OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

Floor Speech

Date: Sept. 28, 2021
Location: Washington, DC


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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

This body could and should have worked together on bipartisan legislation to improve our roads and our bridges, wastewater infrastructure, and other vital infrastructure components. But instead, the majority preferred to put us through a very highly partisan messaging exercise. And for what? The majority leaders' grossly mismanaged process.

I have no doubt that they thought that their ``my way or the highway'' approach reflected all their progressive priorities, and they were mighty proud of it. But it led to the House, both Republicans and Democrats, being completely sidelined in this process. And we knew that this was the most likely outcome.

I want to highlight two key points.

The first is that today's legislation is one of the largest infrastructure bills ever before the House, but because of the Speaker's mismanagement of this entire process, the House failed to be taken seriously and failed to have any input into this bill.

The second point is that this bill is a Trojan horse for reconciliation. We all know that. Voting for this bill is a vote for Speaker Pelosi's $3.5 trillion spending spree, and there is no way to separate the two. Even the Speaker acknowledges this, and many others as well.

Lost among all of these poor decisions is the absolute necessity to address America's real infrastructure needs. I firmly believe that the work we do on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is critical to the economy and to the lives of all Americans, and if the House process was bipartisan from the very start, this conversation would have been much different, but here we are. Instead of zeroing in on real infrastructure, the majority is talking about spending trillions and trillions of dollars on everything that they can think of, and I have to ask: When does it end?

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Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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