Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSEN of Connecticut. I want to commend the gentlelady from Ohio and the gentleman from New Jersey for the debate, in general, that we've witnessed on this floor. I think we can all agree in so many respects that infrastructure is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. It's an American issue.

I come here this afternoon to reason, which is a funny word here, I guess, in Congress, but in fact is something that I think we need to do more of. I come here disheartened to see this bill come to the floor that is underinvesting in something that is as critical to the Nation as flood protection. Amongst the many infrastructure issues, it's one that imperils many districts, including my own. We have systems that are 75 years old and have not been addressed in a way that they need to be. All around us, whether it's in my district or anywhere across this country, infrastructure problems abound, whether it's roads, whether it's bridges, whether it's airports, whether it's deep harbors, whether it's school systems, or whether it's levees. They are in need of repair. They are in need of our investment as a Nation.

The great irony is that in these difficult economic times what we need is to put the country back to work. What is required for the country to go back to work is to improve the very infrastructure over which our commerce grows and flows that provides our economy with the kind of boost that it needs that puts our people back to work.

I have heard person after person on the other side get up and cite China, talking about their vast development. How has China moved forward, if not in developing its own infrastructure? Yet here in our country the neglect continues.

Congress cannot continue to sleep while our infrastructure erodes from underneath us. The levees between Hartford and East Hartford have been cited in study after study as needing attention, and the local municipalities have put in their own funding for it, but cannot possibly match what the Federal Government has required. And this is not just in my State and in my district, but all across this country.

A case in point can be made with Hurricane Sandy, where the government spent $60 billion in disaster relief by funding projects, which was the prudent thing to do. But we know that for every $1 spent in preserving and making our districts safe by improving the infrastructure, it's $4 saved in this country.

It's hard for people back in my district, and especially people who gather at Augie and Ray's, a local stand in my district where they serve hot dogs and hamburgers and coffee and breakfast in the morning, to understand why it is that Congress can't get together and reason and understand that by funding the infrastructure, not by cutting back on the Army Corps, not by continuing to cut programs that will provide funding for jobs, but by actually investing in Americans, instead of sitting idly by and watching as other nations, especially our chief competitors, invest in their own infrastructure, improve their own security, while Congress sleeps and watches the slow erosion of what was once the greatest system in the world--and still can be--if we come together and reason and invest in our systems, invest in our people, invest in our security, invest in the protection that will make sure that the American people are safe, secure and, most importantly, back to work.

It's neither Democrat nor Republican. It's fundamentally American.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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