[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9618-9619]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     CONFERENCING THE HIGHWAY BILL

  Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I wish to take a moment to talk about 
another topic that I think affects us all. I just came back from my 
home in Wyoming. I heard a great deal of conversation about highways 
and the highway bill and the fact that we have not yet been able to 
pass a highway bill, both in the House and the Senate, and get 
together. The highway bill, of course, under which we have lived for 
the last 6 years, has expired, and we are doing a month or two 
extension of time. The fact is, that does not work very well. With some 
issues I suppose we could continue to do extensions. Building highways 
and upgrading highways is all done by contracts. The people responsible 
for highways need to know what their resources are going to be into the 
future so they can make those long-term decisions for highway 
construction contracts. We are unable to do that now.
  The highway bill is one of the issues before us that is time 
imperative. The Environment and Public Works Committee, of which I am a 
member, has the primary responsibility for putting out a highway bill. 
We worked on it for a long time. We brought a bill to the floor, and it 
was passed by this body. It is a very good bill. It is a larger bill 
than the one that passed out of the House, and it expends more money 
than the bill from the White House. The fact is, it is based on the 
money that is available, that is paid in taxes for highways.
  We find ourselves in a strange situation. One of the issues about 
which all of us continue to be concerned, with a good deal of success, 
I might add, is working on creating jobs. There is no short-term 
passage of any bill that would provide more jobs than the highway bill, 
and these are contracting jobs, of course, in the private sector. It 
would be helpful for us in terms of getting those jobs in place.
  The other is infrastructure. Again, there is nothing more important 
to the overall economy. Think about what it means in each of our lives, 
whether it is simply driving home, whether it is the business you are 
in, whether it is moving products all around the country. All we do is 
impacted by transportation and by highways.
  It seems that this issue of highways is more imperative than most 
anything before us, and yet we have not been able to move it and get it 
out where it belongs--out to the States.
  I am becoming more and more concerned about the fact that the Federal 
Government is getting itself involved in a lot of issues that should 
not be the focus or the role of the Federal Government. I am going to 
start pressing to see if we cannot develop a criteria as to what the 
role of the Federal Government ought to be. That is sort of what

[[Page 9619]]

the Constitution does, but we stretched it out. In fact, I am gathering 
up a list to talk about one of these days of all the various funding 
programs in the Federal Government. All of us will be amazed when we 
see the numbers and the size of the book involved in listing all those 
programs.
  Nothing could be more a function of the Federal Government, since the 
Federal Government charges a tax on every gallon of gas that we buy, 
than building an infrastructure system across the country, much of it 
Federal interstate highways. It is clearly a role for the Federal 
Government and one for which we are responsible.
  As we do that, we need to allow the priorities to be set by the 
States. I do not agree with the House procedure of assigning all the 
different specialities before it goes out of here, but rather we ought 
to decide the formula for the allocation among the States and let the 
States then set their priorities, along with the Federal Government on 
Federal highways.
  Obviously, highway systems perhaps in some ways are more important in 
rural States, such as Wyoming where we have one of the lower 
populations but have more road miles than any other State. So highways 
become very important. In other words, when those of us who work in 
Washington, DC, have to face the traffic, that becomes very important 
as well. In different ways, all of these needs are out there. We have 
an opportunity to do a great deal. We have the bill ready to go, but we 
cannot get the bill to conference so that we can begin to work out our 
differences.
  As I mentioned, there are differences among the Senate, the House, 
and the White House, but that is not the first time that has ever 
happened. There is a system for putting that together. The system is a 
conference committee.
  We cannot seem to get the contractors. The State workers and local 
governments deserve to be able to move forward and deserve to have a 
final bill out so those decisions and that movement can be made and so 
those jobs can be created and our system can be strengthened.
  The conferees need to be appointed so we can get on the bill. That is 
all that is necessary now. I know some of us would like to have things 
differently. Naturally, there are disagreements on bills of this kind, 
particularly when getting into formulas for the distribution of 
dollars, but that is true with almost everything and that is what 
conference committees are for.
  So we can move forward with that. The benefits that could come from 
it are second to none.
  Pretty clearly, we have to continue to have improvements in the 
system. We find ourselves with more congestion. As time goes on, we 
will find ourselves with more safety problems. We need to do these 
things, as well as stimulate the economy.
  So we need this bill. We need it for safety. We need it for the 
country. We need it for the energy. We need it to be able to conserve 
energy by having more efficient highways. We need to move forward on a 
number of the things that are there.
  Unfortunately, we have some obstruction going on on the floor. Much 
of it has to do with seeking to make a point about the election that is 
coming up. Obviously, caring about elections and politics is not a 
brandnew thing, but we ought not to have obstruction to moving forward 
with a system that has been in place for years, a system that does 
work, a system that does reconcile differences which we always have.
  We are held up on the energy policy, one that is very important to 
us. We are held up on class action reform. We are held up on asbestos 
legislation. We are held up on the approval of qualified judges. We are 
held up on medical liability protection. All of these issues are so 
very important. So it really hits home to us when we find ourselves in 
this situation.
  As we go about talking to people at home, health care insurance, 
medical liability being part of that, is one of the issues we hear 
about, as well as the idea of improving education and highways. Those 
are the issues in which people are interested.
  So I urge that we move forward with the system. We have done the work 
we have to do. In order to get it completed, we have to move on to a 
conference. We have to move on to reconciliation with the House and 
with the White House. It is just the system. There is just no reason to 
hold it up. We need to move forward, and we need to move forward 
quickly. So I hope we can do that.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Talent). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant journal clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sessions). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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