[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4564-4568]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              BUDGET WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) is recognized 
for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time, and I would like to 
start our time tonight by yielding to my friend from Florida (Ms. 
Wilson).


              We Brought Back Five of the Kidnapped Girls

  Ms. WILSON of Florida. Thank you, Representative Woodall, for this 
honor and this pleasure. I am indebted to you forever. Thank you.
  I just finished making a speech about Boko Haram and girls who were 
kidnapped in Nigeria. Five of them are in the gallery today, and I 
thought it not robbery to recognize them and ask you who are listening 
to please tweet #bringbackourgirls and tweet #joinrepwilson. These 
young ladies were kidnapped, and they had the courage--the courage--to 
come to America to continue their education. They are right there in 
the gallery.
  Thank you, Representative Woodall.
  Mr WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, as you know, this is the conclusion of 
budget week here. I sit on the Budget Committee. I enjoy budget week. 
It is a statement of our values as a nation. Where you put your money 
is where you are putting your emphasis. A lot of folks don't want to 
put their money where their mouth is. We have a lot of mouths in this 
town. This is the week where everybody gets to put their money where 
their mouth is.
  One of those issues that we have been struggling with has been the 
issue of transportation funding. I come from a very conservative 
district in Georgia, Mr. Speaker, and one of the counties--I only 
represent two--one of those counties, Forsyth County, just voted to tax 
itself with a $200 million bond initiative to widen a highway. Because 
we are the fastest growing county in the State, we sit in traffic hour 
upon hour upon hour.
  It is not that conservatives don't want to tax themselves. It is that 
conservatives don't want to tax themselves and then throw that money 
down a rat hole. If we can develop a trust that, if you tax a family a 
dollar that they will get a dollar's worth of services--needed 
services, desired services--for that dollar, we would have a very 
different relationship with the Federal Government.

                              {time}  1245

  Mr. Speaker, I have up here a reference to article I, section 8, 
clause 7 of the United States Constitution which says:

       The Congress shall have the power to establish post offices 
     and post roads.

  Commerce, at the time of the writing of our Constitution, Mr. 
Speaker, took place through the post office and those post roads. There 
was an obligation that our Founding Fathers recognized to develop 
routes of commerce so that goods could travel, so that messages could 
travel, so that people could travel.
  I say that because too often the conversation in Washington devolves 
into: Should we spend money at all, or should we spend obscene amounts 
of it that we have to borrow from our children? That is not the 
conversation we are having. We have a constitutional obligation to 
maintain, establish and maintain the post roads, those corridors of 
commerce around this Nation. The Federal Government took that 
responsibility on in one of the great building projects of our history, 
building the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.
  I want to build things, Mr. Speaker. So often this Congress gets 
involved in doing things that my community is doing just fine back 
home, that my county is doing just fine back home, that my State is 
doing just fine back home. And for some reason we think when the 435 of 
us gather together, we are going to come up with a better idea about 
how to better serve my community back home than my community back home 
has about how to serve my community. I think we get off track there. I 
think we get into those unconstitutional uses of power. Establishing 
post roads--one of those things our Founding Fathers asked the 
government to do, because, quite simply, no one else can build an 
interstate highway system. It does no good for Georgia to have 12 lanes 
running to the Alabama border if Alabama doesn't have a road when we 
get there. This is a collaborative decision, and rightfully so.
  So how do we fund these highways, Mr. Speaker? We fund them primarily 
through what is called the highway trust fund, and the highway trust 
fund is funded through taxes on users of the highway system. I am a 
huge fan of user fees. If you don't like to sit in traffic every 
morning, if you want to build an extra lane on your highway, as we are 
in Forsyth County, you should pay to build that extra lane on your 
highway. You shouldn't ask somebody in Wyoming to pay to build the road 
in Georgia. We should build the road in Georgia. Users of the roads 
should pay for the roads. So that is what we do.
  What you can't see here, Mr. Speaker, is a graph of how the highway 
trust fund is funded. Primarily, it is through a gas tax. It is 18.4 
cents that comes out of every gallon of gas that Americans buy. That 
gas tax is primarily the funding mechanism.
  But we also tax diesel, so all the truckers who are on the road, 
every time you are driving down that two-lane highway and you wish the 
guy in front of you was going a little bit faster, just know that he is 
paying a lot in

[[Page 4565]]

taxes while he is on that road. He is helping to build that road. 
Diesel taxes are higher than gasoline taxes, but because there are 
fewer diesel vehicles on the road, bring in less revenue.
  We also have a tax on all trucks and trailers. We have a tax in this 
blue line on heavy vehicles, and we have a tax on tires. Again, all of 
these taxes come together not to tax one group of people to pay for 
another, but to tax users of our roads to pay for our roads. It has 
been a system that has served us fairly well in this Nation.
  But we haven't raised that gas tax since the early 1990s. In the 
early 1990s, we set the gas tax at 18.4 cents a gallon, and we haven't 
raised it since. Mr. Speaker, I am not in favor of raising taxes. I am 
in favor of paying less taxes. I am in favor of taking on more of that 
responsibility back home.
  But, again, in the case of post roads, we have to take on this 
responsibility. And the reason I am having this Special Order tonight, 
Mr. Speaker, is because the highway trust fund expires in May. We have 
about 2 months to sort out all of the challenges of how do we fund the 
Interstate Highway System going forward.
  And for folks who say, Well, we have been funding it with an 18.4 
cent gas tax for 25 years, why isn't that good enough today? The answer 
is, it may be; it may be good enough today. But understand that the 
buying power that we are getting out of that 18.4 cents has declined 
each and every year. Of course it has. The price of a Big Mac has gone 
up over the past 20 years, the price of a car has gone up over the past 
20 years, the price of a home has gone up, the price of building roads 
has gone up, so the purchasing power that we are getting for our gas 
tax has gone down and down and down and down. Right now we are getting 
about 60 percent of the value out of that gas tax that we were getting 
when it was last changed in the early 1990s.
  Now, what is the impact of that? Well, it is not just that the value 
of the purchasing power is going down; the mileage we are getting in 
our cars is going up.
  My first car, Mr. Speaker--I don't know what your first car was--mine 
was a 1971 Volkswagen camper. I had 59 horsepower in the back of that 
camper to drive me anywhere I wanted to go. If I coasted downhill and 
only used the accelerator a little bit uphill, I would max out about 35 
miles an hour. But I could get 14 miles a gallon if I tried. If I tried 
to drive that camper as efficiently as I could, I could get 14 miles to 
the gallon.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, I am driving a Chevy Volt. Most of my driving is 
free. It is coming off the battery. I am not paying any gas taxes at 
all. When I do have to turn on the electric generator in that Chevy 
Volt, I am getting 40 miles to the gallon. Just in my lifetime, the 
fuel efficiency is either triple, based on an engine, or no gas tax at 
all because I am using electricity.
  This is what has happened. You go back to 1975, Mr. Speaker, this is 
the average miles per gallon that passenger cars and light trucks were 
getting. You get into the last half of the last decade, you see that 
fuel efficiency is driving sharply forward, and the Obama 
administration wants to drive that fuel efficiency even higher. I am in 
favor of using private industry to create more efficient solutions. I 
am in favor of being able to reduce the fuel costs of families across 
this country. But what that is going to do as families are buying fewer 
and fewer gallons of gasoline is that the highway trust fund is going 
to get smaller and smaller and smaller.
  Take a look at what has happened with the highway trust fund, Mr. 
Speaker. Beginning back in, I would say, the early 1990s, when folks 
were buying lots of gasoline and fuel costs were relatively low, the 
economy was doing well. We were running a trust fund surplus. Again, 
all of this gas tax money is coming in from all of these sources. We 
were spending it on those priorities that we have in the Interstate 
Highway System. Some of those priorities were building new interstate 
highways, some of those priorities were maintaining old interstate 
highways, some of those priorities were simply widening part of the 
Interstate Highway System. But we operated with a bit of a surplus in 
the transportation trust fund.
  The reason this conversation has to happen today, Mr. Speaker, is 
that folks are returning to their districts for 2 weeks, where they are 
going to be hearing from folks who are sitting in that traffic, where 
they are going to be hearing from folks whose contracts to build those 
highways are about to expire. They are going to hear from their 
Governors and their state legislators who are no longer able to let the 
contracts for needed projects. Why? Because the money is expiring in 2 
months. We are starting to run a trust fund deficit. There is not 
enough money coming in to meet the current needs.
  Mr. Speaker, I don't really enjoy talking about the current needs. I 
didn't run for Congress to be in the maintenance business. I ran for 
Congress to be in the transformation business. I am more than a little 
embarrassed that what we are talking about here is, How do we maintain 
and improve the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. Eisenhower was 
long gone from office before I was even born.
  We are talking about how to maintain this infrastructure. I would 
like to be in the driverless car infrastructure business. I would like 
to be in the hypersonic jet infrastructure business. But where we are, 
because the calendar dictates it, is: How do we continue to maintain 
safe highways just 2 months from now?
  You can't see these tick marks, Mr. Speaker, but we are talking about 
in the ballpark of $50 billion a year that goes into this effort, 
thousands and thousands and thousands of miles of interstate highways 
around the country, about $50 billion a year. The deficits are running 
down ultimately, by the end of our 10-year budget window, to almost 
$130 billion in highway deficits. We have to find a way to meet those 
needs.
  We had a hearing in our committee just the other day, the 
Transportation Committee, Mr. Speaker, and I want to quote the mayor of 
Salt Lake City. He was there on behalf of the National League of 
Cities. This is not a notoriously conservative organization. Mayors are 
a practical bunch by nature. They have to respond to the needs of all 
of their citizens. They are a relatively liberal bunch by nature. But 
he says this:
  I can tell you as someone who has spent a career working as a NEPA 
planner and lawyer that what has happened with what I view as an 
absolutely great environmental law, the National Environmental Policy 
Act, is truly unfortunate. We have gone from processes that should be a 
year or year and a half to processes that are 5 to 7 years in many big 
transportation projects.
  NEPA is the Environmental Policy Act. That is what federally 
regulates all environmental decisions across the country, particularly 
as it relates to construction.
  Time is money, Mr. Speaker, in transportation projects. There is not 
a Member in this Chamber who wants to see environmental degradation in 
this country. There is not a Member in this Chamber who wants to see 
the sky is less blue or the grass less green. Every Member in this 
Chamber cares about children and grandchildren and the next generation.
  But here we have an advocate for the environmental protection laws 
that are available to us in this country and he says: Something has 
gone awry. We wrote this wonderful law in order to protect our 
environment, but now, instead of being able to complete needed projects 
in a year or 18 months, with litigation, special interest groups, these 
processes get dragged on for 5, 6, or 7 years, and that time means more 
money out of the highway trust fund in order to complete that project.
  So what are we going to do, Mr. Speaker, about these coming trust 
fund deficits? Well, one thing we can do is help to address the policy 
failures that are delivering less than a dollar's worth of value to my 
constituents and your constituents for their dollar's worth of gas tax. 
If I could build a project today with that dollar, I could get a 
dollar's worth of value out of it,

[[Page 4566]]

if I have to litigate the issue for 7 years, the value of that dollar 
is going to erode. I am going to have to waste that dollar on 
litigation costs.
  We can change the law, and we can do so in a bipartisan way that 
absolutely respects all of our commitments to environmental protection 
but allows us to complete these needed taxes. Because I will tell you 
what doesn't help global warming, Mr. Speaker, and that is folks 
sitting on Atlanta highways for an hour every day not moving. If you 
are concerned about the use of fossil fuels in this country, I promise 
you that having people move slower in Atlanta is not helping. We need 
those folks to be able to move more quickly to their goal. We will 
reduce emissions as a result.
  What else can we do, Mr. Speaker, as a body? What I have here--and I 
just chose the State of Georgia because it is that area that I know 
best--these are the Georgia statewide designated freight corridors. I 
live right up here, just outside of Atlanta, Mr. Speaker. I am right 
off I-85. That is Interstate 85, Federal Interstate 85, and that is 
designated as a freight corridor.
  Our use of the roads is not just to get to and from the grocery 
store, of course, not just to get to and from school, but for farmers 
to get their produce from Iowa to our grocery store, for manufacturers 
to get their products from the computer factory in California to our 
schools. We had a national interest in these freight corridors.
  One of these freight corridors runs out I-16. It runs out to the Port 
of Savannah. The Port of Savannah, Mr. Speaker, I don't know if you 
know, it is the fastest-growing container port in the country, a 
container port being those ports that specialize in getting those 18-
wheeler cargo containers off the ships, onto a chassis, delivering 
goods to where they need to go. Fastest-growing container port in the 
country, it sits out here at the end of I-16. We have major 
construction projects to get all the product off those ships out across 
the southeastern United States.
  So this map of red lines, Mr. Speaker, represents not only interstate 
highways, but also some major Federal roads. I have got U.S. 1 listed 
here. U.S. 1, Mr. Speaker, as you may know, runs about, golly, about 
2\1/2\ miles from this building. About 2\1/2\ miles west from this 
building you are going to hit U.S. 1.

                              {time}  1300

  U.S. 1 runs all the way down the eastern coast, from the great 
Northeast all the way down to Florida. It is a Federal transportation 
corridor. What is not on this list, Mr. Speaker, for example, is U.S. 
Highway 29. It runs right past my house in Gwinnett County.
  It is a U.S. highway, and it consumes U.S. transportation dollars. 
While once upon a time it was a major corridor for moving nationally 
important equipment--freight, produce--today, it has become a sidebar.
  My question is: If we are limited with our dollars, can we be more 
discriminating in choosing which roads have national importance?
  I told you the tale of Forsyth County, which I represent, Mr. 
Speaker, and of its having the $200 million bond initiative to expand 
its major highway. Georgia 400 is its major highway. We don't need the 
Federal Government to take care of every single square inch of pavement 
in this country.
  When we talked about establishing postal roads in 1787, there was 
kind of the understanding that--of course, they had not contemplated 
pavement at all--if this were going to be a major maintained 
thoroughfare, we might have a Federal interest in it--not so anymore.
  I talked about U.S. 1, Mr. Speaker. U.S. 1 is right out here, about 
2\1/2\ miles away, but it is just between Washington, D.C., and 
Baltimore. The Federal Government, with Federal tax dollars that are 
collected from all across the Nation, maintains three separate Federal 
roads.
  We maintain the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, which is a National 
Park Service road. We take care of U.S. 1, and we take care of 
Interstate 95. Those roads are never more than 5 miles from each other; 
yet, because tradition dictates it, we are spending national dollars to 
maintain three relatively duplicative pieces of highway.
  We have got to have that conversation. Maybe there is a reason 
unbeknownst to me why it is we can't just maintain one of those roads 
and why we have to maintain them all.
  The Federal Government doesn't have to do everything for everybody, 
Mr. Speaker. We just have to make sure that those interstate corridors 
are being maintained, that those primary nationally designated freight 
corridors are being maintained.
  It is okay to leave the rest for communities and States to handle. I 
want to give you an example. I am not picking on anybody in particular. 
These projects go on all across the country, Mr. Speaker.
  You can see someone's home right here. They have got some holly 
bushes out in front and a little maple tree here that has been planted 
on the right-of-way. What you see here are brand-new curbs and 
sidewalks and about a 3\1/2\-foot bike lane that we spent a million 
Federal dollars to build.
  Now, assuming this family wants a giant curb and a big sidewalk and a 
bike lane in their front yard, I am glad they were able to get it. I am 
glad that we are planting maple trees in the right-of-way there. We are 
not quite mowing the grass in that space, but I hope the community is 
going to take on that challenge.
  This is not a major freight corridor. This is not an Interstate 
Highway System. This is a small, small road somewhere in America that 
$1 million worth of Federal taxpayer dollars are going to in order to 
beautify a street.
  Mr. Speaker, it comes from a program called the Transportation 
Alternatives Program. Over the last 2 years, that has been more than $1 
billion going towards these kinds of projects, almost $2 billion.
  Let me tell you what kinds of big, important Federal projects are 
kind of rising to that constitutional level of building post roads for 
commerce.
  Anything that you build that relates to a sidewalk counts. Anything 
that you create relating to bicycle infrastructure counts. Traffic 
calming techniques--I don't know what a traffic calming technique is, 
but if you can identify one, Mr. Speaker, we can pay for it out of this 
multibillion-dollar trust fund.
  The construction of turnouts, overlooks, and viewing areas--Mr. 
Speaker, you do not want to be behind me when I am riding through a 
national park. You do not want to be behind me while I am going down 
that beautiful highway in Virginia that is running all the way down to 
the great State of Georgia because I am driving slowly, sucking it all 
in, and am turning in to every turnout along the way and am taking 
pictures.
  I love a good drive, particularly in the fall, but I promise you I do 
not need one taxpayer dollar paying for one turnout on one highway so 
that I can get a better picture. We have got an entire Georgia 
transportation and tourism board, Mr. Speaker.
  If we need a turnout in the great State of Georgia, if it is going to 
bring more tourist traffic to our area, if it is going to allow us to 
put in a small restaurant where folks can stop and eat and enjoy our 
beautiful scenery, we will build that because tourists will demand it, 
and it will grow our economy.
  At a time when trust fund dollars have been eroded by inflation, at a 
time when we know we don't have enough money coming in to maintain our 
current Interstate Highway System, at a time that we are talking about 
raising taxes on the American consumer in order to provide those 
resources, isn't it also time to end the non-Federal priority spending 
that is currently embedded in the Federal gas tax, like turnouts?
  Mr. Speaker, one of the projects that was built with that 
multibillion-dollar trust fund was down in the great State of Georgia. 
It is called the Silver Comet Trail. The truth is that we only have one 
really good, long bike trail in the entire metropolitan Atlanta area. 
It is the Silver Comet Trail, and it is fabulous. It is absolutely 
fabulous.
  If you go out there on any beautiful day, you are going to have 
joggers; you

[[Page 4567]]

are going to have walkers; you are going to have bike riders; folks are 
going to be pushing strollers. It is a festival of humanity there on 
that bike trail. It is a wonderful, wonderful way to spend your day. We 
spent 3.7 million Federal dollars so that my neighbors and I could have 
a fabulous biking and walking trail in our backyard. It was not my 
idea. I was not in Congress at the time.
  We have got to ask ourselves: Is it worth raising taxes on the 
American driver and on American industry, which uses our roads, so that 
more local communities can build more fabulous bike trails in their own 
backyards?
  I don't ask my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, whether bike trails are 
valuable or not. I believe them to be so. I ask my colleagues whether 
or not metropolitan Atlanta, which is the most prosperous major 
metropolitan city in the entire Southeastern United States, can afford 
to build its own bike trails or whether or not we need to call on the 
rest of the Nation to aid us in that effort.
  Mr. Speaker, I have got another project here. It was only $60,000. 
Isn't that sad when we get to this place where we start talking about 
projects that are only thousands and thousands of dollars? When you are 
managing a $3.8 trillion budget, Mr. Speaker, it is hard to keep track 
of the thousands. That is why we don't want a big Federal budget. We 
don't want to be in the business of wasting money.
  $60,000 went to a project called Ped Flag. Now, this is in a small 
downtown area out West, and there is a crosswalk going across the 
street, and folks are concerned about pedestrian safety. There are 
pedestrian tragedies every year in this country and every year in my 
community. We certainly want to do everything we can to stop them.
  The $60,000 Ped Flag program goes to each end of a crosswalk, and it 
puts yellow flags in big buckets on each end of the crosswalk, Mr. 
Speaker, so that, when you are prepared to walk across the street, you 
can grab one of these flags, and you can wave it as you cross the 
street.
  The street is two lanes, but you can wave it as you cross those two 
lanes to make sure that drivers coming down that low speed limit 
thoroughfare don't run into you. I think that is fabulous. I like a 
good parade, Mr. Speaker, and I love waving flags.
  My question to you is: With all of the challenges facing this 
Chamber--we have got Social Security that is going bankrupt; we have 
got Medicare that is going bankrupt; we live in a dangerous world with 
ISIS and Russia and Iran--is it the priority for the tax dollars that 
we have been entrusted with--really, that we have confiscated from the 
American people--to spend 60,000 of those tax dollars to have buckets 
of flags on both sides of a two-lane street so that pedestrians can 
wave them as they cross?
  If folks love parades as much as I do, Mr. Speaker, that local 
community can put those flags in place. A Federal grant program is not 
necessary to do so.
  I have got an article here, Mr. Speaker, from just last month. It is 
talking about this program that allows these grant dollars to go out 
for all of these non-high-priority Federal purposes. They cite a 
$112,000 grant for a white squirrel sanctuary.
  Mr. Speaker, I have nothing against white squirrels. I will slow down 
when I am driving as the gray squirrels in my community cross the 
street, but I have no interest in confiscating Federal tax dollars that 
were intended to maintain a critically important national highway 
infrastructure and having a local community who views that as free 
money spend it to create a white squirrel sanctuary.
  Mr. Speaker, these dollars are going to build boardwalks in our beach 
communities. They are going to resurface bike trails. They are even 
going to buy driving simulators at car museums because that is kind of 
peripherally related to transportation.
  In my day, Mr. Speaker, it was just that Atari 2600 on which you 
could do the night driving program. Today, we can spend 198,000 Federal 
gas tax dollars to buy driving simulators to go into museums so that, 
when folks come by--after they have driven on the ratty roads that were 
unmaintained to get to the museum--they can have a wonderful driving 
experience inside the federally taxpayer paid simulator.
  Mr. Speaker, I don't fault museums for wanting simulators. I don't 
fault communities for wanting bike trails. I don't fault communities 
for wanting flag-waving crosswalks. I fault this Congress for facing a 
fiscal challenge of: How do we complete our constitutional 
responsibility to maintain our roads and to even have the discussion of 
raising tax dollars before we have completed making the current 
accounts more effective, more efficient, and more accountable?
  Mr. Speaker, I do not value Members who simply talk about everything 
that is wrong and who make no recommendations about how to fix it. We 
need to narrow the number of roads that qualify for Federal support. We 
need to prioritize what are those roads that fall into that 
constitutional responsibility and which ones, obviously, do not. 
Prioritize that spending. Take care of only those mission critical 
roads. Leave the rest to local communities.
  Two, deal with our environmental regulations that are slowing needed 
construction, not abolish our environmental regulations, not ignore our 
environmental stewardship responsibilities, but recognize that 
advocates for the environment, advocates for the NEPA Act--as the mayor 
of Salt Lake City suggested, even those advocates realize we have gone 
far afield from what was intended as we have years of expense and delay 
for projects that we ought to be able to complete in a year and in 18 
months. Let's streamline that. That is two.
  Three, take all of these feel-good projects that every one of us has 
heard of in our districts--those projects that don't have anything to 
do with major national thoroughfares, those projects that don't have 
anything to do with our constitutional responsibility to maintain our 
interstate corridors--and abolish those altogether.

                              {time}  1315

  Mr. Speaker, they did a poll the other day amongst young people in 
this country. Young people, of course, when you get your first job at 
16, you get that paycheck, you thought you were making $8 an hour. It 
turns out after the government gets its share you are only making about 
$5 an hour. We find out we get lots of new voters when they get their 
first paycheck because folks realize the importance of having your 
voice heard.
  The largest tax that 80 percent of American families pay, Mr. 
Speaker, is that payroll tax that is taken out of that paycheck before 
you even see it, that FICA line in your paycheck. The largest tax that 
80 percent of American families pay, it goes to fund Social Security 
and Medicare; and yet in a recent poll among young people, more 
American young people believed they would see a UFO in their lifetime 
than believed they would see a Social Security check in their lifetime. 
Mr. Speaker, you cannot break promises to taxpayers in that way.
  We have serious responsibilities in this Chamber. They do not include 
feel-good projects in local communities. They do not include squirrel 
sanctuaries, flag-waving projects, and boardwalk resurfacings. What 
they include is maintaining those mission-critical interstate 
corridors.
  As we gather together to reauthorize the surface transportation bill, 
as we gather together to sort out the diminishing value of the highway 
trust fund, let us come together to restore some of that faith with the 
American taxpayer that we will be accountable, that we will be 
efficient, and that we will be effective in the use of every one of 
their taxpayer dollars. We cannot ask them for more until we have 
proven to them that we have used responsibly what they sent to us 
yesterday.
  Mr. Speaker, we have talked transportation on the surface level. I 
want to briefly talk transportation at a port level.
  I mentioned the port of Savannah, Mr. Speaker, that fastest growing 
container port in the world. You can't see

[[Page 4568]]

it here on the map, but I have got one of those container ships coming 
into the port of Savannah, just loaded full. These giant cranes, it is 
amazing how quickly they can load and unload these giant container 
ships.
  Funding for these kind of nationally important projects, these kind 
of projects that deliver value to the American taxpayer, that allow 
them to get the goods and products that they want from around the globe 
into their local markets for a lower cost--we are dredging the Savannah 
River right now in order to expand the Savannah harbor, this port, so 
that it can handle the New Panamax ships that are going to come through 
the new Panama Canal. These ships are giant, Mr. Speaker. If you 
haven't been to see them, you should take a look. They can bring in the 
order of three times more cargo in one ship. When you are taking a 
multiweek voyage across the Pacific Ocean, that is a big deal.
  This project is going to cost $706 million, and it will benefit the 
entire eastern seaboard in greater value and lower costs. But it is 
going to benefit Georgia more than it is going to benefit most places. 
Why? Because we are going to have workers there, because our rest stops 
are going to be full, because our gasoline stations are going to be 
full. So the State of Georgia, even though this is a nationally 
significant project, is funding 40 percent of it out of our local 
coffers. We believe it is important to put your money where your mouth 
is.
  Thinking about those delays that run up costs, we first started 
talking about doing this in the late 1990s, Mr. Speaker. We finally got 
Federal approval to begin last year. This was not a $700 million 
project 17 years ago when we wanted to begin it, but we couldn't begin 
it 17 years ago. We have only been able to begin it now. About $100 
million is going to go out the door, Mr. Speaker, to get this project 
under way. If all goes well, we can finish this in about 5 years, but 
we are going to have to have that Federal-State partnership. For these 
projects that are not uniquely Federal, for these projects that are not 
uniquely State, we need both entities putting skin in the game to make 
these projects successful.
  Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about is about $100 million from the 
State coming this year, about $100 million from the Feds coming next 
year. What I want to ask my colleagues, as we talk about how to 
prioritize funding, how can we get together to squeeze out those 
projects that are of local import--and leave those to local dollars and 
local concerns--and include these projects that are of national import 
to make sure we get them done on time and under budget?
  Mr. Speaker, back-of-the-envelope calculating that folks doing the 
construction at the port have done tell us that it is about $174 
million annually in lost benefits as this project is delayed--lost 
benefits on the one hand, added costs on the other. I am always 
skeptical when somebody says: Rob, if you will only spend $1 on this 
project, I will get you $18 in return. I say: Good news. We have got an 
$18 trillion Federal debt. Let me give you $1 trillion for your project 
this year; you can give me back $18 trillion next year.
  A lot of funny numbers go on in this Washington, D.C., math game that 
folks play.
  But, undeniably, if we cannot compete at a local level, if American 
products begin to cost more to export relative to their foreign 
competitors because we can't handle the big Panamax ships, American 
workers will lose; American consumers will lose. These are national 
priorities that bring people together.
  I want to set expectations, Mr. Speaker, on how we are going to get 
this done. Again, I want to go back. 1996 was when we first had this 
conversation, completed the very first study of getting this done; the 
very first conditional approval at the Federal level, 1999. In 2012, 
folks finally made the decision; South Carolina and Georgia sorted out 
their issues in May of 2013; final project permits came out in July of 
2013; State of Georgia, Johnny on the spot, funding it with $266 
million. Another round of bond initiatives will go out this summer.
  Mr. Speaker, 2019 is when this project is expected to be done. A 
project that could have started in 1997, a project that could have been 
done by 2003, a project that could have been a nation-leading project 
so that American goods could get out to the world in a competitive way 
as the new Panama Canal comes on line for us to be ready to go as a 
nation, what could have been a story of planning ahead and of success 
has become a story of decades-long delay and being behind.
  Mr. Speaker, those are not academic conversations. Those are 
conversations that are represented with dollars and cents. It is 
American jobs lost; it is American productivity lost; it is 
international competitiveness lost. Item after item after item after 
item. We are in the midst of a surface transportation reauthorization 
bill and our highway trust fund; we are in the midst of an FAA 
reauthorization bill and our aviation funding mechanisms. Hopefully, we 
will be back to a water resources development bill again, as we were 
last year, dealing with developing our water resources.
  The question in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, is never will we be 
involved in generating American productivity or will we not. The 
question is we will be involved, but on what and how. Let us move these 
low-priority projects off of the Federal budget, off of the Federal 
taxpayer, and back into local hands, where they can be accomplished 
more quickly and more efficiently at a lower dollar cost. Before we 
decide to raise taxes on the American people, let us ensure that every 
single dollar that we raise today is giving a dollar's worth of value 
for a dollar's worth of tax.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be on the Committee on Transportation and 
Infrastructure. We have big things in store for this year. They will be 
collaborative things. These are not Republican concerns; these are not 
Democratic concerns; these are American concerns. These are concerns of 
America's most deliberative and engaging body, the United States House 
of Representatives.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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