[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 136 (Sunday, August 1, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S5237]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               H.R. 3684

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I also want to, first of all, thank all of 
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Senator Sinema and Senator 
Portman have taken the lead. I want to thank them both--and Senator 
Portman for taking at least 40 seconds of my time to enumerate all of 
our colleagues who were part of this effort.
  I also want to thank the staff and acknowledge, as he did, the 
incredibly important role the White House played. At some point in this 
process, the White House realized that they couldn't just support this 
initiative, but they actually had to own it, and they were intimately 
involved in all of the details, and it is something that I know they 
will share with all my Democratic colleagues.
  I also want to thank the majority leader. He has given us the time we 
need to get here, to get a 3,000--close to a 3,000-page bill to this 
floor, this comprehensive. I know it has taken a little more time than, 
maybe, all of us thought, but the fact is we have been talking about 
this for 30 years under Democrats, Republicans--both political parties 
at various times over the last 30 years--because Senator Portman is 
right. Other nations are now investing at a level much greater than 
ours. So this record of a $550 billion investment in hard 
infrastructure over 5 years has never been done before.
  Senator Manchin often pointed out, as we were sometimes feuding and 
fighting over some of the details, that no pothole ever decided it was 
only going to hit a Democrat or a Republican. It hit everybody's cars.
  We all know we have got thousands of bridges that need to be 
repaired. We all know that, post-COVID, high-speed broadband is not a 
``nice to have''; it is a necessity. We all know too many Americans go 
without access to clean drinking water.
  This legislation will be debated and, I hope, passed in a strong 
bipartisan way. We will show our country, and we will show the world 
that no country around the world can keep up with us when we make these 
kind of investments.
  I thank my colleagues.
  With that, I yield to my great friend, the Senator from Maine.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.

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