[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 110 (Thursday, June 24, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4749-S4750]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             INFRASTRUCTURE

  Mr. COONS. Madam President, let me also, if I can, speak for a few 
more moments about the historic deal reached earlier today on 
infrastructure.
  This is about creating jobs. This is about investing in our economy 
and our communities and our country, and this is about strengthening 
the United States globally against our adversaries and competitors.
  I need not remind you that just 1 year ago public health and economic 
crises created by the COVID-19 pandemic were ravaging communities all 
over our Nation. And today, under the leadership of the Biden 
administration, COVID-19 cases and deaths are down by over 90 percent. 
More than 70 percent of adults over the age of 30 have been vaccinated. 
As a result, businesses are opening, communities are opening, States 
are opening, our unemployment rate has come down significantly, and our 
economy is recovering at a robust pace.
  But if our economy is going to be sustainable, if it is going to be 
long term, if it is going to be robust, we have to make long-overdue 
investments in infrastructure. Globally, the United States now ranks 
13th in infrastructure. In every State, we have roads, bridges, 
tunnels, and water systems that are crumbling or aged. Just in my 
little State of Delaware, we have more than 200 miles of highway deemed 
in poor condition.
  And as the climate continues to change, low-lying States like mine 
are particularly susceptible to increased damage. We had more than 10 
extreme weather events causing up to $2 billion of damage in the last 
decade, and a lot of that damaged our infrastructure because it is 
built right up against the waterways, the coasts, the bays.
  We have one of the most important rail lines in the entire country, 
the

[[Page S4750]]

Northeast corridor, that runs right through Wilmington, DE. One day 
without service on this Northeast corridor costs our economy $100 
million. And that day isn't hypothetical; it happened during Superstorm 
Sandy, the hurricane that pummeled the east coast a few years ago.

  Across our State and every State, infrastructure is in dire need of 
repair, of resiliency, and of upgrade, and doing that can help create 
jobs and strengthen our country.
  We are losing our competitive edge, and our global competitors, like 
China, are outpacing us. That is why I was so encouraged to see the 
bipartisan U.S. Innovation and Competition Act pass this body just a 
few weeks ago. A key piece of it was the bipartisan CHIPS Act that 
recognizes we need to invest in cutting-edge R&D, in semiconductors, 
and in the industries of the future.
  But we can't move people, capital, products, and ideas if we don't 
invest in our infrastructure--in the broadband, the highways, the 
ports, and the roads that make us competitive globally.
  The $559 billion in new Federal spending on infrastructure that is 
the core of the deal announced today is a downpayment on rebuilding our 
roads and bridges, fixing our lines of public transit, and expanding 
port and airport capacity. It also includes $47 billion toward climate 
resiliency, critically needed work to make sure that our infrastructure 
can sustain the growing storms all across our country.
  I think this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put America on 
the right track and exactly at a moment when the leaders of China and 
Russia are telling the world that American democracy can't work; that 
the riot that occurred in this building on January 6 is foreshadowing 
the collapse, the failure of American democracy. It is important for us 
to show our citizens here at home and our competitors abroad that 
American democracy still works and that we can deliver meaningful 
solutions for our States, for our country, and for the world.
  There is a lot more for us to accomplish on President Biden's 
agenda--the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan--and we 
will have to move that forward, but I think this is a day for us to 
celebrate legislating together and finding a pathway to the House and 
to the President's desk for the biggest investment in infrastructure of 
my lifetime.
  This is a great day for this institution and our country.

                          ____________________