[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17333-17334]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   PASSAGE OF THE TRANSPORTATION BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Nolan) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, I would like to begin 
by thanking Chairman Shuster, chairman of the Transportation and 
Infrastructure Committee, and Ranking Member DeFazio, for bringing 
forth here to floor of the House a long-term transportation bill.
  It is the product of numerous hearings that have been held over the 
last

[[Page 17334]]

couple of years, and those hearings were interesting in that, 
universally, whether we were hearing from the head of the national 
Chamber of Commerce, or hearing from the head of the AFL- CIO and/or 
the trade unions that build our infrastructure, the message was always 
the same.
  First of all, it was a recognition of the obvious: bridges are 
falling down, trains are coming off the track. It is tragic and costly 
in terms of dollars and loss of life.

                              {time}  1100

  Secondly, it was pointed out by everybody that this failure is 
handicapping our economy--our ability to expand business, to create 
jobs, and to grow our economy.
  Thirdly, everyone testified that we need a long-term surface 
transportation legislation so that States, communities, and our Federal 
transportation officials can do the kind of planning that is necessary 
to build the kind of transportation system that is needed for a strong 
economy.
  Lastly, I want to point out that this legislation before us here 
today is the product of what has come to be known as regular order; 
namely, the process where important legislation for the country is 
brought before the appropriate committees and the committees and all 
the members of that committee have an opportunity to offer any ideas, 
any amendments that they want that they think will improve, in this 
case, our surface transportation system.
  The fact of the matter is we have hundreds of amendments, and that 
committee, on which I am proud to serve, examined and considered every 
single one of those amendments.
  Mr. Speaker, it is important to remind ourselves here that democracy 
is a long, arduous, and difficult process, but when you allow the 
members of a committee who have spent enormous amounts of time getting 
smart and knowledgeable about the responsibilities of that committee to 
come together, to offer their ideas, to have them thoroughly examined, 
and to have them thoroughly debated is how you find common ground. That 
is how you come together. That is how you build and develop respect for 
one another, and that is what has happened in the development of this 
surface transportation bill that we have before us here today.
  Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the committee, and I congratulate the 
Congress for recognizing how important and how valuable regular order 
can be to the process of restoring people's confidence in the ability 
of the Congress of the United States to fix things, get things done, 
and end the gridlock. Thank you, my fellow colleagues.

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