Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND VETERANS AFFAIRS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (Senate - May 22, 2008)

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from Maryland for her passion on behalf of all Americans but particularly those whom she represents in Maryland. She has done an amazing job, and I commend her for that. I hope all of our colleagues listened to her words about what is in this bill because it is extremely important.

This first amendment we will be voting on today--we are going to have some pretty important decisions when we vote shortly because the bill we are debating does more than provide billions of dollars to fund our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. What this amendment does is provide money for emergencies right here at home in America, including funding to respond to natural disasters and our weakened economy.

Now, as we debate this bill, we are facing a choice: Will we support the domestic funding to help keep our communities strong at home or are we going to simply ignore their needs as we send billions of dollars to Iraq and Afghanistan alone?

President Bush has made his position pretty clear. He said that the only emergencies worth funding in this bill are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said he is going to veto any legislation that includes one penny over his request of $183.8 billion for the wars.

But people across this country are hurting. Workers are facing unemployment. Our veterans are having to fight their own Government for the services they earned, and communities from Maine to New Hampshire to my home State of Washington are struggling to recover from devastating storms.

The domestic funding in this amendment would keep jobs here at home, repair badly damaged roads, care for our veterans, and help our rural communities. I think the President's veto threat shows exactly how out of touch he is with the needs of our American people.

As chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, one of the provisions in this bill that I am most concerned about is highway and bridge reconstruction. Now, it is not that President Bush isn't concerned about highway construction. This administration actually requested millions of dollars in emergency funding for highway construction in this bill. The problem is, I tell my colleagues, that President Bush's concern is for highways in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, those are the only requests for roads and bridge repairs by the President in this supplemental.

Meanwhile, the Federal Highway Administration is currently sitting on a backlog of applications totaling over half a billion dollars for roads and bridges that have been destroyed by natural disasters right here at home in America. They are still struggling in Louisiana to rebuild roads that were damaged during Hurricane Katrina and the heavy rains of 2006. Texas needs help to rebuild after Hurricane Rita and floods over the last 2 years. Large sections of roads in Maine and New Hampshire were destroyed in floods last spring. In Oregon and in my home State of Washington, we are still fighting to recover from devastating floods that were caused by storms of last December.

Let me give my colleagues an idea of what I am talking about. This photo shows us roadwork that is being done in Afghanistan. Now, in this supplemental appropriations bill, the President requested more than $725 million for construction, repair, and restoration of roads and bridges in Iraq and Afghanistan. The money the President is requesting includes over $300 million for the Commander's Emergency Response Program for road projects in Iraq and Afghanistan; $50 million for Afghanistan's Bamiyan-Dowshi Road, as well as another $275 million for other roads in Afghanistan. He is also asking for another $100 million in military construction projects for road projects in Bagram, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. My concern is that the President wants to fund these roads overseas, and yet he is ignoring that 21 States right here are waiting--waiting--for emergency help with roads and bridges that are eligible for Federal aid--roads in Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

Let's be clear. We are not talking just about fixing potholes.

I ask unanimous consent to have a table which displays all of the States that are waiting for emergency relief printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, in several of those 21 States that are waiting for funds, officially declared natural disasters wiped-out roads and bridges, completely creating obvious safety hazards but also cutting off some of our rural communities and disrupting families and commerce. Here is a picture that gives us an idea of the scope of the problem we face in my home State alone. Sections of roads such as this one in Gifford-Pinchot National Forest were completely destroyed in recent floods.

If the Federal Government doesn't provide help, these States are going to have to either wait to fix these roads or pay for these emergency repairs by diverting money from their annual highway funds and delaying or cancelling critically needed projects. At a time when we know our economy is slipping and gas prices are at an alltime high, our States can't afford to do this. A State such as Oklahoma would have to spend almost 7 percent of its entire annual highway program to help repair roads that were destroyed during recently declared disasters.

Mr. President, 2007 was an unusually hard year for Oklahoma. The problems that were caused by storms last year were compounded by more storms this past April. As a result, the backlog of highway repairs now waiting for the Federal aid emergency relief program totals $33.5 million. That money is contained in the amendment we will be voting on this morning.

So, as I said, my home State of Washington was hit by devastating floods last December. Communities from southwest Washington in Whatcom County on the Canadian border are struggling to recover, and they desperately need and deserve help from our Federal Government.

The bottom line is that while I understand the problems that inadequate roads pose to our military and the people in Iraq and Afghanistan, we also have urgent needs right here at home for the same kinds of repairs, and we have a responsibility to address those emergencies. The longer we wait, the longer the list of roads waiting for repairs becomes. And those damaged roads hold up our commerce, they keep people from getting to work, and they keep goods from getting to market. That is going to continue to hurt our already strained economy.

Just yesterday, Governor Gregoire in my home State declared an emergency when a highway in Spokane was completely washed out in heavy rains and snowmelts. Our Transportation Department says those repairs will cost $1 million, and it is going to take several days to reopen a single lane of that traffic.

When our citizens pay their taxes, they except their money will go to keep the roads and bridges in their own communities safe and reliable. I think President Bush is profoundly out of touch if he believes our taxpayers would rather spend their money on new roads overseas than on damaged roads in their own communities.

So I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle pay close attention to what is in this emergency relief amendment and that they vote to take care of their own constituents at home while we continue to fund these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.

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