Providing for Further Consideration of Senate Amendments to H.R. 22, Hire More Heroes Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, we will get to what is in the bill in a minute. With regards to process, as an example of a Member of this body, I had a number of issues in the transportation area I wanted to address in my district. Most notably, I wanted to address the sound levels of train horns in our busy downtown areas, like Fort Collins and Longmont. It is one of the biggest issues I hear about from our local downtown businesses; and, of course, to anybody who, including myself, has been downtown with the train blaring by in close proximity, it really is a major detriment to the quality of life, and there is no significant evidence that I have seen or that has been presented to me that this in any way improves safety. So I did offer an amendment that would have changed that. Unfortunately, it was blocked in Rules Committee.
Now, on that particular issue, we had a discussion with the chair and the ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. I hope to work with him in other ways. But to say that somehow this is an open process, that I can bring forth and other Members can bring forth amendments to improve the bill--of course, there were a few allowed. Out of 302, there were 126 allowed. That means there are more disappointed Members that had ideas than there are satisfied Members that are at least going to have the opportunity to bring their idea forward.
Again, it is 126. It is better than 50, and it is better than 30, there is no question. But it also means there are an awful lot of Republicans and Democrats, including my colleague from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy) with whom I sponsored--he as the Republican; I as the lead Democrat--a bipartisan amendment that would have dealt with train stoppages. We are dealing with this also in
Fort Collins, where we have trains that do switching and delay traffic sometimes for 15, 30, and 45 minutes. We are simply saying that you can't do that in an urban zone; that delays traffic. It can impede ambulances and fire engines from reaching their destinations. It is dangerous. We simply proposed an amendment to impose a civil penalty of $10,000 around that to deter that kind of action. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, that amendment was blocked under this very rule that we are talking about here.
I have, for instance, an amendment that is very important in my district for highway 70 designation that is allowed under this rule, and I am happy that it is. Keep in mind, in perspective, there are many more ideas--good, bad, and other--that Republicans and Democrats had on both sides of the aisle that they weren't even allowed to talk about and aren't even allowed to talk about under this rule, this restrictive rule, that we have before us today.
Mr. Speaker, I wish that I could do something and that the Rules Committee allowed me to do something about excess train noise in our downtown areas. I wish that the Rules Committee had allowed Mr. Duffy, me, and the many others that this affects to do something about train stoppages closing traffic and endangering the public in our downtown areas. But it was not allowed under this rule, not allowed at all.
Mr. Speaker, calling this bill a 6-year reauthorization is also a bit of a misnomer. The bill only makes funding available for 2 to 3 years. So this is not, in fact, a 6-year bill. It is a 2- to 3-year bill. It is being touted for something that it doesn't have the power to do. Simply calling it a 6-year bill when you are only funding it for 2 to 3 years doesn't make it so.
Mr. Speaker, our economy is still fragile. Americans are concerned about maintaining and growing their quality of life. Affordable housing, quality education, and retirement are sometimes out of the grasp of too many Americans. Critical infrastructure on public roads and bridges is absolutely important for driving our economy forward.
My colleagues and I are charged with recognizing and offering innovative solutions to these problems. We are each selected by constituencies that have particular items that impact them. I was sent here to work on train noise, as an example, and train stoppages that delay traffic, the designation of highway 70, which we hope to be able to include in the final bill, and many other transportation issues, some of which are reflected in the bill.
I certainly commend my colleagues on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for working diligently in trying to bring up a long-term, robustly funded, and thoughtful bill.
This bill, unfortunately, is another exclusionary bill. Again, you can certainly say there could be improvement to have more amendments than prior bills have allowed, but there are many more good ideas that Republicans and Democrats have offered that are not allowed to be debated under this rule.
I commend the process and its inclusion of critical provisions regarding the Export-Import Bank. This is important to many companies in my district to ensure that U.S. businesses are competing on a level playing field. As an example, Fiberlok, located in my district in Fort Collins, is a specialty printing company. It provides heat transfer graphics. It is family owned, and about 40 percent of its business is export business.
I also visited Boulder-based Droplet Measurement Technologies, which was named Export-Import Bank's Small Business Exporter of the Year for its work in cloud and aerosol measurements.
We simply want a level playing field for American businesses.
Of course, this package has some commendable transportation-related provisions. For instance, it provides $325 billion in Federal contract authority and allows for the direct deposit of any additional revenues Congress is able to come up with. It invests in all modes of surface transportation, highway, transit, and maintaining funding for alternatives like biking and walking that should be commended. It creates a $4.5-billion competitive grant program allowing States to compete for geographically expansive projects that impact and can now be financed by multiple States and regions.
Unfortunately, however, this is not a 6-year authorization. From the Infrastructure 2.0 Act I recently introduced, along with my colleague Mr. Delaney, to the President's GROW AMERICA Act, to Mr. DeFazio's and Representative Blumenauer's initiatives to re-index the gas tax, many of us have been in the forefront of offering avenues for full funding of this bill. Yet, unfortunately, time and time again, whether it is the repatriation concept or whether it is a re-indexation of the gas tax concept, all of the very reasonable offers and ideas that we have put forward have been repeatedly and inexplicably rejected, and we have seen a failure from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to bring forward ways to actually pay for what they claim is a 6-year bill.
Look, a long-term, sustainable, funded bill is what we want. If that is the bill we get, Mr. Speaker, I will personally whip that bill. But this is not that bill. This bill fails to make the commitment needed to our Nation's crumbling transportation and infrastructure, and it sets the precedent of authorizing investments without paying for them, which has been the whole difficult part of putting a bill together, which this bill just kicks the can down the road on.
I oppose this overly restrictive rule and the path that we are taking to pretend that a bill is 6 years when we only pay for it for 2 to 3 years.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, many American workers don't have access to paid sick days, which means they can't miss work without losing a day's pay or risking their job security, sometimes even endangering the public health by spreading their flu or cold to others.
Mr. Speaker, everyone should be able to take care of themselves or their loved ones when they are sick and not have to worry about losing their job or falling behind on their bills.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.
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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, a few of my colleagues have talked about selling down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I think that is a great bipartisan idea to pay for something. We actually no longer need to have crude oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Our Nation is a net producer of crude oil, so they are actually stockpiling the same stuff that we are talking about exporting; namely, unprocessed crude oil. There is a component of the crude oil reserve that is heating oil that is processed. That is still necessary. That is not being sold down. Nobody has talked about selling that down. I think we can use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as an additional pay-for for other items until it is successfully phased out over the next few years. I think this bill is the first step. I applaud my colleagues for including it.
Keep in mind, though, it is an accounting trick in terms of the dollar value of that. They are assuming that it will be sold at roughly twice the current price of oil. That may happen; it may not. We don't know. But at least it is being sold, and that is a good thing.
A third of our Nation's roads are rated poor or mediocre. We need to do better. We have a responsibility to address the transportation and infrastructure crisis.
If you have ever been to Fort Collins, the biggest city in my congressional district, home to Colorado State University, you have found a lot of traffic along Interstate 25.
If you have ever traveled Interstate 70 to our world-class ski resorts, like Vail or Breckenridge, you might very well have been locked in traffic as you went out there to enjoy the ski season or the summer high season.
Fort Collins, Loveland, Boulder, Vail, Frisco, Breckenridge, these are our communities that are tourism-and recreation-driven, and we need a 21st century transportation solution that provides consistency in funding levels, not a shell game to fund 2 years of a 6-year bill.
We need to open up a future for major highway improvements, like we need on Interstates 25 and 70. We need to put politics aside and not shroud a 2-year bill behind a facade of a 6-year bill. Our parents and grandparents sacrificed to build a world-class national infrastructure system, but we need the courage to maintain it and improve it for the 21st century.
I urge my colleagues to consider the responsibility of this maneuver. I urge defeat of the previous question, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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