[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6360]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   TIME TO PASS A TRANSPORTATION BILL

  (Mr. MORAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, Ronald Reagan was the last President to raise 
the Federal gasoline tax to support transportation programs when he 
signed the Surface Transportation Act of 1982. He justified the gas tax 
increase as necessary to pay for needed investments in building and 
maintaining our Nation's surface transportation infrastructure and to 
help jump-start an economy that was then also stuck in a recession. He 
referred to the highway bill as a ``jobs'' bill to promote economic 
growth.
  Since that bill was signed into law back in January of 1983, 
Republican-controlled Congresses have allowed the highway fund to go 
bankrupt, necessitating multiple infusions from general funds to allow 
it to limp along with short-term extensions of current law. Today, some 
within this Chamber won't even support a Federal transportation bill at 
current funding levels, as if the crumbling interstates and growing 
list of structurally deficient bridges are no longer a Federal 
responsibility. Instead, they insist on including unrelated measures 
like the Keystone XL pipeline that is designed to stall completion of 
even a modest, multiyear transportation authorization.
  Mr. Speaker, the Keystone XL pipeline should have nothing to do with 
the transportation bill and will have no impact on gasoline prices 
despite what its advocates claim. Today, there is already an estimated 
20-year excess capacity of oil pipelines from Canada to the United 
States. This is about being able to export oil from the gulf coast to 
other countries.
  Mr. Speaker, it's time to pass a responsible transportation bill for 
the 21st century.

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