Investing in A New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and acknowledging my maiden name, D'Alesandro.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, this is a special day. In the election, the Democrats said that we were going to increase paychecks by building the infrastructure of America with green, resilient, modern and job- creating infrastructure. Building infrastructure has always been a nonpartisan issue, a bipartisan issue. We have all taken great pride in the regions we represent and the great effort to meet the needs of those communities.

Today, House Democrats are proud to bring to the floor H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act, to deliver on our promise. Moving forward, that is exactly what this legislation will enable our country to do.

H.R. 2 takes bold, broad, and transformational action to rebuild our infrastructure and make it smarter, safe, and built to last while addressing key injustices in America which have been laid bare in the COVID-19 crisis.

Across the country day in and day out, the American people have been shining a light on those disparities and are demanding justice, racial justice, and also environmental justice, healthcare justice, justice in financial security, justice in transportation and more, which target communities of color.

Transportation justice, people don't think of that as an injustice, but in many cases it is, and we can give you examples, Mr. Speaker.

So here we are today with H.R. 2, an all-caucus effort strengthened by the intellectual resources brought by so many Members from across the country.

The chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has been our maestro in all of this. For decades he has served on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, but he has also chaired the Natural Resources Committee. So the combination of infrastructure and environmental protection, preserving our planet as we promote commerce, comes naturally to him. We are really blessed by his years of experience, knowledge, and strategic thinking on this subject.

I thank Mr. DeFazio for being this person at this time so needed by our country. He is always thinking of when we build our infrastructure how we create jobs in the building, how we promote commerce and preserve jobs in the meantime, and how we save time in getting product to market, especially our agricultural products, which are so, shall we say, perishable and where time is important, how we clean the air by having more mass transit, bicycle lanes, and the rest. One way or another, this is a health issue, an environmental justice issue, a commercial issue, and in every way an important day for us.

Again, he had a 24-hour marathon markup of the bill--that itself is a sign of the stamina it takes to build the infrastructure--following nearly 20 committee hearings on the transportation pillar of this project.

Also part of all of this is Mr. Pallone of the Energy and Commerce Committee which has made a strong down payment on a clean energy future and upgrading hospitals, community health centers, and healthcare infrastructure to increase capacity and strengthen care during COVID- 19, and, of course, into future public health emergencies and the ongoing health needs of our country.

Mr. Pallone was also instrumental in the infrastructure for building broadband for our country, another injustice that we want to rectify so that all children and all families in America have access to broadband in this time of distance learning, telemarketing, telemedicine, and the rest.

Mr. Clyburn, our distinguished whip, is very much a part of addressing that issue as well. Bobby Scott is the chair of the Education and Labor Committee. I name these chairmen and it gives me an opportunity to use their names to praise them, but also to talk about what this bill does.

We tell children that education is so important to their own self- fulfillment, to their communities, and to the competitiveness of America. Yet we send those children to school which gives them a different message about the importance of education if those schools are not up to par for these children to learn. They are not wired for the future, and they have contamination that is dangerous to their health. They are just not meeting their educational needs. So let's respect our children, as we tell them to study, to give them the tools to do so, increasing capacity and strengthening their ability to learn. Again, COVID-19 points out some of those disparities in our system as well.

Richie Neal on the Ways and Means Committee was very much a part of some of the initiatives because the tax code is so important when we are trying to increase energy efficiency, increase climate resilience, and create many millions of good paying jobs. He was able to accommodate so many excellent ideas from our Members, including our distinguished chair of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, Kathy Castor of Florida. Many of her proposals in her report are manifested in this bill, H.R. 2, some of them by way of the Ways and Means Committee.

Maxine Waters we just heard from, Madam Chair of the Financial Services Committee, who is advancing justice and equality in housing in our country and expanding affordable housing across the country whether it is public housing or addressing issues that relate to homelessness and issues that relate in so many different ways. She has been a leader in all of this, and this infrastructure bill has a substantial infrastructure piece for housing.

So whether we are talking about roads and bridges and the safety of all of that, whether we are talking about broadband or hospitals, whether we are talking about education and schools, whether we are talking about housing, whether we are talking about our labs, Mr. Ben Ray Lujan, who is assistant speaker, member of the leadership, Congressman Lujan is with that, also joining Eddie Bernice Johnson of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee in advancing that.

Mr. Peterson brought some things from the Agriculture Committee. Chairman Bennie Thompson brought so much from Homeland Security. Carolyn Maloney is protecting our Postal Service from her position on the Oversight Committee. The list goes on and on, including Mr. Grijalva in terms of the green infrastructure of America.

So this is the product of so much knowledge, experience, and the intellectual resources of people outside with their magnificent mobilization at the grass-roots level for all of these things.

I think that if there is any bill that comes together in the Congress it is this bill that shows that everything in our country is connected, from the education of our children to the technologies of the future, to the roadmap to get there.

So I thank Mr. DeFazio for making this important occasion possible. I say to him sometimes in jest but always sincerely: Our hopes, Mr. DeFazio, are riding on you with this important transportation bill for the people, the Moving Forward Act. As Americans across the country demand justice, equality, and change, Congress must join them by taking bold action to deliver progress in their lives.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a strong bipartisan vote for the people on H.R. 2.

I see Mr. Blumenauer there who has been a champion on infrastructure for so many years in the Congress and his many years on this committee, Transportation and Infrastructure, and now the Ways and Means Committee, but so many people, the intellectual resources of the entire Congress are manifested in this bill, and I urge a very strong vote on H.R. 2 as it moves our country forward.

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