[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 16407-16408]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I want to congratulate the members of the 
Senate who, by a very large vote today, passed the minibus legislation 
which, among many other important things, will provide $1.9 billion for 
the Department of Transportation's emergency relief fund. What that 
will do is help the Department deal with the backlog of disaster 
situations around the country that they previously were not able to 
deal with; and, from the perspective of the State of Vermont, it will 
help us deal with the devastation we experienced in terms of our roads 
and our bridges and our infrastructure as a result of Hurricane Irene.
  In many communities around the State, we saw washouts, we saw bridges 
destroyed or damaged, and roads disappear. While Vermont is certainly 
prepared to do everything it can to come up with funds to help, there 
is no question but that the Federal Government needs to be there, as it 
has always been in the past when disaster strikes a community in 
America.
  The name of our country is the United--U-N-I-T-E-D--States of 
America. What that means is if a disaster hits Minnesota or California, 
the people of Vermont are there to help. That is what we do as a 
nation. And when disaster hits Vermont or New Jersey, people in other 
parts of the country are there.
  We made good progress today. I want to congratulate Senator Leahy and 
the other members of the Appropriations Committee for coming up with 
this funding. Now the ball goes to our colleagues in the House, and now 
is the

[[Page 16408]]

time for the House to stand tall, to support what we have done here in 
the Senate, and make sure that communities all over this country get 
the emergency funding they need in transportation in order to rebuild 
their communities.

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