Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5434) to provide an extension of Federal-aid highway, highway safety, and transit programs, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 5434.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5434, the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2021.

I wish that we were not at this point, calling up a short-term extension of Federal highway, transit, highway safety, motor carrier, research, and transportation financing programs. Yet, here we are.

The House did its work. We passed the INVEST in America Act on July 4, H.R. 3684, a 5-year transformative reauthorization of surface transportation for the Nation dealing with climate change, resilience, creating jobs, social equity, a host of other things, and rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.

The Senate did something different, but they did pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Senate amendment to H.R. 3684, which also included a 5-year authorization of surface transportation programs.

We have not yet found a path forward for both Chambers to pass the same version of this bill. But we do need to act immediately to restore the ability of Federal surface transportation programs to function and to prevent putting thousands of U.S. Department of Transportation employees out of work for additional time.

We need to act now to avoid further ramifications for surface transportation programs. At 12:01 a.m. today, October 1, 2021, U.S. Department of Transportation operations funded out of the highway trust fund had to shut down due to a lapse in authorization. Mr. Speaker, 3,700 employees received furlough notices that they could not work today or had to work without pay due to a temporary shutdown of these programs.

Beginning this morning, the authority for Federal highway, transit, highway safety, and motor carrier safety programs lapsed. This means that until Congress passes an extension or replacement authorization, the furlough of approximately 3,700 employees will continue, and the Federal Highway Administration cannot provide any new funding to States, the District of Columbia, and the territories. The Federal Highway Administration can continue reimbursing States for obligations incurred before the lapse, but that is not enough.

The Federal Transit Administration can't issue new funding to 1,300 transit grantees that rely on Federal grants to fund construction, buy vehicles and equipment, and, in some cases, pay for operating costs. They can continue to make payments for grants issued before October 1, but that is not good enough.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration can't award new highway traffic safety grants, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration must stop issuing new motor carrier safety grants. The Office of the Secretary can't make any TIFIA loans, which are critical for many large projects.

The Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2021 will allow the Department of Transportation to restart operations of programs funded by the highway trust fund through October 31, 2021, and bring employees back to work. It will also authorize DOT to provide backpay for employees who had to miss a day of work through no fault of their own and for those who worked without pay.

The bill also includes provisions to adjust program levels should Congress enact a long-term surface transportation or infrastructure bill, H.R. 3684, during the extension period.

Finally, the bill provides a similar short-term extension for the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Act.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this extension which will help provide additional time to work through a final resolution on the legislation between the House and the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I believe I have the right to close. I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this short-term extension to put DOT back to work and get on with the critical business of rebuilding America's infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Speaker of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. The gentleman once again conflates, confuses, confabulates. The bill before us is a bipartisan bill from the Senate, $550 billion of new spending on top of the expected income. It is not $3.5, $4.5, $5 trillion and doesn't include all those other things. It does include roads, bridges, highways, transit, water, wastewater, drinking water, lead pipes, ports, airports, and broadband, which I think his constituents want.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the majority whip.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the majority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we could have perhaps had a bipartisan bill out of the House, except for the unified rejection of climate change on the other side of the aisle.

Transportation is the largest single emitter of CO2 pollution in the country. This is a critical threat to our country, to the world, and we have to deal with it.

The bill we wrote and passed would have dealt with that very meaningfully and moved us into 21st century infrastructure. This bill contains some of those elements that even the Republicans on this side would not support. EV charging, nope, not in their bill. Electric buses, nope, not in their bill. Electric school buses, nope, not in their bill. None of those things were in their bill.

In fact, their alternative, which they didn't even offer on the floor, by the way--so they don't really have an alternative--was $350 billion for highways, status quo, with an increase in spending. No changes in policy except for the one, Rodney Davis' thing, which is in the Senate bill, to gut NEPA. Then, transit flatlined over 5 years, and rail, zero--goose egg, zero.

No wastewater, no reconnecting communities, no drinking water, no lead pipes. And by the way, every billion we spend on wastewater or drinking water creates 20,000 good-paying jobs. No broadband in their bill. And the list goes on and on.

So we don't have a real alternative on that side of the aisle. And should they help to vote this down, they oppose it, then they have no answer. The answer is a continuing resolution, status quo, funding, flat funding.

Not dealing with the 400,000 bridges in America that need substantial repair or replacement. The 40 percent of the National Highway System which has deteriorated to the point where it has to be rebuilt from the roadbed up. The $100 billion-dollar backlog in transit, a decrepit rail system--we just had a derailment; people died--and they are going to put zero dollars into rail in their bill.

Wastewater systems that back up into basements or flow into rivers, and water mains that burst, I mean, we have to deal with these things. It didn't used to be partisan. The problem is we also believe in dealing with climate change, and they can't admit to climate change because Donald Trump says it's a myth. And you can't defy Donald Trump on that side of the aisle. That is very, very sad.

At least these 19 Republican Senators nodded toward it. They included money for EV charging, electric buses in the bill--at least a little tiny nod. They did take up our mandatory greenhouse gas reduction program. They did take out our critical fix-it-first principles, but we will improve on the bill with new, novel programs in the reconciliation process yet to come and deal with some of those issues, deal with the greenhouse gas reductions, deal with more transit, more rail, more wastewater--in different ways. Drinking water, lead pipes, all those things will be in the reconciliation bill yet to come.

But plain and simple, the bill before us today is the infrastructure bill, the only option.

Mr. Speaker, I thank all my staff. There are too many to list in the time that I have remaining, so I include in the Record a list of their names.

Conclusion

Before I conclude, I want to take a moment to thank my

staff--especially those who drafted the INVEST in America

Act. They have spent countless days, nights and weekends

working on a transformational surface transportation bill

over the past two years.

I wish we were considering that bill today. But, without

their hardwork and dedication we wouldn't be here and about

to deliver for the America people the most significant

investment in our nation's infrastructure in decades.

Subcommittee on Highways and Transit

Helena Zyblikewcyz-Staff Director

Jackie Schmitz

Garrett Gee

Brittany Lundberg

Chris Bell

Zan Guendert

Subcommittee on Railroads Pipelines and Hazardous Materials

Auke Mahar-Piersma-Staff Director

Andrea Woehbler

Frances Bourne

Katherine Ambrose

Mr. Speaker, they did an absolutely phenomenal job putting this whole package together--twice, two Congresses. Real legislative process on this side of the Hill. Even though the Republicans lost, they participated in the process--not so much on the other side. Some day we might get back to regular order.

Mr. Speaker, I conclude and urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on September 23, I voted in opposition to H.R. 4350, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022. While I support several Democratic policy priorities included in this legislation, I also have significant concerns with numerous provisions, including the irresponsibly bloated topline defense spending of $768 billion that this legislation authorizes.

I strongly support the well-deserved 2.7 percent pay raise that this legislation grants our men and women in uniform. This is the very least we can do for those who continue to make extraordinary sacrifices for our country.

This legislation includes additional vital benefits for military servicemembers and their families, such as expanded parental leave, improved mental health care services, a new basic needs allowance for lower income servicemembers, and more.

I also strongly support the provisions included to combat the scourge of sexual assault in the military, including by creating an Office of Special Victim Prosecutor to prosecute these crimes, removing the commanding officer from decisions related to sexual assault, and finally criminalizing sexual harassment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

As a long-time advocate for strengthening Congress's constitutional war powers authorities and limiting executive authority to engage in armed conflict without Congress's consent, I cosponsored an amendment to prohibit unauthorized U.S. participation in the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen. I am pleased that this amendment passed the House and will push my colleagues to keep this amendment in the final NOAA conference legislation.

While I strongly support provisions in this year's NDAA, I ultimately voted against it because I believe this legislation should have included additional provisions to rein in our bloated and wasteful defense spending, take back Congress's constitutional war powers authority, and more.

Instead of increasing the defense budget by several billion dollars for yet another year in a row, I strongly believe this legislation could have made responsible cuts to our defense budget without jeopardizing the safety of our troops or undermining our national security. It's beyond time for us to invest in domestic priorities for Oregonians and the American people here at home.

That's why I supported an amendment to responsibly reduce the Pentagon budget while retaining exceptions to protect service members, civilian employees, and the vital Defense Health Program from this reduction. Unfortunately, this amendment failed to pass the House.

For years, Congress has continued to increase the Pentagon's budget despite overwhelming evidence of its waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money. It's absolutely ridiculous and irresponsible to continue throwing increasing amounts of taxpayer money at the Pentagon and lining the pockets of greedy defense contractors and special interests every year, when the Pentagon cannot even account for where this money goes.

I have long supported a financial audit of the Pentagon. Unlike every other federal agency, the DOD has yet to ever pass a financial audit. For three years in a row, the Pentagon has spectacularly failed full audits, each of which highlighted numerous examples of waste and abuse. It is ridiculous to provide the Pentagon a massive spending increase-- as this bill does--when the Pentagon cannot even account for how it spends taxpayer money. That's why I'm a cosponsor of legislation to require and incentivize every component of the DOD to finally pass an audit.

This legislation should have included more provisions to take back Congress's constitutional war powers authority, including repealing the long-outdated 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force (AUMFs). I also cosponsored and voted in favor of an amendment to end unauthorized U.S. military involvement in Syria. TI1e U.S. military has maintained a years-long presence in Syria without congressional approval, in contravention of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973. While this amendment unfortunately failed, I will continue fighting to stop this unauthorized, endless war.

I am also disappointed that amendments I supported either failed to pass the House or were not made in order. This includes amendments to curb the irresponsible expansion of U.S. nuclear weapons, to strengthen Buy America provisions to ensure the military supports U.S. manufacturers, to ensure veterans who were wrongfully dishonorably discharged for their sexual orientation are able to receive the veterans benefits they earned, and more.

I also strongly oppose provisions in this legislation that would expand military draft registration to all Americans aged 18-25, including women. I have long opposed military draft registration and have introduced legislation to repeal the Selective Service System (SSS) altogether. The SSS is an archaic, unnecessary, unwanted, and wasteful bureaucracy that violates Americans' civil liberties and subjects Americans who fail to register--largely through no fault of their own--with unnecessarily severe, lifelong penalties, all without due process. These penalties can include denial of employment, job training, educational benefits, student loans, grants, citizenship, driver's licenses, and more--at both the federal and state levels--and they disproportionately affect low income individuals and people of color.

The military itself and presidents of both parties have consistently agreed there is no military or national security imperative to ever reinstate a draft.

That's why I co-led amendments to repeal military draft registration and eliminate these

extrajudicial penalties. While these amendments were not made in order, I will continue fighting to repeal the SSS and end military draft registration. No American, regardless of gender, should ever be subject to or forced to register for an obsolete military draft.

The bottom line is that fiscal responsibility and accountability at the DOD would allow for taxpayer funds to be better spent supporting the needs of our troops, meeting our obligations to veterans, and ensuring our legitimate defense needs are prioritized while also bolstering long-underfunded domestic priorities. I will continue fighting to responsibly lower our bloated defense spending and finally put an end to our endless wars.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 601, I call up the bill (H.R. 3684) to authorize funds for Federal-aid highways, highway safety programs, and transit programs, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendment thereto, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on the measure under consideration,

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Americans are tired of potholes damaging their cars, failing bridges, decrepit transit, trains that derail, water mains that explode, sewer systems that back up into their basements and pollute our rivers.

More than 70 percent of Americans strongly support a major Federal investment in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. The last major increase in Federal support for infrastructure was during the Clinton administration's first term--the first term of the Clinton administration.

Then, President Bush did nothing on the issue.

President Obama came in talking about infrastructure investment. He passed the American Recovery Act that invested 4 percent of all that money in infrastructure. I worked with Chairman Jim Oberstar; I chaired the subcommittee. We wrote a very ambitious surface transportation reauthorization, which he had been promised by the Obama administration would be next. But it wasn't. They pulled the plug.

Then came President Trump, the builder. He invited a large group of us down to the White House. We had a long discussion, and we agreed, and finally, at the end, he turned to the Speaker and says: Nancy, Nancy, how much do you need?

And she says: $1.5 trillion, Mr. President.

He says: No, no, no, no; $1.8 trillion. No, no, no; two sounds better, $2 trillion.

Okay. We agreed to come back in 3 weeks and hammer out the details.

We came back in 3 weeks. He walked into the room, and he had a hissy fit, slammed the door, walked out, and that was the end of it, except for the seven fake infrastructure weeks during the Trump administration.

Now, the House, on the 1st of July, passed the INVEST Act, a bill that went through a real legislative process, hours in committee, amendments, hours on the floor, amendments. That was the bill the country most needed for the 21st century infrastructure. I had hoped to go to conference with the Senate, actually go through the legislative process--pretty darn rare around here these days, the way things should work, the way they are supposed to work under the Constitution. Unfortunately, because of the Senate filibuster, that wasn't to happen.

So, this President rolled up his sleeves and waded in because he promised to get infrastructure done. He negotiated first with one group of Republicans. That didn't work. He then found another group, mostly Republicans, two Democrats, and spent endless hours between the White House and that group, negotiating a bipartisan infrastructure bill.

In the end, when this bill came to the floor of the Senate, 19 Republican Senators voted for it--19 Republican Senators voted for it.

Here are a few things from the White House fact sheet on that bill. It makes the largest Federal investment in public transit ever; makes the largest Federal investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak; makes the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the Interstate Highway System; makes the largest investment in clean drinking water and wastewater infrastructure in American history, delivering clean water to millions of Americans; ensures every American has access to reliable high-speed internet; tackles climate change with the largest investment in clean energy and EV infrastructure, electrifying thousands of school and transit buses; reconnecting communities; safe streets; $17 billion for ports; $25 billion for airports.

This is what the President managed to negotiate with the recalcitrant Senate and get around the filibuster and get 19 Republican votes.

This bill is not perfect. It is not the bill that I would have written. I oppose their decision not to correct the decade-long cuts to the bus program; the provision creating a dedicated set-aside for polluting buses within the Low or No Emission Vehicle Program. That is kind of laughable. I oppose the failure to tighten the Buy American Act requirements for transit rolling stock or to further crack down on predatory Chinese state-owned enterprises, which was in our bill, as well as the omission of the investments in fix it first and mandatory greenhouse gas reductions.

I will continue to work on addressing these issues. But the reality today before us is that this is the only option with an evenly divided Senate and the stupid rules of the Senate, including

the filibuster. So it is this or nothing on the long overdue investment in America's infrastructure.

I hope the Republicans on the other side will support it. If they don't, I would like them to tell us exactly what they would do.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a summary of the bill written by the White House.

Historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal

Today, the President and the bipartisan group announced

agreement on the details of a once-in-a-generation investment

in our infrastructure, which will be taken up in the Senate

for consideration. In total, the deal includes $550 billion

in new federal investment in America's infrastructure. The

bipartisan infrastructure deal will grow the economy, enhance

our competitiveness, create good- jobs, and make our economy

more sustainable, resilient, and just.

The deal will create good-paying, union jobs. With the

President's Build Back Better Agenda, these investments will

add, on average, around 2 million jobs per year over the

course of the decade, while accelerating America's path to

full employment and increasing labor force participation.

President Biden believes that we must invest in our country

and in our people, by creating good-paying union jobs,

tackling the climate crisis, and growing the economy

sustainably and equitably for decades to come. The Bipartisan

Infrastructure deal will deliver progress towards those

objectives for working families across the country. The

Bipartisan Infrastructure deal:

Makes the largest federal investment in public transit ever

Makes the largest federal investment in passenger rail

since the creation of Amtrak

Makes the single largest dedicated bridge investment since

the construction of the interstate highway system

Makes the largest investment in clean drinking water and

waste water infrastructure in American history, delivering

clean water to millions of families

Ensures every American has access to reliable high-speed

internet

Helps us tackle the climate crisis by making the largest

investment in clean energy transmission and EV infrastructure

in history; electrifying thousands of school and transit

buses across the country; and creating a new Grid Development

Authority to build a clean, 21st century electric grid.

The President promised to work across the aisle to deliver

results for working families. He believes demonstrating that

democracies can deliver is a critical challenge for his

presidency. Today's agreement shows that we can come together

to position American workers, farmers, and businesses to

compete and win in the 21st century.

Roads, Bridges, and Major Projects

One in five miles, or 173,000 total miles, of our highways

and major roads and 45,000 bridges are in poor condition.

Bridges in poor condition pose heightened challenges in rural

communities, which often may rely on a single bridge for the

passage of emergency service vehicles. The Bipartisan

Infrastructure deal will invest $110 billion of new funds for

roads, bridges, and major projects, and reauthorize the

surface transportation program for the next five years

building on bipartisan surface transportation reauthorization

bills passed out of committee earlier this year. This

investment will repair and rebuild our roads and bridges with

a focus on climate change mitigation, resilience, equity, and

safety for all users, including cyclists and pedestrians. The

bill includes a total of $40 billion of new funding for

bridge repair, replacement, and rehabilitation, which is the

single largest dedicated bridge investment since the

construction of the interstate highway system. The bill also

includes a total of $17.5 billion for major projects that are

too large or complex for traditional funding programs but

will deliver significant economic benefits to communities.

Safety

America has one of the highest road fatality rates in the

industrialized world. The

deal invests $11 billion in transportation safety programs,

including a new Safe Streets for All program to help states

and localities reduce crashes and fatalities in their

communities, especially for cyclists and pedestrians. It will

more than double funding directed to programs that improve

the safety of people and vehicles in our transportation

system, including highway safety, truck safety, and pipeline

and hazardous materials safety.

Public Transit

America's transit infrastructure is inadequate--with a

multibillion-dollar repair backlog, representing more than

24,000 buses, 5,000 rail cars, 200 stations, and thousands of

miles of track, signals, and power systems in need of

replacement. The deal invests $39 billion of new investment

to modernize transit, and improve accessibility for the

elderly and people with disabilities, in addition to

continuing the existing transit programs for five years as

part of surface transportation reauthorization. This is the

largest Federal investment in public transit in history, and

devotes a larger share of funds from surface transportation

reauthorization to transit in the history of the programs. It

will repair and upgrade aging infrastructure, modernize bus

and rail fleets, make stations accessible to all users, and

bring transit service to new communities. It will replace

thousands of transit vehicles, including buses, with clean,

zero emission vehicles. And, it will benefit communities of

color since these households are twice as likely to take

public transportation and many of these communities lack

sufficient public transit options.

Passenger and Freight Rail

Unlike highways and transit, rail lacks a multi-year

funding stream to address deferred maintenance, enhance

existing corridors, and build new lines in high-potential

locations. The deal positions Amtrak and rail to play a

central role in our transportation and economic future. This

the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation

of Amtrak 50 years ago. The deal invests $66 billion in rail

to eliminate the Amtrak maintenance backlog, modernize the

Northeast Corridor, and bring world-class rail service to

areas outside the northeast and midAtlantic. Within these

totals, $22 million would be provided as grants to Amtrak,

$24 billion as federal-state partnership grants for Northeast

Corridor modernization, $12 billion for partnership grants

for intercity rail service, including high-speed rail, $5

billion for rail improvement and safety grants, and $3

billion for grade crossing safety improvements.

EV Infrastructure

U.S. market share of plug-in electric vehicle (EV) sales is

only one-third the size of the Chinese EV market. The

President believes that must change. The bill invests $7.5

billion to build out a national network of EV chargers. This

is the first-ever national investment in EV charging

infrastructure in the United States and is a critical element

in the Biden-Harris Administration's plan to accelerate the

adoption of EVs to address the climate crisis and support

domestic manufacturing jobs. The bill will provide funding

for deployment of EV chargers along highway corridors to

facilitate long-distance travel and within communities to

provide convenient charging where people live, work, and

shop. Federal funding will have a particular focus on rural,

disadvantaged, and hard-to-reach communities.

Electric Buses

American school buses play a critical role in expanding

access to education, but they are also a significant source

of pollution. The deal will deliver thousands of electric

school buses nationwide, including in rural communities,

helping school districts across the country buy clean,

American-made, zero emission buses, and replace the yellow

school bus fleet for America's children. The deal invests

$2.5 billion in zero emission buses, $2.5 billion in low

emission buses, and $2.5 billion for ferries. These

investments will drive demand for American-made batteries and

vehicles, creating jobs and supporting domestic

manufacturing, while also removing diesel buses from some of

our most vulnerable communities. In addition, they will help

the more than 25 million children and thousands of bus

drivers who breathe polluted air on their rides to and from

school. Diesel air pollution is linked to asthma and other

health problems that hurt our communities and cause students

to miss school, particularly in communities of color and

Tribal communities.

Reconnecting Communities

Too often, past transportation investments divided

communities--like the Claiborne Expressway in New Orleans or

1-81 in Syracuse--or it left out the people most in need of

affordable transportation options. In particular, significant

portions of the interstate highway system were built through

Black neighborhoods. The deal creates a first-ever program to

reconnect communities divided by transportation

infrastructure. The program will fund planning, design,

demolition, and reconstruction of street grids, parks, or

other infrastructure through $1 billion of dedicated funding.

Airports, Ports, and Waterways

The United States built modem aviation, but our airports

lag far behind our competitors. According to some rankings,

no U.S. airports rank in the top 25 of airports worldwide.

Our ports and waterways need repair and reimagination too.

The bill invests $17 billion in port infrastructure and $25

billion in airports to address repair and maintenance

backlogs, reduce congestion and emissions near ports and

airports, and drive electrification and other low-carbon

technologies. Modem, resilient, and sustainable p011,

airport, and freight infrastructure will support U.S.

competitiveness by removing bottlenecks and expediting

commerce and reduce the environmental impact on neighboring

communities.

Resilience and Western Water Infrastructure

Millions of Americans feel the effects of climate change

each year when their roads wash out, airport power goes down,

or schools get flooded. Last year alone, the United States

faced 22 extreme weather and climate-related disaster events

with losses exceeding $1 billion each--a cumulative price tag

of nearly $100 billion. People of color are more likely to

live in areas most vulnerable to flooding and other climate

change-related weather events. The deal makes our communities

safer and our infrastructure more resilient to the impacts of

climate change and cyber attacks, with an investment of over

$50 billion. This includes funds to protect against droughts

and floods. in addition to a major investment in

weatherization. The bill is the largest investment in the

resilience of physical and natural systems in American

history.

Clean Drinking Water

Currently, up to 10 million American households and 400,000

schools and child care centers lack safe drinking water. The

deal's $55 billion investment represents the largest

investment in clean drinking water in American history,

including dedicated funding to replace lead service lines and

the dangerous chemical PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl). It

will replace all of the nation's lead pipes and service

lines. From rural towns to struggling cities, the deal

invests in water infrastructure across America, including in

Tribal Nations and disadvantaged communities that need it

most.

High Speed Internet

Broadband internet is necessary for Americans to do their

jobs, to participate equally in school learning, health care,

and to stay connected. Yet, by one definition, more than 30

million Americans live in areas where there is no broadband

infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds--a

particular problem in rural communities throughout the

country. The deal's $65 billion investment ensures every

American has access to reliable high-speed internet with an

historic investment in broadband infrastructure deployment,

just as the federal government made a historic effort to

provide electricity to every American nearly one hundred

years ago.

The bill will also help lower prices for internet service

by requiring funding recipients to offer a low-cost

affordable plan, by creating price transparency and helping

families comparison shop, and by boosting competition in

areas where existing providers aren't providing adequate

service. It will also help close the digital divide by

passing the Digital Equity Act, ending digital redlining,

creating a permanent program to help more low-income

households access the internet, and establishing a new

program to help low-income households obtain the devices

required to access the internet.

Environmental Remediation

In thousands of rural and urban communities around the

country, hundreds of thousands of former industrial and

energy sites are now idle--sources of blight and pollution.

26 percent of Black Americans and 29 percent of Hispanic

Americans live within 3 miles of a Superfund site, a higher

percentage than for Americans overall. Proximity to a

Superfund site can lead to elevated levels of lead in

children's blood. The deal invests $21 billion in

environmental remediation, making the largest investment in

addressing the legacy pollution that harms the public health

of communities and neighborhoods in American history,

creating good-paying union jobs in hard-hit energy

communities and advancing economic and environmental justice.

The bill includes funds to clean up superfund and brownfield

sites, reclaim abandoned mine land and cap orphaned gas

wells.

Power Infrastructure

As the recent Texas power outages demonstrated, our aging

electric grid needs urgent modernization. A Department of

Energy study found that power outages cost the U.S. economy

up to $70 billion annually. The deal's $73 billion investment

is the single largest investment in clean energy transmission

in American history. It upgrades our power infrastructure,

including by building thousands of miles of new, resilient

transmission lines to facilitate the expansion of renewable

energy. It creates a new Grid Deployment Authority, invests

in research and development for advanced transmission and

electricity distribution technologies, and promotes smart

grid technologies that deliver flexibility and resilience. It

invests in demonstration projects and research hubs for next

generation technologies like advanced nuclear reactors,

carbon capture, and clean hydrogen.

Offsets

In the years ahead, the deal, which will generate

significant economic benefits, and it is financed through a

combination of redirecting unspent emergency relief funds,

targeted corporate user fees, strengthening tax enforcement

when it comes to crypto

currencies, and other bipartisan measures, in addition to the

revenue generated from higher economic growth as a result of

the investments.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), the chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Johnson), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I was confused by the gentleman's speech. This bill was written by 10 Republican Senators and two conservative Democrats, and to say half the bill isn't infrastructure, there is a $1 billion program to rejoin communities split asunder.

The President went down and visited one in Louisiana. It is a skyway that has to come down. It is falling apart. So are we just going to build another skyway or are we going to rejoin that community?

In Portland, Oregon, they are talking about a freeway-widening project there, but they are also going to cap that so they can rejoin a neighborhood. That is infrastructure, and it is also creating community jobs and economic development.

I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Bourdeaux), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The gentleman who preceded me, of course, did not talk about what he would do to fix the Nation's crumbling infrastructure:

42,000 bridges that need replacement or repair.

40 percent of the National Highway System degraded to the point where it has to be rebedded, not just put a coat of asphalt on top.

A $100 billion backlog to bring transit up to a state of good repair. On and on and on.

Wastewater, drinking water. The needs are incredible. This bill will address those things.

And the rate of return is phenomenal, if you look at analyses by Wall Street and others. There is no better investment that the Federal Government can make than investment in infrastructure. It not only creates jobs,

it creates lasting economic benefits for this country, makes us more competitive with the world.

The gentleman is conflating two different bills. We have one bill before us, not being held hostage. We are here debating it. But I didn't hear your alternative.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

The events that led up to this bill were pretty messy and painful; I agree with that.

Unfortunately, given the dysfunction on the other side of the Hill, called the Senate--absurd rules like the filibuster, where you have to have a supermajority to do anything, and I don't know how many bills the House has sent over that are sitting there that would serve the American people well; and then the Byrd rule, which we are going deal with later, a rule written by a Senator dead for 12 years, a rule written 28 years ago where the Parliamentarian holds a seance to find out what can go in and not go in the bill. That is what we are dealing with.

If we are going to make the investments that we need in our infrastructure--and I don't think there is anybody on the other side of the aisle that disagrees, when you see the ratings from the American Society of Civil Engineers, when you see the water mains blowing up and flooding streets, when you see the sewers backing up into people's houses or overflowing into the river or, without the resilience we need because of climate change, have them getting overrun during severe weather events.

These are investments that America needs, and I am still not hearing from the other side of the aisle their plan to make these needed investments, put millions of Americans to work in very good-paying family wage jobs, and to make America more competitive.

Yes, I wish the Senate bill had been different. I wish, for instance, they had taken our provisions to put some predatory Chinese companies out of business. I don't know, I guess they have a very good lobbyist over there on the Senate side.

There are many things like that that were neglected in this bill that would have provided more American jobs. But there are millions of jobs attached to this bill. We need those jobs. We need the investment. We need to rebuild America.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining on each side.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

That was incredible. This is the Green New Deal bill? It includes Rodney Davis' provision from the House side, which guts the NEPA process. That is not exactly a Green New Deal priority.

It cut dramatically the investments in the House bill in transit and rail, not exactly the Green New Deal priority.

That is absurd. You want to drag out this chimera. ``Oh, look, it is the Green New Deal.'' No, it is not the Green New Deal. It is a bill written by 10 Republican Senators and two conservative Democrats coming from the Senate side, which is not, in my opinion, doing near enough to address climate change impacts from fossil fuel transportation, our largest contributor.

Now, of course, on your side of the aisle, climate change doesn't exist. You want to have a bill for resilience. Why do you need resilience? Why is the sea level rising? Why are we having incredible, unprecedented severe weather events or like the heat dome in Oregon, where people died?

Why are we having these things? ``Oh, it is a natural occurrence like the Ice Age or whatever.'' It is not. It is real, and this bill does not do enough to deal with it.

I intend to continue to fight to do more to deal with climate change, no matter how much you want to deny it on that side of the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire about two things of the Chair. How much time remains on either side, and since we are ending the debate before we are finishing the debate, which side gets to close?

Mr. Speaker, could you repeat that?

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

There seems to be confusion on the other side of the aisle. I am hearing a

lot of different numbers. There is one bill before us today. The gentleman says it is not bipartisan. Eighteen Republican Senators voted for it. Granted, neither of his illustrious Senators from his State voted for it, but 18 Republican Senators did vote for it.

The numbers keep jumping around. We have one bill before us today, not the other one you want to debate. We have one bill before us that will build America's infrastructure, a long-overdue investment. We haven't increased investment substantially since the Clinton era. It has fallen apart. If you deny that, I have nothing more to say.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We are going to close the debate for tonight and continue this debate tomorrow. Perhaps Summit will come back to planet Earth.

Mr. Speaker, look, very simply, we are looking at a record investment in our crumbling infrastructure. I will just repeat it one more time: 42,000 bridges on the national highway system in need of serious repair or replacement; 40 percent of the National Highway System needs to be rebedded--that is totally rebuilt. That is expensive, not just another coat of asphalt on top, because it has been neglected for so long.

This is costing Americans every year a thousand bucks for car repair, blown-out tires, misaligned front ends when they hit these potholes.

Americans want this done. Yeah, it is going to increase investment in transit; $100 billion-dollar backlog to bring transit to a state of good repair in this country.

We have the strongest Buy America requirements of any part of the government. There were two potential problems with Chinese-owned industries. Unfortunately, the Senate couldn't see their way to close those. But the predominant amount of this money--and those loopholes have already been partially closed from other legislation I put through--will be spent on American jobs, American manufacturing made here in the United States of America, another key part of the President's proposal. Bring it home. Make it here. Rebuild our country. To be continued.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on Tuesday, July 27, 2021, I was unable to vote due to attending a classified briefing on an issue important to my constituents. Had I been present, I would have voted: Yea on Roll Call Vote 225, S. 1910--the Major Medical Facility Authorization Act.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding and for the cooperative work we have done on this bill, clean water bills, and many other issues. It is great to work with him and the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this legislation. The health effects that are known, are, you know, just a few things: cancer, kidney disease, pregnancy-related disorders, low birth weights, and immune system repression. But that is just what we know, so I guess we shouldn't worry about this too much.

Once it is in the environment, it breaks down. Once it is in your body, it doesn't go away. You get to certain levels and, then, you are going to start having these health effects. They are forever chemicals.

But, right now, there are no stringent requirements to test or monitor for PFAS. We don't know the extent of the pollution.

This bill is critical to address this legacy and public health risk and put us on a path to addressing the pervasive threat to our health, our citizens, and our environment.

I want to highlight a few sections that fall within the jurisdiction of my committee, the provisions which designate PFAS-related chemicals as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, CERCLA, commonly known as Superfund.

We did put in a very limited exemption, which goes to firefighting at airports. Right now, the foam they use contains PFAS, and if they follow the FAA rules, they won't have liability. But DOD, FAA, and others are researching alternatives for foam retardants, and hopefully, they won't have to use this stuff in the near future.

There are two Clean Water Act amendments that will limit the additional release of PFAS; the first by the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Pappas), who has been very persistent on this issue, closing a Clean Water Act loophole for discharges. Today, companies can legally discharge almost unlimited quantities of PFAS-related chemicals into rivers, streams, and lakes because the EPA has not set limits for discharging into our aquatic environment. This is unacceptable. The gentleman's amendment will set statutory guidelines for the EPA to act and set those limits.

Section 17 prioritizes the industry sectors with the greatest likelihood of discharging harmful quantities. The gentleman did great work on this. We worked with wastewater utilities and industry representatives, and they agree with our approach.

I also rise in support of section 13, another Clean Water Act provision, by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Delgado), a member of my committee, to prevent our sewers from being dumping grounds. Industrial discharges can now be discharged into local municipal systems, and if it is not known, then they can't deal with it. They can't pretreat it, and they can't get it out.

So, I rise in strong support of this bill, and I thank everyone who participated in its writing.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the following individual staff of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure for all their hard work on this important piece of legislation. I'd also like to thank the team at the Office of Legislative Counsel for their assistance in drafting the legislation and the many amendments offered during our Committee Markup and on the House Floor.

Highways and Transit

Helena Zyblikewycz

Jackie Schmitz

Garret Gee

Brittany Lundberg

Chris Bell

Zan Guendert

Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials

Auke Mahar-Piersma

Andrea Wohleber

Frances Bourne

Katherine Ambrose

Water Resource and Environment

Ryan Seiger

Navis Bermudez

Alexa Williams

Michael Bauman

Full Committee

Kathy Dedrick

Jill Harrelson

Alice Koethe

Jamie Harrell

Madeleine Pike

Matt Leasure

Michael Hudspith

Interns

Bethany Abbate

Mateo Alliende

Henry Lininger

Legislative Counsel

Karen Anderson

Robert Casturo

Jordyn Coad

Kakuti Lin

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 504, I call up the bill (H.R. 3684) to authorize funds for Federal-aid highways, highway safety programs, and transit programs, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3684, the INVEST in America Act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter of support for H.R. 3684 from 113 organizations supporting the Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of 2021.

113 Organizations Supporting the Water Quality Protection and Job

Creation Act of 2021

Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), The Alliance for

the Great Lakes, American Concrete Pavement Association,

American Concrete Pipe Association, American Concrete

Pressure Pipe Association, American Concrete Pumping

Association,

American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), American

Foundry Society (AFS), American Iron and Steel Institute

(AISI), American Public Works Association (APWA), American

Rivers, American Sustainable Business Council, American

Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), American Society of

Landscape Architects (ASLA), Associated General Contractors

of America (AGC), Association of Equipment Manufacturers

(AEM), BlueGreen Alliance, California Association of

Sanitation Agencies (CASA), Center for Biological Diversity,

Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Clean Water Construction

Coalition, Clean Water For All, Academy of Natural Sciences

of Drexel University, Advocates for Clean & Clear Waterways,

Alabama Rivers Alliance, Anthropocene Alliance.

Children's Environmental Health Network, Clean Water

Action, Community Water Center, Conservative Voters of PA,

Earthjustice, Environmental League of Massachusetts, For Love

of Water (FLOW), Freshwater Future, Georgia Conservation

Voters, GreenLatinos, Healthy Gulf, Illinois Council of Trout

Unlimited, Illinois Environmental Council, Junction

Coalition, Maine Conservation Voters, Massachusetts Rivers

Alliance, Mississippi River Collaborative, Montana

Conservation Voters, National Latino Farmers & Ranchers Trade

Association, National Parks Conservation Association, NC

Conservation Network, New York League of Conservation Voters,

Ocean River Institute, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition,

Pennsylvania Council of Churches, Tennessee Clean Water

Network, Vermont Conservation Voters, Virginia League of

Conservation Voters, Wisconsin Conservation Voters, Concrete

Foundations Association, Concrete Reinforcing Steel

Institute, Committee on Pipe and Tube Imports (CPTI), Ducks

Unlimited (DU), Eastern Municipal Water District.

Environment America, Environmental Working Group (EWG),

Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, Hydraulic

Institute, International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE),

International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT),

Laborers' International Union of North America (LiUNA), Los

Angeles County Sanitation, Districts (LACSD), League of

Conservation Voters (LCV), Municipal Castings Association,

National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA),

National Association of Counties (NACO), National Association

of Flood & Stormwater Management Agencies (NAFSMA), National

Association of Sewer Service Companies (NASSCO), National

Concrete Masonry Association, National League of Cities

(NLC), National Municipal Stormwater Alliance (NMSA),

National Onsite Wastewater Recycling Association (NOWRA),

National Precast Concrete Association, National Ready Mixed

Concrete Association, National Sand, Stone & Gravel

Association (NSSGA), National Utility Contractors Association

(NUCA), National Water Resources Association (NWRA), National

Waterways Conference, National Wildlife Federation (NWF).

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), The Nature

Conservancy, Orenco Systems Inc, Puyallup Tribe of Indians,

Plastics Pipe Institute, Precast/Prestressed Concrete

Institute, Portland Cement Association (PCA), Rural Community

Assistance Partnership (RCAP), Sierra Club, Southern

Environmental Law Center (SELC), Surfrider Foundation,

Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), Tilt-up

Concrete Association, Trout Unlimited, United Association of

Union, Plumbers and Pipefitters (UA), U.S. Chamber of

Commerce, United States Conference of Mayors, Vinyl

Institute, Water Environment Federation (WEF), Water Equity

and Climate Resilience Caucus, Water Replenishment District

(WRD), WateReuse Association, Water Infrastructure Network

(WIN), Grasslands Water District--GWD, Milwaukee Metropolitan

Sewerage District--MMSD, National Electrical Contractors

Association--NECA, United Association of Plumbers and

Pipefitters--The United, Western Recycled Water Coalition.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, to waive consideration of H.R. 3684, as amended, as well as my response to Chairwoman Johnson expressing appreciation for her willingness to work cooperatively on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the INVEST in America Act before us today is generational transformational in terms of what we are going to do in terms of 21st century surface transportation and water infrastructure. We are going to move past the Eisenhower era of the 1950s.

During the Eisenhower era, the existential threat to the United States was invasion or attack by Russia. The National Defense Highway System was built to move military equipment to the coast, and it was also built to evacuate our cities in times of nuclear war.

Now we have a different existential threat, which is climate change. Tackling climate change is a Herculean task.

Some may ask: Why address it in the transportation bill?

In fact, we will hear that from the other side.

Because the transportation sector is the single largest carbon emitter in the United States of America, and it would be foolish and irresponsible to continue pouring taxpayer money into the old way of thinking, that we must merely expand highways.

We know now that doing that creates induced demand. You add more lanes, attract more cars and, before long, congestion returns and you are right back where you started, except now you have bad traffic and more carbon pollution.

According to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, in the last 25 years, we have built 35,000 lane miles in our 100 largest cities, and the cost of congestion and delay have gone up six times.

Should we keep doing that?

No. It is not working.

There are alternatives. We have a great opportunity.

The infrastructure of the Eisenhower era is crumbling, threatening safety, quality of life, and economic competitiveness. In fact, some of the infrastructure we are living off, like the critical Baltimore rail tunnel, was built in 1872. It is not going to last long. It is brick and it is leaking water.

The tunnels under the Hudson are subject to failure in the not-too- distant future. They were built in 1908. We had great engineers at the time, but now we have become so puny, we can't do big projects like that.

No, that is not the United States of America. That is not the American way. We can tackle these challenges, and we will. And climate change is part of what we have to deal with.

I hear a lot from the other side about we want resilience.

Resilience to what? Sea level rise? Why is the sea level rising?

Hmm, I don't know.

Severe weather events?

Nope.

But in my region, just this week, an unprecedented heat wave-- unprecedented in the history of the United States and western Canada, by far; 40 degrees above normal--pavement buckled and melted, cables supplying power to transit melted, high tension lines sagged. Luckily, we got the trees out from under them. They didn't cause fires this time.

We have to rebuild this infrastructure to deal with the threats of the 21st century, and this is a tremendous opportunity.

We have long had problems with inequality and racial injustice perpetuated by transportation programs, policies, and funding decisions. We have a major section in this bill to right those wrongs and provide new opportunities for those communities and rejoin some of those communities; social equity.

U.S. infrastructure was once the envy of the world. We are now 13th and plummeting fast. We are kind of a joke around the world. China is putting 6 percent of their GDP into transportation infrastructure. We are putting in one-half of 1 percent.

We are going to compete with that?

Other competitive nations in Europe are putting in 2 or 3 percent of their GDP. We are putting in a fraction of that.

You know, we have water mains that explode, sewers that back up, and bridges that collapse. We have decrepit transit, $100 billion to bring up to state of good repair, and it breaks down when people are trying to get to work. We have potholes that cost every American between $560 and $1,000 a year in car repairs. The cost of delays is $170 billion, which is way more than we are spending on investment in transportation infrastructure.

A rising China is threatening to take over the future of transportation in the world. We cannot let the Chinese do this yet again and steal those jobs from America. We have to move toward the future.

We have General Motors, all electric in 2035. The Ford electric Mustang is outselling the fossil fuel Mustang. Hey, it is faster. I have driven a semi-truck made by Volvo. But there are four manufacturers making them, an 80,000-pound capable semi-tractor. Fred Smith from FedEx is going all electric, but he says there is no place to charge them.

We have to meet this challenge, and part of this bill is EV challenging on the backbone of the national highway network.

We are also going to put significant funds into safety. We are having huge

problems with safety: growing deaths in pedestrian, cycling, and others. We have to promote those modes, make them safe. More people will use them. We are making a major investment there, fossil fuel free.

This bill is going to focus on bringing things to a state of good repair. 47,000 bridges on the National Highway System need substantial repair or replacement, and an infinite number of off-system bridges. We are creating a new program for off-highway-system bridges; a new program for rural bridges; a new program for the 10 most economically significant bridges in the country, including ones like the Brent Spence Bridge, which is going to collapse or be closed in 8 years, connecting Kentucky and Ohio.

Those things are in this bill. If we don't do this bill, then we are doomed to an even more inefficient and decrepit future.

We are going to make historic investments in transit, helping to address, as I mentioned, the $100 billion state of good repair backlog. We are closing the last loopholes in transit.

We are going to get two Chinese companies--predatory Chinese companies out of here, making electric buses and rail. And we are going to make all of that stuff in the United States of America and create one heck of a lot of jobs. Maybe we will even export electric buses to the rest of the world.

Then beyond that, you know, we are going to be a leader in the clean energy economy. That is the future. It is the future. It is the business case. It is where the corporations are going, except parts of the fossil fuel industry. Even ExxonMobil is talking about spending $100 billion on carbon capture and sequestration; even ExxonMobil.

But there are other parts of the fossil fuel industry that are, like, ``No, you stick with us. Stick with fossil fuel. Don't allow them to do this electrification stuff. Don't talk about climate change. Carbon pollution doesn't do anything.''

No, none of that is true, and we have to deal with it.

It offers opportunities to communities of all sizes: urban, suburban, and rural. There's a 50 percent increase for rural transit, $37 billion from the Surface Transportation Program suballocated to local communities, not the biggest cities. We create several new multimodal discretionary grant programs, including the Community Transportation and Community Climate grants, for local government applicants.

For the first time in a decade, we provided bipartisan member- designated projects. 109 Republicans applied for projects. Everyone was offered $20 million under very strict guidelines agreed to by the majority and the minority. We cleaned that up.

Some people are saying: Well, this is bad; it is poor.

No. Does the Federal DOT or your State DOT know what you need most in your district? What your city needs? What your county needs?

You know better, but sometimes they just ignore it. They are focused on the capitol; they are focused on the biggest cities; they are focused on Washington, D.C., who knows what.

So we have those projects in this bill.

Someone said: Well, if the Republicans won't vote for it, are you going to strip them out?

I said: No. These are meritorious projects that have gone through a vetting process. They will stay in. This is helping local communities.

Now, I also have to say that we have had issues with the DBE-- Disadvantaged Business Enterprise--program at the Department of Transportation. Discrimination is still a barrier for many to get into constructing and maintaining our Surface Transportation Program.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a more comprehensive statement about the need for this crucial program, along with a list of several key studies on discrimination used to help inform the reauthorization of the DBE program. It includes a historic $95 billion in rail investment. That is about a 500 percent increase.

We are going to begin to join city pairs so people can get off the highways.

Virginia is doing a great project. Instead of putting two more lanes, which would be immediately congested, for $12 billion on I-95, they are going to build a rail project with a new bridge over the Potomac River, partnering with CSX for half the cost, and reduce congestion more and give people a better commute. We need to be looking at that model around the country.

The bill includes $32 billion for Amtrak. It also has money for a new program, PRIME, the Passenger Rail Improvement, Modernization, and Expansion program, a $25 billion competitive grant program for States and localities to launch high-speed and intercity rail development.

It tackles big rail projects that need significant investment to get off the ground. The $25 billion Bridges, Stations, and Tunnels, or BeST--I mentioned the Baltimore tunnel earlier--directed grant program funds bridges, stations, and tunnels that have total project costs of $500 million or more, which cannot just be carried by local communities.

I previously mentioned robust safety programs.

It also includes the first reauthorization of the Clean Water State Revolving Fund since 1987.

When I was a county commissioner, we got a 75 percent match from the Federal Government to build a system that is still serving a community twice that size today. Today, if we went to the Federal Government for a match, they would say, ``Sorry, we don't help you with wastewater.''

Wastewater does not observe city limits. It does not observe county lines. It does not observe State lines. It does not observe international boundaries. It is a national problem, and our communities need help.

I was on a statewide call with county commissioners, 75 percent of them Republicans. They are begging--begging--in these rural counties for help with wastewater and drinking water. We have to step up to the plate on that. This will be the first reauthorization in many, many years.

We are going to move forward with this bill, and every part of this bill is backed by the strongest Buy America requirements, labor protections, and new investments in worker training safety. I wish some of the other departments of the Federal Government, particularly the Pentagon, would follow our model to create more jobs in America.

It is not enough just to transform it. We need to ensure our investments create good-paying jobs, revitalize American manufacturing, help us compete in the clean energy economy, and lead the world once again, as we were the envy of the world in the 1970s and up to about the early 1980s.

This is a chance to reform and rebuild our infrastructure for the future. It is an opportunity to improve safety, equity, and access for all Americans. It is an urgent call to confront the existential threat of climate change and leave a better world for future generations.

This is a transformative bill that will improve mobility, economic competitiveness, and the quality of life in communities across the country. Infrastructure is calling, and Congress must finally answer the call.

Chairman Peter DeFazio Statement for the Record on DBE Program and Disparity Studies Submitted to the Record INVEST in America Act, General Debate, June 30, 2021. I include in the Record:

The INVEST in America Act once again reauthorizes the

critically important Disadvantage Business Enterprise, or

DBE, program at the Department of Transportation.

Unfortunately, even with the DBE Program, discrimination

still haunts us in the market to construct and maintain our

federal surface transportation system. We hear about it from

constituents and others who work as contractors in the

transportation industry. We've read about it in personal

statements submitted by women- and minority- small business

owners from across the country. And we see it reflected in

mounds of statistical evidence compiled by my Committee. This

evidence includes many thousands of pages of rigorous

statistical analysis demonstrating clear disparities between

the capacity of minority- and women-owned businesses to

compete for federal dollars, and the utilization of that

capacity by federal contractors.

These studies represent thousands of pages of complex

rigorous analysis by many different authors in every region

of our nation. And while the findings are better than in the

early days of the DBE program, we still have a long way to

go. I'd like to just highlight a tiny fraction of the

information found in these studies:

Just so my colleagues don't think I am picking on their

states, let me start with Oregon. The 2016 ODOT Disparity

Study found that women- and minority-owned firms only won 61

cents on the dollar of what we would expect given their

availability on state and federally funded highway contracts.

Non-minority women, African Americans and Native Americans

did even worse at 52 cents, 58 cents and 49 cents

respectively.

In Texas DOT spending, women and minority owned firms as a

group won only 60 cents on the dollar of what we might have

expected for state-funded transportation projects given their

availability in the market. Non-minority women, African

Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans all did

worse. Indeed, African Americans won only 22 cents on the

dollar and Native Americans won only 18 cents on the dollar.

The numbers were even worse when considering only federal

funds--32 cents on the dollar when considering Federal

Highway Administration contracts alone.

For Maryland, which has had one of the more robust and

continuously operated DBE programs in the nation, DBEs still

get only 70 cents on the dollar of combined federal and state

transportation funding. For African Americans, the number is

50 cents, for Native Americans it's 43 cents and for non-

minority women, the number is 56 cents.

Sadly, in the transit industry, things are not much better.

For instance, an analysis of contracting for the Los Angeles,

California, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, found that

firms owned by women and minorities make about 74 cents on

the dollar of what we would expect given their representation

in the marketplace. For non-minority women, the number was 59

cents and for African Americans it was 51 cents.

These same troubling statistics are repeated in cities and

states that spend some of their budgets on surface

transportation and similar construction, architecture, and

engineering projects. For instance, the 2018 study for the

Nashville, Tennessee area found that women- and minority-

owned business enterprises got 54 cents of every one dollar

in construction prime contracting; Asian American firms were

at 25 cents on the dollar; and firms owned by Hispanic

Americans earned only 1 cent of every dollar of what we would

expect given their marketplace representation.

There's no doubt that things are better today than before

the DBE Program--more firms owned by women and minorities get

work than they did forty years ago. But the progress has been

slow, halting, and exceedingly fragile. One of the powerful

things about the disparity study evidence we have collected

is the diversity of approaches and analyses these documents

provide. Some studies, for instance, not only study

disparities in the public and private surface transportation

markets, but they also attempt to analyze what might occur if

the DBE program no longer existed. One interesting example is

found in the LA Metro study where they compared the

participation of minority- and women-owned firms on contracts

that had goals to encourage diverse participation and those

that did not. The results are stunning. On contracts with

goals, participation occurred at almost the level we would

expect given the presence of minority- and women-owned firms

in the marketplace and firms owned by minorities and women

earned 96 cents on the dollar--on contracts without goals,

they earned 53 cents on the dollar. The numbers are even more

startling for certain subgroups. On contracts with goals,

non-minority women actually exceeded parity (something that

regularly occurs for firms owned by non-minority males, but

rarely happens for firms owned by women and minorities). But

on contracts without goals, firms owned by non-minority women

earned only 37 cents on the dollar. Firms owned by Hispanic

Americans approached parity on contracts with goals (98 cents

on the dollar), but on contracts without goals, they earned

only 59 cents on the dollar. African American owned firms

earned only 64 cents on the dollar even on contracts with

goals, and on contracts without goals the number plummeted to

30 cents on the dollar.

Tragically, the COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated the need

for the DBE program. Preliminary data on the pandemic's

economic devastation shows a massively disproportionate

impact on small businesses in minority communities. An

article by Dr. Robert Fairlie published last year by the

Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, uses

statistics from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey

to illustrate just how devastating the COVID-19 pandemic has

already been for firms owned by minorities and women. His

analysis examines the drop in ``active businesses'' comparing

the numbers from mid-February 2020, just before the effects

of the pandemic became clear in the United States, to mid-

April, when the economy in much of the country had shut down.

During that time, all businesses experienced economic

devastation--but because of discrimination, the devastation

was far greater for businesses owned by women and minorities.

For instance, during this period the number of active

businesses owned by whites dropped 17 percent, but the number

of businesses owned by African Americans dropped 41 percent.

For Hispanic businesses, the number was 32 percent and for

firms owned by Asian Americans the drop was 26 percent. These

numbers are not just troubling, they are staggering, and the

pandemic is still not over.

Now, more than ever, as we prepare to spend billions of

federal dollars on transportation projects, it is urgent that

we ensure the process of awarding federal transportation

contract dollars is not discriminatory, and that minorities

and women are allowed to compete on an equal playing field

for those dollars.

Below is a list of dozens of disparity studies held on file

with the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

demonstrating the continued need for this essential program:

State and Local Disparity Studies From 2015-2021

Alaska

Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities

Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Study, Final Report & Final

Appendices, Prepared by the Alaska Department of

Transportation & Public Facilities Civil Rights Office

(2020).

Arizona

Arizona Department of Transportation Disparity Study, Final

Report, Prepared by Keen Independent Research (2020).

Arizona Department of Transportation Disparity Study

Report, Prepared by Keen Independent Research (2015).

California

Caltrans Disparity Study, Prepared by BBC Research and

Consulting for Caltrans Department of Transportation (2016).

City of Oakland 2017 Race and Gender Disparity Study,

Prepared by Mason Tillman Associates, Ltd. (2020).

LA Metro 2017 Disparity Study, Prepared by BBC Research &

Consulting for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan

Transportation Authority (2018).

San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District Disparity

Study Volumes I-II, Prepared by Miller Consulting, Inc.

(2017).

Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Availability,

Utilization, and Disparity Study for the San Francisco

Municipal Transportation Agency, Prepared by Rosales Business

Partners LLC (2015).

Colorado

City and County of Denver Disparity Study, Prepared by BBC

Research & Consulting (2018).

Colorado Disparity Study, Final Report, Prepared by Keen

Independent Research (2020).

Connecticut

Connecticut Disparity Study: Phases 1-3, Prepared by The

Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering for the

Connecticut General Assembly and the Government

Administration and Elections Commission (2013, 2014, 2016).

District of Columbia

District of Columbia Department of Small and Local Business

Development Comparative Analysis: Minority and Women-Owned

Business Assessment, Prepared by CRP, Inc (2019).

District of Columbia Department of Small and Local Business

Development Disparity Report Framework and Recommendations,

Prepared by CRP, Inc. (2019).

2015 Disparity Study for Washington Suburban Sanitary

Commission, Prepared by MGT of America, Inc. (2016).

Florida

Minority, Women, and Small Business Enterprise Disparity

Study for the City of Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida and

Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency, Prepared by MGT

Consulting Group (2019).

Palm Beach County Disparity Study, Prepared by Mason

Tillman Associates, Ltd. (2017).

Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County, Florida

Disparity Study, Prepared by Mason Tillman Associates, Ltd.

(2017).

Georgia

Atlanta Housing Authority Disparity Study, Prepared by Keen

Independent Research (2017).

Atlanta Public Schools Disparity Study, Prepared by Keen

Independent Research (2017).

City of Atlanta Disparity Study Summary Report, Prepared by

Keen Independent Research LLC (2015).

Fulton County Small Business Study, Prepared by Keen

Independent Research (2016).

Georgia Department of Transportation Disparity Study,

Prepared by Griffin & Strong, P.C. for the State of Georgia

(2016).

Hawaii

Hawaii Department of Transportation 2019 Availability and

Disparity Study, Prepared by Keen Independent Research

(2020).

Idaho

Idaho Transportation Department Disparity Study, Prepared

by BBC Research & Consulting (2017).

Illinois

Chicago Transit Authority Disparity Study, Prepared by

Colette Holt & Associates (2019).

Illinois Department of Transportation Disparity Study,

Prepared by BBC Research & Consulting (2017).

Illinois State Toll Highway Authority Disparity Study

Construction and Construction Related Services, Prepared by

Colette Holt & Associates (2015).

Indiana

City of Indianapolis and Marion County Disparity Study, BBC

Research & Consulting (2019).

City of South Bend Disparity Study, Prepared by Colette

Holt & Associates (2019).

State of Indiana Disparity Study, Prepared by BBC Research

& Consulting for the Indiana Department of Administration

(2015-16).

State of Indiana Disparity Study, Prepared by BBC Research

& Consulting for the Indiana Department of Administration

(2020).

Kansas

City of Kansas City Construction Workforce Disparity Study,

Prepared by Keen Independent Research (2019).

City of Kansas City, Missouri Disparity Study, Prepared by

Colette Holt & Associates (2016).

Kentucky

Louisville & Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District

Disparity Study, Prepared by Mason Tillman Associates, Ltd.

(2018).

Louisiana

City of Baton Rouge, Parish of East Baton Rouge Disparity

Study, Prepared by Keen Independent Research (2019).

City of New Orleans Disparity Study, Prepared by Keen

Independent Research (2018).

Recreation and Park Commission for the Parish of East Baton

Rouge Disparity Study, Prepared by Keen Independent Research

(2019).

Maryland

Business Disparities in the Maryland Market Area, Prepared

by NERA Economic Consulting for the State and Maryland and

the Maryland Department of Transportation (2017).

Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Disparity Study: Volumes

I-III, Prepared by NERA Economic Consulting for the Maryland

Department of Transportation (2018).

Massachusetts

Business Disparities in the DCAMM Construction and Design

Market Area, Prepared by NERA Economic Consulting for the

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset

Management and Maintenance (2017).

City of Boston 2020 Disparity Study, Prepared by BBC

Research & Consulting (2021).

Minnesota

2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study City of Minneapolis,

Prepared by Keen Independent Research (2018).

2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study City of Saint Paul,

Prepared by Keen Independent Research (2018).

2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study Hennepin County,

Prepared by Keen Independent Research (2018).

2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study Metropolitan Airports

Commission, Prepared by Keen Independent Research (2018).

2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study Metropolitan Council,

Prepared by Keen Independent Research (2018).

2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study Metropolitan Mosquito

Control District, Prepared by Keen Independent Research

(2018).

2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study Minnesota Department

of Administration; Prepared by Keen Independent Research

(2018).

2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study Minnesota Department

of Transportation, Prepared by Keen Independent Research

(2018).

2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study Minnesota State

Colleges and Universities, Prepared by Keen Independent

Research (2018).

Missouri

City of St. Louis Disparity Study, Prepared by Mason

Tillman Associates (2015).

Missouri Department of Transportation DBE Availability

Study, Prepared by Keen Independent Research (2019).

Saint Louis County Disparity Study, Prepared by Griffin &

Strong P.C. (2017).

Montana

Availability and Disparity Study, Prepared by Keen

Independent Research LLC for the State of Montana Department

of Transportation (2016).

Nevada

Nevada Transportation Consortium Disparity Study, Prepared

by BBC Research & Consulting for the Regional Transportation

Commission of Southern Nevada (2017).

New Jersey

NJ Transit Disparity Study, Executive Summary & Appendix,

Prepared by The Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and

Social Justice, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs,

University of Minnesota (2016).

New York

City of New York Disparity Study, Prepared by MGT

Consulting Group (2018).

State of New York MWBE Disparity Study, Volumes I & II,

Prepared by Mason Tillman Associates, Ltd. (2016).

North Carolina

City of Asheville, North Carolina Disparity Study, Prepared

by BBC Research & Consulting (2018).

City of Charlotte Disparity Study, Prepared by BBC Research

& Consulting (2017).

City of Winston-Salem Disparity Study, Prepared by MGT

Consulting Group (2019).

Durham County/City of Durham, North Carolina Multi-

jurisdictional Disparity Study, Prepared by Griffin & Strong,

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

House of Representatives, Committee on Science, Space,

and Technology,

Washington, DC, June 21, 2021.

Hon. Peter A. Defazio,

Chairman, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Defazio: I am writing you concerning H.R.

3684, the ``INVEST in America Act,'' which was ordered to be

reported out of the Committee on Transportation and

Infrastructure on June 10, 2021. Prior to this, I submitted a

jurisdictional claim letter for a sequential referral on this

bill on June 7, 2021 and the Office of the Parliamentarian

found this claim to be valid.

As a result of cooperative consultations with the Committee

on Science, Space, and Technology (``Science Committee'') and

in the interest an expedient consideration of H.R. 3684

before the House of Representatives, I will waive formal

consideration of this bill. I take this action with a mutual

understanding between our two Committees that by foregoing

consideration of H.R. 3684, the Science Committee does not

waive any jurisdiction over the subject matter contained in

this, or in similar, legislation.

Furthermore, I humbly request a letter confirming this

understanding and that this exchange of letters be included

in the bill report to be filed by the Committee on

Transportation and Infrastructure as well as included in the

Congressional Record during floor consideration of the bill.

Finally, I ask that you support the appointment of Science

Committee conferees during any House-Senate conference

convened on this legislation.

Sincerely,

Eddie Bernice Johnson,

Chairwoman, Committee on Science,

Space, and Technology.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), the chair of the Surface Transportation Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), the chair of the Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Johnson), the chair of the Science, Space and Technology Committee, and a senior member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time is remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus), the chair of the Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Brown), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Bourdeaux).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Williams), a new and esteemed member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Malinowski), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on both sides?

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stanton), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Kansas (Ms. Davids), the vice chair of the committee.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot from their side that we should have worked with them. They offered an alternative. They have talked a lot about how we are not putting money into bridges and highways. We are putting in $333 billion, and they put in $310 billion, and I am not even sure that they included anything on safety. They had zero on rail--zero--and status quo for transit. That is a 21st century transportation bill?

As I mentioned earlier, we have built 35,000 lane miles in the hundred largest cities. Guess what? They are running out of space. They have to tear down neighborhoods to build any more, and it is not working.

Congestion is six times worse than it was 35 years ago. Americans waste $170 billion a year in congestion. Business wastes time in congestion.

We need to solve these problems, and we have to look at new ways of solving these problems. What we have been doing since Dwight David Eisenhower was great at the time. It doesn't work in the 21st century.

They continue to deny the threat of climate change or even the existence of climate change. I tried to say: Okay, you can't acknowledge climate change. Trump won't let you do that, and fossil fuel contributors won't let you do that. How about this? You acknowledge that there is a business case to be made.

GM is going all electric, all electric in 2035. Where are they going to charge? You have four companies making 80,000-pound tractor semis. Fred Smith, FedEx, going all electric in the near term--no place to charge them except at fleet headquarters. They have to be able to charge on the road.

But, no, we shouldn't invest in EV charging. We should just keep doing the same thing. We should keep polluting the atmosphere.

But they do believe in resilience. We have to build up Louisiana and other places, Florida, to deal with sea level rise. Why is the sea level rising? We have to deal with extraordinary, unprecedented climate events. We have to deal with those in rebuilding our infrastructure. ``Oh, no. Why is that happening?'' ``Don't worry about that.''

We will do that, but we will not go to the root cause.

We are doing all three. We are rebuilding resilient; we are rebuilding America and creating jobs. We are making the country more efficient. And we are dealing with climate change. This is the 21st century. Deal with the threats of the 21st century.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 508, I rise to offer amendments en bloc No. 3.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendments en bloc, which provides for the consideration of 19 amendments.

The amendments contained in this en bloc amend various provisions of the bill. They would strike some of the highest priorities in a bill. We just heard an impassioned speech from the gentleman from Louisiana, talking about Louisiana sea-level rise, sinking, and all that, and wanting to take on China and the world economy.

Well, guess what?

They are building the future. That is EVs and AVs. And they want to strike all of the provisions in the bill that will provide for electric charging.

So Fred Smith, no liberal Democrat going all electric with FedEx. GM, going all electric. Four truck manufacturers making 80,000-pound capable tractors. No charging stations in America.

Oh, that is not supposed to be the future?

That is the future. That is the future.

And we also--yeah, we deal with climate change. And I know you don't believe in climate change on that side of the aisle. That is fine. I wish you lived up where I do. You might just get a sample of what the future is like.

Now, this strikes the Fix-It-First requirements that prioritize state of good repair.

Oh, great. Let's go lay down more lane miles; 35,000 lane miles, the hundred largest cities in America in the last 25 years, and congestion is six times worse. It is called induced demand. Don't provide transit alternatives. They kill transit. They kill rail. We are just going to build more highways. We are going to pave over the entire city.

How much of it are you going to knock down?

It is not going to work. It didn't work. It hasn't been working. So it is time to do something different.

It is time to fix what we have, the Eisenhower legacy, 47,000 bridges in the National Highway System in desperate need of repair or replacement, tens of thousands in rural areas and counties, new programs in this bill to deal with those rural areas and counties.

They take out the $4 billion Clean Corridors program, as I said, for EV charging and hydrogen fueling.

Madam Speaker, $8.3 billion for carbon pollution--they don't believe in carbon pollution because the parts of the fossil fuel industry that are enlightened are big contributors, and Donald Trump says we can't believe in climate change. So, okay, got to take that out.

It prohibits any expenditures out of the highway trust fund, except for road and bridge construction. That means no safety.

We are having record numbers of pedestrian and cycling deaths, and this bill is going to make it safer for people to use alternative modes in urban, suburban, and rural areas.

I am building a bike lane on a highway in a rural area that is heavily trafficked by bikers to a winery in my district where there have been fatalities. But, no, none of that. None of that in the bill. We don't care about the pedestrian deaths. We don't care about the cycling deaths. We don't care about safety. None of that. None of that is in their proposal.

They say we are not doing enough on highways. We are doing more than $20 billion more than they are on highways and bridges. But, oh, we are ignoring the problem. No, we are not.

They eliminate the Capital Investment Grant Program in its entirety.

They allow the transfer of rural and small urban transit funding to highways. I represent a very, very large district, bigger than a number of your States, and I have a lot of rural areas and small cities, and they want to have some options for transit. You would eliminate that. Okay.

It eliminates rail funding: no Amtrak, no passenger rail.

Highways are funded at a lower level than we do, and that is going to take care of the problem. That is kind of laughable.

These are just some of the really bad ideas in this amendment. This is not the path to the future, not the path to the 21st century. It is the path of the failed policies of the late 20th century that don't work anymore.

We also need to hold States accountable. I know some States don't like that. They don't want to be held accountable. They don't want to fix it first. They don't want to be held accountable for fossil fuel pollution. If you don't believe in climate change, you don't care: What is the problem with fossil fuel pollution?

So this is ``Groundhog Day'' on their side of the aisle. Let's bring back the failed policies of the 1990s and the early 2000s. Yes, they were bipartisan, but they didn't deal with 21st century problems.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to the balance of time on each side.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), who is the Chair of the Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 508, I offer amendments en bloc Number 4.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this en bloc amendment, which provides for the consideration of 38 amendments filed by Members and made in order by the Committee on Rules. The amendments contained in this en bloc touch upon various policy areas in the base bill.

The surface transportation amendments include:

Expressing the sense of Congress on the importance of protecting workers in transition to electric vehicles.

Promoting a more diverse transportation workforce and more inclusive work sites for infrastructure projects.

Allowing high-performing local public agencies to utilize enhanced project delivery methods when appropriate.

Expanding the number of veterans in the transportation sector through the Transportation Workforce Outreach Program.

Requiring EV supply equipment projects to be performed by qualified electricians with proper certification.

Adding language to increase bridge resiliency for seismic events.

Strengthening reporting requirements under the Reconnecting Neighborhoods Program.

Allowing private high-speed rail projects access to credit risk premium subsidies for rail financing to develop high-speed rail projects.

These are just some of the highlights of the amendments included. I thank my colleagues for their thoughtful amendments to improve the INVEST in America Act. I urge the adoption of the amendment. I will remember to vote properly this time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

I totally concur in the amendment.

Absolutely, I concur with the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moulton), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Panetta).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Escobar).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Krishnamoorthi).

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Well, we have heard the same tired arguments: Over 200 amendments in committee from the Republicans.

And today, all day, on the floor: Not bipartisan.

It is pretty simple, if you deny climate change and you deny the need to do things differently than the failures of the last 30 years in building 35,000 lane miles and making congestion worse in our 100 largest cities; and you don't want to fund transit; and you don't want to fund rail options; and transit includes rural areas and small cities, which is a new emphasis in this program; if you don't want to repair America's 47,000 crumbling bridges and national highway system, you are proposing $20 billion less than we are for repairing bridges and highways.

You object to the fact that we want States to fix things first, and also to look at alternatives to paving over the whole country and causing more induced congestion. You deny climate change. You deny fossil fuel pollution.

I hope you don't go through what my region just went through. We have had 50 people die in Portland. No one has air-conditioning there; two- thirds of the people don't. It has never been--it was 45 degrees above normal. This is not normal.

Climate change is real. Keep up the denial and you are going to destroy this country and the planet.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this totally contradicts the intent of the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program, a relatively small program in terms of the entire bill, but a very, very important program.

As I mentioned earlier, we have been doing the same thing for 30 years. 30,511 new freeway lane-miles in and around our 100 largest urban areas. The cost of delay has gone from $16 billion a year to $166 billion a year, which wastes way more than we are spending to deal with the problem, and delay is up a staggering 144 percent and pollution is worse.

So this is an amendment that would say, okay, you can take the money to deal with congestion mitigation and air quality, you can spend it to build an HOV lane, and then after you toll people on that HOV lane-- maybe like in Virginia where you can pay $48 for 10 miles in the Bentley lane during rush hour sometimes--and then they pay back the money, then they convert it to a single-occupancy vehicle lane, voila, we are back at another induced-demand congested road, the same Groundhog Day strategy we have been doing for 30 years that doesn't work.

HOV lanes and other operational improvements are eligible under the CMAQ program. They are part of the solution, but not in this form. They allow more people to move more efficiently in the most congested transportation corridors by getting more than one person per car. But this would only do that temporarily and then revert to one person per car. Great idea.

So it allows van pools, car pools, and transit in these lanes. They benefit all drivers. So in this case, we would say, well, yeah, for a while, they will benefit car pools, van pools, and transit, but then we are going to go back to putting single-occupancy vehicles in them. That is not a solution to the problem.

It is of particular concern, because it allows for HOV restrictions to be repealed without any analysis of the impacts on the traffic in the corridor. Under this proposal, as I said, all of those who have begun to use it, the families, transit riders, car poolers in HOV lanes, they are going to go back into gridlock traffic with everybody else. It is an extraordinarily bad idea whose time has not come.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the gentlewoman has an absolute unique circumstance in her district or her State. But to make this a national policy for a program that is intended to deal with congestion management and air quality would be a huge mistake.

I cannot support the amendment, I urge people to vote ``no,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on Tuesday, June 15, 2021, I was unable to vote due to a medical procedure. Had I been present, I would have voted: Yea on Roll Call Vote 159, On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass Certain Bills; Yea on Roll Call Vote 160. On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, the Equal Access to Contraception for Veterans Act; Yea on Roll Call Vote 161, On the Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended, H.R. 3325, To award four congressional gold medals to the United States Capitol Police and those who protected the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021; and Yea on Roll Call Vote 162, On the Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended, The LGBTQ Business Equal Credit Enforcement and Investment Act.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 1318) to restrict the imposition by the Secretary of Homeland Security of fines, penalties, duties, or tariffs applicable only to coastwise voyages, or prohibit otherwise qualified non-United States citizens from serving as crew, on specified vessels transporting passengers between the State of Washington and the State of Alaska, to address a Canadian cruise ship ban and the extraordinary impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Alaskan communities, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Madam Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Speaker, on May 11, 2021, I was unavoidably detained and missed the day's vote. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on Roll Call Vote 134, on the Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass H.R. 1629, the Fairness in Orphan Drug Exclusively Act.

Madam Speaker, climate change is an existential threat to all of humanity, and it is essential that we start acting--now--to stop and reverse the destructive effects of climate change.

In 2020, my constituent Oregon State University Professor Dr. William Ripple, and colleagues published ``World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency'' which has been endorsed by more than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries. They presented six transformative steps we can take to effectively combat climate change.

I urge my colleagues to read their report and join me in acting before it is too late.

[From Bioscience, Jan. 2020]

World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency

(By William J. Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M. Newsome, Phoebe Barnard, William R. Moomaw, and 11,092 scientist signatories from 153

countries)

Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity

of any catastrophic threat and `tell it like it is.' Based on

this obligation and the data presented below, we herein

proclaim, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from

around the world, a clear and unequivocal declaration that a

climate emergency exists on planet Earth.

Exactly 40 years ago, scientists from 50 nations met at the

First World Climate Conference (Geneva, 1979) and agreed that

alarming trends for climate change made it ``urgently

necessary'' to act. Since then, similar alarms have been made

through the 1992 Rio Summit, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the

2015 Paris Agreement, as well as scores of other global

assemblies and scientists' explicit warnings of insufficient

progress. Yet greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are still

rising, with increasingly damaging effects on the Earth's

climate. An immense change of scale in endeavors to conserve

our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the

climate crisis.

Despite 40 years of global climate negotiations, with few

exceptions, we have generally conducted business as usual and

have largely failed to address this predicament. The climate

crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most

scientists expected. It is more severe than anticipated,

threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.

Especially worrisome are potential climate tipping points and

nature's reinforcing feedbacks that could lead to a

catastrophic ``Hothouse Earth'' and cause significant

disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies,

potentially making large areas of Earth uninhabitable.

To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live.

Economic and population growth are among the most important

drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil

fuel combustion; thus, we need bold and drastic

transformations regarding economic and population policies.

We suggest six critical and interrelated steps that

governments, businesses and the rest of humanity can take to

lessen the worst effects of climate change. These are

important steps, but are not the only actions needed or

possible.

1) Energy. The world must quickly implement massive energy

efficiency and conservation practices, replace fossil fuels

with low carbon renewables and other cleaner sources of

energy. We should leave remaining stocks of fossil fuels in

the ground, and carefully pursue effective negative emissions

using technology such as carbon extraction from the source

and capture from the air, and by enhancing natural systems

(Step 3). Wealthier countries need to support poorer nations

in transitioning away from fossil fuels. We must swiftly

eliminate subsidies to fossil fuel corporations and use

effective and fair schemes for steadily escalating carbon

prices to restrain the use of fossil fuels.

2) Short-lived pollutants. We need to promptly reduce

emissions of short-lived climate pollutants, including

methane, black carbon (soot), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

Doing this could slow climate feedbacks and potentially

reduce the short-term warming trend by >50% over the next few

decades while saving millions of lives and increasing crop

yields due to reduced air pollution. The 2016 Kigali

amendment to phase down HFCs is welcomed.

3) Nature. We must protect and restore Earth's ecosystems.

Phytoplankton, coral reefs, forests, savannas, grasslands,

wetlands, peatlands, soils, mangroves, and sea grasses

contribute greatly to sequestration of atmospheric

CO2. Marine and terrestrial plants, animals, and

microorganisms play significant roles in carbon and nutrient

cycling and storage. We need to quickly curtail forest and

biodiversity loss, protecting the remaining primary and

intact forests, while accomplishing reforestation and

afforestation where appropriate at enormous scales. Although

available land may be limiting in places, up to a third of

emissions reductions needed by 2030 for the Paris agreement

(200,000 per day, we must stabilize and

ideally gradually reduce the world population within a

framework that ensures social integrity. There are proven and

effective policies that strengthen human rights, while

lowering fertility rates and lessening the impacts of

population growth on GHG emissions and biodiversity loss.

These policies involve making family planning services

available to all people and achieving full gender equity,

including primary and secondary education as a global norm

for all, especially girls and young women

Mitigating and adapting to climate change while honoring

the diversity of humans entails major transformations in the

ways our global society functions and interacts with natural

ecosystems. We are encouraged by a recent surge of concern.

Governmental bodies are making climate emergency

declarations. Schoolchildren are striking. Ecocide lawsuits

are proceeding in the courts. Grassroots citizen movements

are demanding change, and many countries, states and

provinces, cities, and businesses are responding.

As an Alliance of World Scientists, we stand ready to

assist decision makers in a just transition to a sustainable

and equitable future. The good news is that such

transformative change, with social and economic justice for

all, promises far greater human wellbeing in the long run

than does business as usual. We believe that prospects will

be greatest if decision makers and all of humanity promptly

respond to this warning and declaration of a climate

emergency, and act to sustain life on planet Earth, our only

home.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I know Mr. Obernolte is a new member of the committee; he might even be brand new to the House. But he said he couldn't find a single thing in this package that related to COVID?

Oh, well there is $110 billion for vaccines, for testing, which has been pathetic under the Trump administration with no help. Oh, and personal protective equipment, but I guess those things don't have anything to do with COVID and the pandemic.

Now, let's get real here. The first gentleman spoke and said, We want to help schools, and this bill doesn't help schools.

Well, actually, yesterday they tried to cut our funding for schools. We are putting in $170 billion to reopen the schools. It is going to be very expensive, new HVAC systems, a whole bunch of new furniture, all sorts of stuff to get kids safely to school for this and future pandemics, to be ready, to prepare. And they wanted to cut our 170 to $54 billion. But they are for schools and we are not.

Oh, by the way, they didn't do anything for childcare assistance which is a huge problem for people during this pandemic.

Now, let's talk about a few things that are in here: Cash payments promised by President Biden and the two people who helped us flip the Senate, they are in here.

Extended unemployment, if we don't do that--you don't want to do it-- 20 million Americans will have no income and no job on March 14; 100,000 people in my State.

Assistance for small businesses. Food, well, I think that is pretty critical stuff on a day-to-day basis.

Rental assistance, and that is something else the Trump political hack running OSHA wouldn't do.

We are going to have standards for protection of workers. We have had huge outbreaks in meatpacking plants and in transportation--people have died--and everywhere else because there are no Federal standards to protect workers. We are taking care of that in this bill and with some funding.

And they say this is unprecedented. You used reconciliation for $3 trillion of tax cuts for the wealthiest among us and the biggest corporations in the world, to drill for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuges, and then you used it again to try and take away healthcare from tens of millions of Americans and their protection for preexisting conditions and other things. Yeah, unprecedented. Malarkey. Let's talk about the issues and cut the BS.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to recognize the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for their work, which spans five decades, to implement positive train control, also known as PTC.

December 31, 2020, was a significant day for railroad safety as all 41 freight and passenger railroads required to meet the deadline set by Congress to implement PTC met the mandate. This life-saving technology will prevent train-to-train collisions, overspeed derailments, incursions into established work zones, and the movement of a train through a switch left in the wrong position.

The path to full implementation of PTC was long and challenging, and had it not been for the NTSB's persistence and partnership with Congress, in particular the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, PTC may never have happened.

The NTSB's work on PTC began on August 20, 1969, when two Penn Central commuter trains collided head-on near Darien, Connecticut, killing three crewmembers and a passenger and injuring roughly 43 others. After conducting an extensive investigation, the NTSB issued its first PTC-related recommendation.

Over the next five decades, the NTSB investigated 154 more PTC- preventable accidents that tragically took the lives of 305 people and injured 6,885 others. Several of those tragedies gained the public's attention and changed the conversation around PTC, including collisions in Chase, Maryland, in 1987, Boston, Massachusetts, in 1990, Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1996, Placentia, California, in 2002, Macdona, Texas, in 2005, Graniteville, South Carolina, in 2005, and Chatsworth, California, in 2008.

In 2007 and 2008, the House and Senate were negotiating legislation that would require PTC implementation, the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA). The tragedy in Chatsworth pushed Congress to act and brought about final passage of RSIA. But as railroads worked to implement PTC after the mandate, the NTSB continued to investigate accidents that could have been prevented had the technology been in place. These include the derailment of Amtrak 188 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2015, which killed 8 passengers and injured 185 others, and the overspeed derailment in DuPont, Washington, in 2017, which killed 3 passengers and injured 57 passengers and crewmembers.

Throughout these tragedies, the NTSB pressed on for PTC. The agency believed PTC was so important that it included the issue on its very first Most Wanted List of transportation safety improvements in 1990, and it has remained a key focus in their advocacy efforts.

On December 18, 2020--12 years after PTC was mandated--the last railroad required to implement PTC, New Jersey Transit, announced that it had fully implemented the safety technology, which meant that all 41 railroads had fully implemented PTC two weeks short of the deadline: a tremendous accomplishment.

Without the tireless advocacy of the NTSB over the last 50 years, we may not have seen the day PTC was fully implemented. I commend all those from the NTSB who fought tirelessly to finally achieve fully implemented positive train control. Their work will save lives.

Madam Speaker, on January 21, I voted in support of H.R. 335, legislation to provide a waiver for former General Lloyd J. Austin III to serve as President Biden's Secretary of Defense. The Senate confirmed Austin as Secretary of Defense on January 22.

Civilian control of the military is a foundational tenet of our constitutional democracy, and I fully support all efforts to maintain and reinforce this essential principle.

Federal law requires that any Secretary of Defense nominee who has served in the military must be retired from the military for at least seven years, unless Congress grants a waiver. Until Congress granted a waiver for President Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, former General Jim Mattis, in 2017, a waiver of this kind had only occurred one other time: for former General George Marshall in 1950.

I believe this seven-year ``cooling off'' period for former military officials is an important mechanism to ensure continued civilian control of the U.S. military, and I believe Congress should not make a habit of granting these waivers.

However, I am confident that Secretary Austin is committed to upholding civilian control of the military. As he indicated in his Senate confirmation testimony on January 19, Austin believes that ``the safety and security of our democracy demands competent civilian control of our Armed Forces, the subordination of military power to the civil. I know that being a member of the president's Cabinet--a political appointee--requires a different perspective and unique duties from a career in uniform.''

I am also encouraged by Secretary Austin's statements of belief in military restraint, rather than interventionism, as well as aspects of his service under the Obama administration, including overseeing the withdrawal of 150,000 U.S. troops from Iraq, his opposition to a U.S. war and regime change in Syria, his dedication to diplomacy, and his support for avoiding civilian casualties.

Austin is also the first Black Secretary of Defense in U.S. history. While there is still a significant lack of diversity in the top ranks of the military, Austin's appointment is an important step in the right direction.

It is also notable that Austin will lead the Pentagon during a time when white supremacy and ideological extremism are on the rise among military ranks. In his January 19 Senate confirmation hearing, Austin pledged to ``fight hard to stamp out sexual assault, to rid our ranks of racists and extremists, and to create a climate where everyone fit and willing has the opportunity to serve this country with dignity.''

Civilian control of the military is not only achieved via the Secretary of Defense. Unlike President Trump, who appointed former generals to serve in numerous civilian and national security roles in the White House, President Biden has demonstrated a clear commitment to civilian control of the military by appointing non-military civilians in key national security posts.

While I support Congress's waiver for Secretary Austin, I strongly encourage the Biden administration and future administrations to avoid appointing additional former military officials as Secretary of Defense if they have not completed their seven-year cooling off period. I also will not hesitate to criticize Secretary Austin and the Biden administration--as I have done with previous Republican and Democratic administrations--when I disagree with their policies and actions. It is essential we rein in our bloated and wasteful defense spending, tackle the massive waste, fraud, and abuse within the Pentagon, and that Congress reassert its Constitutional war powers and put an end to our endless wars.