Nomination of Pamela Harris to be United States Judge for the Fourth Circuit

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here because in the next week we are going to, it looks, vote on a House-passed bill to prevent an impending highway funding gap. We must pass this bill to avoid funding disruptions and to avoid all the job losses that would follow from funding disruptions, all of which could begin literally in weeks if we did not pass the bill.

But I have to say the House highway bill is woefully inadequate. It is, frankly, a pathetic measure. It fails at virtually every measure, most particularly failing to provide the leadership and the certainty all of our States need so badly as they seek to implement their highway programs.

The only positive thing that can be said about this bill is it is better than no bill at all and a collapse of the highway fund. But that is not much of a commendation. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives America's roads a letter grade of D, our bridges only a C-plus.

In my State of Rhode Island, we have been around a long time. We were one of the founding Colonies. We have a lot of old roads, a lot of old infrastructure. We have a lot of stuff that dates a long way back. Our infrastructure, for that reason, is among the worst in the Nation, with 41 percent of our roads in poor condition, 57 percent of our bridges rated deficient or obsolete.

Last Friday I visited one of our bridges, the Great Island Bridge in Narragansett, RI. This bridge is the sole access to an island community of 350 homes. It has been rated functionally obsolete and it must be replaced. If that bridge fails, the island's residents have no way to get to or from their homes.

I will vote for this House bill to avoid that kind of catastrophe. But we are wasting an opportunity to do more, to do a responsible highway bill. We actually have a pretty good model. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, on which I serve, actually passed a bipartisan, multiyear infrastructure investment plan. That is what we need. A 6-year bill is what EPW passed. That is the kind of certainty our highway departments need so they can sign contracts for long-term projects.

Sadly, the Republicans in the House could not manage that. The House-passed bill will extend the authorization for a mere 8 months. The EPW bill, the 6-year bill written by Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Vitter, in bipartisan fashion would reauthorize our Nation's highway programs for 6 years, through 2020.

Our committee has done its part to move a 6-year bill in the regular order, in a bipartisan fashion. The House, once again, has failed. States need budget certainty to plan multiyear construction projects. That should be obvious enough even for the House to understand. To the millions of Americans who depend on Federal highway funding, either directly or indirectly, for their paychecks, for their livelihoods, the paltry 8-month extension says to them and their families: You have work until next May. That is not what these workers need and that is not what our 50 States need. They need long-term certainty, and this bill fails them.

I plan to support the Carper-Corker-Boxer amendment which would force that debate this year so we do not go home at the end of this Congress without having passed a serious highway bill. There is no reason the American people should have to wait until 2015 for the certainty and security of a long-term highway bill, plus no guarantee we will do it even in 2015. If the House cannot do a long-term bill now, what makes them think they can do a long-term bill later? Let's roll up our sleeves and pass a long-term highway bill this year.

The House bill also fails to provide any real solution to highway funding, to the widening revenue gap in the highway trust fund. The Federal gas tax of 18.4 cents a gallon is not indexed to inflation and Congress has not touched it in 20 years. So it should be no surprise that it is no longer providing the revenue support it used to.

Plus, thankfully, cars are more fuel efficient, which is great for drivers--it lowers their fuel expenses--but it lowers highway revenues further. The House bill completely ignores that larger problem of how we pay for our highways in favor of a short-term funding patch with gimmicky one-time budget offsets that have nothing to do with highway use.

We had the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the Environment and Public Works Committee say: Sure, raise the highway tax a little bit. Let's get built the infrastructure this country needs. But instead of crafting a responsible long-term highway plan, the House Republicans are running scared from tea party groups, tea party groups that do not think the Federal Government should invest in infrastructure at all.

The Club for Growth, so called, went so far last week as to say the highway trust fund--and I am quoting them here--``should not even exist.'' Funny how Republican Presidents--Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Ford, Bush, and Bush--all managed to accept the idea of a Federal highway system, not thinking that there was anything unusual or improper about that.

Well, today's far-right extremists have gone way beyond them. They have gone way beyond the American people. The American people overwhelmingly support Federal infrastructure investments. According to a recent poll commissioned by the American Automobile Association, more than two-thirds of Americans believe the Federal Government should invest more in roads, bridges, and mass transit systems.

We may as Americans have differing views on many issues, but when it comes to investing in the roads and bridges we all use, there is, unsurprisingly, broad agreement except, of course, at the far-right fringe where people hate the government so much they want the rest of us to drive on bad roads and obsolete bridges. But that kind of extreme ideology hits Americans in the pocketbook.

Rhode Islanders, for example, pay an estimated $467 extra each year for car repairs due to bad roads and potholes. So if you are looking out for the ordinary American, if you are looking out for the ordinary American consumer, if you are looking out for the ordinary American consumer's pocketbook, you will invest in infrastructure so our cars are not being banged up and beaten up on bad roads, obsolete bridges, and unfilled potholes.

I am going to hold my nose and vote for this House-passed bill, because at this point the only alternative is a shutdown of the highway program. But let's be clear: This bill is a joke that does nothing on long-term investments in our infrastructure, nothing in a sustainable way to pay for them. We should not procrastinate until next May. We should start right now by building off of the bipartisan 6-year bill the Environment and Public Works Committee passed to give our constituents the infrastructure investments they are counting on us for.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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