Infrastructure, Jobs, and Energy Independence

Floor Speech

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. Speaker, we should do this more often, have a bipartisan discussion on the floor. We have debates. We have bipartisan interaction, but we don't have this type of situation occur very often where we have Members from all across the country, from all political points of view that have come together in support of a piece of legislation that is going to impact the country. It's going to impact all of our districts. There is no district in the country that is not going to see a positive benefit from the legislation that we are discussing here today, H.R. 1861.

When I'm home, I hear from constituents all the time about infrastructure. And in southwestern Pennsylvania, we have 1,000 structurally deficient bridges. We have roads that are in great need of modernization and improvement, and we need to invest in our locks and dams. The district that I represent along two different rivers in southwestern Pennsylvania has six locks and dams that average more than 84 years old, and they're crumbling and they need help.

We have a discussion every day in this Congress about the importance of Federal investment and the wisest use of money and taxpayer funds. I can't think of anything that we could be doing in this country that's more important domestically than improving our infrastructure, than repairing our roads and bridges, our locks and dams, our airports.

The waterways commerce that has been discussed here tonight means billions of dollars in southwestern Pennsylvania, and it's critically important for the entire country. Our roads and bridges need to be repaired. I talked about the thousand bridges in southwestern Pennsylvania. We have 6,000 just in Pennsylvania as a State that are in need of repair. So this bill takes a critical step in answering the fundamental question that we all deal with every day. That's great, I'll hear, that's fine. We need to improve our infrastructure, but where's the money going to come from? Where are we going to get the funds to do this investment? Hundreds of billions of dollars are required to complete or even make a dent in the work that needs to be done with the infrastructure in this country. How are we going to pay for it?

Well, currently we have a Federal highway trust fund that's 18.4 cents per gallon of gas purchased in the country. That trust fund annually runs out of money before the end of the fiscal year. Every year we find ourselves scrambling just to maintain our current infrastructure.

What the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) has done in introducing H.R. 1861 is come up with an alternative source of revenue that does not include raising taxes. It does not include finding revenue from some other program or transferring funds from some other priority for the country. It increases the amount of money that's available by doing something that I think we all agree we need to do in this country and that's explore our own domestic resources for energy, because if there is any issue that I hear about as often or more often than transportation infrastructure, it's energy. It's this country's energy resources and why aren't we tapping into our own reserves and why aren't we exploiting the use of coal and natural gas and in this case offshore drilling to increase our domestic energy supply.

We have had many discussions and will in the future on this floor about the necessity of getting ourselves off foreign oil, of increasing our domestic energy reserves. And what this legislation does is increase the supply of our own domestic resources, yes, which is critically important; but it then takes the royalties, it takes the money that is generated from that and applies it to our much needed infrastructure repair.

So what does this bill do? This bill expands offshore drilling and uses the permit and royalty revenue to fund the infrastructure improvements and clean energy technology--solar, wind, hydro--the things that everybody in this country wants to support, but there hasn't been the money to maintain and upgrade that technology and do the innovations that are necessary in the future.

The revenue goes towards repairing roads, bridges, locks and dams, developing that renewable energy structure, developing clean coal technology, and improving nuclear technology. Twenty percent of the domestic energy supply with electricity comes from the nuclear technologies, and it helps develop alternative fuel vehicles. I hear all the time the internal combustion engine is a century-old-plus technology.

With all of these wonderful things that we have done in this country, can't we find a way to make a car run on something other than gasoline? It seems like something we should have done a long time ago. We haven't done it yet. We're making progress. This bill helps us get there, whatever that technology may be, whether it be electric, natural gas; some advocate hydrogen. But it does the R&D that's necessary to pursue those technologies. And 10 percent of the drilling revenues are set aside to pay down the national debt. Nobody can argue with that. So it creates a new pot of money that doesn't exist currently that's going to be used to pay down our debt, expand our energy resources, and repair our roads and bridges and our locks and dams.

I just can't imagine there is a more worthwhile piece of legislation and a piece of legislation that impacts everybody in a greater way in this Congress. So I would say to my friend from Pennsylvania, thank you for your leadership on this issue. And to the Members from across the country who have spoken here tonight, I hope that is a message not only to this Congress but to the entire country that, yes, we can come together as a Congress. There are things that we agree with on a bipartisan basis; there are things that we can do to improve the financial situation in this country, to improve our roads and bridges, to get ourselves off of our dependence on foreign oil, and to cultivate our own domestic resources. And we are going to get this done.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

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