[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 11846-11847]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE HIGHWAY BILL

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I will speak about the Iran nuclear 
agreement in just a moment. But before I do that, I will briefly talk 
about the legislation before us on the floor, and that

[[Page 11847]]

is the reauthorization of the highway bill, which is something we have 
to do on a fairly regular basis around here. Every so many years the 
authority to spend out of the highway trust fund expires, and we can't 
fund the infrastructure needs that our country has in terms of roads, 
bridges, construction, maintenance, and all of those things that are so 
important to our competitive economy.
  This week we have an opportunity to do something that hasn't been 
done around here in a long time, and that is to fund a multiyear 
highway bill. The reason that is important is because people who rely 
upon highway funding that comes through the highway trust fund need to 
be able to make plans. State departments of transportation, those who 
are involved in the construction, such as contractors, and all the 
people who are involved and the jobs that are associated with this 
process need the certainty that comes with a long-term bill.
  Today I was told that there have been 33 short-term extensions over 
the last few years since the last long-term highway bill was passed, I 
believe, somewhere around the 2005 timeframe. I was part of that. I was 
a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee at the time. I 
worked on highway bills as far back as my days in the House of 
Representatives, when I served on the Transportation and Infrastructure 
Committee. This is something that we have to do here on a regular basis 
if we are going to ensure that we have a competitive infrastructure in 
this country suitable to moving people and goods in a way that keeps 
our economy moving forward and growing. That is why, in my view, when 
we have an opportunity to get a multiyear bill, we shouldn't pass on 
it.
  If we continue to pass 6-month and 1-year extensions, all we are 
simply doing is kicking the can down the road. I would say that 33 
short-term extensions is not a very good way to run a railroad and 
certainly not a very good way to run a highway program.
  I know there are going to be differences. The committee that I chair, 
the commerce committee, was involved with marking up portions of the 
highway bill that pertained to highway safety and some railroad 
provisions and other items that would be included in this bill. We 
worked on that through the weekend, and I think we addressed many of 
the concerns that Members on both sides had, and I feel very good about 
where that part of the bill is. I worked as a member of the Finance 
Committee and tried to find ways to pay for this.
  If we can get a multiyear bill in place that provides the certainty, 
the predictability, and the reliability that we need in our highway 
funding process in this country, it would be a very good thing. As we 
all know, it is incredibly important to economic growth and to jobs. 
The certainty that comes with a long-term bill is something that we all 
ought to strive for.
  So I hope, notwithstanding the differences that exist in the vote we 
had earlier, that tomorrow when we take up this legislation again we 
will get the votes that are necessary to proceed to the bill and begin 
to move forward with the process in the hopes that we might get 
something to the House that they might be able to act on and then we 
can get it to the President's desk. Then, at least for the foreseeable 
future, we can get this issue dealt with so we don't have to come back 
and do this every 6 months or every 3 months or whatever those 33 
extensions have consisted of over the past few years.

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