[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 10504]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      OUR CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, for generations, this country's 
infrastructure served as the backbone for our economic success. We 
dreamed big, we built bigger, and our economy flourished; but today our 
infrastructure is crumbling, and the growth of our economy is slow. 
Without serious long-term investments in our transportation 
infrastructure, we simply will not be able to compete in today's global 
economy.
  Over the past 50 years, as a share of our economy, our investment in 
transportation has shrunk by half. Europe now invests twice as much as 
we do in transportation. China invests four times as much. Over time, 
America has fallen into 19th place when it comes to the quality of our 
infrastructure.
  Nowhere is this more apparent than in my hometown of Chicago, where 
1,000 miles of road in the city of Chicago are in need of total 
reconstruction. 675 bridges in Cook County are structurally deficient 
or functionally obsolete. North Lake Shore Drive is one of the highest 
accident locations in the State as a result of its aging 
infrastructure.
  The CTA is a century-old transit system that desperately needs 
updates to keep up with increased capacity. Oh, by the way, the CTA in 
Chicago in 1 month carries more passengers than Amtrak does in an 
entire year.
  All of these things will cost money, but the long-term economic 
benefits they will provide will far outweigh the upfront cost. The 
President likes to say that first-class infrastructure attracts first-
class jobs, and he is right. Business needs strong infrastructure to 
grow. They need good highways and railways to move their products. They 
need reliable public transit to get their employees to work.
  Infrastructure investment requires forward thinking; it requires 
long-term planning. The fact that Congress faces its lowest public 
approval ratings ever while this country's infrastructure is crumbling 
is no coincidence. In my second year on the Appropriations Committee, I 
know all too well how little this Congress is investing in our future.
  I became an appropriator to help bring much-needed funding back to my 
city and my State, but politics has replaced progress when it comes to 
my committee's once immense power of the purse. The important work of 
the Appropriations Committee to help cities and States fund critical 
infrastructure improvements has been stymied by the inability of this 
Congress to set aside our differences and look beyond the next 
election. We are trying to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure 
one year at a time, and we are coming up short. When did we decide that 
planning one year ahead was good enough? Name one successful business 
that operates this way.
  We shouldn't be forcing cities like Chicago and States like Illinois 
to make plans based on stopgap funding measures. We owe it to our 
constituents to provide a far-reaching plan that gives cities and 
States the certainty they need to plan ahead and invest in tomorrow. We 
should be empowering cities and States to make their own choices for 
their long-term success by providing them with the funding to do so.
  It is time for this Congress to go big and plan for the long-term 
projects that will modernize our infrastructure, spur economic growth, 
create jobs. Remember, every billion dollars invested in infrastructure 
creates 30,000 jobs.
  Congress will face an important test over the next few months. Over 
the summer, the highway trust fund will run out and soon MAP-21 will 
expire. Allowing Federal funding for transportation projects to run out 
would force States to stop ongoing projects, risking over 700,000 jobs 
over the next year.
  The consequences for inaction are too great. It is time for Congress 
to step up to the plate and finally enact a long-term highway bill that 
reforms the trust fund and makes it solvent for years to come, because 
as President Reagan said: rebuilding our infrastructure is an 
investment in tomorrow we must make today.

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