Hire more Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Surface Transportation
Reauthorization bill.

I want to thank Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member DeFazio for
developing a bipartisan bill that is generally balanced and makes
significant improvements in some key areas.

I am concerned that the funding levels in the bill are simply not
high enough. We have an almost $1 trillion backlog on our highways,
bridges, rail, and transit system, yet this bill provides flat funding
of just $325 billion over 6 years. Finding bipartisan consensus on
revenue is challenging, but I am confident that a majority in Congress
would support funding higher-than-baseline levels with small increases
for inflation.

Despite the funding challenges, the bill makes a major improvement by
creating the Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects
program, which will provide guaranteed dedicated funding for large-
scale multimodal projects critical to our regional and national
economy.

This was a key recommendation of the freight panel on which I was
ranking member with Mr. Duncan as chairman. It is essential that we
assist projects that are too big or complex for States to address on
their own.

We made some progress in SAFETEA-LU and MAP-21, but this bill finally
gets it right and corrects decades of neglect by providing guaranteed
funding for multimodal freight projects.

There is an aggregate cap of $500 million on non-highway projects,
which equals about 11 percent of the program. This seems arbitrarily
low, given that 25 to 30 percent of the bill is funded through general
revenue.

We should let all projects compete and not dilute the selection
process with caps and set-asides. But the freight program created in
this bill is a groundbreaking achievement. I thank Chairman Shuster and
Ranking Member DeFazio for their commitment.

On transit, there are good provisions in the bill on transit worker
safety and workforce development. I oppose dropping the New Starts
Federal share from 80 percent to 50 percent. There is a similar
provision dropping the Federal share to 50 percent in the freight grant
program.

This is a developing trend that is shifting the burden to States and
localities and punishing them for our failure to adequately invest in
infrastructure. There are provisions restricting the use for various
transportation programs for transit projects, which we hope to correct
through the amendment process later today.

There are some objectionable provisions regarding environmental
streamlining and motor carrier safety, but I am pleased that the bill
does not broadly increase truck size or weights. I will oppose any
amendments to add such dangerous poison pills.

Overall, this bill is balanced, and I support moving it forward. I
thank Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member DeFazio for working with us
to defend and improve the bill as it moves through the process.

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Ribble
amendment to allow heavier and bigger trucks on the Nation's highways.

Every time we move a transportation bill, proponents of bigger trucks
on behalf of certain industries try to weaken
the restrictions Congress has put in place to protect the safety of the
traveling public and to reduce wear and tear on the highways.

According to DOT, there is an $800 billion backlog of investment
needs on highways and bridges, including $480 billion in critical
repair work. The underlying bill does not provide any increase in
funding. If this amendment passes, heavier trucks will further damage
our roadways and add to the backlog, burdening our transportation
agencies.

In MAP-21, rather than consider an increase in truck weight, we
required DOT to conduct a study. The DOT found there is insufficient
data to support an increase in truck size or weight. But we do know
that bigger trucks are damaging and dangerous.

The DOT study found that 91,000-pound trucks would damage thousands
of bridges and divert more than 2\1/2\ million tons of freight from
rail to truck, further congesting our roadways, further damaging our
roadways, and further contaminating our air, since trucks are three
times less energy efficient and more emissions-polluting than rail.

It is also well known that heavier trucks aren't safe. In 2013, there
were over 134,000 accidents involving large trucks, resulting in 4,000
fatalities. The DOT study found that 91,000-pound trucks resulted in a
47 percent higher crash rate when compared to 80,000-pound trucks in
State testing.

That is why the public is overwhelmingly opposed to bigger trucks.
That is why the National Association of Police Organizations, the
National Sheriffs' Association, and other law enforcement organizations
oppose this proposed increase in truck weight. That is why we should
oppose this increase in truck weight and this amendment.

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