Historic Investments in Infrastructure

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I rise today to highlight the work Congress is undertaking to make historic investments in our Nation's infrastructure and create millions of good-paying jobs in communities across our country, coast to coast, communities just like mine.

Cities like Toledo, Sandusky, Lorain, Lakewood, Cleveland, Parma, for too long have received far fewer resources than are needed to keep pace with life in this 21st century.

As we look around our country right now, we bear witness to historic water shortages in Lake Mead. On the other hand, in my region of the country, we have historic high water levels in the Great Lakes. Meanwhile, we have raging wildfires in California. We have watched power blackouts in Texas; torrential rains and flooding in New York City, in Dearborn, Michigan, and rural farmlands outside Nashville; as well as hurricanes that have been ravaging States throughout the Gulf of Mexico.

Truly, in this new century, we must set a firmer course to sustain life in our country and, yes, sustain life on Mother Earth herself.

As a Representative from the Great Lakes, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Lake Erie and the economies and people who truly rely on it face growing environmental challenges unlike any we have seen before.

The Great Lakes are the largest source of freshwater on Earth, and surely on this continent. They are responsible for transporting our Nation's heavy manufacturing materials from ports to factories, support our commercial and defense capabilities, and serve as the lifeblood for our industrial heartland.

But the changing climate is impacting these majestic waters, requiring sizable investments to correct and overcome.

Recently, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee included $350 million for a new state-of-the-art--get ready--Great Lakes heavy icebreaker for our region. Some Members of Congress said, ``Oh, you have ice?'' Let me tell you, in the winter, yes, we do. This investment will ensure that for decades to come the thousands of miles of shipping lanes of the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence Seaway, our Nation's longest coastline, are navigable, and that the materials that make our country run are able to be delivered and that our freshwater bounty is preserved for the future.

I want to especially thank Chairman Peter DeFazio of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for taking up this request from our bipartisan House Great Lakes Task Force.

As co-chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, our members delivered the funding bill necessary to turbocharge investments in coastal resiliency across our country; in home weatherization programs, as climate changes from coast to coast; to modernize the Soo Locks, essential for industry as well as the defense of this Nation; and to focus on next-generation energy, solar energy technology, and technologies we are inventing. In hydrogen, in various types of thermal water technologies there is so much where America will lead the world in inventions for the future.

To succeed, we have to make sure these investments make it through this Congress and that infrastructure investment makes it to President Biden's desk. Old infrastructure is crumbling, as our climate is changing, and we are running out of time.

We know that a functioning Soo Locks system between Lake Superior and the rest of the Great Lakes, for example, supports more than 11 million jobs. That is a ``wow'' by any measure.

And we know that clean energy technologies, like solar and wind, are vital to powering our Nation and producing clean and affordable energy, and building our future right here, right now at home.

In northern Ohio, we have brilliant workers at innovative companies like Toledo Solar and First Solar that are developing the revolutionary solar panels that will power homes, businesses, and factories in every corner of our Nation.

We are literally building the change forward right now, providing for our domestic energy security and independence.

But companies like these need workers, and workers need training, and that is what the infrastructure and jobs bill will allow us to do, build back better for America's tomorrow, as President Biden knows we must.

We are talking about good-paying, middle-class jobs. We are talking about investing in climate resilience and environmental conservation that restores communities, puts people to work, and ensures our families have wages that meet their needs and allow them to buy the vitals they need for life.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source