Highway Trust Fund

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GARAMENDI. Hello, America. Do you know what is going to happen in just a few days? In 7 legislative days, the United States highway trust fund runs out of money--kaput, it is over--a fund established by President Eisenhower in the 1950s, out of money.

What is the House of Representatives doing? What is your Representative and your Senator doing? Well, I suspect debating the Trans-Pacific Partnership--the TPA--when, in fact, this is the big jobs issue.

The trade negotiations, you can debate it forever; but if you really want to create jobs in America, pay attention to this, America. Pay attention to the fact that the Federal highway trust fund expires in 7 legislative days. We have got work to do here; we have got a lot of work to do, and it is not happening.

I am a Californian. I represent the State of California. We have a pretty high opinion of ourselves in California, maybe deserved or not; but what it means to us when the highway trust fund shuts down, what it means is a lot of jobs. 73,572 jobs will be jeopardized at the end of this month of May. We are looking at 5,692 active highway and transit projects will stop, red light stop, don't go forward.

For California, in just 7 legislative days, a very, very important thing happens--actually, far, far more important than the Trans-Pacific Partnership or the trade promotion authority. This is where the big jobs are in America. Building the infrastructure of America is how you create jobs today and on into the future because you lay the foundation for economic growth.

If you couple those transportation programs with another long, longstanding American law, which is Buy America, Make It In America, you not only create the foundation, but you also create immediate manufacturing jobs of all kinds. From the bulldozers, to the tractors and the backhoes, to the steel and the concrete, you buy it in America; you build the infrastructure in America, and you create immediate jobs.

How many? Well, I think we all know Duke University. It is more than a basketball school. It also happens to be one of the more thoughtful research institutions in the United States. They produced a little book that about 535 of the Representatives of the American people ought to be reading.

This ought to be the bedtime reading for the Senators and the Members of Congress: ``Infrastructure Investment Creates American Jobs,'' Duke University Center on Globalization, Governance, and Competitiveness.

I am going to read just a few things here just to drive this point home.

Old and broken transportation infrastructure makes the United States less competitive than 15 of our major trading partners and makes manufacturers less efficient in getting goods to market.

You want to get goods to market, build the infrastructure.

Underinvestment costs the United States over 900,000 jobs, including more than 97,000 American manufacturing jobs.

You want to Make It In America, build the infrastructure.

Maximizing American-made materials when rebuilding infrastructure has the potential to create even more jobs. Relying on American-made inputs can also mitigate safety concerns related to large-scale outsourcing.

It is our Make It In America policy. It is the agenda that we have been driving for the last 5 years here. Build the infrastructure, Buy America, Make It In America.

Competitiveness, a lot of talk, everybody wants to talk about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the TPA. You want to be competitive; you build the American infrastructure--again, Duke University.

The United States boasts the world's largest stock of transportation infrastructure as measured by combined bridges, airports, seaports, and miles of road, rail, pipeline, and inland waterways.

It is a very good start, foundation.

The United States is not well positioned compared to its major trading partners in terms of quality of transportation infrastructure. Global assessments of transportation infrastructure place the United States in 16th place out of 144 nations.

You want to improve our competitiveness, you want to create jobs, build the infrastructure.

The quality of transportation infrastructure affects the United States' competitiveness, point No. 6, and here is what we can do about it.

Instead of the administration's spending all of its energy and all of its time talking about how we are going to deal with international trade that, in all likelihood, will create fewer jobs in America--so much so that they have to put into that Trans-Pacific Partnership a provision that would actually pay American workers who have lost their jobs--why don't they talk about their own GROW AMERICA Act?

This is the Department of Transportation. This is the President's program, the GROW AMERICA Act. It is, really, a good piece of legislation. It is not yet introduced, unfortunately, but it calls for $7.6 billion to fix our highway system--this is all annual--$6.8 billion to improve public transportation, $3.4 billion to strengthen our rail systems--Amtrak and other kinds of rail systems--and $1 billion to accelerate our freight support system. If you really want to do international trade, you really have to build the freight management system in this Nation. It has got to go out, not just in, and you can't do it with the antiquated freight systems that we have in the United States. This is $476 billion over a 4-year period of time. It is a good project--it is fully paid for--but we are not even talking about it here.

We have got work to do. The purpose of this 1 hour, which will, actually, be significantly less than an hour, is to say, ``Hello, America. Wake up. Ask your Members of Congress: 'What are you doing about transportation? What are you doing in 7 legislative days to fix the transportation system? Are you paying attention? Are you paying attention to your State? to your community that you represent? to the jobs that you are going to see and the highway projects and the transit projects? Are you paying attention?''' In 7 legislative days, at the end of this month, the Federal highway trust fund terminates along with the projects that are supported by it. It is a problem. It is our problem. We need the courage to act, and we need to pay attention to what is really important, which happens to be the transportation infrastructure of this great Nation. We need to rebuild it.

Joining me this hour is the gentlewoman representing the Capital of the United States, Washington, D.C., Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the ranking member of the

Highways and Transit Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Delegate Norton, thank you for joining us tonight. I am looking forward to your presentation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you. Thank you for your leadership on the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, because you are carrying the weight of this particular piece of legislation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GARAMENDI. It has to be done. We absolutely have to do this with your leadership on the subcommittee in trying to find a path to build the infrastructure and in looking for ways to pay for it.

Actually, the administration in the GROW AMERICA Act found a way to pay for it--with the earnings of American corporations that are overseas. Bring those back; tax them; and we would have enough money, together with the existing excise tax, to build our infrastructure over the next 4 to 5 years, so we have got to do it.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GARAMENDI. You have to lay down the marker. You laid down the first proposal, and it is really good. I said 4 years. Actually, it is a 6-year bill--$478 billion--and it covers all of the elements. All of the elements are there. If somebody has got a better idea, we haven't heard it.

I am delighted. When you introduce that bill, count me as one of the coauthors of it, and I look forward to working with your leadership to push it along.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GARAMENDI. This is a major concern in that it seems as though the most common thing that happens here in Congress is a game that we used to play as children. It is called ``kick the can.'' You would get an old No. 16 can, and you would kick it around the yard. We kick the can down the road here so often instead of really gripping the issue and saying, ``Okay. Let us do something that lays out a long-term, 6-year plan where the States and the counties and the cities can actually project projects and know that the funding is going to be there so they can be efficient and effective and prioritize.'' Instead of doing that, we just kind of kick the can down the road.

They are talking about a 6-month, until the end of September, with the same level of funding. We are going to lose a lot of jobs, and the opportunity to build the systems that we absolutely have to have in order to grow our economy is not going to happen. I just go, ``Why would we do that? We have a good model.''

I am looking forward to the introduction of the GROW AMERICA Act that you are going to introduce. Tell us what is wrong with this. Tell us where it doesn't meet the needs.

My Republican colleagues and Democratic colleagues, what is missing? What improvements should there be? Tell us what it is. We will deal with it.

The funding source, as you said, makes sense. American corporations--Apple and others--have billions of dollars--almost $1 trillion--of profits overseas that are not taxed. Bring it home. Use that to invest in America. Bring the capital home so that you can put labor and capital together, starting with infrastructure, and build this Nation. Mr. Delaney, our colleague from Maryland, has a good proposal, a bipartisan proposal, that does that.

Run with it, Congress. Run with it, Senate. Let's do something.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GARAMENDI. We really must do that.

Yesterday, I was in the Central Valley--Modesto, California--for a meeting, and I had to drive to San Francisco for a speech over Interstate 580, the Altamont Pass, and it is so broken up. There is the fast lane on the Altamont Pass, as you go up over the mountain, that actually has about a 6-inch crack in the fast lane. As you drive down, you are driving down on one side of the crack. You have one wheel on one side and the other wheel on the other side of this crack, and you say, ``Whoa, I hope I can make it through here.'' That is a major transportation route with tens of thousands of cars traveling on it every day. So the state of good repair? Not in California.

What does it mean? If we were to take the GROW AMERICA Act that you are going to introduce, it would mean that, compared to this year, 2015, we would have $7.6 billion more across the Nation to repair the highways in our Nation. The Altamont Pass, it is downright dangerous--I was shocked--but they don't have any money to fix it. There would be $7.6 billion for all of this Nation to do it.

Then the buses, the transit agency in San Francisco. I was parked in San Francisco, waiting for a stoplight. A bus pulls up, and it had to be a 1950 bus. It was rusted out, and I am sure the seats were torn apart. All good credit to San Francisco for trying, but across the Nation, it is the same way--here in Washington, D.C., with the transit agencies, Amtrak.

By the way, Amtrak came to Congress. They wanted money--this is some good news--and we actually passed an Amtrak bill out of the House of Representatives a couple of months ago. Yet do you know what they wanted to do? They wanted to get a waiver on the Buy America provisions. They have to build, I think, 28 locomotives and train sets--high-speed--and they didn't want to buy it in America. I am going, no, no way. If we are going to spend American taxpayer money, spend it on American-made equipment, on American jobs. Make It In America. No way are you going to get out of that.

I also want to talk about this, but you have got a bridge behind you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, you couldn't be more accurate, and you certainly did make the point. I was looking at the picture there. You have got the Northeast corridor, the entire Amtrak system underneath that bridge into Union Station, which I think is probably just to what I would say stage left, and the rail system goes through there, and then the highway system. I didn't realize that this is holding up the reconstruction of Union Station.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, also, the lives of our citizens. I don't have the placards with me, but in previous presentations I have shown pictures of the Interstate 5 bridge that collapsed in Washington State near the Canadian border. It shut down commerce going north. You were not going north on that bridge because it collapsed. And then there was the bridge over the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities, in Minneapolis. That bridge collapsed. I think five people lost their lives there. This is an ongoing issue, one that we need to deal with.

The solution is at hand. The solution is at hand. Every community in this Nation has a transportation issue of one sort. It might be a transit, a bus, a train, or a bridge, or a highway, but we all have it.

I am going to make one more point, and this will be my last, and then I will let you wrap it up. I am going to go back to what is the discussion of the day here in Washington, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the TPA, the authorization of the fast track legislation. Ninety-nine percent of our trade goes through the ports, and this is part of the GROW AMERICA Act. It is part of the freight system. I don't think this trade bill should pass, but should it become law, you have to have the infrastructure that goes with it, and you cannot have a robust trade program unless you have a well-built port system.

By the way, one of the things that is going to happen is, because of our energy boom, the United States is creating an enormous amount of natural gas. That natural gas is in the process of being transported, shipped overseas in what is known as liquefied natural gas. You supercool, you supercompress the natural gas; you put it into a tanker, a big ship, and you transport it.

A new facility will go online in Louisiana, and it is called the Cheniere facility at Sabine Pass. It will take 100 tankers, ships, to handle the volume of that one export facility, and there are five others that are in the permitting process. I am saying, Wait a minute, that is a strategic national asset; that is part of our infrastructure. Why don't we ship that strategic asset on American-built ships with American sailors? If we passed a simple law here, which actually replicates the North Slope oil law back in the 1960s, we could replicate that and simply say: If we are going to export liquefied natural gas, do it on American-built ships with American sailors. We would build over the next two decades more than a hundred ships in American shipyards with American-built equipment and Americans doing the welding and building those ships, probably well over 100,000 jobs; and the seamen, the merchant marine, they would be American.

It all fits together. It is part of our transportation infrastructure. It is using our great national assets, improving them, the transportation system, and then using those assets to create American jobs. Buy America, make it in America, transport that natural gas on American-built ships with American mariners, and take what will be your legislation, the GROW AMERICA Act, and build the infrastructure.

I am looking forward to the introduction of your legislation. I am looking forward to your leadership in making this happen. We have got to talk about this every single day until we wake up, until America wakes up, and says: Wait a minute, guys, do something for our Nation; build the foundation of economic growth.

Thank you so very much for joining us, Delegate. I will let you close.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you so very much. I thank you for your leadership. I am looking forward to the introduction of the bill and to push that through. Whether we can do it in 7 days or not--we could. It is possible. All the language is written. You will introduce it. The way of paying for it is known. We have just got work to do.

I am just thinking about the greatness of this Nation and the enormous potential that we have, and how we just let that slip away, for lack of solid programs that really build this Nation. I think about Eisenhower and what he did with the great highway system that we have, the Interstate Highway System. There is much to be done. I look forward to your leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I notice that our Republican colleagues have been listening to our debate and have decided to come and take the next hour and carry forth to Make It in America, build the infrastructure and the foundation for economic growth. I look forward to hearing the gentlemen.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, we have done it over and over again, and the general talk around this building is that we are going to kick the can down the road yet again, probably for another 6 months, just like we extended the last one for 9 months. It is not the way to do it, and the result is bad public policy and an inability to really build the foundation for our economic future.

You mentioned the funding, the notion of a joint committee hearing between the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Ways and Means to discuss the funding options that you just described, and so we should talk about what the options are, and then select the one that makes the most sense for this Nation's well-being.

We can do that. That is what we were hired to do and what the voters put us here for.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source