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Floor Speech

Date: Feb. 15, 2012
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Legislative Branch

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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, I take modest exception to my good friend from Florida. There will be no up-or-down vote on this package.

Now, service in Congress is often a roller coaster with highs and lows. Well, I've had highs and lows in my service in Congress, but this is one of the worst moments of the last 15 years.

At a time when our communities and our economy need us to rebuild and renew America, we are faced with the worst transportation bill in history, ever. It is so bad that the majority party did not even have a hearing on any of the three pieces that they've broken the transportation package into. It reverses 20 years of bipartisan transportation reform. It eliminates a 30-year commitment for transit and road funding certainty that comes from the Reagan administration, it's out the window.

It is so bad that they aren't going to allow an up-or-down vote. The strategy they have is to have the pieces dealt with individually, and then, when they're done, if they somehow pass, and I hope they don't, then it's deemed passed.

Now, what's really sad is that this is not just a partisan bill; it's a bad partisan bill. Like my friend from Massachusetts, I served on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for 12 years, and most of that time, Republicans were in charge. But we never, ever had behavior like this--shutting people out, shutting down the process, not involving the public, and moving in the wrong direction.

It shatters a bipartisan coalition that I've been working on for years to develop support for resources and good policy. It's even so bad they get rid of the wildly popular Safe Routes to School program.

It's not worthy of the proud tradition of the T&I Committee or, for that matter, even the Rules Committee. It should be rejected.

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