[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1437-1438]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       SURFACE TRANSPORTATION ACT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, in the 1950s, America embarked on the 
largest public works project in its history: a new web of interstate 
highways. This came about as a result of then-President Eisenhower 
reflecting upon a time when he was given an assignment as a young major 
to bring a caravan of vehicles across the country as part of his duties 
in the Army. It was a terrible experience--roads were dilapidated, 
rutted--and it was something he never forgot.
  When he became President of the United States, he decided something 
should be done about that. This was a tremendous undertaking; 47,000 
miles of highways would, for the first time, connect businesses and 
communities from sea to shining sea. President Eisenhower--of course, a 
Republican--said the investment would pave the way for a new era of 
American growth. He said:

       America will be a nation of great prosperity, but will be 
     more than that: it will be a nation that is going ahead every 
     day. . . . The expanding horizon is one that staggers the 
     imagination.

  President Eisenhower said a new highway system was essential to our 
economy, our safety, and our progress as a nation. That is just as true 
today as it was in 1954.
  Today, America depends on more than 4 million miles of roadways to 
keep our economy humming. We use those roads to take the kids across 
town to school and to take products across the Nation to market. But 
the system of highways, roadways, railways, and bridges upon which the 
American economy depends--and in which we invested our great resources 
during the last century--has fallen into a state of disrepair.
  This is hard to comprehend, but more than 70,000 of our bridges are 
structurally deficient. They need major repairs or need to be replaced 
completely--70,000 bridges. Every month in America enough pedestrians 
are killed to fill a jumbo jet. Many of these deaths could have been 
prevented by proper sidewalks and crosswalks. Bus and train ridership 
grows every year while public transportation dollars shrink every year. 
One of every five miles of American roads is not up to safety 
standards.
  Let me repeat: We have 70,000 bridges that are structurally 
deficient, and we have 20 percent of our roads not up to safety 
standards. Crumbling infrastructure is a terrible drag on our economy. 
But this crisis is also an opportunity. By rebuilding our 
transportation system, we can put 2 million Americans back to work and 
boost our economy right away.
  The surface transportation bill that is on the Senate floor this week 
is one of the most important pieces of legislation we will consider the 
entire year. It will help modernize our transit system, rebuild 
America's roads and bridges, and create or save millions of middle-
class jobs. And, it will do it in a fiscally responsible way.
  Democrats and Republicans agree that making America's transportation 
system great again will boost our economy, and that is what this bill 
is all about. It is a bipartisan bill sponsored, of course, by the 
chairman of the committee Barbara Boxer and the ranking member of the 
committee Senator Inhofe.
  President Reagan called a world-class transportation system an 
investment in tomorrow that we must make today. So it is no wonder this 
strong bipartisan surface transportation legislation passed the 
committee unanimously. I am cautiously optimistic that spirit of 
cooperation will continue this week.
  I hope the junior Senator from South Carolina did not speak for the 
majority of Republicans last week when he said, ``We don't have shared 
goals with the Democrats.'' I would like to believe Republicans share 
our goal of strengthening the economy and creating millions of jobs for 
American workers. I would like to believe they share a goal, as 
Eisenhower and Clinton and Reagan did, of rebuilding a world-class 
transportation system to support a world-class economy.
  This week Republicans have an opportunity to prove they share these

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goals. The surface transportation jobs bill is too important to get 
bogged down with ideological amendments. Unrelated legislation that 
would limit women's access to health care has no place on a 
transportation bill. So let's stay laser-focused on our most important 
task: putting 2 million Americans back to work rebuilding our roadways 
and railways. Together we can keep this Nation, as President Eisenhower 
said, ``moving ahead every day.''

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