[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9761]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     REBUILDING OUR INFRASTRUCTURE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Himes) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I am moved to rise today because this House, 
starting yesterday and continuing into today, is considering a 
complicated bill called the Transportation, Housing and Urban 
Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Mr. Speaker, that 
is a complicated set of words. This is the bill, of course, in which we 
fund the Nation's transportation infrastructure.
  I rise today, Mr. Speaker, because this bill is not just bad policy, 
but it is a danger to the safety and economic health of my constituents 
and to all Americans.
  What is it that we are talking about here? We are talking about the 
money that the Congress appropriates to build and improve our highways, 
our bridges, and our railways. I wonder who in this House doesn't have 
bridges or highways or railways in their district? This is the bone, it 
is the arteries on which we build our economic growth and on which the 
jobs that we spend so much time talking about are created. Without good 
highways, without the ability to move people, goods, and services 
around this country, we are nothing. We will not be serious about 
creating jobs.
  Now, let's take a little tour on how we are doing on our highways, 
our bridges, and our railways. Just last Friday, I got caught on a 
Metro-North train in my district because a 100-year-old bridge in 
Norwalk got stuck in the open position. Thousands of my constituents 
sitting on trains and in train stations at Grand Central, at Norwalk, 
and at Stanford were unable to get home.
  There have been derailments on this rail line, including some that 
have been fatal. I live about a mile upstream of a bridge on Interstate 
95, the single biggest artery in the Northeast of the United States, 
that just shy of 20 years ago fell down, killing a bunch of people and 
creating huge economic havoc.
  This is true nationally. The stats are out there. The amount of 
investment that we need to make in this country to be competitive with 
the Chinese, with the Europeans, who are spending far more on the bones 
and sinew of their economies, is huge numbers.
  So, what are we doing about it? What are we doing about it right now 
in this House? Well, the bill I mentioned proposes to spend $70 billion 
on transportation. That sounds like a big number--a lot of zeros. But 
let's put that into context. A couple of weeks ago, this House decided 
to spend about $600 billion on our military, which is fine. It is an 
incredible military that we have. Add in security and intelligence, and 
you get a number of about $700 billion that this House chose to spend 
on our national security. That is 10 times what we are now choosing to 
spend on transportation. We are spending 10 times protecting this 
Nation than we are on actually building this Nation and providing the 
economic infrastructure that will create the economic growth and jobs 
that we all say we need--$70 billion. By the way, that is 1 percent 
less than we spent last year, and $20 billion less than the President's 
request.
  Amtrak--now I understand that many of my colleagues don't rely on 
Amtrak. I rely on it every single week, and, by the way, an awful lot 
of my colleagues do. I see them on my way down here. Amtrak is proposed 
to be reduced in funding by 15 percent--half of what the President 
thinks is necessary in his budget. Who thinks that this is a good idea, 
Mr. Speaker? Who thinks that it is a good idea in a country where we 
are supposedly serious about creating jobs to underinvest in the 
artery, the bone, and the sinew that allows us to grow jobs in this 
country? That is not a good idea. And, yet, we are fending off 
amendments to cut investment even more in our transportation 
infrastructure.
  Are there people in this country who don't sit in traffic wasting 
time that they could be spending with their family, taking away their 
focus on their businesses that they would like to grow? There aren't 
many of them, and yet this House chooses to reduce the investment in 
the country that we supposedly hold dear.
  I am tired of it, Mr. Speaker. I am tired of my constituents having 
their lives damaged, having their safety put at risk, and having their 
businesses jeopardized because we have not invested enough in our 
infrastructure. Is there a State out there, by the way, that has an 
extra billion or two dollars lying around? Because some of my 
colleagues think that maybe the States should be investing. But I am 
curious. Is there a State out there that has an extra $5 billion in 
their budget to step in where the Federal Government should be active? 
I don't think so. I don't hear that. And yet this House is about to 
reduce the spending on transportation.
  Mr. Speaker, this cannot stand.

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