[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 108 (Monday, July 13, 2015)]
[House]
[Page H5108]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HIGHWAY TRUST FUND

  (Mr. TONKO asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, we are closing in on yet another deadline and 
yet another needlessly manufactured crisis at the end of this month: 
the reauthorization of the highway trust fund.
  Two months ago this body passed a short-term extension of the highway 
trust fund at the very last minute, as is standard procedure nowadays 
here in the House, temporarily protecting 660,000 jobs and extending 
6,000 critical construction projects.
  Republican House leadership has had more than a year to craft a bill 
that would repair our crumbling infrastructure, provide certainty to 
States, and protect hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs hanging 
in the balance.
  Enough of this brinkmanship. Enough of this manufactured crisis. 
Enough of the short-term patches that waste time and money on problems 
that we create for ourselves.
  It is time to pass a commonsense, ambitious, and long-term extension 
of the highway trust fund that rebuilds, renews, and puts America to 
work.
  We just heard memorialized on this floor the former chair, the late 
Jim Oberstar, who headed the Transportation and Infrastructure 
Committee. He knew this was a sound investment in America. Let's go 
forward with that.

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