[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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