Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I thank Senator Boxer for her extraordinary leadership as chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee. She has stood for legislation that will allow us to rebuild our roads, our bridges, our infrastructure in this country, to create jobs, and make America competitive.

I rise to oppose the McCain amendment, and I will give three reasons why: First, jobs; secondly, the transportation enhancement programs help our traveling public. It is what they want, what they need; third, there is a safety issue.

First, on jobs. Let me point out that the Transportation Enhancements Program represents 1.5 percent of the annual Federal surface transportation funds--1.5 percent--a relatively small amount of money of the total pie. But it is interesting that the projects funded by the Transportation Enhancements Program actually yield more jobs per dollar spent than the funds that are used for the traditional transportation programs. So on a jobs basis, we actually get more jobs from a lot of the projects that are in the Transportation Enhancements Program.

Secondly, let me talk about the type of programs involved. We are talking about bicycle paths. We are talking about when people travel on a road and there is a pulloff where one can safely view the scenery. These types of projects we are talking about could be jeopardized by the McCain amendment.

I know my colleague from Alaska talked yesterday about the safety issue, but let me underscore it. Today, more accidents are caused from our pedestrians and our bicyclists. They are on the rise. There are actually an increased number of fatalities related to cyclists and pedestrians. Fourteen percent of roadway fatalities involve cyclists or pedestrians and two-thirds of these accidents occur on Federal highways. Accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists result in far more serious injuries. While motorist fatalities are on the decline, pedestrian and cyclist fatalities are on the rise.

When we have a pulloff on a highway where someone can pull their car safely off in order to look at the vista, that is the way it should be. In my own State of Maryland, we are constructing the Harriet Tubman scenic byway so people can visit the Eastern Shore of Maryland and see firsthand where Harriet Tubman operated the Underground Railroad. These roads are county roads. These are roads which are narrow and on which we have a lot of commercial traffic as well as people who just want to look at the scenes. The State of Maryland should have the flexibility of using these transportation enhancement funds in order to do what the traveling public wants them to do; that is, to provide a safe experience for the motorists to be able to enjoy our transportation highways. That is what the Transportation Enhancements Program allows our States to be able to do. The McCain amendment would jeopardize those funds.

So the Transportation Enhancements Program offers flexibility to our States to be able to provide the whole array of transportation options. It is a very small part of the overall transportation budget. It provides those enhancements that the traveling public wants and needs. It creates jobs, and it allows for greater public safety.

So for all those reasons, I urge my colleagues to reject the McCain amendment.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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