Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016
Floor Speech
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Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Madam Chair, I rise to offer an amendment to invest in transportation infrastructure for the 21st century.
The transportation funding in this bill is woefully insufficient to meet our country's infrastructure needs. The cuts to the TIGER program are particularly egregious.
TIGER, formally known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, is a competitive grant program that creates jobs by funding investments in transportation infrastructure. This bill cuts TIGER from the 2015 level of $500 million down to a mere $100 million in 2016.
America needs new infrastructure for the 21st century. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the public infrastructure of the United States a grade of D-plus in 2013 and estimated that we will need to invest $3.6 trillion by 2020 in order to improve the conditions of our infrastructure.
Indeed, TIGER needs to be expanded, not cut. The President requested $1.25 billion for TIGER in the coming fiscal year, as part of an expanded TIGER program that will create jobs, encourage innovation, and modernize transportation infrastructure for the 21st century.
Earlier this year, I sent a letter to the Appropriations Committee urging support for the President's request, and 144 Members of Congress signed my letter.
Our economy is still struggling to recover from the recession. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, our Nation's unemployment rate stands at 5.4 percent. Furthermore, unemployment among Hispanics is 6.9 percent. Among African Americans, it is 9.6 percent, and among teenagers, it is 17.1 percent.
An expanded TIGER program will create meaningful employment building safe roads, bridges, and public transit systems in communities throughout the United States.
My amendment increases TIGER funding to $1.25 billion in order to fully fund the President's request for this critical program.
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Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Well, you have accurately and appropriately identified the need for the program, based on those applications. Not only is it a very popular program, it is a program that creates jobs, and our local communities need this very much, and they are strong advocates for it.
I would hope that my colleagues here in the Congress, on both sides of the aisle, who have benefitted from the TIGER program, would see the need and remove all obstacles, support this program, and let us move forward with getting the infrastructure repairs and the building that we need to do.
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Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Madam Chair, I rise to offer an amendment to restore some of the transportation funding that was cut drastically in this bill.
This is my second of two amendments to increase funds for the innovative TIGER transportation grant program. This amendment increases fiscal year 2016 TIGER funding to $500 million, thereby restoring TIGER to the 2015 level.
States, local governments, and transit agencies depend upon the TIGER program to finance projects to repair aging infrastructure and develop new highway and transit systems. A safe, efficient, modern, and accessible transportation system is vital for a growing economy.
Madam Chair, we cannot afford to cut TIGER below the current funding level, and I am here this evening to urge my colleagues to vote for my amendment and invest in infrastructure for the 21st century.
I recognize that a point of order has been raised on this issue, but I also recognize that what I am advocating is vital for this economy and for this country. I would hope that somehow we would be wise enough, creative enough, and caring enough to dispense with the rule, as it has been identified on my first amendment, and move forward in a very creative way to do what is necessary to help our failing infrastructure in this country.
The stories about the failing bridges, the stories about the unsafe highways, the stories about the need for transit system improvements are stories that we hear, day in and day out.
Given the information that has been made available to us about the needs for infrastructure repairs, I would hope that we would not simply treat this in such an ordinary fashion and apply the rule that basically says: Well, if I did not find the money to fund it, then somehow it cannot be in order.
Certainly, this amount of money is not easy to locate; certainly, I do not have an answer to where this money would necessarily come from, but I would hope that my colleagues would take into consideration again the desperate need of our economy and our communities and not rule this out of order.
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