Rebuild America Jobs Act--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before the Senator leaves the floor, I commend the Senator from Massachusetts. He has said much this afternoon that I certainly agree with.

I also want to touch on one other point about the Senator's work--the Senator from Massachusetts--in this area. The public, perhaps more than anything else, is talking about why people in Washington, DC, cannot work together, why we can't come up with ways to build coalitions. I am not sure people picked up on it in the Senator's remarks, particularly with respect to China. They are investing far more than we are. But he has pulled together the chamber of commerce and the AFL-CIO for an infrastructure package. That doesn't happen by osmosis or because somebody puts out a press release. He put in the time to try to build that coalition, which, of course, is key to getting bipartisan support up here. I want the Senator to know I very much appreciate it. I know he brought exactly the same approach to his work on the supercommittee, trying to find common ground on some of the most challenging issues so that we will generate growth and deal with health care costs.

I have some remarks to make, but I am glad I had a chance to listen to the Senator from Massachusetts because I thought the point he made about bringing people together was important. And I hope people will say, as we look at this transportation package--I just want to get on the bill, frankly, so we can open other kinds of ideas. The Senator has put in a lot of time, and it paid off with coalitions such as the chamber of commerce and the AFL-CIO. That is the kind of approach that will solve some of these big problems.

Mr. KERRY. I thank my friend from Oregon. Nobody works harder on building coalitions than the Senator from Oregon. He has done a superb job on health care and tax policy, so those words mean a lot. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, my sense is that if you tune in on the Senate today--and, of course, the ways of the Senate are always hard to follow. The occupant of the chair is involved in changing the rules of the Senate and has a sense of what I am talking about. You try to figure out what the Senate is up to, and at this point you have learned that today the Senate is working on infrastructure. You hear that word again and again. You roll your eyes and you say: Wake me when the potholes get fixed.

What I want to do for a few minutes this afternoon is try to tie this to what I believe is first and foremost on the minds of the American people, and that is jobs. That is what we hear about morning, noon, and night.

The fact is that we cannot have big-league economic growth in America with little-league transportation systems. It is not possible. If our bridges and roads are falling apart, we simply cannot have the growth we need, and job growth is the No. 1 issue for our people, and literally infrastructure improvement--roads, bridges, and transportation systems and jobs are two sides of the same coin. They go hand in hand. That is point No. 1.

Point No. 2 is on the question of how we stack up to some of our competitors worldwide. If we can't move goods and services efficiently in this country, our businesses are practically in the position where they have to put up a sign and say: We cannot compete with China because when China is making these kinds of investments that we heard Senator Kerry and other colleagues on both sides of the aisle talk about in the last few days, you know what we are up against.

Transportation is the key to moving goods and services efficiently. We have bottlenecks, for example, in my part of the country, in the metropolitan area and, frankly, in rural areas where people could not have dreamed there would be a traffic jam even a few years ago.

Point No. 3 is there is no economic multiplier in our country like transportation. When you make well-targeted investments in transportation, you create jobs for the folks who are building those projects, you create jobs for the people who are selling the equipment, you are creating jobs for folks such as the people in the restaurants who make the ham sandwiches for the workers who are out there building the projects and trying to find ways to help our people avoid traffic and save gas as they try to get to and from work. So this is a big economic multiplier.

And, No. 4, Mr. President, as you know from your experience as a westerner, the history of our part of the world is that private investment has always followed well-targeted public investments. You look all over the West and the great distances our folks have to travel, and you will see again and again the key to getting more private sector investment. In my view, the key to economic recovery is the private sector job growth that is behind the tax reform bill I have with Senator Coats--the first bipartisan tax reform bill. We need private sector job growth in the West. The history of our region is that private sector employment has traditionally followed well-targeted public investments.

What I want to see us do--and what the vote that is coming up is all about--is to have a chance to move to the bill. If we move to the bill, I believe there are all kinds of opportunities for Democrats and Republicans, through amendments and a variety of opportunities, to exchange ideas and to come up with bipartisan approaches. I have had a chance to be part of those kinds of discussions in the last few years.

Look, for example, at the common ground that has developed between Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe on the Environment and Public Works Committee. They are making a lot of progress in reauthorizing a transportation bill. That is only one example here in the Senate of Democrats and Republicans coming together.

Let me cite two others. In the Economic Recovery Act, I had a chance in the Senate Finance Committee to advance an idea I have been working on for more than 5 years. There was a very large and bipartisan group of us who worked on it. Former Senator Talent was the original Republican, but Senator Thune was involved, Senator Wicker, Senator Collins, and a very large bipartisan group working with colleagues on our side of the aisle. The Senator from Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar, is one who comes to mind, who has been a very thoughtful advocate of improvements in transportation. So in the Senate Finance Committee, as we moved forward with the Economic Recovery Act, Chairman Baucus and then ranking minority member Senator Grassley, in effect, said: Well, we have been hearing about some of these ideas this bipartisan group has been advancing. Let's give them a chance to make their case. I offered the proposal to create something called Build America Bonds. This was a chance to, for the first time, move the Federal Government into the bonding area. It has long been done, of course, at the State and local level, and it received good reviews from the private sector.

I recall the day when Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley asked me what I predicted in terms of the results of the Build America Bonds. I said: We have gotten basically about a year and a half. As you know, the Recovery Act was passed in the winter of 2009, and the IRS had to implement the rules. But when we wrapped up the period for which we issued Build America bonds, more than $181 billion worth of Build America bonds had been used all across the country for capital infrastructure projects. They had been used in big projects on the east coast of the United States--the New Jersey Turnpike was one--and they had been used for roads in southern Oregon.

If you want to talk efficiency, look at the Web site of our State treasurer, Ted Wheeler, who said they were saving in our State 10 percent by issuing these Build America bonds.

I see my friend from California is here, Senator Feinstein, and I believe California was one of the largest users of Build America bonds. To have a program that was envisioned as perhaps selling $5 billion or $36 billion worth of bonds selling more than $180 billion is an example of what we can do on a bipartisan basis that will put people to work and will actually save money.

The savings we found in Oregon can also be illustrated by the analysis done by the Department of the Treasury that finds the same sort of savings we found in Oregon.

With respect to the Build America bonds, in some respects they were too successful. People said: Oh, perhaps they are being used for more kinds of projects than was acceptable to some people. So once again we said, we are going to come back and try to find a way to generate bipartisan support. My colleague from North Dakota, Senator Hoeven, and I got together and we put forward another proposal--a different version--that we call the TRIP program--the Transportation and Regional Infrastructure Program. Our plan would allow State infrastructure banks to issue bonds to pay for transportation projects, once again having a small supportive role from the Federal Government. The folks who run the numbers at the Joint Committee on Taxation say that with this bipartisan proposal--a Republican from North Dakota, a Democrat from the State of Oregon--it would be possible to get $50 billion worth of transportation projects with this model, with only $12 billion worth of cost over 10 years.

I only illustrate this fact to suggest that if it is possible to get on the bill, I think we are going to see colleagues on the Republican and the Democratic side look to try to cooperate and find some common ground. Senator Kerry made the point about the infrastructure bank, how we got the support of the Chamber of Commerce, Senator Graham and Senator Hutchison and others. I have gone through some of the history of other transportation efforts--that progress is being made now with Senator Boxer and Inhofe on the transportation bill; and the Build America bonds effort, which produced a thirtyfold increase over what was anticipated, literally revolutionizing the municipal bond market and was utilized for big projects, such as the New Jersey Turnpike, and small projects, such as roads in southern Oregon; and now if we can go to this bill--and that is what the vote is all about, whether we actually get on the bill--we will be able to offer alternatives and ideas. Frankly, the provisions that are in the bill in its current form, I don't see how anybody can be against them. The question of highway repair is about as fundamental a function of government as anything one can imagine. So there is plenty in this bill I think colleagues on both sides of the aisle could support.

I have cited a number of examples of bipartisanship in this area, where we can do more in the infrastructure field while we save money, and I hope colleagues will vote--I gather the vote will be tomorrow--to move to the bill and give us a chance to get serious about what I think is central to growing the American economy and at well-targeted investments in transportation.

To me, the question of job creation and infrastructure are literally two sides of the same coin, so I hope the Senate moves to this legislation tomorrow and begins to beef up our effort to deal with a fundamental part of job creation in this country. It is so fundamental that in much of the country, if we don't make the investments, it will literally be the equivalent of saying to our businesses: Put up a sign that says you are not going to be in a position to compete with China right now; come back another time. That is unacceptable to me and to Oregon businesses and Oregon workers. That is why I hope my colleagues will vote to go to the bill.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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