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

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in support of H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act, and I focus on the fact that this infrastructure package includes our Nation's schools.

For decades, underserved students and educators have spent nearly every day in school facilities with outdated air filtration, air- conditioning, and roofing systems that endanger their health. A GAO report just this year confirmed that more than half the school districts need to repair unsafe and outdated systems in heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning in most of their school buildings.

These issues are not about comfort. They are about equal access to education.

Mr. Speaker, we all want to reopen our schools as soon as possible, but we cannot take this step when the Centers for Disease Control guidance requires functioning ventilation systems to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The Reopen and Rebuild America's Schools Act provisions and infrastructure package offer the solutions our schools need. This legislation will invest construction funds targeted at high-poverty school facilities that put the health of our students and staff most at risk.

Of course, the schools will also benefit from the improvements in broadband that are also found in the bill.

The school provisions in this bill will create more than 2 million good-paying jobs over the next 5 years at a time when we face historic unemployment rates.

The Moving Forward Act is critical to our Nation's economic recovery, and it is critical for our efforts to achieve equity in education.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to pass this bill so that all students will have access to safe and high-quality schools during the pandemic and for years to come.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from the Rebuild America's Schools coalition to Speaker Pelosi and Leader McCarthy in support of both the legislation and the Reopen and Rebuild America's Schools Act. Rebuild America's Schools, Washington, DC, June 29, 2020. Re H.R. Moving Forward Act: Reopen and Rebuild America's Schools Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Kevin McCarthy, Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Madame Speaker and Minority Leader McCarthy: Rebuild America's Schools appreciates and supports your efforts to address the impact of COVID-19 on our nation. As Congress addresses economic recovery, Rebuild America's Schools supports H.R. 2 The Moving Forward Act to invest in our nation's infrastructure including grants and bonds to modernize, renovate and repair local school facilities.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) June 2020 report estimates more than half of America's public school districts need significant repairs to their school facilities. Fifty four percent of school districts across the country must replace or update major systems in more than half their buildings. Grants and infrastructure bonds will assist communities respond to necessary school facility modifications, renovations, and repairs to re-open safely for students, teachers, and staff in the changing COVID-19 environment.

Moving Forward Act: Reopen and Rebuild America's Schools Act infrastructure grants and bonds will generate economic activity in every state creating over 100,000 construction services jobs accomplishing two objectives:

Local communities will use recovery financing to build, renovate and repair schools providing safer, healthier, more modem and more technologically, energy efficient school facilities advancing student achievement.

School construction projects in local communities will generate thousands of construction and building trades jobs including architects engineers, roofing contractors, and suppliers who design, build and maintain our nation's schools.

As COVID-19 profoundly impacts national and state economies, federal investment in school infrastructure and safety will have both long- and short-term benefits to the nation's economic recovery and stability advancing student achievement.

We look forward to working with you as the House of Representatives considers The Moving Forward Act to invest in the infrastructure of local communities helping modernize schools in every state to support student safety, achievement and success.

Thank you. Sincerely, Bob Canavan, Chair.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of several en bloc amendments to H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act. This bill delivers transportation and infrastructure solutions to the American people, improves the safety of commuters and communities, and increases community resilience to the climate crisis, while also creating jobs for the American people. I was pleased that the Rules Committee ruled in order a number of my amendments to further these goals, improving water quality in the Chesapeake Bay, supporting National Labs, and ensuring that modeling and simulation technology is used to ensure federal dollars are spent in cost-effective ways to improve safety and protect the environment.

I urge my colleagues to support an amendment I introduced with my colleague from Florida, Representative Stephanie Murphy, which is included in amendments in part B, proposed to be considered en bloc. Our amendment adds an important sense of Congress that the U.S. Department of Transportation ought to maximize the utilization of modeling and simulation technology to analyze federally funded highway and public transit projects. In doing so, we can best ensure that these projects will increase transportation capacity and safety, alleviate congestion, reduce travel time and environmental impact, and are as cost-effective as possible.

Modeling and simulation technologies have beneficial purposes--from medicine and vaccine development to natural disaster response. Urban and transportation planners across the country understand the significant benefits of modeling and simulation and as the technology continues to rapidly advance, its precision in mimicking real-world factors and variables continues to yield incredible savings both in manpower and money.

I also want to urge my colleagues to support the Chesapeake Bay, one of America's greatest treasures, by supporting two amendments included in part E, proposed to be considered en bloc to improve water quality and the quality of life within the Chesapeake's 64,000 square-mile watershed. I am pleased to introduce the Chesapeake WILD amendment with Representatives Rob Wittman and John Sarbanes, who co-chair the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Task Force with me and introduced the Chesapeake WILD Act with me last year. A great deal has changed since that time, as Americans respond to the COVID-19 pandemic: many have lost jobs and outdoor recreation has become an even more important way for people to stay physically and mentally healthy; yet not everyone in the Chesapeake region has access to safe recreational spaces. In the midst of this year's hurricane season, communities throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed are also bracing for the possibility of another emergency, made more severe by the climate crisis. Each of these challenges has made the Chesapeake WILD grant program more urgent than ever.

This amendment will help restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed by investing in green infrastructure, habitat preservation, and ecosystem restoration to enhance community resilience, and improve water quality, all while creating jobs and enhancing economic opportunities throughout the watershed. Along with my friend, Representative Sarbanes' Chesapeake Gateways amendment, which I was pleased to cosponsor along with Representatives Wittman and Harris, this amendment would also increase recreational opportunities in the region. I am proud to see bipartisan support for these amendments, and I look forward to securing their passage.

I am also pleased to support an amendment included in part D, proposed to be considered en bloc, which I cosponsored with Congressman Ben Ray Lujan and other supporters of our nation's 17 National Laboratories, including the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility or JLab in my congressional district, where work is being done to advance our understanding of nuclear physics. Funding to address the infrastructure needs and maintenance backlogs across the National Labs system is one way that we can support the work of scientists there, whether on clean energy or a vaccine for COVID-19. In modernizing the National Labs system, we can create shovel-ready construction jobs to put Americans back to work right away and ensure the best and brightest scientists are recruited to careers in national service and research for the common good.

Mr. Speaker, these amendments help us move forward in an evidence- based and cost-effective way, supporting coastal communities, ecological recovery, commuters, and research in the national interest, all while creating good jobs. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and these amendments, so that we can make the necessary investments for a future that is more resilient, environmentally responsible, and connected than before.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source