[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 13 (Thursday, January 20, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S374-S375]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Infrastructure

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, 10 minutes ago there was a different 
Nevadan Senator sitting at the Presiding Officer's chair. Welcome.
  I was at a roundtable this morning with a group of Ohio county 
commissioners from conservative counties like Warren and Medina and 
more progressive counties like Lucas and Hamilton--Republicans and 
Democrats alike; male, female; a good cross section of Ohio leaders--
talking about the projects we are going to build and the good-paying 
jobs we are going to create--jobs that will not be off-shored this time 
because we came together to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
  Yesterday, I was on a media call with the Republican mayor of 
Findlay, OH, about the I-75 bridge project that they need in Hancock 
County.
  The day before, I was at another roundtable with western Ohio 
leaders, talking with them about how we can leverage these investments. 
It is some of the most important work I am going to be doing over the 
coming months, working with local and Federal officials to make sure 
this investment translates into Ohio jobs.
  The Presiding Officer understands this, that we pass legislation 
here. With it, sometimes, comes a good bit of money, like with 
infrastructure. But it is also up to us, as representing our States, to 
make sure those dollars are spent efficiently and effectively and 
quickly, frankly.
  The infrastructure bill is some of the most important work we have 
done in the Senate in a long time. We are investing in our country.
  For years, mayors and businesses and workers have been telling us, as 
their representatives, as their Senators, about the need to upgrade 
infrastructure, but we have noticed over the years that candidates of 
both parties have promised infrastructure. ``We are going to pass 
an infrastructure bill when I am elected,'' they say. Plenty talk about 
it, but now, with a new President and a new majority in the Senate and 
the House, we are finally getting it done with this bipartisan 
infrastructure bill.

  Over the past few months, I have heard from communities about the 
projects that this is going to allow them to accomplish.
  In Toledo, with the mayor, talking about the city's plans to replace 
lead pipes--my State has the dubious distinction of being the second 
leading State, if you will. Our State has the second-most lead-
contaminated pipes from main water lines and the pipes going into 
people's homes. We have 600,000 pipes like that going into people's 
homes that have high levels of lead.
  And science has known, paint companies have known, lead manufacturers 
have known that infants, babies ingest lead. It affects their brain 
development for the rest of their lives. So one of our goals, working 
with the mayor of Toledo, is over the next several years to replace 
those pipes.
  Ohio will get someone $1 billion in new funding to improve water 
infrastructure.
  The Western Hills Viaduct in Cincinnati, the Patterson Avenue Bridge 
in Dayton--Ohio has some 3,200 bridges eligible for upgrades. Some of 
them, like the Brent Spence, unbelievably, across the Ohio River, 
carries 3 percent of GDP every day across that river.
  Some of those bridges are--when I grew up working the family farm, 
driving a tractor with a hay wagon crossing little culvert bridges that 
dot our countryside and all over my State, many of those are in states 
of disrepair.
  We have seen the new pollution-free buses that communities like Akron 
and Canton, Columbus, and Lake County are rolling out through Laketran, 
their transit system. We have heard about how they are going to expand 
service so people can get to work and school.
  We have some 60,000 buses--big city buses--and another 50 or 60,000 
small transit, more rural buses, that need to be replaced. They are 
fossil fuel, mostly diesel engines, and we are going to replace those 
over the next several years with low-emission or zero-emission buses.
  From the Port of Ashtabula, the community my wife grew up in, we are 
hearing about how upgrades to our ports will increase investment and 
help speed up and grow Ohio supply chains.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, this Congress, this Senate and the 
House, frankly, over the years, at the behest of corporate lobbyists, 
sold us out on trade agreements, sold us out on tax policy, so that so 
many jobs left our country. The industrial Midwest was hit the hardest, 
but every State was hit by that job loss because of bad government 
policy, again, lobbied by some of the largest corporations in the 
world--the tech companies, the drug companies, the oil industry.
  We now have a President who wants to get it right and bring those 
supply chains closer to home.
  Now this, we also see how Ohio needs better rail infrastructure--new 
rail cars for Cleveland RTA, better Amtrak service, safer rail 
crossings.
  But, fundamentally, this bill--the infrastructure bill--is a jobs 
bill. It will create construction jobs, to be sure. It will create 
jobs--union jobs: carpenters, millwrights, electricians, plumbers and 
pipe fitters, sheet metal workers, laborers. It will create those kinds 
of jobs but also create manufacturing jobs through the supply chain.
  Senator Portman and I worked to make sure this bill has the strongest 
``Buy America'' requirements ever in an infrastructure bill with our 
Build America, Buy America Act.
  Every one of these projects will come with the strongest ever ``Buy 
America'' rules. No more bridges--no more bay bridges in Northern 
California--made entirely with Chinese steel.
  We introduced the ``Build America, Buy America'' bill on President 
Trump's inauguration day. Unfortunately, nothing moved because 
everything got crowded out of President Trump's agenda so they could 
give a huge tax cut to the richest people in the country.
  We worked with other leaders now, 4 years later, with a new 
President, to get it right.
  With ``Buy America'' particularly, I call out Senator Baldwin from 
Wisconsin, Senator Peters from Michigan and their work.
  We are putting in place a clear, permanent standard: If American tax 
dollars are involved, American workers should be getting the jobs. It 
is going to mean more contracts for Ohio businesses.
  Cleveland Cliffs' new plant in Toledo, talking about what we are 
doing there, it is the cleanest steel making, I believe, in the entire 
world at that new plant.
  Owens Corning in Toledo; Gradall Industries in New Philadelphia, OH, 
on the edge of Appalachia.
  We have the potential for hundreds more bridge projects around the 
State using American rebar, American steel, American iron.
  It is an investment in Ohio that will pay off, creating jobs now, 
both during construction and up and down the supply chain. It will help 
attract new businesses. It will help keep the existing

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ones. It will connect people with their jobs and businesses.
  I will spend pretty much every day, and my staff will too, making 
sure that our State gets its fair share of this investment and these 
jobs.
  If you believe in the dignity of work, you fight for the people who 
make this country work. We are seeing results.
  On Wednesday, the mayor of Findlay and I were talking about the Biden 
administration's announcement of $100 million in initial bridge funding 
already on the way to Ohio. That focus will continue.
  We are doing roundtables. We are doing briefings with Federal 
officials, with local township trustees and county officials and mayors 
and city officials and State officials, talking about how they can 
apply for Federal funding, and to make sure communities are best 
positioned to make the most of this infrastructure.
  Our goal is to leverage this investment to create jobs in every city, 
in every county, in every township across my great State.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.

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