Build America Act.
  The Partnership to Build America Act, as of today, has 29 House 
Republicans on it and 29 House Democrats on it. It was also introduced 
in the Senate about a month ago with a dozen Senators, also bipartisan.
  Right now, Mr. Speaker, the Partnership to Build America Act is the 
most significant piece of bipartisan economic legislation in the whole 
of the Congress, and what it does is it creates a large-scale 
infrastructure financing vehicle called the American infrastructure 
fund, which will be capitalized for 50 years and be used by States and 
local governments to build and finance infrastructure.
  The money in the American infrastructure fund, Mr. Speaker, is not 
put in by the Federal Government, but it is put in by corporations who 
invest and buy very low-cost bonds to finance the American 
infrastructure fund over 50 years.
  As an incentive to get them to put this money in, we allow them to 
bring back a certain amount of their overseas earnings--their overseas 
cash back to the United States tax-free.
  Almost half of corporate tax is sitting overseas because of flaws in 
our international tax system. This allows for over $200 billion of that 
money to come back, a quarter of which would have to be invested in the 
American infrastructure fund, and create a 50-year revolving financing 
vehicle to help close this gap.
  So, Mr. Speaker, the Partnership to Build America Act is a real 
example of bipartisan progress to solve an important problem facing 
this Nation, to get Americans to work, make us more competitive in the 
long term, and use our precious resources in a wise and prudent manner 
that pencils out. It will be the category killer for the financing 
challenge we have around infrastructure.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I will close by reminding everyone of the importance 
of this issue. Investing in our infrastructure should be our top 
domestic economic priority. It should be our top jobs program.
  We should be bolstering all the ways we have in this Nation to build 
our infrastructure; and the good news, Mr. Speaker, is we can do it in 
a bipartisan way.
  I yield back to my friend from Oregon.

[[Page H2738]]

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman joining us and couldn't 
agree more about the critical nature of investing in our economy and 
putting people to work. Millions of jobs are at stake, jobs that won't 
be outsourced overseas. I appreciate your joining in that conversation.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like next to turn to the dean of the Oregon 
delegation, someone with whom I have been privileged to work for over 3 
decades. Congressman Peter DeFazio is a senior member of the 
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, ranking member of Natural 
Resources, somebody who I have found to be tireless in his promotion of 
infrastructure investment, creative in terms of ways to approach it.
  Mr. Speaker, I think a number of us would be open to any mechanism 
that provides steady, predictable resources that would be able to meet 
the needs because, before you can have public-private partnerships so 
you can deal with financing, you have got to have the underlying 
funding.
  There is nobody who has spent more time and creativity and taken more 
risks to advance that than my friend and colleague, Peter DeFazio.
  I am very pleased that you have joined us to be a part of this 
conversation and can't say enough for your tireless efforts to try and 
make sure that we realize the promise of infrastructure investment and 
that we actually do it.
  I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman. I thank Congressman Blumenauer 
for his leadership, a former member of the Transportation and 
Infrastructure Committee.
  We have sent him over to the Ways and Means Committee because we can 
put forward the need, we can document what we need to build and 
rebuild; but, in the end, someone has got to be responsible for raising 
the money, and, ultimately, it is going to be Ways and Means, and Earl 
has certainly taken a point position there.
  We are at an unprecedented point. We haven't been here before since 
the creation of the national highway program under President Dwight 
David Eisenhower.
  On October 1--or before then even, the trust funds established by 
Eisenhower, financed by user fees, gas tax, diesel tax, and some other 
fees on excise taxes, et cetera--but, principally, the fuel tax--is 
going to be depleted to the point where, if we don't act before October 
1, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the obligation 
authority, that is, the amount of money the Federal Government could 
invest, beginning next October 1, in any and all transportation 
projects across the United States of America--roads, bridges, highways, 
transit--will drop to zero--zero.
  Now, this is not one of these other phony cliffs around here that 
have been created by an intransigent majority and a bunch of 
grandstanders. This is real. This is real.
  Think of what that means to the States. To my State, it means a loss 
of about $450 million of Federal aid to fund our Federal highway system 
in the State of Oregon.
  It means that all across America, you are talking about millions of 
jobs and incredible lost opportunities in terms of creating new jobs 
and dealing with a crumbling infrastructure, which has already been 
discussed a little bit before me.
  So Congress has to get serious about this. You can't whistle by the 
graveyard on this one. You can't pretend it is not a fake crisis. It is 
a real crisis.
  Congressman Blumenauer explained how it has happened over the years. 
We haven't raised the gas tax since 1993.
  Now, a lot of people look at 4 bucks a gallon at the pump come 
Memorial Day, and they say: that damn government taking all that money.
  No. 18.4 cents went to the Federal Government in 1993 when gas was 
about a buck a gallon, and in 2014, when ExxonMobil jacks it up over $4 
for the Memorial Day holiday, 18.4 cents will go to the Federal 
Government.

                              {time}  1400

  I would be a lot happier at those higher prices if I knew some of it 
was going to rebuild our crumbling bridges, some of it was going to 
fill in the potholes and deal with the failing pavement, some of it was 
going to the deficit in our transit infrastructure, which is about $70 
billion. The nice thing, if we make those investments which have 
already been mentioned, it creates about 20,000 jobs for every $1 
billion dollars we spend--and not just construction jobs. You have 
engineering jobs. You have technical support jobs. You have small 
business suppliers. In transit, you have manufacturing jobs. You have 
even high-tech jobs, computer-driven transit vehicles, and et cetera. 
All across the economy, it would create jobs, 20,000 jobs per $1 
billion dollars.
  And we have the strongest Buy America requirements of any part of the 
Federal Government, way stronger than the Pentagon. So when we invest 
those dollars, Americans go to work or go back to work.
  But guess what, the other side works. If we stop spending that money 
on October 1, hundreds of thousands, millions of people will lose their 
jobs across many sectors in this country, and we will become the 
laughingstock of the world. The greatest nation on Earth can't afford 
to invest in its future, in its competitiveness, in rebuilding the 
Eisenhower-era infrastructure and building an infrastructure suitable 
for the 21st century to make us more competitive? It is not too hard. 
One simple way to do it would be to take the existing gas tax and index 
it.
  What does that mean? Well, part of the reason that we are in this 
pickle is because the gas tax has remained 18.4 cents a gallon since 
1993. That means, with inflation, it has been eroded. And as cars and 
fleets become more efficient, people are driving more miles with fewer 
gallons of gas, which is a good thing. So if you indexed it and said, 
okay, we will index the gas tax for construction cost, inflation, and 
fleet fuel economy, you would see a big increase in gas, about 1.4 to 
1.7 cents a gallon next year. Wow.
  Well, guess what. Just when I was home recently, I drove to work; and 
when I came home, gas was up a nickel a gallon because of the crisis in 
Ukraine. Where did that go? That went into the pockets of ExxonMobil.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. If the gentleman will yield.
  Like you, I am on the plan going home every week. But for a weekend, 
I was at a conference, and so I missed being home for 10 days. In the 
space of 10 days, gasoline went up 19 cents a gallon at my corner gas 
station; and the next weekend, it had gone up 30 cents a gallon in 3 
weeks. That didn't fill one pothole, didn't put one person to work. 
Thirty cents in 3 weeks.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman. I think it is an excellent point.
  If we fully implemented Dodd-Frank and reined in some of the 
commodities speculators, it wouldn't be quite so volatile. But the 
point is, if we took a tiny fraction of the way they jack it up when 
you are driving to work every week and invested it, your friends, your 
neighbors would go to work, your commutes would be better, there would 
be less damage to your car, the country would be more efficient, and we 
would lose less jobs overseas.
  So, if we indexed it and we paid it back over 15 years, we could put 
somewhere between $120 and $150 billion into the trust fund that would 
be paid for and paid back over a 15-year period.
  Another alternative would be to put $1 on a barrel of crude oil. For 
every $1 you tax a barrel of crude oil today--Texas is at $101.70, I 
think, when I last checked--that would be less than 1 percent. That 
raises $4 billion a year to invest in the future of America, its 
infrastructure, and putting people back to work in this country. It 
would also help to rein in some of the speculation on the price of 
crude oil. And it would also help because OPEC and other suppliers 
would have to be paying a part of rebuilding our infrastructure.
  The proposal I put forward exempts all manufacturing; it exempts all 
heating oil; it exempts all agricultural uses; it exempts school buses 
and other things that are currently exempt. So it would only be the 
fraction of the barrel that goes to current taxable transportation use 
as $1 dollar a barrel, which is $4 billion a year. Again, we could use 
that future cash flow to bond and fill in the giant pothole in the 
trust fund.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you.
  Well, I deeply appreciate, again, your partnership and your 
leadership; and what you just demonstrated, a series of

[[Page H2739]]

ways that we could have adjustments to transportation finance that 
would be predictable, sustainable, and, as you have pointed out, at a 
time of record-low interest rates, having a steady revenue stream would 
permit us to be able to take advantage of that favorable borrowing 
environment to get multiple benefits. Essentially, if we had done that 
earlier, as you and I had suggested during the Recovery Act, 
essentially, we would have had free money because the interest rates 
were so low. But I appreciate your tenacity and creativity.
  We have been joined by another of our colleagues.
  Congresswoman Titus, I must say, I deeply appreciated your 
hospitality when we visited Nevada, looked at transportation needs, met 
with people in your community who rely on being able to have this 
infrastructure work. You have been on a roller coaster in Nevada in 
terms of boom and bust, but I deeply appreciated your being able to 
help me understand those dynamics. Your leadership in this arena is 
welcomed, and I yield to you to join into the conversation.
  Ms. TITUS. Well, thank you very much, Congressman Blumenauer. You are 
always welcome to come to my district in Las Vegas. We were very glad 
to have you there, and you brought your leadership. And I appreciate 
your wearing your bicycle, because that is one of the things I want to 
talk about.
  A part of infrastructure is safe streets and the ability for our 
pedestrians and our bicyclists to be safe, as well as through other 
means of transportation. I certainly respect Congressman DeFazio's 
leadership on this. And I appreciate hearing some of the creative ideas 
you have for moving infrastructure forward because it is so important 
that we fund it, and having this hour to talk about the critical role 
of government and maintaining and enhancing our infrastructure I think 
is not only timely, but is critical.
  As you heard earlier, the most recent report card from the American 
Society of Civil Engineers clearly illustrates the dismal condition of 
our Nation's infrastructure. Now, the good news is we moved up a grade, 
but the bad news is we went from D to D-plus. So that is not too much 
to brag about. If that were one of my students, I wouldn't be too proud 
of that level of accomplishment.
  Well, if you look in more detail at the findings of that report, you 
would find that more than half of the Nation's roads are in poor or 
mediocre condition. One out of every four bridges is in need of 
significant repair or can't handle the traffic that relies on it.
  We have seen the price of this crumbling infrastructure not just in a 
loss of jobs but also in a loss of lives. For one out of every three 
traffic fatalities, the condition of the road was a factor. So we have 
got to do better than that.
  We recently received an update on the fiscal situation of the highway 
trust fund--the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) was referencing 
this--and if the projections hold, that trust fund will be insolvent by 
the end of July. Now, that is at the height of the construction season 
when we should be moving forward with these infrastructure projects. 
All of them will come to a standstill across the country, and that 
immediately threatens 660,000 jobs--direct jobs, not counting the extra 
industries that rely on that construction as well.
  Now, our construction sector was hit very hard already by the great 
recession, and it continues to see unemployment levels twice the 
national average. So we simply cannot afford to let this trust fund 
lapse.
  We need to take immediate action to shore it up and remove the 
insolvency because it not only halts progress, but it injects 
uncertainty into our State capitals, our city halls, and all of the 
transit agencies across the country who don't know whether to move 
forward with projects or not because the money just may not be there.
  If you look at the cities, like Las Vegas, you can see how this is 
especially hard-hitting because infrastructure is at the heart of our 
local economy. We have world-class hotels and casinos and restaurants 
and retail, but we rely on infrastructure to bring to us people and 
goods from around the world, whether it is rail or air or highways. We 
import everything, from tourists to lobster. We don't make it in there. 
We have to bring it in. And if you don't have good infrastructure, that 
system is not going to work.
  So as we turn our attention to the next surface transportation 
authorization, I want us to invest in a number of things, and one of 
them is existing and future freight corridors. On that list, I hope to 
see the development of I-11. That interstate has been designated, but 
we need to move forward with it. It would go from Las Vegas to Phoenix. 
Eventually, it would connect all points north and south. But right now, 
Phoenix and Las Vegas are the only two major metropolitan areas in the 
country that are not connected by an interstate highway.
  So this would create new freight corridors. It would relieve the 
congestion on the narrow road that exists there now. It would save 
lives. It would increase the connection between the roughly 8 million 
people who live in that area, and it would foster tourism, which would 
be a good thing for our economy. So I hope that we can move forward on 
that because it would be very important for moving freight in the kind 
of post-Panamax economy.
  In addition to this, I am concerned about the safety of the 
travelling public in the urban areas. And this is where you and I have 
had many discussions about pedestrians and cyclists.
  We have seen marginal improvements in highway safety. That has been 
going in the right direction. But pedestrian safety has been going in 
the wrong direction. That has been getting much worse if you look at 
the statistics. And more and more people are using that kind of 
transportation, for recreation, to get to work, to go shopping, for 
exercise. So that population is going to increase, and yet the 
fatalities have increased as well. In fact, nearly 16 percent of 
traffic deaths in 2012 were people who were walking or bicycling, and 
yet less than 1 percent of safety funding goes to infrastructure to 
protect those travelers.
  And that trend is really true in southern Nevada. My district has the 
most dangerous crossings of any because it is metropolitan Las Vegas. 
In 2011, there were 23 pedestrian fatalities, but that jumped to 42 in 
2012; and last year, 51 men, women, and children lost their lives in 
pedestrian accidents.
  So I hope that as we move forward with infrastructure funding that we 
provide resources and services to address that issue. And part of that 
can be encouraging local governments to do planning policies, like the 
Complete Streets program. I know you are well aware of that, very 
familiar with it and involved in it. That takes into account the needs 
of all users when it comes to transportation. There are lots of 
possible improvements, like bus rapid transit, dedicated transit bike 
lanes, safer crosswalks. All of those will help users reach their 
destinations more quickly and more safely.
  So as we look at infrastructure, let's remember that it is bridges, 
it is roads, it is railroads, it is airports, but also, we need to do 
what we can for those using bicycles and just walking on their own two 
feet.
  I am committed to working on this. It is very important for our 
country and for our local economies. So count me in, and thank you for 
your leadership.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you so much, Representative Titus.
  It was fascinating, when we visited with your constituents, how 
passionate they were identifying the problems; and I commend you for 
working with them to try to squeeze what you could out of inadequate 
Federal, State, and local funding, but worked to try to help with the 
design, help with the advocacy. They were truly fired up and had lots 
of ideas about things to do.
  And you are right. It would be a travesty if, when we are urging 
people to be able to do more walking and cycling, to reduce energy, to 
improve air quality and improve their health, if, in turn, we are 
putting more families at risk. And being able to have safe routes to 
school, being able to deal with pedestrian safety and making it part of 
the mix, I can't say enough about how much I admire your commitment to 
balanced transportation, to be able to tie those pieces together, and 
how you worked with your local constituents. It is truly a model, and I 
look forward to continuing with you on that in the future.
  Ms. TITUS. Thank you.

[[Page H2740]]

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I do want to say that I also appreciate the reference 
to the economic impact in terms of the men and women who work in this 
arena. We have millions of tradespeople, men and women in the 
construction industry who have the necessary skills to rebuild and 
renew America, who want to work, and in too many of our communities 
have suffered disproportionate unemployment as a result of the near 
meltdown of the economy and the too slow recovery.

                              {time}  1415

  Being able to tap that energy, that excitement and that commitment I 
think is very, very important. I have been so impressed as we go around 
the country looking at the people there who are willing to put those 
skills to work, and it is an opportunity for a wide range of employment 
opportunities.
  There are opportunities for people who are primarily just working 
with their hands where there is a lot of manual labor involved. There 
are a number of skilled opportunities in terms of what has happened in 
the trades in terms of equipment operation that adds increasing 
sophistication. There are jobs that are pencil ready where there is 
design, planning, and management. So there is a wide range.
  My colleague mentioned the 20,000 jobs per billion dollars, and that 
20,000 jobs includes lots of bedrock, middle class American, family-
wage job opportunities, but for a wide range of skill sets and for 
people to get their feet on the ground to be able to build skills and 
move further in the advancement of their careers.
  I really appreciate your advocacy there and would yield to the 
gentleman for further comment.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Let me just give one example. I have a company in my 
district called Johnson Rock Crushers. They produce a wide range of 
rock crushers. They are a major exporter from the U.S., and they are 
competitive in the world market. They are employing skilled labor and 
also engineers and others to design these materials. They are sourcing 
virtually all of their components in the United States for these very 
large pieces of equipment.
  So there is an incredible multiplier effect. They are employing 
people who are in niche manufacturing somewhere making one big gear or 
making parts for the conveyor or the giant tires that go on these 
things. They are employing engineers to make the future designs. They 
just have finished a major contract for the Seabees with affordable 
equipment for the Seabees. So they are just covering an extraordinary 
range of things.
  They showed me a chart, and the chart is what happens to their 
business when the future funding for the highway trust fund comes into 
question. They can show me what happened back when we did the SAFETEA-
LU bill, how much business fell off. They can show me recently a fall-
off in domestic business. They are doing pretty well internationally 
because other countries--somehow other countries can figure out how to 
invest in their infrastructure. They are concerned about becoming more 
competitive in the world economy, and they are making massive 
investments in China, Brazil, and in many of our competitor nations.
  In fact, I recall once when my colleague, Mr. Blumenauer, heard me 
giving a speech. I was saying how I kind of thought the U.S. was 
becoming a Third World nation because of the deterioration of our 
infrastructure, which we have already talked about tonight. He came up 
to me afterwards and he said: Hey, you know, that was kind of 
insulting. And I'm like: Earl, what do you mean? You know how bad it 
is. I mean, at that point we were at a D, and now we are up to a D-plus 
for our infrastructure. And he said: No. No. It was insulting to Third 
World countries, because they are investing a higher percentage of 
their gross domestic product in their infrastructure than the United 
States of America.
  We can afford these investments. In fact, we cannot afford to forgo 
these investments because we will lose more ground internationally; we 
will waste more fuel; people will spend more time in congestion; and we 
will kill more people on obsolete mass transit units like they did 
right here in Washington, D.C. These are investments we must make.
  We have, in the past, led the world. We have been number one, number 
two after World War II up through near the nineties sometime. We are 
now number 26 in the world in terms of the state of our infrastructure. 
We are duking it out with Romania these days, I think. This is 
embarrassing. It is embarrassing for us not to be pushing forward with 
solutions now and not creating another cliff and eking it out to the 
end.
  As Representative Titus pointed out, some States are already cutting 
back their construction program for this construction year. Kansas is 
one I know of. They have said: Look, the way we run our State, we have 
got to be sure that the Federal reimbursement is going to be there when 
the project is done. We can't wait. Our constitution doesn't allow us 
to borrow money for these things. We can't go into deficit, unlike the 
Federal Government.
  Therefore, just the prospect that the money might not be there is 
causing many States to say: Well, wait a minute. We are going to pull 
back here on these projects this coming year, and then if it actually 
happens on October 1, it will be a massive cutback next year.
  I don't know what happens to transit. There is no transit system in 
the world, except maybe Hong Kong, that makes money. So to say we are 
going to withdraw all Federal support from transit would mean one heck 
of a loss of options for people in the United States.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate your detailing the difference it made 
with that company in your district and the multiplier effect for the 
employment for the various aspects of that product. It has been 
exciting for me to look at the range of people who are adding their 
voice to the cry for the Federal Government to step up and for Congress 
not to be AWOL on this and not have the collapse of the trust fund.
  The range of people who have a keen interest in our being responsible 
and who are adding their voices is fascinating. There are big equipment 
manufacturers, like the Catapillars of this world, and smaller. There 
are people who lease heavy equipment. There are people who are involved 
with design and construction, people who are there with the materials, 
asphalt and concrete, sand and gravel; people who are there with the 
iron and steel that is necessary, the concrete.
  You go through the range of people who are vitally interested in our 
meeting our responsibilities and who have the capacity of making huge 
economic contributions and who are ready, willing, and able to do so, 
and the vast majority of these jobs are right here in the United 
States. They are not going to be outsourced. Lots of equipment, 
manufacturing, and materials are right here. It is cost prohibitive for 
us not to. So it provides that local economic spark. Then there is the 
multiplier effect of the coffee shop across the street from the project 
and the people who are providing materials and supplies, people who 
benefit from this in dramatic ways.
  I do appreciate your reminding us of how we have lost track of where 
we are in terms of global leadership. We were leaders in the 
development of our canals and the steam engine. We were leaders with 
our transcontinental railroad. Nobody did anything on that order of 
magnitude. We had the finest passenger rail system in the world up 
until about 70 years ago. We had the finest highway system. You can go 
through the list of areas that we were justifiably proud of being a 
global leader. And it was not just prestige. It was health, it was 
safety, and it was economic impact that made a difference. We appear to 
have lost our way.
  It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, 6 years ago, there was no high-speed 
rail in China. And in 6 years, they have grown a high-speed rail system 
that will next year carry more passengers than the entire American 
aviation system. Other countries are building ports and highways and 
upgrading water and sewer. And we are stuck, we are losing ground, and 
it is Congress that has failed to step up for over two decades.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. The problem here in D.C. is that a lot of people, 
particularly the Congress, don't discriminate between investments, 
capital investments, and expenditures. You know, if

[[Page H2741]]

you buy fuel for the Federal fleet or a battleship or something, okay, 
that is an expenditure; it is consumed. But if you build a bridge that 
lasts 100 years, we count that the same as buying something that will 
be consumed in 1 day. That doesn't make any sense, but that is the way 
Congress works.
  So they treat needed investments in the future mobility of the 
American people and saving fuel as being competitive, moving goods and 
people safely, they treat that exactly the same as a consumptive, 1-day 
expenditure for fuel for the Federal fleet or something else. That 
makes no sense. We need capital budgets. That is probably a longer term 
project around here. They need to at least recognize the need for these 
investments.
  What I hear from a lot of naysayers is: Hey, you already did that. 
You did the stimulus, and that didn't work, did it?
  Well, actually, if you look at the so-called stimulus, under the most 
generous interpretation of infrastructure, 4 percent went into 
traditional surface transportation infrastructure--4 percent, 4 percent 
of the $800 billion--and it created a heck of a lot more than 4 percent 
of the jobs that that bill created; a really generous infrastructure 
interpretation, you are up to 7 percent.
  So I say, no, that was not a test. That money was well invested and 
spent, but it was totally insufficient for the job to repair and 
rebuild our infrastructure and bring it up to a good state of repair 
for the 20th century, let alone to begin to build out an efficient 21st 
century infrastructure. That is no test. That money was well spent and 
well invested.
  There are some prominent commentators who say, oh, I don't know where 
that money went. I had a debate with one of them on television, 
actually. We can show exactly where that money went and exactly how 
many jobs were created, and it was certainly a net large return 
compared to many of the other things that were in that legislation. No, 
that wasn't a test.
  A test would be if we made a commitment now to build a 21st century 
infrastructure and to rise from 26th in the world back to number one in 
the world within 10 years just like JFK said we will put us on the Moon 
in 10 years. Well, in 10 years, we could go back to having the number 
one infrastructure in the world, and in the meantime we would create a 
few million more jobs, and the long-term impact of that creates 
sustainable jobs of untold numbers over the years.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Absolutely. I have really appreciated your laser 
focus. At the time, you and I both wanted more investment in 
infrastructure. Something in the neighborhood of 40 percent were tax 
cuts that people didn't even think they got, that didn't have the 
multiplier effect, that we would have been well served to double or 
triple the amount of investment in infrastructure.
  But I have been struck--and I know you have--that even though it was 
inadequate, that we could have done more and should have done more. I 
am struck by the number of businesses that have told me that that 
investment was the difference of whether or not their business was 
going to go under. We had people making bids at that time basically 
just to cover payroll. We got some of the most favorable bids that were 
offered up because people were desperate for that work, and so it 
stretched even further.
  If we had had the foresight to invest more and then take advantage of 
the fact that the world was basically giving us their money for free, 
we could have had a tremendous impact. But the truth is that people 
were desperate for it. It made a difference, and it is a hint of what 
we could do if we did this right.
  I am going to turn to my colleague for a moment for the last word, 
but I wanted to just say one thing in terms of my concluding 
observation.
  I have been struck, in the 3 months since we have advanced these 
proposals, by the breadth of editorial support, by the unions, local 
governments, and elected officials in both parties who are stepping up 
at the State level to do this. Wyoming, I think, was the latest State 
that went ahead and raised a gas tax. We are hearing from engineers, 
and we are hearing from advocacy groups like truckers and Triple A that 
are doing the right thing and making a difficult recommendation because 
they know it is the right thing, and they think it is time to have an 
adult conversation with the American public.
  I think it is time for us to listen to the people out there who don't 
just want, they are insisting that we meet our obligation as a full 
partner in infrastructure investment in this country, as we have done 
for years with State and local government, with the private sector, and 
with local communities.

                              {time}  1430

  I am convinced that it is one of those areas that once we get there 
and take the step, that it will bring the country together.
  Mr. Speaker, historically, infrastructure has been an area that has 
rallied public support. People came together for these projects. I am 
convinced that if we step up and do our job, listening to people and 
giving that support, that it can be that same sort of rallying point. I 
don't want to be involved in a conversation about whether it is the 
Republicans' fault or the Democrats' fault, or it is the House versus 
the Senate or the legislative versus the executive. There has been 
enough foot-dragging over the last 20 years to go around.
  So my hope is we can use this going forward to make a difference. I 
cannot thank you enough, Congressman DeFazio, for your insistence, your 
leadership, your persistence, your creativity, and your courage on 
this. It really makes a difference for those of us who are pushing for 
the path you have blazed and your continued, ongoing zeal to make this 
work.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. To just boil it down to something pretty simple, I would 
say let's think about the future. Let's think about today, and let's 
think about the future. And those who would disinvest or devolve our 
obligations to create a national transportation system that is world 
class, devolve that duty to the 50 States assembled, or just ignore 
altogether that obligation, they really are showing that they don't 
take a long-term view for America, they don't have much faith in our 
future.
  I have a heck of a lot of faith in our future, and it is going to 
take some leadership to get to that future. Doing simple things like 
maintaining the existing purchasing power of the gas tax through 
indexation and then using the future income to bond, and make a heck of 
a lot of investments now, will return more in the long term than it 
will cost, and it won't add a penny to the deficit. Just like the 
Federal highway trust fund has not been a net contributor to the 
deficit over time; it has been funded through user fees. We need to 
continue that principle.
  In the future, we can probably evolve to something more high tech, 
vehicle miles traveled or things like that. We are not ready today to 
get there, and we sure as heck can't get there by October 1, so we have 
to work off the basics that we already have, that we have had since 
Dwight David Eisenhower, a Republican President, and it was Ronald 
Reagan who added mass transit into the highway trust fund. This has 
been truly a bipartisan issue over the years. We lost our way for a bit 
here, and it should become bipartisan again. We should all join 
together, and we should show that we really believe in America's future 
and make the investments that are necessary to get us there on a better 
national transportation system.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Well said, and I have nothing to add to that 
eloquence.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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