Export-Import Bank Reauthorization and Transportation Infrastructure
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule
precisely because it makes in order various Export-Import Bank
amendments that are actually designed to kill what we just did to make
sure that we could reauthorize the Export-Import Bank.
Nonetheless, I am grateful to Chairmen Shuster and Graves and Ranking
Members DeFazio and Norton and their committees and their personal
staffs for their leadership in trying to move forward a 6-year
reauthorization.
All of us have acknowledged that this is far from perfect, but the
fact is, America is literally falling apart: by asphalt, by rebar, by
cement, by steel, by rail, pothole by pothole, just falling apart. The
United States now ranks 16th in infrastructure according to the World
Economic Forum. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers,
the overall assessment of our infrastructure ranks is, I am sad to say,
a whopping D plus.
As some of you remember from The Washington Post back in February, a
constituent of mine was driving on the Suitland Parkway, just outside
of D.C. She was minding her own business, running her errands. What
happens? A chunk of cement falls down and hits her car. That is right,
a chunk of cement falling from the beltway to hit her car on the
Suitland Parkway. Fortunately, no one was injured, but this is just one
example of a project that was on the Federal list and simply wasn't
worked on because there was no money to do it.
I support what we are doing today in terms of a bipartisan
authorization for a long-term authorization, but this is nowhere near
what we need to do to repair the couple of trillion dollars in
infrastructure deficit that we face in this country that is causing us
not to be as competitive as we need to be and really is taking up a
bunch of time for people who are stuck on roads that are going nowhere.
Let me be clear, this is not the bill that I would have written.
It is not perfect, but maybe it is the best that we can do under the
circumstances. Clearly, though, we shouldn't have a 6-year
authorization with only a couple years of funding. There have been
numerous proposals to fund our long-term infrastructure.
I am grateful that I was able to at least work on a couple of
amendments regarding oversight of the Washington Metropolitan Area
Transit Authority, WMATA, and I look forward to continuing to work on
these efforts.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source