[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 79 (Thursday, May 21, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3213-S3216]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
OUR COUNTRY'S TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to discuss the
need to strengthen the transportation system of our country, our roads,
our highways, our bridges--our transportation system. A long time ago,
the question was asked: What is the role of government? If you ask 500
people, you probably will not get 100 different answers, but you will
get a lot of different answers.
Abraham Lincoln was once asked: What is the role of government? This
is what he said: The role of the government is to do for the people
what they cannot do for themselves. Let me say that again. The role of
government is to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves.
Sometimes I go to schools and young students ask me: What do you do?
The kids in elementary schools, third, fourth, fifth graders say: What
do you do?
I tell them I am a United States Senator.
They say: What do you do?
I tell them I help make the rules for our country. We call them laws.
I do that with 99 other Senators, 435 Representatives, the President,
and the Vice President.
They say: Well, what else do you do?
I tell them I help people. I help people. The best way to help
somebody is to make sure they have a job--to make sure they have a job.
I had the privilege of being Governor of Delaware for 8 years. I am
told that in those 8 years, more jobs were created in Delaware than any
8 years in Delaware history. I did not create one of them.
We have seen in the last 6-plus years in this country some 12 million
jobs created. I did not create one of them. My colleagues did not
create those jobs. The President and the Vice President did not create
those jobs.
What we are responsible for doing here is to create a nurturing
environment for job creation, access to capital--to money--for
businesses that need to raise money, a world-class workforce, public
safety, clean environment, public health, a Tax Code that is fair and
reasonable, regulations that embody common sense and reflect common
sense.
We actually have, believe it or not, on each of our desks on the
floor, a book. It is called the ``Senate Manual.'' We do not look at it
that often, but if you go to one of the sections about two-thirds of
the way through the book, you will find the Constitution. The
Constitution lays out who is responsible for what generally in our
country, for different responsibilities that do fall on government.
There is a section in the Constitution--I am not going to read it,
but Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma has oftentimes referred to it--where
it talks about the obligation and responsibility of the Federal
Government to post roads--post roads. For years, that has been read and
interpreted to mean to build some roads, some highways, and some
bridges.
As time goes by, we have more and more people to build transit
systems as well. As it turns out, as we go along in time--after being a
country for almost 225 years or so, one of the most important things
that we do in creating a nurturing environment for job creation and job
preservation is to make sure our country has transportation systems--
roads, highways, bridges, transit
[[Page S3214]]
systems--that are worthy of this great Nation that we are.
As a former Governor--as I like to say, a recovering Governor--but as
a former Governor, I have seen the impact roads, highways, bridges, and
transit systems have on the economic growth and success in my State,
the region in which we live, and across this country. It is how we move
people. It is how we move goods. It is the key to an efficient and
growing economy.
For more than a decade, however, we have faced funding shortfalls for
the Federal highway trust fund. This stop-and-go funding and lack of
uncertainty has undermined--has undermined--the potential for economic
growth in America for years. That has to stop.
In fact, since 2008, we had to transfer nearly $65 billion out of the
general fund--nearly $65 billion out of the general fund--which is far
from running a surplus, to patch holes in the highway trust fund.
I like to use the example of the glasses. We have glasses here that
the pages are nice enough to fill with water and to bring for us from
time to time. I would like for this glass to be the Federal highway
trust fund. It is empty. There is another glass here. This is the
general fund of the United States. It is empty. We have another glass
over here that is full. It is full. When the general fund is empty and
the transportation fund, the highway fund are empty, what we do is we
go to this glass over here and say: How about some water? How about
some money?
We borrow money all over the world--all over the world. One of the
places we borrow a lot of it is China. When the Chinese lend us money,
they do not want to be bothered when we feel they may have been
manipulating their currency.
They will say to us: We thought you wanted to borrow money, so leave
us alone on currency manipulation. They may say: Leave us alone when it
comes to taking unfair advantage in terms of trade. When the Chinese
are pushing around the Vietnamese in the Philippines in the South China
Sea--where I used to fly as a flight officer--they would say: You
cannot do that.
And the Chinese might respond: Well, we thought you wanted to borrow
our money.
We find ourselves in a very difficult position to be obligated to a
lender that is doing things that we think are inappropriate or wrong.
Unfortunately, with the example like the one I have just given you,
this actually does happen.
We have not had a transportation bill that lasts for more than 2
years for, I think, now 7 years. It used to be commonplace that every 6
years we would pass a fund, a transportation bill, for our country. We
call it the highway bill, but it was for roads, highways, and for
transit systems--every 6 years, almost like clockwork.
The money provided by the Federal Government provides roughly one-
half of all the money that is spent in the State highway budget, State
highway transportation budget. Half of that money is Federal money
appropriated by the Congress and approved by the President.
Why we have not had a transportation bill that lasted for more than 2
years, since 2008--we have passed some short-term funding provisions
and authorization provisions for transportation that lasts as little as
a few days--a few days. This undercuts Governors and undercuts mayors
around the country. It prevents them from making long-term investments
in critical transportation projects.
Let me give a good example. State Route 1 Delaware runs from I-95 to
the north, north-south, right past Dover, our State capital, passing
Dover Air Force Base, and heads on down to the southern part of our
State, where we raise more chickens and soybeans in Sussex County, DE,
than any other county in America. It is a county that has more five-
star beaches than anywhere else in America.
When I had the privilege of being Governor of Delaware, we actually
built, modernized, and expanded State Route 1. We replaced about 40
traffic lights with a four- or five- or six-lane limited access highway
that cuts not in half but greatly eliminates bottlenecks and expedites
the flow of traffic in my State. It took over a decade--maybe a dozen
years--from start to finish.
Why did it take that long? It is because these projects need some
things. You have to take some time to plan the project. You have to
take some time to fund the project. You have to take time to contract
the project through competitive bids. You have to get the permits for
the project. Sometimes there is litigation to work through. It is part
of what has to be done to build a major road, highway or bridge in a
State. It does not take just a few weeks to do this. It does not take
just a few months to do this. It can take years.
In the case of State Route 1--in a little State--it took years,
roughly a dozen of them. And without the certainty in the future that
the Federal funding will be there for a project that is almost
impossible to do it well and, frankly, without that kind of certainty,
it is really expensive to do these projects. Stop-and-go. ``Stop-and-
go'' means stop and pay lot more money for the projects we are trying
to build.
Yet even though we know our States, our counties, our cities, and our
businesses are counting on us in this body to do our jobs, we let them
down time and time again. What is worse is that Congress has known
about this problem for just about a decade--for almost a decade.
It was in 2005 that Congress included provisions in transportation
legislation to create not one but two blue ribbon commissions. For what
purpose? Will it help us to figure out how to pay for highways,
bridges, and transit systems which we are not smart enough to figure
this out? Why don't we put together some commissions and let the
experts come in and they can help us out? We received the reports and
the recommendations. We just never acted on them.
In 2008, these two Commissions delivered reports summarizing the
advice of countless experts and giving us a roadmap to fixing the
problems for good. Among all of their recommendations, one idea was
stressed above all the rest: gradually raise transportation user fees
and then index them to inflation going forward.
Despite understanding the problem and the smartest solutions for
nearly a decade, we have only shirked our responsibility to agree on a
solution again and again.
Rather than take advantage of those blue ribbon ideas, we have
continued to kick the can down the road, continued to avoid doing what
voters sent us here to do; that is, to make decisions, tough decisions,
in the best interests of our country.
I stand here today to say it is high time we finally take care of
business and do the job the American people sent us here to do.
My concern about this issue should come as no surprise to any of my
colleagues. For years I have been outspoken about my desire to fully
fund a multiyear transportation bill.
Government does have a clear role in ensuring that our country has
modern, high-quality roads, highways, bridges, and transit systems.
That is why the Framers of our Constitution had the good sense to as
much as say so in that Constitution. Unfortunately, it seems to me that
our courage and willingness to fulfill this responsibility continues to
escape us. Instead, we avoid tough choices and simply do things such as
smooth pensions or steal Customs fees. Sometimes we will steal Customs
fees that are not due for maybe 6, 7, 8 years into the future, and we
steal that future money and use it to pay for a couple of months' worth
of road, highway, and bridge construction today. We borrow mine safety
funds. We apply other bandaids as well.
The standard justification for each of these short-term patches has
been that we need just a little more time to work out the details of a
long-term plan. Just give us a little more time, and we will work this
out. But, as usual, during the 10 months we gave ourselves when we
passed the last short-term extension, which, as I recall, was early
last August--the 12th time we have done this in 6 years, in case anyone
has lost count--we have come no closer to a solution.
The Washington Post last summer may have put it best, and here is
what they said: ``Congress doesn't need more time, Congress needs more
spine.''
[[Page S3215]]
Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing
something over and over again and expecting a different result. Today,
I am asking our colleagues to join me and others to help stop this
insanity. If we work together, I know we can find a way to invest in
the 21st-century transportation system our States, our cities, and our
businesses deserve and need in order to compete in a global
marketplace. In an effort to do just that, Senator Boxer and I have
introduced a measure that would at least get us started, taking a
constructive step that would align the expiration of transportation
programs with the funding available in the highway trust fund.
What we have right now is that at the end of this month, the
authorization for spending Federal money for these roads, highways,
bridges, and transit projects--the authorizations to spend that money
expires, effectively stopping the use of Federal money for these
purposes at the end of this month. We can't let that happen.
The authorization ends at, we will say right here, the end of May, in
about 10 days. Meanwhile, the actual funds in the transportation trust
fund, the highway trust fund, are good until the end of July. So the
legislation Senator Boxer has joined me in introducing says: At least,
if we do nothing else, let's align the end of the authorization--now
May 31--to the end of the funding so that we can at least continue the
work that is being done in States across the country in the meantime.
If we work together, I know we can find a way forward.
We have introduced this legislation, and this adjustment will keep
the Congress from putting this issue, we hope, on the back burner yet
again.
We hope this will increase the likelihood that we can finally sit
down and come to a long-term solution not this fall, not next year, but
this summer. I know there are some who say: Well, let's just push this
off until December. We have done that before and we can do that again.
I just say to my friends, we have a way of--we are getting to the
elections. We are getting into the election cycle for President later
this year. Maybe there are some who feel that will be helpful to us in
finding a way to come together and funding a transportation project. I
would beg to differ. I think if we don't get it done sooner rather than
later, if we don't make those tough decisions now, we are not going to
make them when the caucuses are gathered in Iowa and the primary voters
are starting to get riled up in New Hampshire and South Carolina. That
is not going to help us do our jobs.
There is a friend of mine who likes to talk about stopgap funding and
the need to make a long-term commitment to America's growth and
success. He says it is something like what we do now. It is something
like taking a road trip--maybe a summer road trip across the country--
stopping to fill up our cars, our trucks, our minivans with gas 1
gallon at a time. Instead of filling up, we stop at a gas station and
we get 1 gallon, and then we go down the road and a little while later
we stop at another gas station and we buy another gallon. It is
wasteful. It wastes time. It wastes money. It is no way to take a trip
across the country with your family, and I can assure my colleagues it
is no way to build a transportation system for a world-class power--
America.
In any event, as I said earlier, I took two or three ideas away from
the elections last year. No. 1, Americans want us to work together; No.
2, they want us to get things done; and No. 3, they want us to do
everything we can to enhance and strengthen our economic recovery.
Finally finding an agreement on a way to pass a fully funded 6-year
transportation bill would help us do all three. We would demonstrate
that we can work together. We would demonstrate that we can get things
done for States and cities and counties across America. No. 3, we
really would strengthen our economic recovery. We wouldn't just put
600,000 or 700,000 people to work across America building roads,
highways, bridges, and transit systems; we would do a lot more than
that. That is important. A lot of jobs need to be filled, and a lot of
people would love to have those jobs.
As it turns out, the McKinsey Global Institute recently reported that
making a major effort to repair and improve our roads, highways,
bridges, and transit systems could add about 1.5 percent to our annual
GDP growth and create at least 1.8 million jobs. Let me say that again.
Making a major effort to repair and improve our roads, highways,
bridges, and transit systems could add about 1.5 percent to annual GDP
growth. Keep in mind that GDP growth I think in the last quarter was
only about 1 percent. This kind of investment could add another 1.5
percent to annual GDP growth and create almost 2 million jobs.
By failing to pass a long-term transportation bill, we are
sacrificing this potential growth and job creation. It is a little bit
like leaving money on a table--in this case, a lot of it on a table.
The Federal Government shares the responsibility with State
governments to make investments in their aging infrastructure. As I
said earlier, the Federal Government--when States spend money on roads,
highways, bridges, and transit systems, whether it is in New Hampshire
or Delaware, roughly half of that money is coming from the Federal
Government. Our States are counting on us to be a partner in funding
our transportation systems that the families and businesses we
represent count on every day. When a Federal policy fails to plan for
the future, we leave these people in the lurch.
The highway trust fund has several dedicated revenue streams in the
form of various user fees, as we know. These fees haven't been adjusted
in over two decades. During that time, the purchasing power of
transportation has nearly been cut in half. There have been increases
in the price of concrete, asphalt, steel, and labor. The 18.3-cent
Federal gas tax that we set up in 1993 is now worth less than a dime.
The 24-cent diesel tax is worth less than 15 cents.
The Congressional Budget Office put together the chart here on my
left that shows the growing difference between the highway trust fund,
the money we put out for transportation projects, and the money we take
in from user fees. I would say we were doing reasonably good from 1998
to 2014. Every 6 years, we see it go up and then it drops down, and
then it goes up and then it drops down. That is a 6-year transportation
authorization bill.
Look what happened starting this year.
I might add that over the last several years, a lot of this money was
just transferred out of the general fund, not money we actually raised.
Then we borrowed most of that money from around the world.
But we get to the year 2015, and look what happens. At the end of the
year, every year up through 2025, this will be the shortfall. I think
it adds up to about $140 billion by 2020. One does not have to be an
accountant to know we have a problem when what we are spending outpaces
what we collect more and more each year.
We need to find a long-term solution that we can agree on to fix this
problem, and we need to do it this summer. We don't need to do it this
fall. We don't need to do it next winter. We need to do it this summer.
Again, I talked about kicking the can into a Presidential election
year. If we don't do it this summer, my fear is we won't do it at all--
at least not a long-term bill.
Many of my colleagues have said we must wait until we can enact
comprehensive tax reform that creates revenues to solve this problem.
As a strong supporter of tax reform, I hope we can find a way to reform
our Tax Code, find a way to generate some revenues that can be used to
invest in the country's roads, highways, bridges, and transit systems.
As I understand, this idea has support from not only President Obama
but also from the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan,
and that is encouraging.
One thing I know for sure is that this idea is a lot better than
kicking the can down the road. Let's be honest--we have been talking
about tax reform for years. It is one of the most complicated problems
Congress is facing. We can't just wait around letting our highways and
transit systems that people count on deteriorate while we negotiate the
incredibly tough decisions surrounding tax reform efforts. Furthermore,
tax reform only offers one-time revenues that won't fix the long-term
problem with the highway trust fund.
[[Page S3216]]
I believe we have to have a viable backup plan in case a bipartisan
deal on tax reform continues to elude the Congress. That is why I
talked to literally a dozen Members of the House and the Senate from
both parties and I asked them to share with me their most thoughtful
ideas of what I hope could become an ``all of the above''
transportation funding proposal that we expect to unveil at the
beginning of next month. I urge any of my colleagues with serious
thoughts on how to shore up the highway trust fund to bring us their
ideas and join this effort because I hope to present such a plan, as I
said earlier, very soon and to make sure that we don't once again kick
this can down the road. There is time to act. It is not next year. It
is not around Christmastime. It is this summer.
Gas prices this Memorial Day weekend will be lower than any Memorial
Day in recent memory and are likely to stay that way for at least a
while longer. The prediction is that they are actually going to start
dropping again as we move into summer.
There is an amazing coalition of stakeholders from all parts of the
community--frankly, all parts of our country geographically--and
throughout the business sector and our government as well, and they
support a long-term transportation bill. They are businesses, labor
groups, construction companies, transits, retail businesses,
manufacturing businesses, and a lot of American families. Their message
to us is the same: It is time to do the right thing. It is time for us
to do our jobs. It is time for us to give America the roads, the
highways, the bridges, and transit systems that we can be proud of and
that will help our Nation to continue to grow and to be great.
Mr. President, thank you so much.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy).
The Senator from New Hampshire.
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