[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 72 (Tuesday, April 27, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2206-S2207]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Infrastructure

  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I like to think that infrastructure is 
in my DNA. My father was Jerry Strobel, a civil engineer who spent his 
entire career with the Nebraska Department of Transportation. Now, that 
was back when it was still called the Department of Roads. He 
eventually became director/State engineer and served under two 
different Governors, Kay Orr and Ben Nelson, one Republican and one 
Democrat.
  My dad used to take my two brothers and me on weekend road trips 
across Nebraska to check up on our infrastructure--trips that he would 
call ``inspection tours.'' Many of the photos that I have from my 
childhood are of my brothers and me standing on partially finished 
bridges, in front of bulldozers, and next to highways that were under 
various stages of completion. He taught me how to drop a plumb line and 
showed me how to handle his surveying equipment.
  Those trips with my dad taught me that infrastructure takes a long 
time to plan, it takes a long time to permit, and it takes a long time 
to build. Even short stretches of a single highway can sometimes--well, 
it can take years to finish. To get the most out of our limited 
taxpayer resources, we must condense that process to save both time and 
money.
  I learned that reliable infrastructure doesn't happen by accident, 
and when I was elected to the Nebraska Legislature, I brought that 
appreciation with me. As chair of the Transportation and 
Telecommunications Committee, I introduced bills like the Nebraska 
Build Act. The new revenue from that bill has funded over a dozen 
important infrastructure projects across Nebraska.
  Nebraskans and all Americans know what actual infrastructure is. It 
is roads and bridges, but it is also ports and airports and railroads 
and pipelines and waterways and broadband. Those things are a core 
responsibility of government. The American people also know what 
infrastructure is not. If Congress passes a bill to reform Medicare, 
that is not infrastructure; that is healthcare.
  We all know that words don't change their meaning overnight to suit 
one party or the other's political goals, but President Biden seems to 
think they do. He is asking us to support an infrastructure proposal 
that could eventually top $2.7 trillion, which redefines that word to 
mean policies such as climate research and federally funded home or 
community care services--things that have nothing to do with what we 
have traditionally called infrastructure.
  Less than 6 percent of the $2.25 trillion that is identified in the 
Biden proposal would go to roads and bridges. Barely 4 percent would go 
to broadband, and less than 2 percent is for airports. At the same 
time, hundreds of billions of dollars would be funneled to things like 
housing, Medicare, and electric vehicles.
  The President wants to enact trillions of dollars in new taxes to pay 
for

[[Page S2207]]

all of this. Proposals being discussed include raising the capital 
gains tax to the highest level in history, as well as forcing American 
businesses--and then, ultimately, their customers--to pay the highest 
combined corporate tax rate in the developed world. Congressional 
Democrats have also proposed getting rid of the estate tax exemption, 
which would make the Federal death tax apply to hard-working, middle-
class families for the first time in decades. This would hit our small, 
family Main Street businesses and our family farms, making it even more 
difficult to pass their life's work on to their children.
  Infrastructure has always been bipartisan, and it has always enjoyed 
widespread support. I would gladly--I would gladly--support a bill that 
takes our very real infrastructure problems seriously, and I told 
President Biden that when I met with him at the White House a few weeks 
ago. But his proposal simply doesn't do that. The President's plan asks 
the Senate to vote for a policy wish list of priorities that no one--no 
one outside of Washington, DC's bubble--has ever dreamed of calling 
infrastructure.
  When it comes to real infrastructure, the Senate does have bipartisan 
roots. We passed the FAST Act by a vote of 83 to 16 under President 
Obama in 2015. We passed an FAA reauthorization 93 to 6 under President 
Trump. And the Senate unanimously approved water development bills and 
my pipeline safety bill last year. I see no reason why the 
administration can't tackle this important issue in a bipartisan way 
once again, and the President, who represented Delaware in the Senate 
for more than 35 years, knows better than most that we do this every 
day. We do it on bills like the HAULS Act, which I reintroduced in 
March to provide more flexibility to ag and livestock haulers and which 
has won support by both Republicans and Democrats. There is also 
bipartisan support for my bill to establish an online portal for 
reporting blocked railroad crossings.
  My Democratic colleagues and I find common ground on infrastructure 
more often than we disagree, and that includes bills like the Rural 
Spectrum Accessibility Act, which made internet access more widely 
available in rural areas.
  History shows that infrastructure is a bipartisan issue, and it can 
be once again. But, right now, our friends on the other side of the 
aisle are pushing this wish list of priorities for their progressive 
agenda and calling it infrastructure.
  For our part, Senate Republicans have made it clear that we are 
willing to work with the President on a bill that actually addresses 
our Nation's ailing infrastructure and makes targeted investments to 
meet the needs that we have.
  We introduced our own framework last week. It draws on our past 
bipartisan successes, like the FAST Act, and it focuses on roads and 
bridges, broadband, and other actual infrastructure. It matches or 
raises the funding levels in the FAST Act, such as $299 billion versus 
$226 billion for roads and bridges, and provides nearly twice as much 
funding for transportation safety programs and rail and Amtrak grants.
  We have spent enormous amounts of money in the last year to deal with 
COVID-19, and Republicans and Democrats both voted for five bills, 
totaling around $4 trillion, to address that very real crisis. Another 
$1.9 trillion passed on a partisan basis in January. That is $6 
trillion of new spending in 1 year--$6 trillion of new spending in 1 
year. That level of spending is not sustainable. Adding another $2.7 
trillion that is in the President's plan to this spending that we 
already have is not sustainable.
  Our proposal is clear that funding for infrastructure should be 
fiscally responsible. It should use existing, proven formula programs 
as much as possible, and it should make regulations less burdensome. 
This is what President Biden should be focused on, and I hope that he 
takes us up on our offer.
  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. PETERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.