[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 11838-11839]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE HIGHWAY BILL

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, after literally months of discussion 
and a lot of cooperation from chairmen and ranking members and staffs 
and Members from both sides of the aisle, I am happy to announce that 
Senator Boxer and I have an agreement for a multiyear, bipartisan 
highway bill. We hope to be able to discuss this agreement at our 
conferences shortly. This is a 6-year highway authorization that will 
allow planning for important long-term projects around the country. The 
bill also provides 3 years--3 years--of guaranteed funding for the 
highway trust fund.
  Senators from both parties know that a long-term highway bill is in 
the best interest of our country, so we will continue working together 
to get a good one passed. Thanks to the dedication of both Republican 
and Democratic Senators and their staffs, I am hopeful that we will.
  I wish to thank some other people who have been involved in getting 
us to where we are. In particular, I thank Chairman Jim Inhofe, 
Chairman Orrin Hatch, Chairman John Thune, and Chairman Richard Shelby 
for their efforts to reach a bipartisan accomplishment.

[[Page 11839]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if we have an agreement--and I am sure we do 
because I have great respect for Senator McConnell, Senator Boxer, and, 
of course, Senator Inhofe. We have this issue, though: We haven't seen 
the bill. There can be an agreement, but until we put an agreement in 
writing, things are a lot different.
  We have a number of committees that need to look this over in 
addition to the EPW Committee on which Senator Boxer is the lead 
Democrat. We have the Commerce Committee that we have to deal with. We 
have the Finance Committee that we have to deal with. We have the 
Banking Committee that we have to deal with.
  I want a highway bill. I have had the good fortune of being chairman 
of the EPW Committee twice. I worked on a number of long-term highway 
bills back in the good old days when we did that, and I hope we can 
have a long-term bill again. But we can't move forward on a bill until 
we have read it and seen it and studied it. That doesn't mean study it 
for several days, but we need to look at this document. I need to have 
a caucus after we have this document so we can look at it.
  So I hope my friend the Republican leader will be patient and wait 
until we get something we can study, and I will have a caucus with my 
caucus and we will sit down and decide how we should move forward on 
this matter.
  I repeat, I admire all of the hard work that has been done by 
everybody up to this point, but we have to make sure we move forward 
with this in the right direction. I understand all the issues probably 
more than most about all the time involved in a bill such as this. 
There are all kinds of potential ways to stall this, but we are not 
going to do that on our side. We are going to be as expeditious as we 
can once we have something that we can read and understand and, as I 
said, study so we can understand it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, before my leader leaves the floor, I wish 
to thank him because he and Senator Durbin, Senator Schumer, and the 
rest of the leadership team have been pushing hard for a bill. As my 
leader knows, I have been negotiating in good faith with the Republican 
team, headed by Leader McConnell, for a long-term, robust bill.
  I agree with Leader McConnell that we have an agreement in principle. 
I also agree with my leader that we have to look at the details. So my 
work now turns to getting those agreements up on the Internet so people 
can read for themselves the various titles. It is my understanding that 
we will start to see that language momentarily. I know we are working 
hard with my Chairman Inhofe to make a couple of changes to EPW. But I 
have to say we have reached an agreement in principle on a 6-year bill 
with 3 years of funding, and the text will be printed shortly. I 
believe it is a breakthrough. The highway trust fund goes bust in 10 
days.
  This is what is happening across the country. It is unreal that in my 
State we would have this bridge collapse, I say to my friends, and now 
commerce can't move between California and Arizona because we have had 
this collapse on Interstate 10. How strange this would be if this--
thank God no one lost their life in this accident. But this bridge was 
rated structurally obsolete, so we knew it couldn't bear all the 
traffic. It is a huge amount of traffic. So this is my poster child for 
why I am working so hard on this.
  I thank my Republican friends because they have really worked hard. 
Of course, I am looking at Bettina and Neil. I was talking to them at 
11:30 last night, and in the leader's office we resolved the last 
couple of pressing issues, with his help. But we have to see the text. 
My friends on the other side want to see the text of the Iran 
agreement. This isn't exactly the same, but we do need to see the text. 
So I am urging everybody to get the text up as fast as possible so we 
can vote as soon as possible. This is a breakthrough, but we need to 
see the details.
  I thank Leader McConnell because this has been a difficult 
negotiation but I think one that is going to bear fruit in terms of 
millions of jobs and thousands of businesses in much better shape.
  Thank you very much.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.


                           Order of Business

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the cloture vote we were originally 
going to have at 2:15 p.m. will be pushed back several hours to 4 p.m.
  I will just add--in addition to the comments of the Senator from 
California--I wish to thank Senator Inhofe, who I think was in the 
Chamber.
  Mr. INHOFE. Right here.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Nobody has been a stronger advocate for a multiyear 
highway bill than the Senator from Oklahoma. In spite of the rather 
dramatic philosophical differences which exist between the Senator from 
California and the Senator from Oklahoma, when it comes to a 
transportation bill, they have been a remarkable team over the years. 
So I thank my chairman as well for an extraordinary contribution to all 
of this.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I appreciate that very much. I wish to say 
that working in concert with Senator Boxer has been a pleasure. A lot 
of times philosophically in this room here we disagree with each other, 
but then when it gets down to what we are supposed to be doing here--I 
have to remind people quite often that if you read the Constitution 
about what we are supposed to be doing here--I am talking about Members 
of the U.S. Senate--we are supposed to be defending America and roads 
and bridges. That is it. So this is by far the most important matter 
before us right now, now that we have the Defense bill behind us, and I 
look forward to making this a reality.
  The idea of a 6-year bill is very significant because without that we 
can't do the big projects. This morning on the floor with charts I 
showed all the different big, large structures, such as the Spence 
Bridge between Kentucky and Ohio. These are bridges and projects that 
have to be done, and there has to be a long-term bill in order to do 
that. I also shared this morning an experience that I had on the I-35 
bridge that we put in through--the last major bill we had was in 2005. 
We put those repairs in there. That was in Oklahoma City. We actually 
had the death of a lady who was driving her three children under a 
bridge with concrete falling off. So we have to repair America, and 
this is the first step toward that repair.
  It is very important that we proceed to the bill. I would suggest to 
people that if you don't like it and if you plan to vote against it, 
that is fine, but bring it out here so we can discuss the merits, the 
demerits, and we can also start working on amendments. I would 
encourage any Member who is listening right now to bring amendments to 
the floor because when we proceed to the bill, I am going to be down 
here on the floor as long as we are in session, and I will be wanting 
to get to these amendments. It doesn't do any good to wait until the 
last minute and then show up and say ``I have an amendment'' on the day 
of passage of the bill. We will have deadlines. In order to get germane 
and nongermane amendments up for consideration, we have to have them 
down here, and if Members miss a deadline, then Members won't have that 
opportunity. So it is really up to the Members now to make sure that 
happens, but before we can get to that, the one thing that has to 
happen is we have to proceed to the bill. That has to be passed at 4 
o'clock today.
  I yield the floor.

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