[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 21, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5181-S5183]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DRIVE ACT
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are going to be moving to the highway
bill. In fact, we are going to have the motion to proceed today at 2:15
p.m., and I think it is important that people realize the significance
of this.
We do a lot of work around here that is not really critical. There
are some issues that are. If you would like to read the Constitution
sometime when you have nothing else to do, it will tell you that what
we are supposed to be doing are two things: defending America and roads
and bridges. That is what it says in Article I, Section 8 of the
Constitution. So anytime you are sitting around with nothing to do, you
ought to read it, and you will realize that what we are going to do at
2:15 today is very significant.
Passing a long-term transportation reauthorization bill has been my
top priority since I resumed the office of the chairmanship of the
Environment and Public Works Committee. It is probably the second most
important thing we do, second only to the Defense authorization bill.
In the first hearing we had in January, we had Secretary Foxx, the
Secretary of Transportation, who is an outstanding Secretary. He is
just as concerned about this as we are. Senator Boxer and I brought in
Secretary Foxx as well as local government leaders to share the
importance of ongoing Federal and State partnerships in maintaining the
modern surface infrastructure system. Since that time, my committee has
put forward a bipartisan bill called the DRIVE Act. It is significant,
and it is not partisan. There is no such thing as a Democratic bridge
or a Republican bridge or a Democratic road or a Republican road.
Historically, Republicans have been recognized as leading in this
area, from way back in the days when President Lincoln spearheaded the
Transcontinental Railroad; Teddy Roosevelt and the Panama Canal; and,
of course, the Interstate Highway System, created by President
Eisenhower.
President Eisenhower recognized that weakened defense and interstate
commerce made our Nation vulnerable to the world. In 1952, when he
proposed the Interstate Highway System, he commented that this was
every bit as much about defending America as it was about the economy
and being able to transport commerce around the States. In laying out
the full interstate system, he envisioned it to be the physical
backbone of the economy, fueling the growth of our GDP, our cities, and
the competitiveness of our exports. This vision and certainty maximized
the economic and mobility benefits of the system. Businesses and
individuals knew that they could locate somewhere on the future
interstate system and be connected to not just the rest of the country
but the rest of the world.
This legacy system, which was built over 50 years ago, had a design
life of 50 years, and it has actually been over 60 years--close to 70
years since it was built. We are beyond our warranty period, and we are
in serious danger of eroding half a century of investments without
proper maintenance, modernization, and reconstruction. We are on
borrowed time with a system that is in full need of restoration. Our
national interstate system currently has a maintenance backlog of $185
billion on about 47,000 miles of interstate, and that is just to bring
it back to the design it was in 1956.
Maintaining Eisenhower's vision of economic opportunity and strength
in defense requires a continued partnership between the Federal
Government and the States, which is the hallmark of the DRIVE Act. Yet,
due to 33 short-term patches since 2005--I have to say this because
this is significant. We
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should be operating on a transportation reauthorization system all the
time. The last one we did was in 2005. I was the author of it, in fact.
That was a 5-year bill. Since that time, we have gone through some 30
different short-term extensions. A short-term extension doesn't do any
good. A transportation reauthorization bill is needed in order to
accomplish all the reforms that are necessary and to have time to
handle the major, large problems we have to deal with.
Passing a long-term bill is crucial to many aspects of day-to-day
life in America. More than 250 million vehicles and 18 billion tons--
valued at $17 trillion--in goods traverse across the country every
year. Yet every day 20,000 miles of our highways slow below the posted
speed limits or experience stop-and-go conditions. The National Highway
System is only 5.5 percent of the Nation's total roads, but it carries
55 percent of all vehicle traffic and 97 percent of the truck-borne
freight. We are talking about 97 percent of the freight on only 5
percent of the highways.
Congress just passed a 2-month extension. Now we have a
responsibility to pass a long-term bill.
The highway trust fund currently needs $15 billion a year to maintain
the current spending. When we started out with the highway trust fund,
that was a percentage every year. When someone would drive up and pay a
tax when buying gas, that was supposed to be for taking care of the
highways--and it did.
I can remember when I was serving in the House. The biggest problem
we had at that time was we had too much money in the highway trust
fund. We had more than we needed. I remember when President Clinton
came in. He wanted to rob the highway trust fund for all of his
programs. He got by with it for a while. That is not the problem
anymore. The problem now is there is not enough money.
The situation has changed. People are not using as much fuel. So we
have fallen short by $15 billion a year of having the amount of money
necessary to continue today's spending level. That is $15 billion a
year. This is a 6-year bill. That means about $90 billion is needed in
excess of the amount of money, revenue, that is derived from the
highway trust fund.
The DRIVE Act--that is what we call this--will put America back on
the map as the best place to do business. The DRIVE Act has several key
components that position America's transportation system to support our
growing economy. It prioritizes funding for core transportation formula
programs to provide States and local governments with a strong Federal
partner. It prioritizes the Interstate Highway System, that national
highway system, and the bridges at risk for funding shortfalls.
It creates a new multibillion-dollar-per-year freight program to help
States deliver projects and promotes the safe and efficient
transportation of goods. It targets funds for major projects in the
community, such as shown right here. This is a picture of the Brent
Spence Bridge I have in the Chamber. This goes from Kentucky to Ohio
and actually takes transportation also to Indiana. This is a very old
bridge. You can see it is going to have to be replaced.
These are the huge things you cannot do with short-term extensions.
You are going to have to have a major bill, such as the one we are
having right now.
Lastly, the DRIVE Act provides greater efficiency in the project
delivery process, reforms that put DOT in the driver's seat during the
NEPA process by requiring agencies to bring all the issues to the
table, keeping them under a deadline, and eliminating duplication.
One of the problems we have with the environmental requirements is
they end up delaying projects. So this bill gives exceptions. Let me
say that I was very proud of Senator Boxer. Senator Boxer is a very
proud liberal. I am a very proud conservative. One of the few things we
agree on is the highway bill. It does require some changes that allow
them to go ahead and keep working in spite of some of the NEPA
requirements or the environmental requirements. This gives bridge
projects special consideration, with new exemptions from section 4(f),
the historic property reviews for concrete and steel bridges--a new
exemption from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act for bridges in serious
condition.
Now, this sounds kind of off the wall, but one of the problems is the
swallows. The swallows go in there and they block--they nest in there.
So we are supposed to be repairing bridges. The swallow is not an
endangered species. It is not listed, but the Migratory Bird Treaty Act
does give them protection, and this waives that in the case of bridge
construction. It also enforces greater transparency for Federal funds
to show the taxpayers where the money is being spent.
This is just a brief overview of the bill. As the DRIVE Act
progresses on the floor, I intend to address the significance of each
program in more detail. The most important point I must address about
the DRIVE Act is that our bill sets funding levels for the next 6
years.
There is, at the very least, what the Federal Government should
provide, so States, local officials, and the construction industry can
gear up for the large $500 million to $2 billion major highway projects
and bridge projects so we can get them off the ground. They have to get
ready for it. That is what this bill does. Thousands of projects across
the Nation are currently in jeopardy, and construction will come to a
halt unless legislation becomes a reality.
Future projects like--let's go back. You saw already the Brent Spence
Bridge in Kentucky. There is also the $2.6 billion Mobile River Bridge
in Alabama. This is a projection of what it will look like. This is as
it is today. This would be impossible without something like a 6-year
bill. In DC, the Memorial Bridge is literally crumbling into the
Potomac. People do not understand what happens to these bridges. You
can see--in our case in Oklahoma, we had a bridge over I-35. In the
year 2005, as a part of that bill, that legislation, we were able to
repair it. In 2004, right before that took place, one of the chunks
came off--just like you are seeing here on the bridge--and actually
killed a young lady who was driving under it with her three children.
That is how serious this is. This is the Arlington Memorial Bridge. It
was built in 1932. Something has to be done with that. We will be able
to do projects like this.
More than just a small part of the economic success enjoyed by the
United States over the past 50 years has been the Interstate System.
Today, we literally sit at the crossroads of its future. The solution
is urgent. This is why Senator Boxer and I are bringing the DRIVE Act
to the Senate floor as a solution. It will ensure that States have the
tools and the certainty to make the necessary new investments to
rebuild Eisenhower's vision, to fight growing congestion, to maintain
the mobility of goods and services necessary to keep the economy going.
By passing the DRIVE Act, Congress will be able to take pave the way
for the next 50 years of American excellence in infrastructure.
I have to say this. The importance of this is that the only
alternative is to have short-term extensions. I am talking about 1- and
2-month extensions, of which you cannot organize your labor. The cost
of that--and by the way, I say this to my conservative friends--they
will be friends, and I can say this, since I have been ranked as the
most conservative Member of this body many times--that the conservative
position is not to oppose this massive highway bill that we are going
to have but to oppose the short-term extensions. It costs about 30
percent more for a short-term extension than it does for a highway
reauthorization bill. That is why this is so important.
Later on, I am going to go over many of the other bridges and
structures around that are going to have to be addressed. In the
meantime, this is something we are supposed to do. I kind of will end
up where we started off; that is, there is an old document that nobody
reads anymore called the Constitution. You go back and read that, you
will find out what we in this body are supposed to be doing. It is
defending America and it is providing bridges and roads.
So as we progress on this, there will not be time to go into any more
detail now because we have Members wanting to come down and use both
the Republican and Democratic time between
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now and the noon hour, but at 2:15 we are going to have a motion we
will be voting on to move to the consideration of this bill. It doesn't
say you have to be for it or against it or you want to change it.
If you want to have amendments, you have to get to the bill before
you can have amendments. So a motion-to-proceed vote will take place at
2:15. Now, I want to tell all of the Members who are out there that if
you have amendments--we are going to try to knock this thing out in 2
weeks. We are going to be down here talking about it for 2 weeks. But
if you have amendments, if you want a chance to offer your amendments,
you can offer them, but bring them down, file your amendments. If you
do not do that, we will pass a deadline and you will not be able to do
that. So I encourage our Members to do that. I look forward to the next
2 weeks of discussing and passing the second most significant bill we
will consider this year.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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