[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2203]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    CONGRESSIONAL PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Watson Coleman) 
is recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me thank my 
colleague, Mr. Pocan, for yielding back and giving me this opportunity 
to address the people of the United States of America.
  I am new around here, and so I like to generally listen and evaluate 
before I speak, and I only try to speak when I might have something to 
add of value.
  If you drive through my district, which is the 12th Congressional 
District of the State of New Jersey and includes a lot of highways, 
byways, and bridges, you will see this iconic sign in the capital of 
New Jersey that says, ``Trenton Makes, The World Takes.''
  It is a sign that points out the legendary industrial past of our 
community. However, this industrial revolution, it has passed us by, 
and it is a reminder of the employment that the city used to have.
  Yes, the city of Trenton was once the place that you found 
employment. The Trenton Iron Company produced the wrought iron beams 
for the dome on this U.S. Capitol Building where we stand today. 
Trenton's John Roebling's Sons Company produced wire rope that was used 
to build the Brooklyn Bridge, the now-famous George Washington Bridge, 
and the Golden Gate suspension bridge in California.
  Trenton was also known for its potterymaking, and even today, Trenton 
pottery can be found on display in museums around the world because of 
its artistry and superior craftsmanship.
  Trenton's booming industry is responsible for the invention of even 
the oyster crackers, pork roll, Bayer aspirin, and felt-tipped markers.
  Yet, today, Trenton, New Jersey, has a 15 percent unemployment rate. 
The city of Trenton's legendary industrial past does little for the 
thousands of unemployed workers searching for work today. The city has 
had a turn for the worse since the manufacturing sector has left and 
took with it great-paying jobs.
  We are not alone in that problem and this crisis. The same can be 
said for Cleveland, Ohio, or Detroit, Michigan, or Gary, Indiana, or 
Philadelphia--to name just a few--towns which were once thriving 
centers of commerce where jobs were plentiful and unemployment was 
rare. Today, these same towns face an unemployment crisis where 
securing work that enables a mother or a father to support a family is 
an elusive proposition.
  At the same time we experience this employment crisis, we also have a 
crisis in our infrastructure. New Jersey has 39,213 total miles of 
road. We are small, but we have a lot of concrete, but 35 percent of 
the major roads are in deprived condition.
  New Jersey has 6,566 bridges, but 36 percent of which are 
underfunded, considered structurally deficient, or functionally 
obsolete. Over 200 million trips are taken daily across deficient 
bridges in the Nation, but in total, one in nine of the Nation's 
bridges are rated as structurally deficient.
  You may recall, in 2007, the I-35W Mississippi River bridge in 
Minneapolis--which had been categorized as structurally deficient--
collapsed, killing 13 and injuring 145 people.
  Mr. Speaker, our bridges are crumbling, and we need to invest in 
building and fixing them. The Nation's estimated 100,000 miles of 
levees can be found in all 50 States and the District of Columbia. The 
reliability of these levees is unknown in many cases, and the country 
has yet to establish a national levee safety program.
  In 2005, New Orleans' levees failed to hold back the floodwaters of 
Hurricane Katrina, claiming the lives of more than 1,800 people and 
causing at least $125 billion in economic damage. Public safety remains 
at risk from these aging structures, and the cost to repair or 
rehabilitate these levees is roughly estimated to be $100 billion by 
the National Committee on Levee Safety.
  Mr. Speaker, these numbers are reflective of what America has become. 
I take a look at our communities today, and I see the vestiges of our 
past.
  I ask that we, as Congress, stop playing games, that we get to work 
for real this time, that we recognize that here we will have the 
opportunity to not only create safe infrastructure, not only to create 
safe bridges, not only to protect communities that are subject to 
flooding from levees, but we will also be able to create jobs.
  There is no more meaningful social action program than a good job, 
and we know that government has a history for creating those jobs in 
times of need that help not only to build the strong infrastructure of 
this great Nation, but to put families back to work, to make sure that 
they are earning a wage for which they can take care of their children, 
help provide opportunities for their families, take care of their 
elderly, ensure that their children have access to quality education, 
and ensure that our future is strong and stable, based upon the fact 
that they have had good, predictable, dependable, decent-paying jobs 
with decent wages.
  I look to our Congress, as many people do in this country, and I know 
who we really are, and I know that if we put our foot to the pedal, 
that if we decide that we are going to put this country back on a 
strong footing--metaphorically, as well as literally--I know that if we 
are understanding that if we build out and support that middle-income 
layer, those people, the working people of this Nation, that we will 
create an economy that will grow and prosper everyone from the very, 
very top to the very, very bottom.
  That is what we need to do right now in this country, from a 
bipartisan perspective, is to introduce, to advocate for, to debate, 
discuss, design, and develop an infrastructure bill with bipartisan 
support that signals to the working families and all families in this 
country that, A, we want to make sure that you are safe as you travel 
our highways and cross our bridges, that you are safe when you live 
near waterways and need to be protected with levees, and that you are 
given the opportunity to give back to your country, to build it, make 
it the strong country that it should be and, at the same time, create 
the kind of jobs that we need in order to grow our economy for 
everybody.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank you for this opportunity to speak to the 
American people today, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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