Investing in A New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1028, I call up the bill (H.R. 2) 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.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
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Mr. DeFAZIO. 2.
Mr. Speaker, our Nation is simultaneously confronted with multiple crises. COVID, we have passed four bills in this House to deal with COVID directly in terms of medical care, potential for vaccines, treatments, and mitigation of the incredible economic harm. The fourth bill is still lingering with an uncertain future in the Senate.
Then the murder of George Floyd brought a long-simmering crisis to a head for our Nation. Last week this House passed the Justice in Policing Act to deal with systemic racism in policing.
This bill deals with another crisis. Denied by the President and denied by most in his party is the existential threat of climate change to the world as we know it, to our Nation, to our coastal areas, to our inland areas, to everything, our crops, our future, our children's future and our grandkids' future.
So before us today is a long overdue transportation, comprehensive, 21st century--the first 21st century--transportation bill that moves beyond the Eisenhower era and just reauthorizing the same old programs all the time. It also deals with the incredibly deteriorated infrastructure in this country. There is bipartisan agreement that it needs investment. But the last bill we did in the House was status quo funding. We need to invest much more to begin to deal with that crisis.
This bill also deals with the other crises. It deals with COVID in terms of we are going to need an economic recovery. This is going to look a lot more like--it already does--the Great Depression, and we are going to need to put people back to work. We are going to need millions of good-paying jobs. These aren't just construction jobs, they are design, they are engineering, they are small businesses, and they are manufacturing. There is a host of people--everybody will be touched by this bill, and the investments will provide returns many, many times over.
It also targets the largest single contributor to CO
There is no crisis, there is no climate change. Donald Trump said so, and you can't cross the guy.
So we wove the climate change provisions throughout this bill. They complained: Well, it is not bipartisan. But we have a disagreement in principle, and you can't compromise on principle.
We are going to deal with the largest source of carbon pollution in the United States of America here and now, today, this week. We are starting. We have delayed too long. We are already at dangerous levels.
It also is going to deal with systemic racism and discrimination in the parts of the bill that deal with education, housing, and access to transportation, but in one particular provision that is critical to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the disadvantaged business enterprise program. The committee has for years accumulated evidence and testimony attesting to systemic discrimination faced by women and minorities in their attempts to establish, grow, and operate businesses all across the country.
The challenges are daunting. Discrimination affects minority and women entrepreneurs at every stage of the process from access to investment, to credit, to biased treatment from customers, suppliers, and regulators, to acute vulnerability to sudden economic downturns as we have seen with the COVID crisis.
Unfortunately, even with the existing DBE program, discrimination still haunts us in the market to construct and maintain our Federal transportation system. We have documented this in testimony, and today we have and will provide mounds of statistical evidence documenting this.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a list of 30 cities. Disparity Study Reports Submitted to the Congressional Record During
General Debate on H.R. 2, Submitted on the House Floor June 30, 2020 (The full text of each report is held on file electronically with the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.)
Texas Department of Transportation Disparity Study 2019, Colette Holt & Associates, 2019.
City of Columbus Disparity Study, Mason Tillman Associates, Ltd., July 2019.
2018 Disparity Study City of Virginia Beach, BBC Research & Consulting, January, 2019.
City of Tacoma Disparity Study, Final Report, Griffin and Strong, P.C., August, 2018.
Metro Nashville Tennessee Disparity Study Final Report, Griffin and Strong, P.C., August, 2018.
Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Disparity Study, Volumes 1-3, Prepared for the State of Maryland, NERA Economic Consulting, June 25, 2018.
City of New York Disparity Study, MGT Consulting Group, May 2018.
2017 Minnesota Joint Disparity Study--Minnesota Department of Transportation Draft Report, Keen Independent Research, January, 2018.
2017 Disparity Study LA Metro, prepared for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro), BBC Research & Consulting, January, 2018.
Washington State Department of Transportation Disparity Study 2017, Colette Holt & Associates, 2017.
2017 Disparity Study City of Charlotte, BBC Research & Consulting, November 7, 2017.
State of New York 2016 MWBE Disparity Study Final Report, Volume 1, Mason Tillman Associates, Ltd., June 2017.
Disparity Study, Idaho Department of Transportation, BBC Research and Consulting, May 4, 2017.
Caltrans 2016 Disparity Study, prepared for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), BBC Research & Consulting, April 28, 2017.
San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District Disparity Study, Volumes 1-2, Miller3 Consulting Inc., January 12, 2017.
KCATA Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Availability Study 2016, prepared for the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, Kansas City, MO, Colette Holt and Associates, 2016.
Disparity Study, prepared for the Georgia Department of Transportation, Griffin and Strong, P.C., August, 2016.
2016 Availability and Disparity Study, prepared for the State of Montana Department of Transportation in cooperation with the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, Keen Independent Research, July, 2016.
Oregon Department of Transportation 2016 Availability and Disparity Study, Keen Independent Research, June, 2016.
City of Philadelphia Fiscal Year 2015 Annual Disparity Study, Econsult Solutions, June 8, 2016.
Disparity Study for Corpus Christi and CCRTA: Analysis of the Availability of Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses and Their Utilization By the Corpus Christi Regional Transportation Authority, Corpus Christi Regional Transportation Authority, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi-South Texas Economic Development Center, March, 2016.
2015-16 Ohio Public Authorities Disparity Study, prepared for the Ohio Department of Transportation, BBC Research & Consulting, April, 2016.
Ilinois State Toll Highway Authority Disparity Study-- Construction and Construction Related Services 2015, Colette Holt & Associates, 2015.
Pace Suburban Bus Disparity Study 2015, Colette Holt & Associates, 2015.
Arizona Department of Transportation Disparity Study Report, Keen Independent Research, July 28, 2015.
North Carolina Department of Transportation Disparity Study 2014, Colette Holt & Associates, 2014.
Business Market Availability and Disparity Study, prepared for the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Mason Tillman Associates, Ltd., June, 2014.
Nevada Department of Transportation Disparity Study Final Report, Keen Independent Research, December 6, 2013.
City and County of Denver Minority/Women Owned/ Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Disparity Study, MGT of America, July 29, 2013.
Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Disparity Study, Volumes I-III, prepared for the Maryland Department of Transportation, NERA Economic Consulting, July 5, 2013.
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Mr. DeFAZIO. Finally, Mr. Speaker, we get to the issue at hand, the INVEST in America Act which is the core of this infrastructure package. It is the biggest part, but there are many other very important things.
The President, as a candidate, campaigned on infrastructure. That gave us some bipartisan hope. We met with him a year ago last March at the White House:
He asked the Speaker: Well, Nancy, what are you thinking?
She said: Well, $1 trillion to $1.3 trillion.
The President said: No. No. $2 trillion.
Okay. He bid us up.
We said: Good. We could spend that money productively.
Then we said: Okay, what do we define as infrastructure?
Here is what the list was: highways, bridges, transit, rail, wastewater, drinking water and broadband.
Those things are in this package at near the level that he asked because his number was a 10-year number for $2 trillion. We are close to $1 trillion with those things in this package.
So there have been seven infrastructure weeks under the Trump administration. The only product they have produced that directly addresses transportation infrastructure are their annual budgets, each of which has proposed dramatic cuts in investment in transportation infrastructure. Never, never--we have heard they are on the cusp for producing a $1 trillion bill, now it is a $2 trillion bill.
Where is it?
Where is the alternative?
If it is their alternative, then it is status quo funding and nothing that deals with climate change. I don't know where it is. This is the beginning of the real infrastructure week.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act.
America's infrastructure is in crisis. As Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I've been sounding the alarm for some time now about the need to make massive investments in our crumbling infrastructure so we create jobs and safer, smarter transportation systems, and so we can cut the carbon pollution that is taking an enormous toll on the public health of our families and our planet.
Given what we've seen over the past few months--from a global pandemic and the resulting economic collapse, to the urgent need to address generations of structural and systematic racism--it has never been so apparent that we need bold action to rebuild America.
I'd like to take a moment to discuss one reason why this Moving Forward Act is so important. This bill once again reauthorizes the urgently needed Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, or DBE, program at the Department of Transportation.
In case it's not obvious to the casual observer, discrimination is alive and well in this country. The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, the ensuing protests, and the police response-- these events have all shed more light on the large disparities minorities face in our criminal justice system.
Unfortunately, those disparities are not limited to the criminal justice system. For many years this Committee, and other Members of Congress, have gathered evidence and testimony attesting to systemic discrimination faced by women and minorities in their attempts to establish, grow and operate businesses all across the country. The challenges are daunting, and discrimination affects minority and women entrepreneurs at every stage of the process, from access to investment dollars and credit, to biased treatment from customers, suppliers and regulators, to acute vulnerability to sudden economic downturns such as we've seen in the face of Covid-19.
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.
Today, I'd like to submit just a sample of this evidence to the Congressional Record in support of the reauthorization of this essential program.
The Moving Forward Act is a game-changer--because it's an investment in workers, families, and communities.
As Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I'm particularly focused on investing in our roads, bridges, transit, rail, and water systems.
In the Moving Forward Act, we do that by modernizing the crumbling roads and bridges we already have.
We address bottlenecks and gridlock, while building out the infrastructure for low- and zero-emission vehicles and encourage transit-oriented housing.
We give people better and more reliable public transit options, whether you're trying to get across town on a bus or on light-rail, or going hundreds or even thousands of miles on Amtrak.
We encourage smarter road designs to bring down the sharp rise in pedestrian and cyclist deaths, and make sure our roads are safer in rural areas and for kids who need safe routes to school.
We invest in new technologies, projects, and construction materials that are efficient and resilient--so that when we build a new bridge, we know it will last for decades, not just until the next extreme weather event.
In summary, the INVEST in America Act, which is the centerpiece of the Moving Forward framework, provides nearly $500 billion over five years to bring our nation's crumbling infrastructure to a state of good repair, improve resiliency, address climate change, improve safety and provide investments in both rural and low-income communities who need it most.
Add to that the $1 trillion in additional investment in schools, housing, broadband access, drinking and wastewater infrastructure, airports, ports and more, and you have a package that will make a huge impact on our economy.
This is exactly the kind of investment we need to help our economy recover from the current pandemic. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned previously, H.R. 2 once again reauthorizes the urgently needed Disadvantaged 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. (Oregon Department of Transportation 2016 Availability and Disparity Study, Keen Independent Research, June, 2016, at 7-12.)
In Texas DOT spending, women and minority own 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 FHWA contracts alone. Texas Department of Transportation Disparity Study 2019, Colette Holt & Associates, 2019, at 94, 126.
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. Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Disparity Study, Volumes 1-3, Prepared for the State of Maryland, NERA Economic Consulting, June 25, 2018, at Vol. 1, p. 224.
Sadly, in the transit industry, things are not much better. For instance, a recent 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. 2017 Disparity Study LA Metro, prepared for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro), BBC Research & Consulting, January, 2018, at 7-6.
These same troubling statistics are repeated in cities and states that spend some of their budgets on surface transportation and similar construction and architecture and engineering projects. For instance, the 2018 study for the Nashville, Tennessee area found that M/WBEs got 54 cents of every one dollar in construction prime contracting that we would expect given their availability in the market. Asian American firms were at 25 cents on the dollar. Firms owned by Hispanic Americans earned only 1 cent of every dollar we would expect for them receive given their marketplace availability. Metro Nashville Tennessee Disparity Study Final Report, Griffin and Strong, P.C., August, 2018, at 83.
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 and 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; on contracts with goals, 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 nonminority 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. 2017 Disparity Study LA Metro, prepared for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro), BBC Research & Consulting, January, 2018, at 7-7.
The DBE program, and the businesses it assists, are so important that we planned to hold a hearing on this program before the Covid-19 pandemic swept the country and shut down Congressional operations for a time. We will still hold that hearing at a later date to collect even more evidence and discuss the possibility of updating this program. But sadly, the pandemic that prevented us from doing so only underscores the need. Current data on the pandemic's economic devastation shows a massively disproportionate impact on small businesses in minority communities. A very recent article by Dr. Robert Fairlie published 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 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, 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 a staggering 17 percent, but the number of businesses owned by African Americans dropped an almost unimaginable 41 percent. For Latinx 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 catastrophic, and the pandemic is far from over. The Impact of Covid-19 on Small Business Owners: Evidence of Early State Losses from the April 2020 Current Population Survey, Robert Fairlie, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Working Paper 20-022, May 23, 2020, at 3-5.
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.
Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman, I would have him recognize that, actually, the Northeast Corridor is a shared corridor, freight and rail. When the Baltimore tunnel goes or when the Portal Bridge goes or, up around New York, when the Gateway tunnels go, it is a 20 percent hit to the national economy.
So, yes, we are going to invest some money there. That stop is about to fail and fail big.
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Mr. DeFAZIO. Maloney).
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his extraordinary leadership on H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act, and I support it.
Mr. Speaker, this is landmark legislation that would make investments not only in highways, transit, and bridges but also for schools and housing. Importantly, it would set America on a path toward a greener future by encouraging investment into zero-emission technologies.
The bill would authorize $25 billion for the Postal Service, which has bipartisan support to modernize their aging fleet. It is critical that the Postal Service begin replacing its fleet of small trucks, most of which are now over 25 years old, and the bill includes $6 billion for this. The bill would require the Postal Service to purchase zero- emission vehicles and to install publicly accessible electric charging stations at Post Offices to help expand the infrastructure needed for electric vehicles.
Mr. Speaker, these measures will help the Postal Service meet its mission and advance sound environmental policy, and I urge a strong ``yes'' vote on H.R. 2.
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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, resiliency, which they keep talking about on that side, is a reactive policy to help our transportation system survive with rising sea levels and extreme weather events. Mitigation, dealing with climate change, is proactive and will prevent us from having to spend a lot more money in the future on infrastructure.
(Ms. Norton), the chair of the Surface Transportation Subcommittee.
Mr. Speaker, just in response to the gentleman, 93 percent of Federal aid, highway projects, go forward under categorical exclusion; 4 percent have an environmental analysis, a simple process; and, yes, 3 percent go through a NEPA process. Huge construction projects in urban areas are often controversial, gives the public and everybody a chance to have input into that.
And, by the way, all the studies say the biggest barrier to transportation investment is lack of funding. And I would note that the FAST bill froze funding, and the bill before that froze funding. The last time we increased funding was when the Democrats were in charge in 1994.
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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains on both sides.
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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire as to the amount of time remaining.
Mr. Speaker, just in response to the gentleman, he had a duplicative amendment on resilience. There is $6.25 billion for predisaster mitigation resilience in this bill. But again, building in resilience is only dealing with the effects of climate change, not reducing climate change.
He said: Oh, we should just throw up our hands because the Chinese are polluting the hell out of things.
Oh, that is a great attitude. The U.S. used to be a leader on these policies until Trump came to the White House and said it is a hoax, and that sort of unleashed China and other countries. He said the U.S. is out of the Paris Agreement. That unleashed China and these other countries.
But we can deal with it. We can deal with it in our trade policy. We can put a huge tax on imports that are contributing to fossil fuel pollution.
We can deal with this, and we should deal with this as a nation, but we need to show leadership again in this area.
Then he talked about there is nothing for electricity in this bill-- and he can come down later for the debate on the E&C section. There is a massive investment on renewables, a massive investment in transmission in this bill. So that is not quite accurate.
And the user fee, guess what? We have been in a shortfall on the user fee for about two decades. The last time we increased the user fee was when we had a Republican over there with guts named Bud Shuster, who stood up to Newt Gingrich and joined with the majority of Democrats and raised the Federal gas tax. It hasn't been raised since 1993, 27 years.
And when they did the FAST Act, what did they do? They made up phony things. They said: Oh, we are going to take money from the Federal Reserve that doesn't exist, that is, $26 billion. Oh, we are going to have private tax collection that is going to make money--except it has been tried twice under Republican Presidents and it loses money.
And they came up with all of these phony pay-fors, and they say it was paid for by user fees. No, it was paid for out of the general fund. It ran a $90 billion deficit, paid for out of the general fund. We borrowed the money. It is an investment.
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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman wishes to close, I have no further speakers and I will close.
Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out at the beginning of this long debate, what we had was a disagreement in principle. And you can't compromise on principles.
We just heard an impassioned speech from Mr. Graves from Louisiana about how we should just throw up our hands on fossil fuel reduction in the United States because China is building coal plants.
Well, we used to be a world leader on these things until Donald Trump occupied the White House and we walked away from science and we walked away from the Paris accord, and that gave leeway to these others countries to just say, Well, look at the United States, why should we comply with any of these strictures?
As I mentioned to him, we can deal with those things through our trade policy, and we should. I had hoped to debate withdrawal from the WTO. At this point it has been precluded by the Rules Committee, but I am hoping to bring it up later this year.
We need to talk about our dependence upon China. We need to talk about their abuses of the environment, their abuses of labor, their abuses of stealing intellectual property, and all the other things that they do over there. And we need to deal with them in a meaningful way through trade policy, and we can do that. We could deal with their fossil fuel pollution there, too. So that's one point.
The other would be that this bill is huge and transformative, and we need it. The Republican alternative, offered in committee, had zero funding for rail. None. It had baseline for transit. Today, transit in America has a $106 billion backlog to bring it up to a state of good repair. $106 billion.
Now, the good news is if we do that work, with us closing the final loopholes and we buy America, it is going to create one heck of a lot of manufacturing jobs here in the United States. High tech jobs for new transit vehicles, everything. And then for highways they did baseline plus 10 percent.
We talked about the scorecard of the American Society of Civil Engineers. We have 47,000 bridges on the national highway system that need substantial repair or replacement. That is about a $200 billion bill.
I tried to get Obama to do that in his Recovery Act, and instead he did Larry Summers' stupid tax cuts too small to notice at twice the price tag. So we have let that go.
47,000 bridges. 40 percent of the national highway system has to be rebuilt, not just overlaid.
And then transit. That is a huge bill. Huge. And you can't get there with a baseline in transit and a 10 percent increase in highways. And, by the way, we are about $100 billion short--over $100 billion short with the user fee.
As I pointed out, the last time the user fee was increased we had a Democratic President, a Democratic House, and a guy with a lot of guts named Bud Shuster on the other side of the aisle, who was the senior Republican on the committee. He ruled Newt Gingrich. He voted 60-some- odd Republicans with us to increase the user fee. That was 1993. The Federal gas tax hasn't been indexed or increased in any way since 1993.
And the people say, Oh, it is politically toxic. Well, 36 States--36 States--have raised their gas taxes and user fees and registration fees to pay for the projects because people are tired of congestion. They are tired of potholes blowing out their tires. They are tired of crummy transit that breaks down. They want better rail.
And people will--if you know that is where the money is going, they will pay for it. But here in Washington, D.C., there is a fear, a fear, that if we were to raise the user fee, oh, my God, we are all going to lose our elections.
I propose that we just index it and bond it. Today we can borrow money for 1.3 percent, virtually nothing. We can do this 5-year bill, borrow all the money we need for this bill, and say, We are going to pay interest only. We will pay it out of the existing gas tax revenues. And at the end of 5 years when we have recovered from the pandemic, when we have rebuilt America's infrastructure, and we are looking to the future, then we will put in place a new system, and it will be vehicle miles traveled when we are ready to go there, but first we have to run a national pilot program and get the information we need to get there.
Mr. Speaker, I recommend my colleagues to vote for a 21st century transformative infrastructure bill that deals meaningfully with climate change, which I believe in, and I believe everybody on this side of the aisle believes in.
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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 2 of House Resolution 1028, I offer amendments en bloc.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this en bloc amendment, which provides for the consideration of 45 amendments filed by Members. The amendments contained in this en bloc touch upon various areas of highways and transit policy in the base bill, including:
Strengthening data collections by States under the racial profiling grant program carried out by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration;
Improving the use of grant funds for education and enforcement activities regarding cyclist and pedestrian safety. We have seen an alarming uptick in that. We do have significant funds in the base bill to provide for safer and more opportunities for pedestrian, cycling, and alternate modes, access to shopping, groceries, work, and schools, something that was substantially eliminated in the FAST Act, and the legislation before that, MAP-21.
It adds charging speed and minimization of future upgrade costs and considerations for electric vehicle charging infrastructure grants; including environmental and environmental justice organizations on the list of relevant stakeholders and considering plans for renewable or zero-emission energy sources for charging and fueling infrastructure when making awards under the electric vehicle charging grant program;
Requiring the Department of Transportation to consult with the Environmental Protection Agency on the awarding of community Climate Innovation Grants and ensure public comment in the determination of the types of projects that most significantly reduce carbon pollution;
Adding additional environmental considerations to the goals of the National Highway Freight Program, ensuring that the impacts of railway, highway bottlenecks are considered under the program;
Expanding the role of historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions in the Department of Transportation research;
Authorizing new research programs to expand transportation access for low income, minority, and other underserved communities;
Ensuring that projects submitted to the FTA Capital Investment Grants program can use ridership data collected before the COVID-19 outbreak, that makes sense, and projections based on that data; and
Ensuring that projects carried out under the national surface transportation system funding pilot includes privacy protections for participants.
These are just some of the highlights of the amendments included.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for offering these amendments to improve the highway and transit portion of INVEST in America Act, I urge adoption of the amendment.
In response to the gentleman that says, it isn't the responsibility of the President to propose an infrastructure plan. He campaigned on infrastructure. He campaigned on it.
Then Secretary Chao said the week of May 15, 2017, the $1 trillion infrastructure plan will be out in the next several weeks. Whoops, here we are, 3 years later and a couple of months, no plan. Oh, October 9, Chao again touts the $1 trillion plan that will soon be available. Whoops, that was 2017.
Then we had the week of February 12. Trump announced a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan. Actually, this time they did propose something. It was just written out. It wasn't real language or anything. What it did is it said the States will pay for it and the private sector will pay for it, and by the way, we will reduce Federal investment. That was a great plan. That was a great plan. A really good plan.
Then we went to the White House, and as other colleagues who were there, the majority leader and others said, we went in, and when he turned to the Speaker and said, Well, how much are you thinking for infrastructure?
And she said, Well, Mr. President 1 to $1.3 trillion.
And the President said, No. No, not enough. Not enough.
1.9, 1.9.
He said, Nope, nope, nope. Two is better, $2 trillion.
He agreed to $2 trillion. He agreed to roads, bridges, highways, transit, rail, wastewater, drinking water, and broadband. All those things are in this bill funded at nearly the level because he was proposing a 10-year figure for $2 trillion that he asked for.
And then again over the last few weeks they are on the verge of issuing an infrastructure plan. And I have heard a couple of Republicans say it is not up to a President to propose, and it is not up to a President to figure out how to pay for it.
Dwight David Eisenhower; anybody remember him? Federal-Aid Highway Program. Remember that? User fees, Dwight David Eisenhower's initiative. He was a Republican President. He took initiative.
And then, you know, JFK brought transit into the mix. And both of those things just happened on June 29 and June 30. For Ike it was 64 years ago, and for JFK, it was 59 years ago when we started making major investments in public transit.
And I heard the gentleman say, Well, who is ever going to use transit? Or they might not use it again because of COVID. Well, if we don't get a vaccine and things don't get back to regular, yes, they may not be using transit. But we are not going to have much of an economy because a lot of the economic activity in this country is generated in our urban areas. But I represent a mixed district. I have two relatively small cities and a very large rural area.
There is a lot of stuff in this bill that is way better than the FAST Act for rural America. We have $1 billion for off-highway bridges. There are 47,000 bridges on the National Highway System that need repair and replacement, but there are a heck of a lot of bridges that are not on the national system. And a lot of those 47,000 are in rural areas.
And the electrification is for the interstate system. And some of it will go into urban areas, but it is going to be for the interstate. And there are a lot of people in rural America who are dependent upon the interstate. And some day they might want to be driving an electric car, who knows? But they don't want to have range anxiety maybe. So to say this just benefits urban America is an inanity.
And beyond that, we have put additional money into rural transit in this bill. I have rural transit, suburban transit, and, yes, the major urban areas, we are going to reinvest there. And, you know, if you think it is foolish to reinvest there and you think we are never going to be using transit again, then you are looking at a very grim future for the United States of America and the world.
I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).
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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining on each side.
To the gentlewoman's amendment, I appreciate Members advocating strongly for either their State or their region. The problem that was discovered with this amendment, after further investigation, is it would have rewarded a smaller number of States to the detriment of 37 other States and the territories.
What has happened is that some States have built out their Appalachian Development Highway System. They, under this amendment, could turn that money back to DOT, then DOT would give that to other Appalachian States. So far, so good. That would be okay with me. But it goes one step further.
All those States that have finished and turned the money in, they get additional funds. That means that a minority of the Appalachian States that have already finished the system would get additional funding to the detriment of all the 37 other States and the territories in the United States of America.
The way it works now, they would be drawing on TFHI money. Now, when there is excess TFHI money, there is something called the August redistribution.
Last year, the State of Kansas got a 16.5 percent increase because of the August redistribution. Under this amendment, nada, zero.
Texas got 16 percent. Under this amendment, zero.
Connecticut got 14.5 percent. Under this amendment, nothing.
Missouri, 13 percent; nothing. Louisiana, 12 percent redistribution; nothing. Illinois, 11; nothing. Colorado, 10; nothing. Oklahoma, 10; nothing.
The problem is it was a little bit of double-dipping. This was, actually, cleverly authored at the auspices of Mitch McConnell in the Senate.
An exchange of funds from one Appalachian State to the other to finish the highway system, that is fine with me. But we are not going to then give them credit and give them other Federal funds for that money to benefit that region to the detriment of all the other States.
There is actually a 35 percent increase in the National Highway System funding in this bill--35 percent. Their bill was 10 percent.
Yes, there is a big increase in transit, but it is not at the expense of the National Highway System or the investments in rural America or the 47,000 bridges, many of which are in rural areas that need repair or replacement, or the billion dollars we are putting into off-national highway systems in rural areas. Those are huge new investments.
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Mr. Speaker, again, I rise in support of this en bloc amendment. I have no further speakers, and I have no further comments.
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