Upton Statement on Transportation Agreement

Statement

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) issued the following statement today regarding the House-Senate agreement on transportation legislation. Upton is one of the House negotiators to the jobs and infrastructure package.

"This agreement reflects our commitment to jobs, safety, and smaller government. By eliminating bureaucratic red tape and focusing taxpayer dollars on high-priority projects, this agreement will support American jobs and infrastructure projects to improve the safety of our nation's roads and bridges. It will ensure taxpayers' dollars are spent wisely and not wasted. This package includes commonsense reforms championed by Republicans such as eliminating wasteful programs and streamlining the regulatory process for transportation projects. The bill will also strengthen safeguards against unsafe imported products, give consumers access to important safety recall information, and provide for new safety protections.

"While Republicans were successful in achieving significant regulatory and spending reforms, President Obama and congressional Democrats continue to stand in the way of important jobs and infrastructure policies like approval and construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and efforts to protect the safe management and re-use of coal ash. The Energy and Commerce Committee continues to push for these important job-creating policies, with Representative Lee Terry working to expedite approval of Keystone XL and Representative David McKinley working to protect workers and families from costly new coal ash regulations. Our fight for these jobs is far from over. The House has now endorsed Keystone with strong bipartisan majorities six times, and approved the coal ash reforms three times. How many more times are the Democrats going to say no to shovel-ready jobs and affordable energy?"

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