Amending Title 23, United States Code, Regarding United States Route 78 In Mississippi

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding. I too rise in support of H.R. 4268.

In Mississippi, U.S. Highway 78 cuts diagonally through the foothills of the Appalachians to Memphis. This is the highway that our most famous native son, Elvis Presley, took as he made his way from his hometown and my hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi, to find his way to Sun Studio in Memphis.

While there were others whose careers may not nearly have been so visible, they made the same road. People came home from World War II, and they felt their only option in Mississippi was to leave to find a better way of life for their families, so they made their way to Memphis and then north.

For the three decades following the end of World War II, they settled in and around the Great Lakes. There were small towns in Illinois and Wisconsin that had neighborhoods literally dotted with families from Mississippi, neighborhoods in Waukegan and Zion, Aurora and Kenosha and Racine; and you go on the streets, and you find people from Baldwyn and Marietta, Mantachie and Booneville.

In recent years, we have had a renaissance of advanced manufacturing in Mississippi. This growth has been driven by regional cooperation among our local leaders, tough decisions that were made at the State level, but it has been primarily driven by the strong work ethic of those same people from Appalachia.

In fact, a few months ago, I was visiting in one of the advanced manufacturing facilities involved in automobile manufacturing parts, talking to a man in Mantachie. He smiled, and he said: The great news about this job is I got to come home.

In order to accommodate all this new growth, we found it important to upgrade U.S. Highway 78 and make it Interstate 22. A lot of work has been done by Federal, State, and local stakeholders.

We are about ready to make that transition, but there is one more

change that needs to be completed. A small tweak in the law is necessary.
While advanced manufacturing is a very important part of our economy, agriculture is still a very important part of our economy as well.

Under the existing law, ag products on the way to the market have to obtain a permit that they can carry an additional 5 percent weight on U.S. Highway 78. In the absence of that bill, that permit would not be available.

To make it clear, this bill is no loss, no gain. The roadway that is in use today is the exact same roadway that will be used as Interstate 22. The mile markers, as you have heard, are specified in the legislation. There is not one additional vehicle that can legally travel this road under this law that would be able to do so under a new law.

That is why I urge passage of this bill. I want to thank the ranking member, I want to thank the chairman, and I also want to thank the senior member of the Mississippi delegation for his cooperation in making this possible.

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