Providing For Consideration of H.R. 5021, Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, today, we are considering the rule for H.R. 5021, the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014. While this bill provides an extension of Federal highway programs, frankly, our Nation deserves a long-term solution to support our transportation infrastructure needs that will allow for a more effective and efficient use of resources through public-private partnerships and long-term contracts. In effect, by engaging in short-term legislating, we are actually raising the cost of infrastructure projects across the country, making it less efficient rather than more than efficient.

Unfortunately, this bill is a closed rule, which I do not support. It limits debate. It doesn't allow Democrats or Republicans to come up with ideas for amendments to improve the bill. That should be what this legislative body is all about.

I have friends on both sides of the aisle who have ideas to make this more efficient, to save taxpayers money, and to get more infrastructure bang for their buck, ideas like a national infrastructure bank, a bipartisan bill by my colleague, Mr. Delaney, that would allow for lower-cost financing with locally driven infrastructure projects, at no taxpayer cost.

None of us are even allowed to discuss for not 10 minutes, not 1 minute, not a single moment, any amendments under this closed rule, and I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote ``no'' on this closed rule.

In 2012, Congress passed the Moving Ahead for Progress program that my colleague, Mr. Webster, mentioned, which reauthorized Federal surface transportation programs and maintained the solvency of the highway
trust fund through the end of September 2014.

That seemed like a little ways off at the time, but here we are in July of 2014, fast approaching insolvency of the trust fund in September of 2014. How inconvenient to members of the Republican Party that this might occur before an election. Suddenly, there is an impetus to do something about it, to actually address the issue or at least to kick the can down the road a few months until, conveniently, after the election when we actually have a national discussion about how to meet our infrastructure needs and to pay for them.

This bill is simply a very short-term highway trust fund patch. It only extends the highway programs through May 31, 2015, and transfers $10.8 billion to the highway trust fund.

As Transportation Secretary Foxx said, without a patch, tens of thousands of critical projects and 700,000 jobs will be jeopardized. In fact, States are already preparing to delay or halt ongoing projects if the funding runs out in September. My home State of Colorado alone has nearly 50 active construction projects that could be at risk if we don't pass some kind of patch.

But this approach is just another kick the can down the road approach, to have a national discussion about infrastructure, to encourage efficiency of our Federal dollars rather than forcing contractors to bid out higher amounts because of uncertainty about whether their contracts will be long-term or short-term.

There are several easy ways that we could pay for a long-term transportation fix. The simplest would be immigration reform. H.R. 15 would generate over $200 billion in the first 10 years and close to a trillion over 20 years that could be used to invest in infrastructure across our country.

Others have talked about using some kind of user fee. Traditionally, the gas tax has been used as a proxy for people who use our highways.

I am very disappointed that not only are we not considering any long-term solutions to reauthorizing MAP-21, but we are not even allowed to improve this current bill before us, not just to make it longer term, but to offer simple, efficient ideas to make it work better and get more bang for our buck.

Our Nation relies on Congress to pass measures that ensure that our roadways, bridges, and transit systems are the best in the world. This bill falls short on that account. The American Society of Civil Engineers has given our country's infrastructure a D-plus grade on its 2013 report. In this increasingly competitive global economy, a D-plus is not enough to get us by as a nation to create jobs and grow our economy.

My home State of Colorado has increasing transportation needs, as do many other States. In the wake of floods last September, rockslides, landslides, and mudslides caused damage to roadways and bridges in Colorado. Five hundred miles of roadway were affected at the peak of the flood and 120 bridges were damaged, resulting in over $500 million of additional repairs to our already beleaguered transportation infrastructure. While the Colorado Department of Transportation did an excellent job completing short-term fixes to get traffic moving, there remain many long-term projects along our canyons and roadways where we need permanent repairs to our roads. There simply isn't enough of an investment in this highway infrastructure bill to address our infrastructure needs.

Again, we don't necessarily need to spend more money. We can simply pass the Partnership to Build America Act--if it were allowed to be introduced as an amendment under this bill, I would be happy to--a bipartisan bill by Representative Delaney with 70 sponsors from both sides of the aisle that would essentially help finance locally driven projects to the tune of $750 billion at a low interest rate by allowing U.S. multinational companies who have tax-deferred profits oversees to bring back their earnings to the United States, where they can invest them in growing employment and infrastructure here. It is a win-win scenario. Yet under this closed amendment process, we are not even allowed to bring up this bill.

This measure falls short on a number of accounts. Its short-term nature makes the growing importance of public-private partnerships more difficult. And yet if we could simply amend this bill and improve it or make it longer term, we could finally have a discussion about our national infrastructure.

The House majority continues to have a closed process where bills are constructed and not allowed to be improved upon by Republicans or Democrats here in the House. I know that we can do better, and I encourage my colleagues to oppose this rule, bring down this rule so we can have an open process regarding transportation funding.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close. I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, this Congress seems committed to kicking the can down the road, avoiding discussions of real solutions, failing to solicit ideas from Members of both sides of the aisle to move our country forward, and just stumbling along.

I think we can do better as a Nation, and we need to do better with regard to our Nation's infrastructure.

Yes, this bill funds the highway trust fund until next May. That is important; but what happens after May 2015? Is that the magic month where we finally agree that we need to take long-term action to address our Nation's crumbling roads and bridges?

This Congress continues to manage self-imposed crisis to self-imposed crisis. That is no way to run a company. It is certainly no way to run a country.

As long as we kick the can down the road, we are reducing the certainty that developers and contractors need to plan for the future and increasing costs for taxpayers for supporting our existing infrastructure.

We are undercutting opportunities for public-private partnerships because of the lack of stability or even knowing when or if or in what form the highway trust fund will be funded in the future.

If we don't act to provide stability to the highway trust fund, we are not only putting our economy at risk, but the safety and well-being of all those who send us here as their representatives. It is not only a competitiveness issue. It is a safety issue for the American people.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

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Mr. POLIS. When we defeat the previous question, we can send our colleagues back to work with regard to infrastructure and a long-term solution and address an issue that my constituents have been writing me about and that American women and men across the country have been crying out for.

Contraception was a tremendous leap forward for women and for the American people. It empowers women to make the reproductive choices that make sense for them and their families. It reduces the number of abortions. It helps ensure that children are planned and well-raised, yet the recent Supreme Court decision throws into jeopardy the availability of contraception as a basic part of comprehensive health care.

By defeating the previous question, we can bring to the floor a simple bill that I strongly support that would remedy that and ensure that women have access to contraceptive choices as part of their basic health care and prevent us returning to the pre-contraception era.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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